A Garden with House Attached
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A syrup made of Clove Pinks (with the probable addition of some stimulant) and called by our English forbears "Sops-in-wine," because of its use in giving flavor to the festive cup, gave to this flower its rather material appellation of Sops-in-wine. Thus sings Spenser:
"Bring Carnations and Sops-in-wine
Worn of paramours" (lovers – wooers).
Bacon informs us that "Sops-in-wine, quantity for quantity, inebriate more than wine itself."
A precious Clove Pink of Botanic Garden origin, for a time bloomed in my border. It has, long since, died of old age.
Shakespeare says in Othello:
"Not poppy, nor mandragora,Nor all the drowsy syrups of the worldShall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleepWhich thou had'st yesterday."Keats and many others have immortalized it in their verse.
Burns thus points a moral with the flower:
"Pleasures are like poppies spread,You seize the flower, its bloom is shed."The Papaver family has wrought much ill in its day. It is from P. somniferum, one of its members, that the opium of commerce is collected. It is the milky juice of the capsule, or of any other part of the plant which exudes from incisions in the cortical part. This juice, scraped off, is worked in the sun's heat till it is of a consistency to form cakes.
The Oriental and Iceland Poppy are both perennial. Although like the Irishman, "not born in their own native country," they take kindly to our soil. Ten years ago I carefully sowed some seed of Oriental Poppy. Two of them consented to germinate, and now, from this small beginning, I have in my garden Orientals galore. Last spring these beauties kept my borders all aflame with their splendor. I counted, in a single border, eighty-five buds and blooms, and felt well-repaid for their careful nurture. Nevertheless, Oriental Poppies raised from seed mean much patient care, and many failures, but once thoroughly established they are "real estate," and have a kindly way of sowing themselves. As the Poppy, with its long "tap root," is most impatient of removal, this habit especially commends them to the grower.
The Iceland Poppy, though far less considerable in size, is very hardy, and with its dainty bloom of lemon, orange, red, and white, makes a pretty show in a bed by itself; and the Iceland is one of the few poppies available for one's vases.
Mrs. Thaxter, in the beautiful account of her Isle of Shoals gardening, tells us that by cutting poppies in the dew of the morning, with the right hand, and plumping them straight into water with the left, she had great success with them as cut flowers.
Following her method – unsuccessfully – I am forced to believe that the long and beautiful survival of her cut poppies depended largely on the crisp cool air of her Island home. Here the summer is many degrees hotter, and has far less moisture in its air, and, though morning after morning, tempted by their exquisite shades of color, I gather Shirley Poppies for the house, and like the Persian, fall down and worship them; in their slender vases they scarce outlive the day.
A friend making a pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon brought me some seed supposedly from Anne Hathaway's garden.
I sowed Madame Shakespeare's poppies with reverent care, but these English-born seeds patriotically refused to quicken in alien soil. No matter! they may have been but half-wild wind-sown things, and with my Shirleys, Icelands, and glorious Orientals, I can spare them.
With the ancient Greeks, the poppy with its crowded capsules was an emblem of fertility. Cybele, the mother of the gods, wears a crown of poppies.
In Roman gardens Somnus, the god of slumber, was anciently figured as reclining on a mass of snowy poppies, with a posy of these emblems of oblivion in his motionless hand.
Mexican Indians are pictured as returning home after a day of toil, dancing and singing to the music of a guitar, and crowned with wreaths of this "forgetful flower."
In the shops of Constantinople poppy juice mixed with rich fruit syrups is sold as a sweetmeat, or in the form of small lozenges on which are stamped "Mash Allah" (the work of God). Tartar couriers, traveling immense distances, and with marvelous speed and endurance, often, it is said, take no other nourishment than the famous "Mash Allah" of the Turks, in which the juice of hemp is mingled with that of the poppy.
The Columbine (Aquilegia) is a desirable plant for the border. Mine came from choice seed sent the Plant Club from Mr. Childs, a Philadelphia florist. They soon germinated, but were two years coming to bloom.
There are now many beautiful colors to be had. I have but the yellow and white, the purple and white, and pure yellows.
Once well-established, Columbines come to stay, and are most lovely! the garden plants flowering from the middle of May until late in June, and having the same graceful carriage of the wild variety, with flowers double their size, and with elegant long "spurs."
Its name is from the Latin Columbinas (dove-like) so called from the beak-like spurs of its flowers.
In my mention of early-blooming perennials I had forgotten the Crown Imperial. It is a resident of most old gardens, and has the distinction of remote antiquity. Mention is made of it in an Herbal of 1596 for its "stately beautifulness," and the herbalist accords it a "first place in the Garden of Delight."
I have but a single plant of this early flower, which punctually leads off in the spring procession along with its neighbor, the red peony.
The Eupatorium is not, I think, extensively cultivated in the garden. It is one of the hardiest of the later perennials. Mine was raised from seed. Having but one clump of it, I am always meaning to sow and to raise more plants of this dainty white flower, which comes with the Phloxes at the most flowerless time of the borders, but (to borrow an excuse from my slack old colored woman-of-all-work) "I haint jus' fetch roun' to it."
I find the Eupatorium's name in my seed catalogue. It is not, there, classed with the hardy perennials. It grows high enough to make a fair show among the border plants.
As will be seen, I have not in my borders a large assortment of perennials. My purse forbids a costly collection, and I think it well to undertake no more plants than can be well cared for in my hands, when much extra help cannot be afforded.
To my list let me add a few low-growing beauties.
The Italian peasant twines wreaths of the Periwinkle around the head of the departed infant or young maiden, and calls it Fler di morte (Death's Flower). Because of the laurel-like tint and texture of its glossy leaves the Greek has termed it Daphnoides.
In olden times it was highly valued for its medicinal virtues. Lord Bacon tells us that, in his day, bands of green Periwinkle were bound about the limbs to prevent cramps. By Americans it is often miscalled Myrtle. It carpets finely the bare spaces in borders, especially the shady ones, where other perennials will not thrive.
The Periwinkle is not an "up-to-date" plant. The seedsman of today gives it no place in his catalogue. I have several thrifty clumps of this pretty blue-eyed darling, and delight greatly in its bloom and its glossy trailing foliage.
Periwinkle is one of the oldest flowers of the English garden. Chaucer in describing a garden of the olden time speaks of it as "Fresh Periwinkle, rich of hue," and places it on the same plane with the rose and violet.
The Forget-me-not is another low-growing perennial which may prettily carpet the bare spots between the taller occupants of the border.
We have all associated the name of this charming little flower with the story of the chivalrous knight who wandered beside a stream with the lady of his love. In the attempt to procure for her some of its much-desired flowers growing on the opposite shore he was borne away by the current while returning to her side with the gathered blossoms, and, making a last effort, threw them on the margin of the engulfing flood, and crying "Forget-me-not," sank beneath the waters.
Miss Strickland gives a less romantic but more probable narrative of the origin of the name. The exiled Henry of Lancaster, whose fortunes are related by Shakespeare in "King John," according to this writer, first gave to the Forget-me-not its emblematic meaning by writing it on his collar with the initial letter of his mot, or watchword, and on his restoration from banishment continued this heraldic use of the flower, adopted in his homesickness, even when raised to the fatal eminence of a king.
Some of the showiest of the annuals may be, in June, transplanted from the seed beds to brighten the borders through August and September, as the Yellow Marigolds, the Zinnias, the Nicotianas, the Cosmos, and the seedling Single Dahlias, which will bloom the first year, and if that dictum of Linnæus ("a double flower is a vegetable monster") may be accepted, are the beauties of the family. They are certainly more lovely for one's vases than the double Dahlias, and the white ones are, as a table decoration, scarce less charming than the white Cosmos.
The Dahlia is named after Andrew Dahl, a Swedish botanist, and is a native of Mexico and Central America.
It shows a natural disposition to sport from its original form (single).
Florists directed their attention to raising new forms of this flower. First attempts finally resulted in semi-double varieties, and early in the 18th century M. Doukelan, botanic gardener at Louvain, produced from seed three perfectly double plants. These are said to be the very first double Dahlia plants ever produced. The Dahlia is decidedly progressive. Its up-to-date achievement is the elegant Cactus variety. I sowed, this year, some seeds of double Dahlia. It is now October and a few of them (some very beautiful and quite Cactus-like) are in bloom.
Once upon a time there were in this garden thrifty borders of Box. These the dear Lady tried hard to keep intact.
Every spring the failing rows were reset with small plants from the ancient stock, and were, first and last, the plague and despair of "the man's" busy life. At first I made the same futile attempt to restore the Box bordering. Now I have given up this idea of repairing the withered sections, but some six or eight large plants still in their beautiful perfection delight my heart. Some there are who object to the odor of Box, to others it is very pleasant and grateful. I am very fond of it, partly, I suppose, from its association with some much-admired gardens that I knew in childhood.
Common Box has but two varieties, one of which is the Dwarf Box, used as an edging for flower-beds – the other (Tree Box) is described as of surprising thickness, and as tall as the beech tree. This tree is of great antiquity. It is mentioned in the Bible, with the fir tree and the pine, as affording wood for the temple of King Solomon. The wood of the Box tree is very valuable and durable. Virgil has thus sung its virtues:
"Smooth-grained and proper for the turner's trade,Which curious hands may carve, and steel invade."Mrs. Pratt tells us that "in the North of England the old custom of each mourner carrying a sprig of Box at a funeral and throwing it in the grave still lingers."
Wordsworth thus baldly refers to this practice, in his verse —
"Fresh sprigs of boxwood, not six months before,Filled the funeral basin at Timothy's door."In Turkey, the widow, who goes weekly to pray at the tomb of her husband, plants a sprig of Box at the head of the grave.
CHAPTER VIII
Hollyhocks and Violets
Hard by the Lover's walk, in an old-time bed, a blue Flower-de-luce, some roots of white and purple Phlox, a bunch or two of "Leaf-for-ever," and another of scented yellow Lilies, had long stoutly held their own. Here, every spring-time, the Lady caused to be planted her Dahlia bulbs – by no means the choicest of their kind, but taking amicably to the situation, and every autumn generously contributing their scarlet, lavender, and purple bloom to the color scheme of the big bowpots that adorned the side table in the "Mansion House" hall.
Four years ago, late in July, to deaden the pain of a new bereavement, I prepared this bed for the reception of a few dozen Hollyhock plants. It was the place suggested for this use by him who had left me, and with many tender thoughts of the beloved one I undertook the carrying out of his wishes. Removing to other quarters the old inhabitants of the bed "The Man with the Hoe" dug deep and spared not for manure. This done, on a cloudy day we set the young plants. It seemed a risky undertaking to transplant at midsummer, but, covered for a time from the sun and faithfully watered, they all adjusted themselves to their new home, and have, ever since, thriven to my heart's content. The bed is long and of moderate width. The plants were set in two rows, about one foot apart, and in the space between the outer rows we put, here and there, smaller plants. In late autumn they all had a covering of litter and boughs, and were made snug for their winter nap. As the situation is high and exposed to "all the airts the wind may blow," it was not without misgivings that I waited for the spring uncovering and the after development. In due time the hardy darlings showed their pretty green shoots, and before midsummer they stood up in budded rows, ready to be staked, and about the thirteenth of July the bed burst into splendid bloom. My color scheme called for but two colors, pink and white, and wonderful it was to see the shading of the roseate flowers, varying, as it did, from wine color to such faint pink as lives between the dainty lips of a sea shell.
On some stalks (more than eight feet high) the flowers came double as a cabbage rose; on others they were half double, and the out-and-out single ones had the sheen of satin and the transparency of gauze, and all were more or less creamy or lemon-hued at the center.
I think it must be from the old association of Hollyhocks with village Fourth of July celebrations that the flower has to my mind a distinctly festal appearance. Standing at the end of my bed and looking down the rows of pink and white is to me like watching a holiday procession. Not a commonplace ordinary one, keeping step to the music of a brass band, with doughty policemen hustling the hoodlums in its rear, but one of chaste and joyous maidens gowned gayly in pink and white, such as may of old have been led by "Jephthah's daughter," what time she "went forth with timbrel and dances" to meet her rash, exultant father fresh from his victory over Israel's uncircumcised foes. Yes, the Hollyhock, though lacking the delicacy of the Lily and the fragrance of the Rose, is a flower "most fair to see." The yellows and purples are both beautiful, but for massing give me the reds, pinks, and whites.
Sow in the seed bed each spring and thus have new plants to supply places made vacant in the show bed, and to bestow on neighbors who are starting rows of this fine hardy perennial.
Hollyhock – O E holihoc – "holy mallow" – "blessed mallow" – is probably so named because brought from the Holy Land.
No garden is complete without its Violet bed. Ours was started eight years ago. We selected for it a spot "half in shade and half in shine," with a southern frontage, sheltered from the north by tall shrubs.
Two packets of choice Russian Violet seed were then sown in friable soil, well sifted, and made rich with a bottom layer of old cow manure. The bed had been laid out, prepared, and sown by the dear hands of one whose gardening is now "all done."
After all his care the seed never germinated, and early in the following autumn the bed was set with well-grown double Russian Violet plants bought of the florist. For a year or two these plants throve finely, blossomed abundantly, and increased fourfold. The third year the flowers degenerated in size and beauty, and though still, at May-time, the bloom punctually puts in an appearance, the Russians are, on the whole, far less satisfactory than the single English Violets brought from the Cambridge garden and growing in the end of the same bed. These flower most generously and come into bloom about ten days earlier than the Russians.
The Violet has an obliging way of sowing its own seed, projecting them from its capsule with dynamic force. My English darlings have a lavish habit of scattering themselves about the lawn, in that fashion, and filling in the bare places in the bed. The Russians choose rather to be propagated from runners. Friends I have who grow year after year big velvety Russian Violets. Would that I had the skill to do likewise, but to me heaven denies the power of bringing these beauties to perfection. Yet (such as they are) I hold my Violets dear, and without them spring would scarce be spring.
In all the old floral usages of the English the Violet holds a place next to the Rose. It was used at weddings, and had its place in other and sadder religious ceremonials.
With the Troubadours it was an emblem of constancy. Their prize of a golden Violet to the best versifier of the flower's graces and beauties proves in how much esteem they held this April blossom.
The Pansy, one of the Violas, was much celebrated by the elder English poets, who gave it the charming name of "Heartsease."
Pansies may be easily grown from seed. As they are less troubled by cold than most flowers – being half hardy – the seedlings may be treated as biennials. Transplant them from seed bed in September, and in November cover well with old manure, then add piled leaves and evergreen boughs, and the minute spring opens uncover.
The young plants should not be allowed to flower in the autumn. Pick off the buds as they appear and they will be likely to give you bloom all summer long. I confess to an impatience that prompts to the buying of many baskets of Pansies in May, and thus securing flowers on the spot, besides selecting my favorite colors. These plants will not achieve much after their first season, but will grow "beautifully less" in size, and finally become like Lady's Delights, those pretty plebeian Violas that accept any soil, or situation, and show their cheery little faces among the cabbages, and even in the skimpy soil of the gravel walks.
"There's Pansy, that's for thought," says Perdita, in "Winter's Tale."
Pansy – French pensee, fancy or thought, from penser, to think. Heartsease – ease of heart – tranquillity of mind – is the poet's name of the flower. Of the common names one may choose between "Johnny Jump-up" and the more elegant Lady's Delight.
The Violet, though but a tiny unassuming flower, is (both in verse and prose) often classed with the regal Rose. Both are delightful in perfume, and in that respect equally popular.
Having small knowledge of rose-growing I do not presume to hold forth on "Rose Culture." Books on that subject are many and excellent, and I should but say with "Denis," the "Minister's double," when his turn came to make a speech at the committee meeting: "So much has been said, and so well said, that I will not further pursue the subject." Nevertheless, my next chapter shall be devoted to this "Queen-flower."
CHAPTER IX
The Rose
The Rose is no mushroom Queen. Her ancestry dates away back to the Garden of Eden, and if Eve did not there gather a rosebud boutonniere for Adam, it was because that primitive young man had not a buttonhole "to his name."
The Rose of all flowers has been most praised by poets. From Isaiah's day to our own they have celebrated its charms. In English history it figured as the badge in the feuds between the houses of York and Lancaster. Among the ancients the Rose was the symbol of secrecy, and was hung up at entertainments as a token that nothing there said was to be divulged – hence the well-known phrase "under the rose" (sub rosa). The Romans at their voluptuous entertainments suspended roses in golden network from the ceiling, which, throughout the feast, fell slowly upon the reclining guest. All day, while the skillful Roman chef busied himself with his ragouts of flamingo tongues, his patés of locusts and honey, and his roasts garnished with "chilled mushrooms," slaves, in garden or forcing-house (as the season might be), wove fresh wreaths of roses for the invited guests, which beautiful youths, with hair in golden nets, waiting at the door of the triclinium, put upon their heads, warning them, as the custom was, to pass the threshold "right foot foremost." One sees, in fancy, the couches of these recumbent feasting voluptuaries, with the roses dropping, dropping, all night long, while the wine cup brimmed and "the hours went by on velvet feet."
The flower-loving Persians held annually a "Feast of Roses," which, we are told, continued the whole time of their remaining in bloom, and still another known as "The Scattering of the Roses." Groups of beautiful children then went through the streets strewing these delicious flowers.
Tom Moore tells us that "every part of the city was then as fragrant as if a caravan of musk from Khoten had passed through it."
My own rose garden is not much to brag of, having been made up of such miscellaneous rose bushes as were (without outlay) attainable. The greater part of these had come over with us from the Cambridge garden. Most plentiful of all are the Blush Roses. (Bushels of their scented petals are yearly cured by me for Potpourri.) One or two bushes of it still straggled on in the old-time border, and brought up to their possibilities by transplantation and sufficient food, soon became good to see, as also did the lone rose bush from the edge of the grass-plot, dear to the Lady's heart as the gift of a dead friend, and, summer after summer feeding the delusive hope of bloom, nursed in her optimistic soul. Now there is a second bush of its kind, both bravely blooming.
I have never learned the name of the Lone Rose. It is so very double that I have fancied it might be a descendant of the Persian "Gul sad buk," the Rose of a hundred leaves, a particular species much prized in the Vale of Cashmere. Be that as it may, it is a lovely flower. Its petals are legion, and its buds so rounded and compact as to have the appearance of big pink "alleys." More exquisite still is a single rose rescued from choking in a snarl of waxberry bushes.
It has since taken to itself a big slice of the rose garden, and, enlarged by good living to twice its ancient size, its daintily shaded flowers, for decorative use, are simply perfection. Unhappily their bloom is evanescent. They seldom outlast in water a day and a night.
Among the Cambridge roses was a little half-wild pink darling "unknown to fame." I found it at Farm Hill (Weymouth Town), where it ran riot among the vegetables in a carelessly ordered garden patch, and straggling through the picket fence, held its own among the seldom-trodden wayside weeds and grasses. Its color is bright pink, and it has the size and habit of the Scotch Rose, and is in full bloom when other roses are but buds.
Another early pink rose which we found in the Cambridge garden is the next earliest. It flowers about the 9th of June. I have no clue to its name. It must have been one of the Botanic Garden roses. Its blossom is exquisite in form, but not over fragrant. In habit it is straggling, almost a climber, and does not take kindly to pruning. Then there are the well-known Damask Roses, which must have come long, long ago from the Harvard collection. In their own habitat the Damasks are cultivated for their mercantile value, being, as we are told, the special roses from which the costly foreign Attar is obtained. I had thought that the Damask Rose had in the family three colors, but Bacon sets me right. He says: "It is large, pink, hardy, and has not been known in England (at the time of his writing) above one hundred years." It is by no means a distinguished-looking rose, but seems to have conserved within its sweet heart the perfume of a thousand summers.
A Yellow Scotch Rose takes kindly to my garden. A rose bought of a Cambridge florist for the beloved daughter, gone home to God (whose latest care it was), and now known as "Mary's Rose," bore well its second uprooting. It has come to be a tall bush, bearing abundant clusters of deep pink bloom, and all summer putting forth crisp shoots, with leaves red as a sunset cloud, and lovely as flowers for decorative uses.