Garden wall

“ The garden, once a glory, succumbed to a riot of weeds and undesirable brush, till a towering wall seemed to be drawn about the house cutting it off from the activities of the world as it cut it off from the approach of sunshine by day, and the comfort of a star-lit heaven by night. ”

“ The inherent beauty of the garden lies in the grouping of its parts—in the converging lines of its long ilex-walks, the alternation of sunny open spaces with cool woodland shade, the proportion between terrace and bowling-green, or between the height of a wall and the width of a path. ”

“ Beyond the rose garden, a path leads away at a right angle between the orchard and the kitchen-garden wall. Here is the subject of the picture. A broad border runs against the wall, as long as the length of the kitchen garden. A border so wide is difficult to manage unless it has a small blind alley at the back rather near the wall, to give access to what is on the wall and to the taller plants in the back of the border. ”

“ The way to make a wall garden is to build a dry wall of rough stones—that is, a wall without mortar. Instead use soil and pack it tight in every crevice as well as behind the stones, which should be tilted back a little to carry water into the soil. ”

“ But I was not sure about the flower borders which contained alternate clumps of pink geraniums and white daisies. Perhaps they were too strongly reminiscent of the window-boxes of the Cromwell Road through which I had walked every day for nearly twenty years, and in time one grows weary even of the Cromwell Road!
But so well did the accident of one elbow of the wall of the bowling-green pushing itself out lend itself to the construction of the garden, that the first and most important element in garden-design was attained. This, I need hardly say, is illusion and surprise. ”

“ Above the house the ground rises another step, and the boundary of the garden here is a wall of native rock, which is already half veiled with the trees and trailing plants interposed to relieve its ruggedness. ”

“ The brick wall forms a shelter for plants that love shade and a fine support for climbing plants, especially ivy. The hedge makes a rich and distinguished wall of living green, which can be artistically clipped; and arches can be made through it. The pleached alley, formed of wooden trellis, lattice-work, or rustic, or wire arches painted an attractive color, or left in the natural wood, will, if they are covered profusely [Pg 278] with roses, honeysuckle, rosemary, and other roving flowers, give the effect of the old leafy tunnels of greenery and blossoms. ”

“ It would suggest a gentleman's garden if there was not in its middle a large hole, which grows larger with every rain-storm. Through the hole is visible, firstly, the iron gate that is intended to close it; secondly, a square piece of ground which, though not quite, mud, is at the same time not exactly grass; and finally, another wall, stone this time, which has a wooden door in the middle and two wooden-shuttered windows each side, and apparently forms the facade of a one-storey house. ”

“ All the architectural details are beautiful, especially a well in the court, set in the wall between Ionic columns, and a charming garden-house at the end of the upper garden, in the form of an open archway faced with Doric pilasters, before a semicircular recess with a marble seat. The descending walled gardens, with their different levels, give opportunity for many charming architectural effects—busts in niches, curving steps, and well-placed vases and statues ”

“ For my own part I like to give a house, whatever its size or style, some dominant note in wall-planting. In my own home, which is a house of the large cottage class, the prevailing wall-growths are Vines and Figs in the south and west, and, in a shady northward facing court between two projecting wings, Clematis montana on the two cooler sides, and again a Vine upon the other. At one angle on the warmer side of the house where the height to the eaves is not great, China Roses have been trained up, and Rosemary, which clothes the whole foot of the wall, is here encouraged to rise with it. ”

“ Next to128 the wall is a space six feet wide for ample access to the fruit-trees, their pruning, training and root-management; then a fourteen-foot plant border, wholly for beauty, and a path eight feet wide. At a middle point on all four sides the high wall has an arched doorway corresponding to the grassy way between the fruit-trees in the middle space. If the wall has some symmetrical building on the outside of each angle so much the better; the garden can make use of all. One may be a bothy, with lower extension out of sight ”

“ There is a wall to be carried round a great piece of ground, and a good length of it done, with a walk ten feet broad that is to go on the outside of this wall on the garden side, which must have another wall to enclose it. There are to be fruit-trees set, but the earth not being proper for that, it is to be laid I know not how many feet deep with stone, and then as much earth brought to be put upon that, to secure good fruit. And there is one great hole that I saw in the park that must be filled up again, already occasioned by making mortar for that part of the wall that is already done. ”

“ In many gardens an abrupt change of level makes a retaining wall necessary, and when I see this built in the usual way as a solid structure of brick and mortar—unless there be any special need of the solid wall—I always regret that it is not built as a home for rock-plants. An exposure to north or east and the cool backing of a mass of earth is just what most Alpines delight in. A dry wall, which means a wall without mortar, may be anything between a wall and a very steep rock-work, and may be built of brick or of any kind of local stone. ”

“ A door opening from the courtyard on the left led into the orchard, so we were told. The orchard is terrible.
It is in three parts; one might almost say, in three acts. The first part is a garden, the second is an orchard, the third is a wood. These three parts have a common enclosure: on the side of the entrance, the buildings of the chateau and the farm; on the left, a hedge; on the right, a wall; and at the end, a wall. The wall on the right is of brick, the wall at the bottom is of stone. One enters the garden first. ”

“ The gardens, too, are of the original design, including a considerable amount of architectural stonework.
The large entrance forecourt is inclosed by a high balustraded wall, with important and finely-designed garden houses on its outer angles. The length of the side walls is broken midway on each side by a small circular pillared pavilion with a boldly projecting entablature, crowned with an openwork canopy and a topmost ornament of two opposite and joining rings of stone. ”

“ My garden is about 60 yards in length, by about 26 yards in width. It runs nearly north and south. It has walls of varying height on its several sides. Near to the house these are covered on one side by trained wisteria and white and yellow jessamine, but the greater part of the other portions is covered with ivy. The area of the ground is principally laid with grass, with a broad gravel walk around it.
Under the east wall is a long terraced rockery, well covered with suitable plants; and along the west wall runs a broader bed devoted to very small shrubs and to flowers. ”

“ A wall garden is a perpendicular rock garden. But whereas a rock garden is of all things irregular, a wall garden has regularity. The wall need not be a straight line; it is better that one end should describe a curve, and rocks at the base may give it further irregularity. Yet it can never quite lose the air of man's handiwork. ”

“ Through the great number of formal gardens laid out within a few years in America, the topiary art has had a certain revival. In California, with the lavish foliage, it may be seen in considerable perfection, though of scant beauty, as here shown.
Serpentine Brick Wall at University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Happy is the garden surrounded by a brick wall or with terrace wall of brick. How well every color looks by the side of old brick; even scarlet, bright pink, and rose-pink flowers, which seem impossible, do very well when held to the wall by clear green leaves. ”

“ Trees and shrubs are against the continuing walls to right and left, and beds and herbaceous borders are upon the grassy space. The wide green walk, between long borders of hardy plants, leading forward from the foot of the steps, reaches a flower-bordered terrace wall, and passes through it by a stone landing to steps to right and left on its further side. A few steps descend in twin flights to other landings, from which a fresh flight on each side reaches the lowest garden level, some nine feet below the last. ”

“ Beyond the parterre would be a distinct [179] division from the farther garden, either of Yew or Box hedge, with bays for seats, or in the case of a change of level, of another terrace wall. The next space beyond would be the main garden for hardy plants, at its southern end leading into the wild orchard. This would be the place for the free garden or the reserve garden, or for any of the many delightful ways in which hardy flowers can be used; and if it happened by good fortune to have a stream or any means of having running water, the possibilities of beautiful gardening would be endless. ”

“ A mossy old wall, or an old ruin, would afford a position for many rock–plants which no specially prepared situation could rival; but even on well–preserved walls we can establish some little beauties, which year after year will abundantly repay for the slight trouble of planting or sowing them. ”

“ As walls afford valuable space for the growth of the choicer kinds of hardy fruits, the direction in which they are built is of considerable importance. In the warmer parts of the country the wall on the north side of the garden should be so placed as to face the sun at about an hour before noon, or a little to the east of south ”

“ Show your gardener the diagram and have him stake off your garden and beds with the greatest accuracy. Your walks, paths, and beds must be exact. Next select your style of enclosure and build your brick wall, plant your green hedge, or construct your pleached alley. Each one has its own particular advantages and charm. ”

“ Here there are fewer existing, desirable locations for rock and wall gardens. But for the sake of enjoying the dainty plants, and of marking your garden with originality, you may want to create a site. It is possible to dig out a “natural” depression or build up a slope, if it’s skillfully designed—and if you can get rocks that don’t look foreign and far away from home. ”

“ The wall is capable of supporting a climbing plant without artificial aid. But if the wall is unsightly, it were best hidden, and the eye can bear a considerable length of simple trellis without becoming weary. ”

“ and that when they have opened a gap in the hedge, or wall of separation, between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the candlestick, &c. and made his garden a wilderness, as at this day. ”

“ The old church tower and garden wall
Are black with autumn rain,
And dreary winds foreboding call
The darkness down again. ”

“ If the rose and honeysuckle hedge is desired, have the carpenter make a lattice screen of the desired [Pg 294] height, or simply construct a rustic fence and plant the creepers near it and train them so that they will make a wall of flowers and leaves.
XVI
Paths
"There is no pleasanter path than that of grass, and even the small garden ought to have a little grass-walk between the flower borders and rose beds. It adds immensely to the attractiveness of the garden and none other is so pleasant to the tread. Constant mowing and rolling are necessary and the edges must be kept neat and trim ”

“ Flowering vines are perfect when trained on [Pg 413] old soft-red brick enclosing walls; white-flowered vines are specially lovely thereon, Clematis, white Roses, and the rarely beautiful white Wistaria. How lovely is my Virgin's-bower when growing on brick; how Hollyhocks stand up beside it. Brick posts, too, are good in a fence, and, better still, in a pergola. A portion of the fine terrace wall at Van Cortlandt Manor is shown facing page 286. This wall was put in about fifty years ago; ere that there had been a [Pg 414] grass bank, which is ever a trial in a garden ”

“ Flourish’d a little garden square and wall’d:
And in it throve an ancient evergreen,
A yewtree, and all round it ran a walk
Of shingle, and a walk divided it:
But Enoch shunn’d the middle walk and stole
Up by the wall, behind the yew; ”

“ We walked round the ruined garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in bloom for me. If the green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of the old wall had been the most precious flowers that ever blew, it could not have been more cherished in my remembrance. ”

“ HAD we embarked upon a little stone house, instead of a little red-brick one, should we, I wonder, have had the energy to bestow upon ourselves a small flagged and stonewalled garden as an adjunct to it? I doubt it. For one thing flagged gardens are, I imagine, costly affairs. Moreover I have never myself seen a new one that appealed to me as quite satisfactory. An old, grey-walled, and grey-flagged garden, as part of an old, grey farmhouse, or manor, is one of the most ideal possessions that the heart of man could sigh after. ”