Tuileries Garden

“ Bells rung, cannon thundered, bonfires and illuminations blazed, rockets and fire-works, in meteoric splendor filled the air, bands of music poured forth their exuberant strains, and united Paris, thronging the garden of the Tuileries and flooding back into the Elysian Fields, rent the heavens with deafening shouts of exultation. As Napoleon stood at the window of his palace, witnessing this spectacle of a nation's gratitude, he said, "The sound of these acclamations is as sweet to me, as the voice of Josephine. How happy I am to be beloved by such a people." ”

“ It was indeed a pleasant place to them, that overgrown old garden; for no gardener looked askance when they dug holes in the gravel paths, or turned the rockery into a grotto large enough to get into themselves and play at elves and witches and mermaids and other delightful games; and no one said them nay when they built a hut upon the lawn—with willow branches and rushes from beside the pond—where they "camped out" many a long summer afternoon, pretending to be gipsies, or soldiers, or Ancient Britons, whichever their fancy pleased. ”

“ Of course those who grow the English florist's Tulip ought to continue to grow them in beds and in lines, so that they can be protected from frost and shaded readily from strong sunshine. For ordinary gardens, however, an informal grouping will be the most satisfactory and pleasing. The species are very varied in their character, and many of the dwarfer are delightful rock-garden plants. A good, loamy soil is suitable for all classes of Tulips, but where it is heavy a little coarse sand may be placed about the bulb. ”

“ Flowers in the front yard, vines clinging about the porch, bright pictures on the wall, ferns and grasses in the vase over the mantel, a climbing rose, perhaps, to race for the cone of the house and to throw out its crimson colors from the roof. Toil which one loves will be freely spent on garden and field, for the toiler is working for those he loves best. ”

“ The poor rooks dropped on our own land on the grass under their nests. Several of their young must have perished miserably, and the deserted nests look very sad. Still we think enough young remain to save the rookery. The Florentine yellow Tulips are in bloom. How far more lovely to the unhorticultural eye are these wild kinds, with their graceful bending stalks, than those the Tulip’s cultivation has so well succeeded in stiffening—with all their grand colour! ”

“ A few of the Tulip, Narcissus, Iris, and Crocus, may for variety be also planted with any other that curiosity may dictate. When these are grown in pots, the soil should be four-eighths loam, two-eighths leaf mould, one-eighth decomposed manure, one-eighth sand, well compounded; plant in pots from four to seven inches, keep the crown of the bulb above the surface of the soil, except of the Tulip, which should be covered two inches. When these roots are potted, plunge them in the garden about three inches under ground ”

“ There are wide, intersecting walks, fountains, broad basins, and many statues; but almost the whole surface of the gardens is barren earth, instead of the verdure that would beautify an English pleasure-ground of this sort. In the summer it has doubtless an agreeable shade; but at this season the naked branches look meagre, and sprout from slender trunks. Like the trees in the Champs Elysees, those, I presume, in the gardens of the Tuileries need renewing every few years. The same is true of the human race,—families becoming extinct after a generation or two of residence in Paris. ”

“ Earle when she says, “I am all for reducing lawns and turf except for paths in small gardens;” and elsewhere we are advised to have red gravel or a bricked or tiled square to sit on while we admire a wide border of flowers all round the edge. I should not like such a garden as this at all, and could never feel at home in it. Fancy no kindly turf to throw one’s self down upon in the noonday heat, with a book in hand and a tree overhead, or if not a tree, a parasol. ”

“ Just north of the brick wall of the flower garden are two magnificent tulip trees towering in their stately grandeur far above their companions; filling their branches with a wealth of creamy bell-shaped blossoms which like innumerable swinging censers scatter delicious incense on the passing breeze. The master of those beautiful and spacious grounds has long since departed; but when we gaze upon those magnificent trees planted by his hands we seem to catch the spirit of the man whispered by all their green leaves, melodies clearer and sweeter than any music we had heard before. ”

“ The culture of the tulip, as a florist’s flower, requires unremitting attention and care; but for common garden purposes, the tulip will be found hardier, and less liable to injury from insects, &c., than most other flowers. Where tulips are grown in a regular bed, the ground should be dug out to the depth of twenty inches, or two feet. ”

“ Tarryer writes, “the ten or fifteen minutes one has to enjoy in the flower, fruit, and vegetable garden—and that would suffice for the needful weeding with the hoes we are celebrating—would be lost in harnessing horses or adjusting and oiling squeaky wheel-hoes, even if everybody had them. The ‘American Garden’ is not big enough, nor my patience long enough, to give more than an inkling of the unspeakable merits of these weapons of society and civilization. ”

“ The tulips are in flower, and the long narrow beds which, with scant space between, fill the entire middle of the garden, are ablaze with the glory of their bloom. Queenly flowers they are and tall, each one with a gentle pedigree—for nothing common or unknown has entrance here—and crimson, white, and yellow—the velvet petals of some almost black—striped with rare and exquisite markings, they raise to the sun their large chaste chalices. The perfection of shape is theirs, as they rise from the midst of their green, lance-like leaves ”

“ A formal garden may be made to look as ugly as anything in Holland when the tulips are in bloom—five hundred tulips in a bed, all at the same distance from each other, and all of the same colour and size. ”

“ C. L. Allen, to whom I am indebted for the above facts, more than seven hundred acres of Dutch soil are devoted to Tulip culture.
Tulips have been grown from the seed by the millions. The named varieties are so great that it would be impossible to enumerate. One dealer alone boasts of more than eighteen hundred varieties.
The seed bed's important part it is to furnish fresh plants to take the place of such perennials and biennials as are winter-killed or have outlived their flowering time. ”

“ The semicircle of lawn in front of the house was varied by three circular garden beds, one of red tulips, a second of yellow tulips, and the third of some white waxen-looking blossoms that the visitors did not know and presumed to be exotic. A heavy, hairy and rather sullen-looking gardener was hanging up a heavy coil of garden hose. ”

“ Culture in the Open Ground.—For general usefulness the early Tulips are the most valuable of all, because of their peculiarly accommodating nature, their many and brilliant colours, and their suitability for the formation of rich masses in the flower garden. Any good soil will suit them, and they may be planted in quantities under trees if the position enjoys some amount of sunshine, because they will have finished their growth before the leafage of the trees shades them injuriously. ”

“ The soil is composed of three parts of common mould, taken from the best spot of the garden, and one of the sweepings of the road. I have heard you and that detestable Jacob, as you call him, so often talk about what is the soil best fitted for growing tulips, that I know it as well as the first gardener of Haarlem.”
“And now what is the aspect, Rosa?”
“At present it has the sun all day long,—that is to say when the sun shines. ”

“ Where this path begins the lawn ends at a group of Oak, Holly and Cistus, with an undergrowth of Gaultheria and Andromeda. The larger trees are to the left and the small evergreen shrubs on a rocky mound to the right. Within a few yards the turf path becomes a true wood path. Just as wild gardening should never look like garden gardening, or, as it so sadly often does, like garden plants gone astray and quite out of place, so wood paths should never look like garden paths. There must be no hard edges, no conscious boundaries. ”

“ We can bring back much of the charm of the old-time gardens by a judicious use of trellis. It is suitable for every form of outdoor construction. A new garden can be subdivided and made livable in a few months with trellis screens, where hedges, even of the quick growing privet, would take years to grow. The entrance to the famous maze at Versailles, now, alas, utterly destroyed, was in trellis, and I have reproduced in our own garden at Villa Trianon, in Versailles, the entrance arch and doors, all in trellis. ”

“ These are the borders that were so hardly used by the other gardener. The spring boxes for the verandah steps have been filled with pink and white and yellow tulips. I love tulips better than any other spring flower; they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace, and next to a hyacinth look like a wholesome, freshly tubbed young girl beside a stout lady whose every movement weighs down the air with patchouli. Their faint, delicate scent is refinement itself; and is there anything in the world more charming than the sprightly way they hold up their little faces to the sun? ”

“ It is about time that we had a firm trellis for the truant tendrils.
And so I will discourse upon Treillage as a feature of the garden.
Its effect seems to have been lost sight of for a long time, but happily within recent years its value as an auxiliary to decoration is being recognised. I have seen lovely hits in France as well as in Italy. It is one of the oldest imitations of Nature to be found in connection with garden-making, and to me it represents exactly what place art should take in that modification of Nature which we call a garden. ”

“ Then there was, at the end of the garden, a plant of goat’s rue, and a patch of mustard seed. An old writer declared that mustard would take away the black and blue marks that come from bruises. How that may be, I know not, but later on we shall take up the crop, root and blossom, and dig in the plants as manure into the fresh ground where we hope to grow our tulips for next year. It is the best manure that can be given to tulips, and an old secret amongst the tulip growers of past centuries. ”

“ My neighbor uses the branches from her Christmas tree as a mulch on her tulip bed. Is this a good idea?
Answer: Yes, branches from the Christmas tree make a good mulch for the tulip bed. They keep the soil from warming up too early, resulting in too quick growth and loss of bloom. They are useful for mulching perennial beds, too.
Question: Could you give me the names of persons to contact about joining a garden club or plant society in our area? ”

“ I can see it now as I write--or, more accurately, if I stop writing for a moment--for it is just outside the library window. The vulgar call it a tub--they would; actually it is the Tulip Garden. At least, the man says so. For the tulips have not bourgeoned yet. No, I am wrong. (That is the worst of using these difficult words.) They have bourgeoned, but they have not blossomed. Their heads are well above ground, they have swelled into buds, but the buds have not broken. So, for all I know, they may yet be sun-flowers. However, the man says they will be tulips; he was paid for tulips ”

“ Tulips are hardy and easy to grow. The advice given under Bulbs, Crocus and Hyacinth applies to Tulips. They may be forced for winter bloom (see under Window-Gardens) . The garden bed will last several years if well cared for, but most satisfactory bloom is secured if the old bulbs are taken up every two or three years and replanted, all the inferior ones being cast aside. When the stock begins to run out, buy anew. ”

“ Nothing tends to give greater breadth and dignity to a place than a stretch of well kept turf, and nothing is more restful to the eye than the prospect of cool greensward. The lawn, or a portion of it, should always be seen from the best parts of the house; not even the choicest shrubs, or the richest terrace gardens, will satisfy in the same manner. On large lawns there may be recesses at intervals, in which tender plants or choice colonies of lilies, backed with rhododendrons and azalea, will receive comparative shelter. ”

“ A certain proportion of these will be required for forcing purposes for the house and the conservatory, but many more will be used in the open garden. A bed of well-grown tulips is certainly a very beautiful object, and there are some at least who believe in the rich fragrance of the tulip, which a living poet says “might be the very perfume of the sun.” ”

“ The supreme moment for such little plots is of course their spring-bulb time. Most people call them Dutch gardens, and whether common in Holland or not, the tulip undoubtedly seems born to flourish in them. When the tulips are over, plenty of other things come on however to take their places. ”

“ In the garden of the Cabot house on Essex Street, the first owner of the house imported tulips from Holland, and, during the time of their blossoming, threw open the garden to friends. The later owners improved the garden by adding rare specimens of peonies and other plants, and have kept the same effects, adding to the gardens' beauty each year.
While the old-fashioned garden has gone into decline, yet the modern-day enthusiast has brought into his formal gardens the flowers of yesterday. ”