A Year in a Lancashire Garden

IX

Weeds – Tomatos – Tritomas – Night-scented Flowers – Tuberoses – Magnolia – Asters – Indian Corn.

September 4.– "The rain it raineth every day." It finds its way through the old timbers of my first vinery, and the Grapes have to be cut out by dozens. It drenches the Pelargoniums and Verbenas, till their blossoms are half washed away. It soaks the petals of the great Lilies, and turns them into a sickly brown. The slugs, I suppose, like it, for they crawl out from the thick Box hedges and do all the harm they can. Weeds, too, of every kind flourish luxuriantly, and we find it no easy work to keep ahead of them. The author of My Summer in a Garden– the most humorous little book about gardening ever written – never had such trouble with "pusley" (what is "pusley"?) as I have with Groundsel. I have enough to feed all the canary birds in the parish. Then, besides the more ordinary and vulgar weeds, I have two varieties of Willow-herb, which have seeded themselves all over the borders, and are for ever appearing where I had fondly imagined they had been utterly uprooted. A yellow Oxalis, too, has turned into a nuisance, and spreads where it was never wanted. Meanwhile the summer fruits are over. The few Nectarines we had have been gathered, and most of the Figs. The Apple-room begins to fill with Keswick Codlings for cooking purposes, and Franklin's Golden Pippin for dessert. As yet none of our Pears are ripe. The Mulberry tree in the orchard drops its fruit before it is mature, but it is rather too much shaded with the orchard trees, and, were it otherwise, there has been but little sun to get to it. We use the Mulberries, however, for tarts and for Mulberry ice, which I can thoroughly recommend. The Tomatos are reddening in numbers along the garden walls. We grow two sorts, Keye's Prolific and the Orangefield Dwarf, and I hardly know which is best. Formerly the Tomato was known as the Pomum amoris, or Love-apple, and was apparently grown only as a garden ornament, and not for use.8 Cowley mentions it in his "Flora," with the Foxglove and the Canna. Gerarde says of it, "In Spaine and those hot regions they use to eate the Apples prepared and boiled with pepper, salt, and oil; but they yeelde very little nourishment to the bodie, and the same naught and corrupt." Nor does Batty Langley, writing in 1728, mention Tomatos, though he gives long lists of "raw sallets," which include Nasturtium blossoms, Tarragon, Borage flowers, and Sorrel.

The handsomest of our beds at present (except always the beds of Jackman's Clematis and scarlet Lobelia) is a permanent bed of Tritomas, which hold up their orange and crimson maces thickly as possible. These Tritomas would, however, show to most advantage if planted with the Arundo conspicua, the white plumes of which form the happiest contrast to their glowing spikes. The Pampas-grass would be better still, but I have not been able to make them blossom together. A patch of Tritomas on the corner of the lawn has been a failure, owing to the carelessness of a gardener, who cut them down with the grass in mowing.

One other bed, also a permanent one, I have still to mention. It is a mass of Anemone japonica9 alba with Statice latifolia round it. This Anemone, with its white blossoms surrounding a yellow centre, and looking just like some very perfect white wild Rose, is a beautiful flower, and the grey branched sprays of the Statice harmonise wonderfully with it.

All along the vinery border has been a long row of Stocks, Asters, and Mignonette, and the scent has been delicious, especially towards evening, or after a warm shower of rain. In hot weather the garden is almost too hot when the sun is full upon it, and I have always taken care to grow the night-scented Stock and other flowers of the kind, so that the garden, as evening comes on, may be as sweet as can be; but this year these annuals, with several others, have done no good. On the other hand, the large tall Œnothera opens hundreds of yellow stars each night; and, better still, the beautiful Œnothera taraxacifolia, on the herbaceous borders, unfolds a number of its large white blossoms, which gleam out among the rich green foliage close upon the ground. Next year I think I will have an entire bed of this white Œnothera; it will be worth the space.

The Dahlias have been good with me this year, but I have done badly in Hollyhocks. The Tobacco-plants, which I generally grow, and which were last year so handsome, have also failed me; and so have the Ice-Plants, the Egg-plants, and the Amaranthus salicifolius, nor do I see any sufficient reason for it.

The Tuberose, the flower which, even in the perfect garden of the "Sensitive Plant," was said to be

has been very sweet with us. But we dare not leave it in our garden; we bring the pots, with their tall green wands tipped with delicious tufts of bloom, into the centre hall, and the warm perfume rises up the staircase, and floats along the open gallery above.

September 19.– I have just gathered from the wall between the vineries the finest blossom I ever happen to have seen of what I maintain is the finest flower in the world – the Magnolia grandiflora – so large and round is it, of such a rich cream colour, and with such a rich strong scent. The Tuberose even seems a plebeian flower by the side of the Magnolia. Once only have I seen this Magnolia growing upon a lawn as a standard, and I never saw any flowering tree so grand, as its dark green leaves lifted up the large white chalices to catch the freshest dews from heaven. But what must it be where this beautiful tree grows wild, as on the

where Gertrude of Wyoming was used to wander?

And, as I gather this Magnolia, the feeling comes across me that now the year is over as regards the garden. We may have another month of flowers, but they are the flowers that linger on, not the flowers that open out new pleasures for us; the Michaelmas Daisy alone remains, – for "the Michaelmas Daisy blows lonely and late," – before we reach the Chrysanthemums and winter. We have now had all that summer and autumn had to give us, and it seems as though Nature had exhausted all her energies, and were ready for a long rest. The Fuchsias, that come up year by year, are still in great beauty. The Jasmine, with variegated leaves, that clings round an old brick pedestal in the middle of a Kalmia bed, still opens its white blossoms. The Escallonia, that grows up the house, will hang its red flowers in front of the library windows for a fortnight still to come. But the year is virtually at an end, and we talk only of the bulbs for the spring, or of the moving of shrubs in the early winter.

Yet I find two things, of which I have still to speak. The Asters have been good. I had planted them in among the standard Rose beds, and very gay they are. Many years have passed since I found the wild Aster of America growing on the hill-side at Concord behind Hawthorne's house, and was reminded of Emerson's lines —

Then, by the side of the vinery, is growing a little row of Indian Corn. The plants stand each from 9 to 11 feet high, and each bears its flowering plume above, and its tasselled ears below. There are two varieties, one yellow and one red. I brought them on in heat, and planted them out when they were about a foot in height. This year, as for three years past, they have ripened with me, and on one plant, strangely enough, a piece of the flower has itself fructified! I am not botanist enough to understand how this has happened.10

X

St. Luke's Summer – The Orchard – The Barberry – White Haricot Beans – Transplanting – The Rockery.

October 15.– This is St. Luke's summer, or the "Indian summer" as it is called in America. The air is soft and warm and still. The yellow leaves fall from the Beeches in countless numbers, but slowly and noiselessly, and as if reluctant to let go their hold. The rooks come back to us again across the fields, and clamour among the empty nests, which were their homes in spring. The "remontant" Roses are putting out their latest blooms, and the Antirrhinums, Mulleins, and some few other flowers, show themselves "remontant" also. There is an aromatic fragrance everywhere from the withering leaves and from the lingering flowers.

But there is sadness with it all. We cannot deceive ourselves, but we know that all is now over, and that at any moment the frost may come, and leave us nothing but decay and death.

There are some lines in Morris's Earthly Paradise– the very best lines, I think, in the whole poem – which speak of some old men's last peaceful days, as

Was picture ever more truly painted? – and any day it may be true for us.

Our Apple harvest has been over for nearly a fortnight; but how pleasant the orchard was while it lasted, and how pleasant the seat in the corner by the Limes, whence we see the distant spire on the green wooded slopes. The grey, gnarled old Apple-trees have, for the most part, done well. The Ribston Pippins are especially fine, and so is an apple, which we believe to be the King of the Pippins. On the other hand, we have some poor and worthless sorts – probably local varieties, – which no pomologist, however able and obliging, would undertake to name. One of the prettiest of Apples – and one of the best, too – is the Delaware. It has an orange-red colour, and reminds one almost of an Orange as it hangs upon the tree. It has a crisp, delicious flavour, but requires to be eaten as soon as it is ripe, for otherwise it soon gets mealy. Indeed all eating apples, with but few exceptions, are best when freshly gathered, or, better still, when, on some clear soft day, they have just fallen on the grass, and lie there, warmed by the rays of the autumn sun.

Of my Pears I have not much to say: the new trees I have planted have hardly come into bearing, and the old ones are of inferior quality. In another year or two, however, I shall hope to be supplied through all the winter months up to the middle of the spring. Plums have done but little, and Damsons, which are supposed to succeed so well in Lancashire, are an absolute failure. I must not forget the Red Siberian Crab, which has been laden with fruit, and one tree of which should find its corner in every garden. Last of all, I have to speak of the Barberry. There is a great bush which stands by the grass walk in the walled garden. In the summer it was a mass of scented yellow blossoms, round which bees were always buzzing. Then, as the year grew older, bunches of bright coral hung over it from top to bottom. We consider our Barberries as not the least important of our fruit crop. We preserve them, some in bunches, some picked like Currants. We crystallize them in sugar, and they become delicious bonbons. We steep them in salt and water, and they keep as a gay garnish for cold meat or game. Our Barberry-tree is not looking its best at present; a big branch has withered, and I must cut it in.

October 24.– Since I wrote we have had a great gale, which has swept over us, and torn down an Elm in the wood and a fine Chestnut in the croft. I could ill spare either of them, and it is but poor comfort to think that our piled-up logs will outlast the winter. It was the "wild west wind," of which Shelley sings, which has done the mischief; and smaller branches, lying scattered all over the lawn and walks, show us where it passed.

We are now preparing our Mushroom bed, for we shall need it as the green vegetables fail us. I have said but little about the kitchen garden, for I do not suppose it differs much from that of other people. Our Peas have, however, served us particularly well, and we had our last dish on October 1 – later than I ever before have known them here. One excellent vegetable I have generally grown, and I would thoroughly recommend it to any one who has space to spare: it is the French White Haricot. It is not often seen with us though it is so very common in France. It is a species of French Bean, of which you eat the white bean itself instead of slicing up the pod. I suspect that, taking England through, there are very few gardens where the White Haricot is found.

We are now busy with our planting. Some Rhododendrons and Aucubas in the borders near the front gate have been pining away – starved by the Elm-tree roots around them. We are trenching up the ground, cutting away what smaller roots we can, and putting in manure and some new shrubs. We are planting a row of Hollies to screen a wall towards the lane. We are moving a Salisburia adiantifolia, with its strange foliage like a gigantic Maidenhair Fern, from a corner into a more prominent place. We shall then set to work to re-arrange the rockery. This, I think, I have never mentioned. In the middle of the little wood was once a pond, but I found the stagnant water and the soaking leaves, which fell and rotted there, no advantage to the place; I therefore drained away the water and planted beds of Azaleas and Rhododendrons along the slopes, with Primroses, Violets, and Blue Bells, and in the middle of all I have lately placed a tuft of Pampas-grass. On one slope I have managed a rockery with a stone tank in the centre, where for three summers past has flowered an Aponogeton distachyon. I have means of turning on fresh water into the tank, and I am well repaid for any trouble, as the little white boat-blossoms, laden with delicious spicy scent, rise up to the surface of their tiny lake. The rockery is, however, too much under the shade and drip of trees, and I cannot hope that delicate alpine flowers should grow there. Sedums and Saxifragas, Aquilegias, Aubrietias, the white Arabis, and the yellow Moneywort, besides Ferns of various kinds, all do well. In another part of the wood is a loggery, which I have entirely covered with the large white Bindweed, which rambles about at its own will, and opens its blossoms, sometimes a dozen at a time, all through the summer months. Past that, there is a little patch of Bluebells, then more beds of Rhododendrons, and then a short walk, which takes us by a private path to the village church, and then by another branch returns again towards the house. In this part of the grounds there is still room for planting, and I shall probably try some Tree Rhododendrons. A standard Honeysuckle, which I have endeavoured to grow, has done no good as yet; its shoots get nipped by the north-east winds, but I do not yet despair. The most useful undergrowth I find is the Elder; it thrives wonderfully, and is covered with blossom and with berry. One variety, the Parsley-leaved Elder, is here equally hardy with the common Elder, and much more graceful in its growth.

We have now to take in our tender and half-hardy plants, for fear of a sudden frost. The large Myrtles, which have stood out in their boxes, must be placed in safety, and the Lobelia cardinalis and other bedding-plants, which we may need next year, must be removed.

XI

The Wood and the Withered Leaves – Statues – Sun-dials – The Snow – Plans for the Spring – Conclusion.

November 7.– The soft autumn weather still spares what flowers the rains have left us, and here and there are signs as if of another spring. Violets along the grass walks, Strawberries in flower, and to-day a little yellow Brier Rose blossoming on an almost leafless spray, remind us of the early months of the year that is no more. But here, too, are some of the flowers of November. The Arbutus has again opened its bunches of waxen pink, and the Chrysanthemums are again blooming on the shrubbery beds. The year has all but completed its circle since first I wrote these notes, and I speak to-day of the flowers, the same, yet not the same, as those of which I wrote eleven months ago.

The trees have lost nearly every leaf, and our little wood is bare as the wood wherein poor Millevoye, so soon to die, once strolled when

Had there been in happier days a "mystère" beyond the charm of waving branches and whispering leaves?

Another French poem on a withered leaf is better known, for it was Macaulay who translated Arnault's verses, and rendered the last three lines so perfectly: —

Among my ideas – I cannot call it plan, for my mind is not quite made up about it – I half fancy putting up a statue of some sort in a nook in the little wood, where the Beeches grow the tallest and the Elders are the thickest. Such things were once common, and then they got so common, and often so out of place, that they became absurd. Every villa garden had its statue and its rockery.

Batty Langley has an amusing chapter about statues. He says – "Nothing adds so much to the beauty and grandeur of gardens as fine statues, and nothing is more disagreeable than when they are wrongly placed; as Neptune on a terrace walk, mound, &c.; or Pan, the god of sheep, in a large basin, canal, or fountain;" and then, "to prevent such absurdities," he gives the most elaborate directions. Mars and Jupiter, Fame and Venus, Muses and Fates, Atlas, Hercules, and many more, are for open centres or lawns. Sylvanus, Actæon, and Echo, are among those recommended for woods. Neptune, Oceanus, and the Naiades, will do for canals and fish-ponds. Pomona and the Hesperides for orchards, Flora and Runcina ("the goddess of weeding") for flower-gardens, Bacchus for vineyards, Æolus for high terrace walks, and "the goddess Vallonta" for valleys. He gives the right deities for paddocks, for wheat-fields, for "ambuscados," and for beehives. In short there is no place for which he does not think a statue ornamental and appropriate. I hope he would approve of my own very humble idea, which is a statue of Hyacinthus, – for, where I thought of placing it, the wild Hyacinths or Bluebells will come clustering up, and make the grass all blue. The poetry of gardens is so entirely neglected in these days of "bedding stuff," that it is well to do anything that can properly be done, without extravagance of taste or method, to revive it.

In the inner garden I think also of placing a sun-dial, which would be in good keeping with the rather formal character of the beds. Mrs. Gatty's beautiful book on sun-dials should help me to a motto. They are of two sorts – the mottoes that warn, and the mottoes that console. "The night cometh,"11 or "Pereunt et imputantur," are good examples of the one; "Horas non numero nisi serenas," or "Post tenebras lucem spero," are the best instances of the other. But there is a verse by Mrs. Browning, which (if I may so adapt it by a slight alteration in the second line) would make a finer inscription still —

Nov. 28.– We wake to find snow all thick upon the ground, over lawn and flower-bed, and the children are out betimes rolling up huge snowballs on the grass. This snow is the best thing possible for the garden, for we have already had a night or two of sharp frost, which killed all it could reach of our herbaceous plants. "Autumn's last delights were nipped by early cold," as in the garden of Lord Houghton's "Old Manorial Hall," and the Dahlias and the Fuchsias were all shrivelled into brown unsightly tufts. We have covered up the Fig-trees on the wall. We have trenched up the shrubbery borders. We have done our last planting – a Catalpa in one place, a Paulownia in another – and some more fruit-trees in the orchard. We have planted our bulbs and sowed our autumn annuals for spring gardening. I was so pleased with the Nemophila bed of last May that I am repeating the experiment on a larger scale. I shall have one bed of Nemophila, and another of Virginian Stock. I shall have a bed of pink Saponaria edged with white. Along the Vine border I shall stretch a ribbon of white Saponaria, blue Myosotis, pink Silene, and many-coloured Sweet Peas.

Then again, at the end of the grass walk, where it runs up against the hedge of the croft, I am fixing an arched trelliswork of wire, with a wire seat inside, and over it I shall train and trail the broad leaves of the Aristolochia and the scarlet blossoms of the Tropæolum speciosum.

The vineries are of course at rest; but in them are Roman Hyacinths, now ready for the house, and pots of Polyanthus Narcissus will be also ready within a week.

The porch of the house is filled on either side with stages of Chrysanthemums, and the fine glossy foliage of an Aralia looks well in the inside vestibule.

And now I bring these notes to an end. My aim has been to show how much interest and pleasure may be gathered out of a garden of moderate pretensions, and with no great appliances in the way of glass, nor any advantage in the way of climate.

I have endeavoured, too, to reclaim for our English gardens those old flowers, which Shakespeare and Milton and Marvell and Cowley loved. They have been far too long neglected for flowers, whose only charm is charm of colour and a certain evenness of growth. The ordinary bedded garden of to-day is as inferior to the Elizabethan gardens of old, as all gardens anywhere must be to the delights, which fancy conjures up in the enchanted gardens of Armida, or the bowered pleasance of Boccaccio. Meanwhile we can only do what best we can, and when all else fails we can say, like Candide, "Il faut cultiver notre jardin."

And so I bid a hearty farewell to those readers, who for months past have followed the fortunes, and shared with me the hopes, of a year in a Lancashire garden.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER

Flowering Shrubs – Yuccas – Memorial Trees – Ranunculus – Pansies – Canna Indica – Summer Flowers – Bluets – Fruit-blossoms and Bees – Strawberry Leaves – Garden Sounds – Mowing – Birds – The Swallow – Pleasures of a Garden.

Almost more interesting than herbaceous plants are the flowering shrubs. Most beautiful of all, if, indeed, it may be called a shrub, is the Buddleia Globosa, in the inner garden, which I have already mentioned. When June draws to its close, it is laden with thousands of blossoms like little golden oranges, and fills the air with honied scent. It is the largest Buddleia I ever happen to have seen, for it stands sixteen feet high, and stretches its branches over a round bed of blue Iris to a circumference of seventy feet.

And just about the time when the Buddleia is in bloom, masses of the sweet homely English Elder, screening off the little wood, will perfume all the approach to the house. Common enough it is, but delightful in its dark foliage, its rich creamy blossoms, its clusters of purple berries. We do not make the use of it we should, and Elderberry water and Elderberry Wine are known to me by name alone, but the berries are excellent for tarts and puddings.

One shrub which I planted a year or two ago has answered far better than I had any right to hope. It is the Desfontainea Spinosa. It is so like a holly that it puzzles everybody who sees, for the first time, the scarlet and yellow tubes of blossom which stand out among the prickly leaves. The year before last it flowered twice with me, but the cruel winter we have just had has cut it sadly, and it will be long before it will recover.