Pergola

“ The wilderness garden to-be was still a stretch of raked and level soil, but all across this slender green spears were thrusting up—the promise of buds and blooms. A pergola, glistening white, now upheld the runaway vines, making a sickle-like path from the upper terrace to the lake. In the barn loft the pigeons still quarrelled over their new cotes of fresh pine, and under a clump of locust trees at a little distance from the house, a half-dozen dolls’ cabins on stilts stood waiting the honey-storage of the black and gold bees. ”

“ The early days of October bring with them the best bloom of the Michaelmas Daisies, the many beautiful garden kinds of the perennial Asters. They have, as they well deserve to have, a garden to themselves. Passing along the wide path in front of the big flower border, and through the pergola that forms its continuation, with eye and brain full of rich, warm colouring of flower and leaf, it is a delightful surprise to pass through the pergola's last right-hand opening, and to come suddenly upon the Michaelmas Daisy garden in full beauty. ”

“ We walked around the cabin, and I explained how I planned to build a small rustic pergola with a trellis for wild honeysuckle at the back door to serve as a breakfast room next summer, and timidly at last, I told her that I wished that I might cover the rough walls of her sleeping room with cedar strips and build a pergola outside the door like the one I had built at Cedar Dale for Joey.
“We’ll plant some woodbine roots this fall, and set out a crimson rambler. We may as well have the place blooming like an Eden,” I said. ”

“ Then I explained fully to the Young Man the glories and delights of a pergola and vistas; and he is quite ready to help fix the iron arches, fasten overhead the wire netting, train the clambering roses, vines and clematis, and—cut down the holly hedge.
His Reverence's education will take a little time, I expect. In the meanwhile the archway made in the broad gap cut in his holly hedge will help to train his eye to the beauty of vistas. ”

“ Notwithstanding the darkness of their dwellings, the people have a love of flowers; azaleas lean from their windows, and vines, carefully protected by a sheath of brickwork, climb the six stories, to blossom out into a pergola upon the roof. Look at that mass of greenery and colours, dimly seen from beneath, with a yellow cat sunning herself upon the parapet! To reach such a garden and such sunlight who would not mount six stories and thread a labyrinth of passages? ”

“ A pergola of Willows, leading to the ornamental water which so many gardens boast nowadays, would be a charming thing, first to leap out in the spring, and last, when its silvery leaves have turned, to drop in the autumn. Or an arbour of Willows, beside a pond or brook at an old-fashioned country place, would be a constant delight; for the Willow leaves, like the Aspens, are always fluttering, and give one the sense of a breeze even when there is none. ”

“ Peter asked Vera to come for a stroll with him in the orchard, but she preferred the garden at the back of the house. The garden at Starvecrow used to be a plot of ragged grass, surrounding a bed of geraniums from the middle of which unexpectedly rose a pear-tree. Today it was two green slips of lawn divided by a paved pathway shaded by a pergola. The April dusk was still warm, still pricked with the notes of birds, but one or two windows in the house were lighted, orange squares of warmth and welcome beyond the tracery of the pergola. ”

“ While the pergola, the garden seat and the sundial each have their own appropriate use, they serve one purpose only. Not so the fountain, which never fails to convey a delightful impression of coolness, as it gurgles and murmurs, on its way. Surely there is nothing that gives to the garden a more picturesque charm than this, standing like a spot of color in a vivid setting of bright flowering [Pg 164] plants. In the pool below one finds constantly changing pictures of the blue sky, snowy clouds or summer blossoms, each one worthy of its floral frame. ”

“ Then once out of the shadow of the wood the stream lay in flaming pools of the molten crimson of the sunset, and lost itself in the haze of woodland distances.
This house at the end of the village stood outside the shadow, and the lawn which sloped down to the river was still flecked with sunlight. Garden-beds of dazzling colour lined its gravel walks, and down the middle of it ran a brick pergola, half-hidden in clusters of rambler-rose and purple with starry clematis. At the bottom end of it, between two of its pillars, was slung a hammock containing a shirt sleeved figure. ”

“ The framework of the arbor, as a general thing, is considered secondary to the effect produced by it when the vines we plant about it are developed. But, unlike the Americanized pergola, the arbor is almost always located in a retired or inconspicuous part of the home-grounds, and is seldom found connected with the dwelling. To get the benefit of the arbor, or the summer-house we evolve from it, we must go to it, while the pergola, as adapted by most of us, brings the attractive features of out-door life to the house, thus combining out- and in-door life more intimately than heretofore. ”

“ As I entered the orchard a man made a hurried exit from a vine-wreathed pergola where my wife often sat to read, cast one look at me, cleared the orchard fence, and made off through the woods, disappearing at once among the boles of the trees. ”

“ The twentieth century pergola in the modern garden lends itself to a great variety of treatment. It is an important feature and should be properly treated in order to bring out the right effect. Often the amateur, when dabbling with garden culture, neglects this feature on his grounds and gives it a wrong setting.
It must be remembered that the mere setting out of a garden does not always bring about the best results. It should be done with some definite aim in view, such as color or suitability to situation. In this way only can one obtain perfection. ”

“ There is a broad green gate of the Southern Italian type, closed. A white-columned pergola runs obliquely down from the wall on the right. The top of the pergola is an awning formed by a skeleton of green-painted wooden strips thickly covered by entwining lemon branches bearing ripening lemons. Between the columns of the pergola are glimpses of a formal Italian garden: flowers, hedges, and a broad flat marble vase on a slender pedestal, etc. On the left a two-story wing of the hotel meets the wall at the back and runs square across to the left; a lemon grove lies to the left also. ”

“ Much interest is already aroused in the pergola, and when thinking of this it is well to consider these other ways of adding to the comfort and charm of our gardens. One thing, however, should be carefully considered. It should be remembered that where a path is made more important by passing under trained green growths it should have some definite reason for being so accentuated, certainly at one and desirably at both ends. It often occurs that in laying out ground the owner wishes to have a pergola, as it were, in the air, and when there is nothing to justify its presence. ”

“ For many miles, as we drove over valley and hill, tall poplars by the thousand, their light green leaves blending with the bronze, served as vine poles; and every white cottage had its shady trellis pergola before its open doorway, the great luscious bunches of fruit hanging temptingly over the heads of the women busy spinning, surrounded by quiet, brown, barefooted children.
The prevalence of granite is noticeable everywhere. ”

“ The pergola and tea-house lead out to a maze formed by a tall Arbor-Vitæ hedge. Adjoining is a Rose garden, more or less continually in bloom, and near by a garden for cutting-flowers. The outlook over the formal garden, both from house and pergola, is upon [Pg 157] a sea of flowers, possibly unequalled in its profusion of bloom. The four beds encircling the pool are first covered with Pansies and English Daisies, each bed containing one large clump of German Iris, edged with Cottage Tulips. For later bloom, white Petunias fill two beds, light pink Petunias the other two beds. ”

“ But for a large garden where everything is on a heroic scale, the only suitable pergola is one made up of high brick or stone piers, with massive oak beams for the roof. Such a structure will last for a century or two, improving year by year. The only question to consider is the proper proportions that it should assume—the relations of the length to the breadth and to the height. On such points I dare not speak. The architect who has had experience of such structures must be consulted. ”

“ Some of the garden has now, alas! been given over to a more profitable use than that of growing flowers, and a potato crop is succeeded in summer by maize, but enough remains for a wealth of flowering trees, shrubs, creepers and plants. The brilliant orange Bignonia venusta covers a long stretch of the pergola, drapes the garden wall and climbs up to the flat roof-top of one of the detached wings of the house. In summer a white stephanotis disputes possession and covers the tiled roof of a garden shed, filling the whole air with its delicious scent. ”

“ It is to be hoped that many a housewife can prevail on the "men-folks" to interest themselves on pergola-building on a small scale, as indicated in the illustration, for practical as well as ornamental reasons. Anything that will take the occupants of the dwelling out of doors is to be encouraged. ”

“ If he has some level place where a straight covered way of summer greenery would lead pleasantly from one quite definite point to another, and if he feels quite sure that his garden-scheme and its environment will be the better for it, and if he can afford to build a sensible structure, with solid piers and heavy oak beams, he will do well to have a pergola. ”

“ A yard or two farther, we pass the hostelry of the Black Eagle, and, glancing as we pass through the square door of marble, deeply moulded, in the outer wall, we see the shadows of its pergola of vines resting on an ancient well, with a pointed shield carved on its side ”

“ There is no reason against, but many strong reasons for, interrupting the lines of a long pergola by making a dome of open woodwork between the four middle columns of support—assuming that all the rest of the woodwork is straight—-and creating a curved alcove with a seat between the two back supports, thus forming at very little extra expense, an additional bower to the others which will come into existence year by year in a garden that is properly looked after. ”

“ No one who had not observed that for a short distance reeds had taken the place of shrubs, could possibly have guessed the existence of such a stream or dreamed of the fairyland beyond.
For a fairyland it was—the most wonderful that the imagination of man could conceive. The thick vegetation met overhead, interlacing into a natural pergola, and through this tunnel of verdure in a golden twilight flowed the green, pellucid river, beautiful in itself, but marvelous from the strange tints thrown by the vivid light from above filtered and tempered in its fall. ”

“ Metaled roads ran out in lumber trails where the Adirondacks reared turrets of granite and primal forests. In summer, ease-loving guests took their pleasure here, but when winter held the hills, wild deer came down and gingerly picked their way close to the sundials and marble basins of the sunken gardens. Foxes, too, stole on cushioned feet across the terraces at the end of the pergola.
The master of Haverly Lodge was the great little man who chewed always at an unlighted cigar and built industries as a child rears houses of blocks. ”

“ Among the many structures used to beautify the grounds of a suburban or country place, the pergola is seen less than it should be. It is a luxury, but so is a couch hammock, and many other details of our modern life might be placed under the same heading. ”

“ And now nearly all the ghosts vanish, and the old man who is sitting under the Acacia tree looks around and sees his garden as it is to-day, fuller of flowers than ever it was, with the hideous set borders done away with, with the little rustic arches pulled down and a pergola, properly built, in their place, and all of the horrors of Early Victorian gardening gone for good, the plaster nymphs and cupids, the tree called a “Monkey Puzzler,” the terrible rockery of clinkers and bad bricks. Here, as in the house, taste has triumphed over fashion. ”

“ The time has come for pruning Roses, and for tying up and training the plants that clothe wall and fence and pergola. And this sets one thinking about climbing and rambling plants, and all their various ways and wants, and of how best to use them. One of my boundaries to a road is a fence about nine feet high, wall below and close oak paling above. ”

“ CLIMBING ROSES—AUTUMN FLOWERING
While many of the beautiful roses enumerated in the last chapter are indispensable in our gardens for covering pillars, arches, screens, walls, fences and pergolas, an end comes all too soon to their flowering season. And when it comes we feel the need of other climbers to carry on the succession of blossom until the frosts cut all off. A pergola, for instance, planted with nothing but summer flowering roses, is but a sorry sight in August and September. ”

“ Upon the cliff by Pergola is a stone house, in front of which I like to lie, looking straight down a thousand or two feet upon the roofs of Meta, the map of the plain, and the always fascinating bay. I went down the backbone of the limestone ridge towards the sea the other afternoon, before sunset, and unexpectedly came upon a group of little stone cottages on a ledge, which are quite hidden from below. The inhabitants were as much surprised to see a foreigner break through their seclusion as I was to come upon them. ”