Part 2

II.

NOVEMBER, 1882.

Of Blossoms, Buds, and Bowers--Of May and June and July Flowers.

November 3.--The ruin is complete! and cleared away, too.... Yet there is consolation, and something very comfortable, in the neatness of the dug borders, and the beds made up for the winter.

The symmetrically banked-up Celery--crested with the richest green, in the kitchen garden--rather takes my fancy; so also does the fine bit of colour in some huge heaps of dead leaves, that I see already stored in the rubbish yard. The dead leaves have to be swept away from lawn and garden walks--but I believe we do not consider any except those of Beach and Oak to be of much service. It is my heresy, that leaves do not fall till the goodness of them has decayed. They are of use, however, when left to cover the ground above tender roots. In the Fantaisie the earthy bed can scarce be seen, so close lies this warm counterpane of leaves! The great Elms, on the greyest days, now make sunshine of their own. Their lofty breadths of yellow gold tower above the zone of garden trees. When the sun illumines them, and the light winds pass, it is a dream to watch the glittering fall of autumn leaves. The ancient times return, and Jove once more showers gold around some sleeping Danae! During the first days of the month, the parterr was done, Tulips put in, and a lot of Crocuses in double row. In a few beds the dwarf evergreens, which had been removed for the summer, are planted in again--just to make the parterr’s emptiness look less cheerless from the dining-room windows. Between these small evergreen bushes, in their season, will come up spikes of Hyacinths, of varied hue. I do not care for a whole bed of Hyacinths or Tulips; they give me little real pleasure unless the colours be mixed. One chief charm of a garden, I think, depends on surprise. There is a kind of dulness in Tulips and Hyacinths, sorted, and coming up all one size and colour. I love to watch the close-folded Tulip bud, rising higher and higher daily--almost hourly--from its brown bed; and never to be quite certain of the colour that is to be, till one morning I find the rose, or golden, or ruby cup in all its finished beauty; perhaps not at all what was expected. And then, amid these splendours, will suddenly appear one shorter or taller than the rest, of the purest, rarest white. How that white Tulip, coming as it were by chance, is valued! And so, again this year a mixed lot are planted. There was a time when we had only one Tulip in all the garden. I used to look for it regularly in a certain shady border under a Laburnum tree; an old-fashioned, dull, purple and white-striped flower, but it never failed to show, at the very end of every season. I had a regard for that Tulip, and last summer it was a disappointment vainly to wait for its appearance in the accustomed spot. Many there were of its kind, surpassing it in loveliness; but then they were not the same.

Hyacinth beds will be a new thing here, but I doubt if they will make us quite so happy as has hitherto the unexpected advent of some stray pyramid of small odorous bells, pink, blue, or creamy-white, in out-of-the-way places about the garden. After their flowering is over, the pot-bulbs are always turned out somewhere in the borders. When a plant has lived with us for a time under the same roof, or even in the green-house, giving out for us its whole self of sweetness or of beauty, it seems so cruel that it should at last be thrown away as if worthless and forgotten! Some Narcissus that have had their day have just been put into a round bed on the further lawn, mixed with the “Mrs. Sinkins” white Pink; and there is a rim all round of double lilac Primroses. I have long wished to have plenty of that dear old neglected Primrose; so now we have a number of healthy roots from an old garden in Derbyshire. In the centre of this bed is a very tall dead Cupressus, one of our few failures in transplantation last spring. A Cobæa, which was to have grown up quick and made a “bonnie green gown” for the poor bare tree, proved failure number two. It absolutely refused to grow, or do anything but look stunted and miserable, till one day, late in October, there it was running up the tree as fast as possible, clothing every twig with leaves and tendrils, and large, deep, bell-like blossoms! Its day must be short, however, at the wrong end of the year, and even now its bells are chilled to a greenish hue. A fine red climbing Rose on one side, and one of the old Blairii on the other, will make a kinder and more beautiful summer garment.

We have made a new Lavender border, and now I hope to have enough for the bees, and afterwards enough, when dried, to lay within the drawers and wardrobes, and give us “all the perfume of summer, when summer is gone;” enough, too, for pot-pourri, though we do not always make this fresh each year. It takes time, and there is so little time in these days! and often the Roses are too wet, and the Lavender too scarce. The recipe we use is an old one: the paper is yellow, and the ink faded. But our best pot-pourri of these days comes not near the undying fragrance of some Rose leaves--three generations old--that we still preserve in one or two old covered jars and bowls of Oriental porcelain. Along the south wall, an oblong bed is planted with dark purple Heartsease, and two more with yellow. There are six beds, and in the spring they will glow resplendently with a setting of Crocuses, white, yellow, and lilac; meanwhile a good layer of cocoanut fibre gives a look of comfort for the winter; and moreover, rather annoys the field-mice.

Under the Holly hedge, facing south, a narrow border has been made ready to receive a quantity of white Iris roots. The Holly hedge, planted for shelter and for pleasure, along a broad walk on one side of the carriage drive, is not in itself a success as yet. It was put in four years ago, but the trees were too old, I think; this year it is flushed all over with scarlet berries.

I am sorry to have to remove my beloved white Irises, but they have increased so enormously as to make some change necessary. Nearly twenty years ago I carried home from the south of France a few small roots in a green pitcher. For half that time they grew and multiplied on the sunny terraces of a sweet Somersetshire garden, and now for ten other years the same roots, transplanted here, have flourished, if possible, still more abundantly. It may be fancy only, but I think our white Irises might not have succeeded as they do, had they not been loved so well. Everybody has a favourite flower, I suppose--the white Iris is mine--the Fleur-de-lys of France--the lily of Florence. Nothing can be more refined and lovely than the thin, translucent petals. To see these flowers at their best, one must get up and go into the garden at five o’clock on some fine morning at the end of May. I did it once, and as I walked beside their shining rows in the clear daylight, I felt there were no such pearly shadows, nor any such strange purity in the whiteness of other flowers. We have given away a great many, but I fear I am not altogether sorry that they do not seem always to succeed elsewhere as they do with us. I am trying to collect every different Iris I know of. We have now several which are very beautiful, and we should have more were it not that numbers die off after, perhaps, one short summer’s loveliness. They dwindle and become sickly, and then altogether disappear. Almost our whole stock of one well-established kind--an old inhabitant of the garden--was destroyed by mice two seasons ago. The flower is bronze-brown, with a golden blaze in the middle. La Marquise (Iris Lurida?), an old-fashioned dove-coloured sort, with purple frays on the falls, will grow anywhere. So will the large, broad-leaved, pale lilac kind, and the yellow Algerian. A little black wild Iris, that fringes the vineyard trenches about Florence, we have either lost or it will not flower. They call it here “La Vedova.” I brought home some roots once from Bellosguardo, and we put them in where all the warmest rays of the south sun would find them. But only the long, narrow, wild onion-like leaves appear--or, I fancy, they are the Vedova’s leaves. Still I do not lose hope, but watch for it always when March comes round; and some day, somewhere, I think, my little “widow” is sure to surprise me. The wild yellow Italian Tulip, that came with the Iris, succeeds here well. The patch of pale gold never fails, by the first week in April, to enliven the sunny side of a Yew hedge. A few untidy yellow blooms, supported on slender limp stalks, live there, just the same as in their own dear Italy. I stoop down to gather one, and for a moment the English garden is not there.... Before me lies a grassy vineyard path--there are the great open farm-sheds, full of sunlight and sunlit shade--and the pair of grey long-horned oxen, calmly waiting for the yoke. Near them, with her knitting, stands a patient sad-eyed woman, while happy children run down the path at play, or tie up bunches of yellow Tulips under the fig-trees.... Then there is a tall, white flag Iris, whose place is not yet fairly fixed. It is a handsome thing, and quite unlike the Fleur-de-lys. I think of mixing it in with the yellow Flags and Osmunda Regalis beside the little watercourse. Last July, to watch the slow blooming of some Japanese Iris in the kitchen garden gave me intense delight. They grew tall and straight, with curiously ribbed leaves. The single flower at the top of each stem opened out very flat, with rounded petals, rich purple in colour, and measuring nearly seven inches across. One saw at once it was the purple flower the Prince, in the German fairy tale, found on the mountains, and carried off to disenchant his love with, in the old witch’s cottage by the wood--only a large pearl lay in the centre of that flower. (There is no such thing as anachronism in fairy tales!)

We have gathered in our harvest of winter decorations for the hall and corridors. There is Pampas-grass with its silken plumes, and soft tassels of all kinds of downy German grasses, and Everlastings of all lovely shades of orange and red. They have hung in bunches head downwards in the vinery to dry for weeks past, and they will last for the next twelve months as fresh as they are now. I have been told of a great bouquet of Everlasting Flowers, in a Dutch gentleman’s drawing-room at the Cape, which was affirmed to be two hundred years old. We have sheaves of Honesty, also--“Money in your Pocket,” as the poor say--which are to gleam like flakes of mother-o’-pearl in the firelight of December’s dusky afternoons. We left plenty in the garden, however, where they will stand a good deal more of rough weather before they fall to pieces. Honesty is always handsome, in all stages of its growth; and like the people who take things easily, it thrives everywhere. With us it is quite at home in a damp north border, close under a line of Elms. All through June and July, the violet glow of a mass of it in full bloom made a brilliant effect; and now, in these November days, the ripe seed-vessels are transformed--their outer husk has shelled off, leaving only the silvery centre. The other day, in my early walk, just where the Allée Verte ends (no longer green, it is now a golden corridor, with, underfoot, crisp russet leaves), I seemed to come upon--not Wordsworth’s host of dancing Daffodils, but a company of spirits! The slanting sunbeams fell upon a clump of Honesty, and touched with fire every one of the myriad little silver moons. Though no wind stirred, they seemed to quiver with ghostly life in a shimmer of opal lights.

* * * * *

Nov. 18.--Winter is striding on, and every bit of colour in the garden becomes more precious than ever. Only a few days ago I made a nosegay of crimson summer Roses, a fine Auratum Lily, a Gladiolus, a Welsh Poppy, and a large red-rimmed annual Poppy, with a wonderful spray of Flexuosa Honeysuckle, that filled the room with its fragrance. A little while since, in one sheltered corner, Salvia Patens still held its own in unsullied blue. Marigolds were plenty; St. John’s Wort must have made a mistake in its dates, for it was all over polished yellow buds ready to unclose; Mignonette and a few Sweet Peas lingered still. Here and there one came upon a white Snap-dragon or a flash of rose-red Phlox (“Farewell Summers” they call them in the West). It was impossible not to admire the vigour and beauty of Primroses and Polyanthus of every colour. One only hopes this abundant autumnal bloom may not interfere with their blossoming in the spring; it is certainly finer than I ever remember in former seasons. A rockwork of big flints was quite gay with Virginian Stock and Primroses. To-day the frost is most severe. The Marigolds look unlike themselves, with a white cap border of frost, quilled round their orange faces; the half-opened buds in a Tea Rose bed are like fancy Moss Roses; only the moss is white, and every leaf is fringed with little sharp-pointed crystals. The China Rose tree by the green door in the wall is covered with pink roses, which I forgot to gather yesterday for my flower-glasses. This morning the frost has curiously changed them. The delicate petals are stiffened all through, as if they were turned into wax models, though their lovely pink is not dimmed, and they smell as sweet as if nothing had happened. By this time our Irish Yews have resumed their wonted sadness. The berries are all carried off, and the blackbirds have fattened so well on them, and on the bunches of grapes (left for their benefit on the house Vines), that they rise from the lawn quite heavily. I never saw such fat blackbirds! The seed of the Yew berries, which is believed to be the only poisonous part, is, I think, in most cases, left unswallowed; and in one little tree I found the remnants of an old nest filled with a compact mass of Yew seeds. The large blue titmouse carries off his berry to the Sumach tree, and there pecks off the pulp, holding it down with his foot. The larger thrushes are gone, I know not where; only one small bird, with richly spotted breast, is still seen about the grass, under the Stone Pine.

The Chrysanthemums in the greenhouse must have the last word. Nothing could be more beautiful than they are now, and have been for several weeks past. Some of the Japanese kinds are indescribably lovely; arrayed in tints that make one think of a sea-shell, or the clouds about an April sunrise. There is something, perhaps, in their delicious confusion of petals, that helps this wonderful effect of colour. The other sorts, which are stiffer in arrangement, and more decided in colour, are to me somewhat less delightful. A tiny wren was among the Chrysanthemums this morning, noiselessly flitting in and out, like a little shade; evidently in a state of the highest enjoyment. No doubt I and the bird both took our pleasure with them--in different ways!

DECEMBER.

“Once a Dream did Weave a Shade.”...

“He who goeth into his garden to look for spiders and cobwebs will doubtless find them; but he who goes out to seek a flower may return to his house with one blooming in his bosom.”

III.

DECEMBER.

Of Spiders’ Webs, Christmas Roses, King Arthur, and the Tree I Love.

December 6.--Among the strange and beautiful sights of the garden during the hard hoar-frost that ushered in the first days of the month, not the least beautiful were the spiders’ webs. Passing along the Larch Walk, the oak palings that divide us on that side from the new road (the old road, made by Richard, King of the Romans, in the thirteenth century, is now within the grounds) were hung all over with white rags--or so it seemed at first sight. And then, just for one second, that curious momentary likeness of like to unlike chanced. I remembered the street of palaces at Genoa, the day when I saw it last; the grand old walls covered with fluttering rags of advertisements--yes, advertisements in English: “Singer’s Sewing Machine.” The white rags on our palings were spiders’ webs both new and old, a marvellous number, thus crystallized, as it were, into existence by the frost, where scarcely one had been before. In open weather the webs are as good as invisible to human eyes; but now that frost had thickened the minutest threads to the size of Berlin wool--though in beauty of texture they resembled fine white velvet chenille--there was a sudden revelation of these wonderful works of art! One feels, if the nets show only half as large and thick to a fly’s eye, the spider’s trade must be a poor one. Here is a calculation that will probably interest nobody: 567 feet of pales over 5 feet high, and an average of 18 webs to every 9 feet. It may prove, however, something of the unsuspected multitude of spiders in a given area, though it is nothing to the acres of ploughed land that the level sun-ray of an autumn afternoon will show completely netted over with gossamer. Making the most of a few minutes’ inspection--for I should myself have frozen had I watched much longer these frozen webs--I could see but two varieties of work--the cobweb which usurped the corners, and the beautiful wheel-within-wheel net. In them all one might observe once more that ever-recurring stern immutability of the thing called Instinct. Here, for instance, are two sets of spiders living close neighbours for years together. Each set makes its snares on an opposite plan; and although they cannot help seeing each other’s work continually, neither takes the least hint from the other. The plain cobweb is never made more intricate; the artist of the wheel never dreams that she might do her spinning to a simpler pattern. Happy people! They trouble not their heads about improvements; yet, on looking closer at the last-named webs, there seemed something of the faintest indication of a slight individuality; so far at least, that in a dozen nets there would be five or six worked within a square of four lines, while the remainder had five, tied rather carelessly in a knot below. Perhaps the variation marks two distinct species; or it may be only accidental. Next day every visible trace of the strong beautiful webwork I had so admired was gone with the frost. The spider may have “spread her net abroad with cords” as usual, but there was no magician’s wand to touch it.

* * * * *

The orchard ought to be very gay in the spring. Daffodils have been dropped in all over the turf, and a round patch dug round each Apple tree is to be filled with yellow Wallflowers. This is an experiment, and I do not feel sure that I shall like the flowers so well as the trees simply growing out of the grass. A change, however, is always pleasant; though, perhaps, one might hardly care to lay out the garden differently every year, as the Chinese are said to do. I had a dream, of the orchard grass enamelled with many-coloured Crocuses--in loving reminiscence of certain flowery Olive grounds I know; but after all, the imitation would have been as poor as a winter sky compared to the glowing blue of June. I am not without hope some day--that golden “some day” which so seldom comes--to naturalize in our orchards the real enamelling of the Olive groves--that often-used phrase is too hard in sound and in its usual meaning to express the loveliness of those lilac star Anemones--with here and there a salmon-pink, or a fiery scarlet, blazing like a sun in the living green beneath the trees. I used to think nothing on this earth could come so near a vision of the star-strewn fields of Paradise.

In the north, or entrance court, we have been busy transplanting some large Apple trees that had overgrown their place, and setting free the trimmed Yews between which they grew. The blackness of these formal, cut Yews shows well against the old walls, which are covered with very aged Greengages and golden Drops. On the turf between each of the pyramid Yews, broad oblong beds have been made; in April we hope to plant them with pink China Roses, which are to grow very dwarf, and to flower the whole year through! The border round the Roses may be blue Nemophila; or perhaps the lovely Santolina Fragrans, with the soft grey foliage.

I think the “going in” to one’s house should be as bright and cheerful as it is possible to make it. But how hard it is to brighten up a north aspect! ours has hitherto been far too gloomy. In the garden, the bed of Roman Roses is warmly matted over for the winter. This brave little red China Rose is one of my great favourites; it goes on flowering for ever! Even now, when the matting is raised a little bit, I can see buds and leaves and the red of opening blooms. I call it the Roman Rose chiefly because it grows at Florence; which is so very Irish, that I think there must have been some better reason now forgotten. The Rose hedges in the beautiful Boboli Gardens are crimsoned over with blossoms as early as the end of March; with us, however, it needs protection when planted in the open ground.

Under the east wall is our only Christmas Rose; it is a very large plant, and over it was built up, about a month ago, a little green bower of Spruce Fir branches. The shelter is to save the blooms from frost, which so often tarnishes their whiteness with red. Almost daily, as I passed, I have peeped in to watch the cluster of white buds nestled snugly within. The buds have duly swelled and lifted one by one their heads, and now this morning our first bunch of perfect Christmas Roses has been gathered. This flower must, I think, be dear to every one with a heart for flowers. Its expression is so full of innocence and freshness--for it is not only human persons who have expression in their faces! and then the charm of its Myrtle-like stamens and clear-cut petals--snow-cold to the touch--and its pretty way of half-hiding among the dark leaves--always ready to be found when sought--and always with so many more blossoms than had been hoped for! To some, indeed, the associations bound up with the Christmas Rose--with even the sound of its name--may be dearer than all its outward loveliness; recalling, perhaps, the house and garden of their childhood, and happy Christmases of long ago; “the old familiar faces,” and tones of the voices that are gone. I must here make the confession that last year, in my anxiety for the whitest possible of blossoms, I had glass placed over the plant; and in spite of warnings, put matting over that; all which ended at Christmas in a fine show of green Roses! In the pits there are several of the smaller kind coming on in pots, which will soon be ready to cut. These are easy enough in their ways. But the Christmas Rose out in the border is a difficult thing to grow; full of quirks and fancies, and like a woman, hard to please. Once, however, it settles down in any spot, it will thrive there; and then will sooner die than take to a new place.

Dec. 13.--Our second white frost has vanished, and the grass appears again with a moist and pleasant smell. The forest of the Fantaisie is thinned, and the encircling Laurels trimmed. The whole took just half a winter’s day to do. At the end of the turf walk, between the bushes and the golden Yews, peers out a Spindle tree, with its pink and scarlet fruit. The birds seem not to care for it, for the fruit is all there--untouched. I wonder if the name of Spindle comes from the unnatural thinness of the tree!

After these many years of working to a special end, we seem now to have almost reached it in one direction, for the garden looks well-nigh as green and furnished in winter as in summer--so far, at least, as the outline of verdure goes. The Yew hedges, and Pines, and perennial greens are at their best now, in mid-winter; they would even seem to have grown and thickened out since the summer died away. Watching the growth of these trees and hedges has been the delight and solace of many a troubled time, and one cannot but feel the most affectionate interest in them. In the centre of a triangular-shaped bit of lawn, surrounded by Conifers, we have placed a large stone vase on a square stone pedestal. The vase is old and grey, and had long stood in another place, where it made no show. The grey stone looks well against the warm greens that back it, and will look better when the season comes to fill it with bright summer flowers. The trees that stand around all wear a sort of charmed double life--at least to me--silently, fancifully.

It was at a time of sickness that the sleepless hours of the long winter nights came to be passed in spirit with the trees in the garden, and especially with half-a-dozen or so of our beautiful straight young Pines. Dare I tell the secret? They all became knights and ladies of King Arthur’s Court! The great Wellingtonia standing a little apart is Arthur himself. The Nordmanniana, with its whorls of deepest green and strong upward shoot of fifteen inches in the year, is Sir Launcelot. The gold-green softly-feathered Douglas Fir, Sir Bedevere. The young Cedar of Lebanon, with fretted boughs of graceful downward sweep, Sir Agravaine. Sir Bors is a rounded solemn English Yew, of slow and steadfast growth. Sir Palomides--a fine pillar-shaped Thuia--towers between Sir Gawaine and Sir Gaheris, who are both clad in the wondrous green with almost metallic lustre of Cupressus Lawsoniana erecta viridis. These all stand round the triangular lawn, and amongst them comes, by some strange chance, St. Eulalie, a lovely Pine (Abies Amabilis), whose robe of grey-blue tufted foliage wraps her feet, and trails upon the grass.