Part 5

“Daffy-down-dilly has come up to town In a yellow petticoat and a green gown.”

(Poor Daffodilla! for yellow is jealousy, and green is forsaken.) The old jingle paints well enough the Daffodil’s outside. Whatever else may lie within the golden depth of her cup and about her silken petals, all the poetry of the Daffodil has been said and sung from old, old days, up to our own time, by those happy few whose thoughts shape themselves in verse. Soon there will be a blooming of many varieties in the garden, but at this moment only three abound, and of these I hardly know which most to praise. There is the single variety, with rather narrow, almost pointed petals, and trumpet tube of a deeper shade of yellow; I cannot distinguish this one from Narcissus Incomparabilis of the Riviera. Then there is the semi-double (old Parkinson’s Narcissus Major, “confined to the gardens of the curious”), which I sometimes think a still more handsome flower, from its rich folded depths of colour. Its prime, however, lasts but a few days; the full tube seems then to overspread and split, and a confusion of doubleness ensues which mars its perfect form. Then there is the old real Daffodil--quite apart from the so-called Lent Lily--with very pale, broad-leaved corolla, and true Narcissus-shaped cup. When this doubles itself there is again a loss of grace. I call it the real Daffodil, because years ago, when that was a flower not thought so much of, this, as I remember, was the usual kind seen in gardens. I believe in those days the Daffodil--whose very name is music in our ears--was considered almost a vulgar (!) flower; “it was so very common.” Now it is so common in another way, one could half wish that it--with the Sunflower--had remained undiscovered, or only bloomed to grace old cottage garden plots, or as the Lent Lily, in wild woodland ways, for the delight of simple village children. Is it fault or failing in human nature that inclines us to turn from things that all the world admires? I only know that, somehow, one loves one’s own love to be for one’s self alone! and I do not care to see cartfuls of Daffodils sent up to London.... There is a part of the garden on the north side which just now gives me strange pleasure. There we leave the borders to grow pretty much how they will. In summer on one side there is a green forest of Male-Fern, Bramble, wild Ivy, and low-grown Berberis; but at this time the scene is different. Great double Daffodils rest their golden heads upon interlacing red-brown Fern and branching glossy Berberis. A few shafts of narrow blue-green leaves pierce through and amongst the brown and burnt-sienna colour; Pulmonaria--taking heart after all the withering frosts--breaks into clouds of flower, all blue and pink, with dusks of mottled leaf between. And among the Pulmonaria crops up by chance, in the humblest way, a healthy beautiful Archangel, or Dead Nettle, set with blossoms downy white.

“More springs in the garden than the gardener ever sowed,” is an old saying. Just the other side the walk there chances--who knows how?--a charming little plant which curiously attracts me. Unlike “the small Celandine,” it never had a poet, so far as I know, to sing its praise, although the Painter-poet of England--William Blake--disdained not to immortalize it. In his illustrations to the Book of Job it occurs, the character of the flowers unmistakably given by a few master-touches. Yet this little Coltsfoot is full of interest, and the little satiny sunflower that crowns each pinkish fleshy flower-stalk is, in its way, quaintly unique. The specimen (vide Dryasdust) in our north border has rooted partly under and amongst the lowest leaves of an Aucuba, partly in the Box edging. I think it has been in a vague way not unknown to me for many past seasons, but I have passed it unobservantly, only perhaps remarking to myself, “Ah, there you are again!” One day, however, it drew down my attention to look more closely, and since, it has had sometimes half-a-dozen visits in the day. I wished to see if there were any set hours for its unfolding and closing; it seemed so odd to find the little flowers fast shut at near 8 a.m., with the sunshine bright upon them. Then I found they did not open till between 11 and 12 mid-day. One placed in water, at a south window, opened itself wide before nine in the morning, and at noon the small yellow disc was spread so broad that its rays turned over the other way at the edges. You could scarcely find on any flower’s face an expression of more serene content. Then both the growing flowers and the one in the window began to close at precisely the same time--about ten minutes to 4 p.m.; and the closing process with both only came to an end at near 6. This slowness may have been, perhaps, because the flowers were then all rather past their first youth. In grey cloudy weather they hardly unclosed at all. The spot where this Coltsfoot has chosen to grow must be unsympathetic, for after the early morning a light chequered shade of Holly, from over the way, veils in some degree its coveted sun supply. When its time comes the little flower dies very prettily; it only changes to a dull saffron hue, and then shuts up for ever.

The all too brief delight of hearing the birds sing in the evening is not at its best; about seven they begin. The other day, at 6.30, scarce a note was heard through all the garden. The rooks were cawing in a whisper their hoarse good-nights; two wood-pigeons answered each other from trees far apart in the fields, with an interrupted chant--“slow to begin and never ending.” Suddenly, a little before seven--about three minutes before--one after another the thrushes awoke into song. The whole air echoed and resounded with their music. It was the same time, precisely, as on the day before. How do they tell the hour thus to a minute? Not certainly by the clock; for seven struck from the village church tower just three minutes after the concert began. Can it be the first star appearing that sets for them the moment to begin? Looking up, the pole star shone from heaven right overhead. Does some “wise thrush,” sitting on a topmost branch, with full bright orbs turned heavenwards, mark this sudden diamond in the sky, and then at once pour forth his flood of liquid melody, the signal for his fellows waiting round to take up the song? We watched near the Douglas Fir, I and the satin-coated colley dog; he listened too, lying on the grass, rather bored but patient, with ears alert; and twilight deepened, and star after star stole out upon the dusk, while the orange west grew dim and changed, and louder still re-echoed the ecstatic numbers from every bush and tree, and from many a hedgerow in the fields beyond. In all this multitude of bird voices not a discord intervenes; it is an orchestra turned to one key, and the fuller the tones of the unnumbered instruments, the deeper and more entire is the concord. How is it done? There is no conductor with his baton!... But the dinner-bell rings, and we must leave the concert and all its sweet-throated minstrels in full song, and the garden, with its refined and lovely influences of perfect harmony, its budding trees and tuneful thickets of Fir and Laurel, to the Daffodils and the stars. The contrast is somewhat gross, of roast mutton and lighted lamps!... But to those who prefer their Currant bushes to the songs of “God’s poet hid in foliage green,” what can be said? I do not believe such persons exist.

The Sweet Briar hedge along the walk leading to the wicket-gate in the entrance-drive begins to scent the air. We do not make enough of such a treasure as Sweet Briar is. Some day we must plant some near the windows, for pleasant perfume after rain. It is a favourite idea, too obscure to be a doctrine or even a theory, that the sweet smells of flowers, and aromatic leaves, and all kinds of green things have a certain virtue for different conditions of health. Here are a few examples, and I am afraid I do not know many more: To smell wild Thyme will renew the spirits and vital energy in long walks under an August sun. The pure, almost pungent scent of Tea Rose Maréchal Niel is sometimes invigorating in any lowness of mind or body. Sweet Briar promotes cheerfulness. Yellow Bedstraw (Galium verum), Cowslip, Wallflower, Damask and pink China Roses, Plum blossom, and notably Sweet Gale or Bog Myrtle, and wild white Honeysuckle refresh the spirits; while the smell of ground Ivy, Charlock, Woodruff, Rosemary, and fresh-cut grass seems to be a refreshment to the body. Hawthorn is very doubtful, and Lime blossom is dreamy. These scents are “transparent,” and are also, except the two first, more or less uncertain, to be caught on the wing, as it were. The more positive and “opaque” scents, such as those of the Gardenia, Lilies, Narcissus, Jonquil, etc., seem less potent for the spirits than for the body. The subject is full of indistinctness, since that which is life to one may be death to many. I have known an instance of even white Sweet Peas and white Pink being unendurable, and yet both are what I call “transparent.” There may also be a system of mixed flowers. Small scarlet Nasturtium and lemon-scented Pelargonium are good together, and seem to have a pleasant effect on the mind, and as the venerable Parkinson says, they “make a delicate Tussimussie, or Nosegay, both for sight and scent.” The large Italian white Jasmine, mixed with Marie Louise Violets, is comforting. Altogether I think the idea may be something more than a mere fantastic whim.

April 17.--This morning, before 8 o’clock, the whole garden felt like spring. The turf was brightly green and shining with dew, and birds, and grass, and flowers were unconsciously at ease and happy for the moment under the warm sunlight. The unwonted warmth made a robin so bold and confident, that he flew up against me in the most playful way, and then perched on a young Beech, flapping his little wings with a merry twinkle in his eye. All about and in and out the Stone Pine, to them one huge world of insect life, flitted a pair of golden crested wrens, as busy as possible, the flutter of their tiny wings making just as much sound as might two butterflies. The sun glanced now and then, for a moment, on the cock-bird’s golden streak, the hen held a filmy white insect of some kind in her bill, and would on no account show the way to her nest, so long as she was watched. It was unkind, I fear, to tease so minute a creature, and I soon went another way; and then both wrens made a little rush into the brambly ivy-smothered trunk of the tree. We refrain from too curiously searching for the nest, though I think the young family would be worth seeing! In the morning light a host of single Daffodils shone like pale gold; double white Wind-flowers have begun to bloom (there grows a yellow wild one not far from us, but I have only seen it after it had been transplanted into a garden), and many kinds of Narcissus. The Pasque-flower has been put out of its reckoning by the unusually early Easter; it is only just in bud. The grass walk in the Fantaisie was too heavy with dew to be pleasant, so I only looked across the gate at the Narcissus and flaming star Anemones. In the clear sunlight, lilac patches of Aubrietia, side by side with clean white Arabis, seem doubly charming.

How eagerly one seizes all possible points of beauty in such a severe trying season! I never before remember our having to water the garden in April; it has been, however, quite necessary, for as yet only two slight April showers have fallen, and the clumps of Narcissus Poeticus were failing. Tulips are flowering with stalks barely one inch long, and Crown Imperials half miss their usual “stately beautifulness.” One day of soft warm rain would set all right, and give us an almost Roman spring, so suddenly would the garden become clothed in bloom, and the leaves burst out upon the trees. King-cups begin to glass themselves in our narrow watercourse, and reeds to thicken greenly along the brink. The long line of Primroses along the Allée Verte is a sad failure. As soon as the flowers open they are beheaded by those cruel chaffinches. This is how the little painted traitors behave all the while they are supposed to be gaily building their dainty nests! Such wholesale execution is, I believe, the result of this very dry weather. They cut off the flowers to get at the small drop of moisture or honey in the calyx. I forgive the chaffinches without any difficulty, only wishing that other people could be as easily pardoned; but when the rooks are poisoned and our new hopes of a rookery nearly frustrated, it is hard to be very forgiving! Some short-sighted farmer has done this cruel deed. The poor rooks dropped on our own land on the grass under their nests. Several of their young must have perished miserably, and the deserted nests look very sad. Still we think enough young remain to save the rookery. The Florentine yellow Tulips are in bloom. How far more lovely to the unhorticultural eye are these wild kinds, with their graceful bending stalks, than those the Tulip’s cultivation has so well succeeded in stiffening--with all their grand colour! On the 7th appeared, as I knew she would sooner or later, the little “Vedova” Iris of Florence. Under the south wall, where we did not think to seek, there she was, for the first time after these eight years’ seclusion. And still she wears her weeds of green and black. The roots have increased and thrown up quantities of leaves. These leaves are not rounded like those of the Spanish Iris and other long narrow kinds; they are four-sided, with sharp angles, very strong, and have a sharp point at the end.

MAY.

“Pale crocuses have come before her; Wild birds her welcome sing; Ten thousand loving hearts adore her, The grey world’s darling, Spring.”

W. M. ELTON.

VIII.

MAY.

Of Cherry Blossoms--the Nightingale’s “Melodious Noise”--Of Broken Stones, etc., etc., etc.

May 6.--The month of May would be Heaven upon earth if only it came in August or September, when summer mostly begins! but such cold, hard weather as we have had spoils sadly our enjoyment of the blossom trees and all the pleasures of spring. There have been just one or two sweet days, when the white Cherry orchards shone softly against a sky of serenest blue; days when we did but revel in the joyous present, forgetting quite that ever it could be that “rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.” Alas! all too soon our dream is dispelled; dark clouds arise, and we see “Heaven’s gold complexion dimmed,” and the orchard grass strewn with pearly wreck. The Cherry tree’s magic season is at an end; it seemed to last scarcely longer than a day. With the first hot shafts of April’s sun it startles into bloom, shaken out in snow-wreaths all over the tree, a waste of most lavish loveliness. It is something gained, once in the twelvemonth’s round of commonplace, if only for a moment to stand beside a Cherry tree in blossom. The blue sky looks infinitely far off, seen through such a maze of flowery myriads. And now Apple blossoms are coming on in rosy swift succession. How beautiful they are! and is it not time that water-colour artists should cease to weary, by attempting so vainly to pourtray them? (This only by the way.) They have the merit of lasting just long enough for us to enjoy them well; yet beautiful as they are, I do not know if they can ever quite compare with the frail short-lived cherry. If the Espaliers in the kitchen garden alongside the middle walk would but flower together all at once, that walk in May would be better than any picture-gallery. But our gallery walls perversely decorate themselves only a little bit at a time. One bit, at a corner of the cross-walks, is now in full perfection. A faint delicious perfume steals out through the iron gate to the flower-garden, inviting as one passes by, to turn and peep within. There are the trained leafless branches covered thick with knots of flower. They open very deliberately, and there abide for a little happy while, self-conscious, round, and pink, and firm; then there comes a setting of delicate green around the flowers; and then the Apple tree in bloom is one of earth’s loveliest sights. Apple blossom must be added to my pharmacopœia of sweet smells. To inhale a cluster of Blenheim Orange gives back youth for just half a minute after. It is not merely that with the perfume the heart goes back to remembered times--it is a real, absolute elixir! Our young Siberian Crab trees are like great white bouquets; and behind the pigeon-house there is a wonder of Japanese Apple (Pyrus malus floribunda). It is like a fountain of flowers, tossing its pink flower-laden branches in every direction. Blue Periwinkles creep over the ground underneath it. In the autumn I shall hope to plant several more of these lovely trees somewhere on the lawn, where we may see and enjoy them from the windows. And now the Primrose--

“Lady of the springe, The lovely flower that first doth show her face; Whose worthy prayse the pretty byrds do syng, Whose presence sweet the wynter’s colde doth chase,”

has ceased to glad us “with worldes of new delightes.” She is on the wane, “with her bells dim”--as old Ben Jonson said; but I should not call them bells. She dies upon a bed of vivid green amidst tall grasses and her own thick-coming leaves, as stars grow pale before the dawn. And we are faithless to her beauty in the presence of other, fresher loveliness; and we care not though the Primrose is dead.

The Tulips in the parterr--it is the older and prettier way to spell it without an “e” at the end--are now the chief ornament of the garden and the delight of my eyes. Timely rains strengthened the stalks to rise to their full height, and there are the beds now, a blaze of scarlet and yellow splendour. There are tall Tulips and short Tulips, rose and crimson, scarlet and orange Tulips, striped and dashed, and brown and white, and every shade of Tulip colour. A few grow between little box and golden Arbor Vitæ bushes, and all the beds are deeply fringed with Crocus leaves. I am aware that as a matter of the highest principle, Tulips are seldom mixed; the colours are usually arranged separately. Long experience has taught me, however, to have nothing to do with principles--in the garden. Little else than a feeling of entire sympathy with the diverse characters of your plants and flowers is needed for “art in the garden.” If sympathy be there, all the rest comes naturally enough. No brighter, gayer garden scene can be imagined than on a sunny morning, turning the corner of a clipped Yew--buttressed out from the house--to come upon the parterr, decked in all its gay brilliancy of Tulips. The sculptured stone pillar rises from a little mound of Stonecrop in the centre, often with a pigeon or a thrush pluming itself on the top. Suddenly the little flock of fantail pigeons with whistling wings descend among the many-coloured brilliants, and there, in the emerald, dewy interspaces, they strut and play in their pride and purity of whiteness. My favourite Parrot Tulips do not as yet make much way; the lack of sunshine keeps their buds green. It was in Venice, years ago, that first I fell in love with Tulips such as these. On the marble altars of one of the great Jesuit churches were vases filled with Parrot Tulips, all cut-edged and gold and scarlet-splashed. The cloister garden behind the church was full of them. It is a strange disorderly beauty, and sometimes draggles and hangs its untidy head like a Bell-flower, and sometimes flaunts it up full in the sun’s face. There are Forget-me-nots in many parts of the garden; their long smoke-like lines of turquoise are specially pleasing. Two square beds in the entrance court, set between the black Yews, are also a success--Forget-me-not, flecked with pink Saponaria--they give the idea of blue mist touched by the sunset. In the Fantaisie, bushes of orange-coloured Berberis Darwinii are in great perfection of bloom. There is something peculiarly delightful in the way they have of spreading the earth with orange, while yet the laden boughs above own no apparent loss. The orange colour contrasts well also with a chance lot of purple Honesty, which has grouped itself round a smooth-stemmed young Mulberry at the end of the turf walk. The walk itself is very bright, with an irregular bordering of white and pink Phlox Nelsoni--a Cheiranthus, or a deep blue Gentian, here and there. The little low-growing Phlox comes in exquisite patches of colour all over the garden. When in flower, the plant itself--which is straggling and rather ugly--is completely hid by a flat mass of close-set bloom. In these “gardens on a level” I am always wishing for rockeries and little low terraces, which should be all draped with Convolvulus Mauristiana, Phlox Nelsoni, Aubretia, and wild Ivy and Alyssum, or something yellow. I should not much care for many rare Alpine plants, I think; though a surprise of the kind here and there would be charming. Colour I must have, and plenty of it, to rejoice the eye and make glad the heart.

A tract of wild, savage scenery, six square yards in extent, is in contemplation at the afforested end of the Fantaisie. Already one or two large pieces of a sort of conglomerate have been conveyed here, and are frowning in an open space amongst the wild Bluebells. There is a background of dark Arbor Vitæ, and beyond, the pleasant fields are seen, with the cows and Elms and an Oak tree. There exists a certain necessity for feature in this flattest of all places! The Yew hedges and pyramids have done much to give character to the flower garden, and now there must be rocks for variety.

A heap of fragments of an old headless statue lies near the rocky waste; part of a sitting figure--a hand and a foot--and lumps of heavy drapery, overlaid in beautiful green velvet of moss. Very forlorn the broken stones look, and I cannot decide to make them into rockwork. None now know whom the statue in its day was meant to represent--probably a garden goddess, Flora or Pomona--but its history is rather quaint, if not touching. It was beloved by a lady who lived here once, and hated by her sister, and according as each for the time reigned in the other’s absence, it was set up in a niche of the garden wall, or cast down with ignominy. At last the sister who loved the statue died, and then it was broken to pieces, and flung down a well. It was fished up again long after, before our time. Tradition tells of another statue, an image of Old Time, that stood or sat at one end of the pond in “the park,” but of this there remains no trace.

I am happy in the possession of two long-desired flowers, which seem now to be settling down in their new abode. One is the pale-blue Star Anemone Apennina, common in the Ilex woods of Frascati; the other, the lovely purplish-brown Fritillary (Meleagris), found wild in river meadows near us. Fritillary is no easy word for poetry, yet it is named by at least one poet. Matthew Arnold, in his “Thyrsis,” says--

“I know what white, what purple fritillaries The grassy harvest of the river-fields, Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields.”

I think no other flower of any kind can compare with it in finish and exquisite grace of form. The purplish, dove-like colour I believe to be the same described in old French as “colombette.”

May 15.--To-day, amid the brilliant green of new leaves and the singing and twittering of a thousand birds in the sun’s warm glow, one keeps saying to oneself--

“Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king,”

or some such old snatch of songs that seem to wander upon the soft sweet air. Ah, yes, “the year’s pleasant king”! and yet our spring is a beautiful spirit, and she has been hovering about us; but now, to-day, she has set her feet upon the earth, and there is a great triumph of verdure on the trees and on the grass; and Apple trees meet her in fulness of bloom, and May-buds are swelling on the Thorns to make up for lost time; and all the edges of meadow-grass are jewelled with little gems of purple, and blue, and red, and the broad fields shine in silver and gold.

The short reign of Narcissus Poeticus has begun; our large old clumps down one side of the Broad Walk are not so fine as usual; frosts and cold heavy rains laid the leaves of some of them, and sometimes turned them yellow; but within the walled garden the clumps are as beautiful as ever--throngs of long-stalked silvery flowers, stiff and firm, with the stiffness and strength of perfect health. Narcissus Poeticus is lovely; and we need not trouble to know if it be the very flower named by Theocritus, Virgil, and Ovid. The east border, though not much varied as yet, is gay and full of promise. There are double pale yellow Ranunculus (the Swiss meadow kind), and bunches of Heartsease, violet and brown Auriculas, sheets of double white Anemones, and the Riviera double scarlet--which, however, never with us comes scarlet, but only dull red; Tulips, Stonecrops, Kingspear, Phlox Nelsoni, double King’s-cups, and Bachelors’ Buttons, a patch of Gentians at the south angle of the wall, with yellow Corydalis Lutea peering out of chinks in the old bricks above. Crowds of Lilies are springing up in the background, with purple Iris and Pæonies in bud. Solomon’s Seal (Lady’s Signet) in many nooks and corners unfolds its curious club-shaped leaf-buds, and all its bells will soon be hung. Pansies, under the south wall, make a bright display; there are three large oblong beds--lilac, yellow, and deep royal purple; also a round bed of semi-double Anemones, whose scarlet colour, about mid-day, is actually dazzling; and one of Ranunculus not yet opened. Behind these beds, against the wall, are white Irises, almost ready to bloom, and several clusters of the garden Star of Bethlehem--valuable in its way, but not nearly so pretty as the wild sort, and most precise in its daily system of early closing and late opening.

Between the tennis-court and the little lawn belonging to the Firs and Cedar, the walk winds along beside a close of chosen trees--Plane, Silver Birch, pink Thorns, variegated Maple, etc., all in their pleasant time of youth, having been planted only a little over eleven years. Portugal Laurel and Box mingle with them in deeper shades. Next the walk are Sweet Briar and well-berried Aucubas; one Aucuba is still covered with scarlet fruit and golden leaves. There is yellow Spanish Broom, and tall trees of white Broom wave long white plumes, leaning over the path. White Broom, they say, is “the Juniper tree” that Elijah sat down under. If so, the shade must have been but scanty! Soon the path turns past a Yew-tree, and becomes the Primrose Walk, along under the line of Elms.

On the left are the Allée Verte, and the dovecote, and small orchard, bounded by Beech and Yew, and crossed by flower-bordered smooth-shaven grassy ways, all leading to the Broad Walk; on the right a little hidden path passes on to the oft-named Fantaisie. Just before coming to the Yew tree, on warm days ever since the beginning of the month, one is met and surrounded by a wonderful cloud of fragrance! One looks round in vain for some bed of flowers whence should proceed so powerful a scent. It is like the finest Jasmine and Citron, and I know not what of sweetest unknown incense. It is the greeting sent out from a dense mass of Spurge Laurel (Daphne pontifia), with unobtrusive green flowers in full bloom. It grows over a bit of the Iris bank, and its great luxuriance proves how it loves a southern aspect.