How the Garden Grew

Part 1

Produced by Clare Graham and Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (Images generously made available by the Internet Archive.)

HOW THE GARDEN GREW

MAUD MARYON

"Mary, Mary, quite contrairy, How does your garden grow?"

With Four Illustrations by Gordon Browne

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

NEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1900

HIS REVERENCE

CONTENTS

PAGE

SEASON I.--WINTER 3

SEASON II.--SPRING 71

SEASON III.--SUMMER 127

SEASON IV.--AUTUMN 191

INDEX 253

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

WINTER 2

SPRING 70

SUMMER 126

AUTUMN 190

HOW THE GARDEN GREW

SEASON I

Winter

"Now is the winter of my discontent."

I have not had charge of my garden very long; and I am not sure that I should have undertaken such a charge had there been anyone else to do it. But there was no one else, and it so obviously needed doing.

Part 2

Of course there was the gardener--I shall have to allude to him occasionally--but just now I will only mention the fact that his greatest admirer could not have accused him of taking care of the garden.

Then there was his Reverence; he was by way of being in charge of everything, me included, I suppose, and of course nominally it was so. He had the parish and the church, and the rectory and his family, and the men-servants and the maid-servants, a horse and a pony and the garden! He managed most things well, I will say, and the kitchen garden gave some account of itself, but in the flower garden desolation cried aloud.

I was moved one day to say I thought it disgraceful. "There are no flowers anywhere; nothing but some semi-red geraniums and some poverty-stricken calceolarias and scraggy lobelias. We have none of those nice high blue things, what do you call them? or those yellow round things with red fringes, like daisies, which are not daisies; we have no sweet-Williams even, though they are the sort of flowers that grow in every cottage garden!"

There was a twinkle in his Reverence's eye.

"You seem to know a good deal about flowers, Mary; I can't even follow your descriptions. I try my best with the carrots and onions. You must acknowledge you have vegetables."

"Oh, vegetables!" I cried with a tone of contempt.

"Yes, vegetables! You don't seem to despise them at dinner."

"No, but vegetables! Anyone can buy vegetables."

"Anyone can buy flowers, I suppose, if they have the money to spend."

"They can't buy the look of flowers in the garden," I argued; "that is what one wants; not a few cut things on the table."

"Well, I spend," began his Reverence, and then paused, and looked through a little drawer of his table that contained account-books.

An idea struck me. I waited eagerly for his next words.

"Let me see," continued his Reverence, running his eye down long rows of figures. "Ah! here is one of last year's bills for seeds, etc. Just on ten pounds, you see, and half of that certainly was for the flower garden. There were new rose trees."

"They are mostly dead. Griggs said it was the frost," I interpolated.

"And some azaleas, I remember."

"They don't flower."

"And bulbs."

"Oh! Griggs buried them with a vengeance."

"Well, anyway, five pounds at least was--"

"Was wasted, sir; that is what happened to that five pounds. Now, look here."

His Reverence looked.

"Give me that five pounds."

"That particular one?"

"Of course not. Five pounds, and I will see if I can't get some flowers into the garden. Five pounds! Why, my goodness, what a lot of things one ought to get with five pounds. Seeds are so cheap, sixpence a packet I have heard; and then one takes one's own seeds after the first year. Come, sir, five pounds down and every penny shall go on the garden."

"Dear me! but according to you five pounds is a great deal too much. I can't say that it has produced very fine results under Griggs's management; but at sixpence a packet!"

"No, sir, it is not too much really," I said gravely. "I shall have to buy a heap of things besides seeds, I expect. But you shall see what I will do with it. I want that garden to be full of flowers."

His Reverence looked out of the study window. It was a bleak, windy day towards the end of November. A few brown, unhappy-looking leaves still hung on the trees; but most of them, released at last, danced riotously across the small grass plot in front of the old red brick house, until they found a damp resting-place beneath the shrubbery. The border in front looked unutterably dreary with one or two clumps of frost-bitten dahlias and some scrubby little chrysanthemums.

"Full of flowers!" The eye of faith was needed indeed.

Part 3

"I don't mean before Christmas," I added, following his Reverence's eye. "But there are things that come out in the spring, you know, and perhaps they ought to be put in now. Is it a bargain?"

"Yes, Mary, it shall be a bargain. Here is the fiver. Don't waste it, but make the best of that garden. You had better consult old Griggs about bulbs and such-like. There ought to be some. I don't think the few snowdrops I saw can represent all I bought."

"They never came up. I know they didn't. I believe he planted them topsy-turvy. I suppose there is a right side up to bulbs, and if so, Griggs would certainly choose the wrong. It's his nature. Can't we get rid of him, sir? Isn't there any post besides that of gardener which he might fill?"

His Reverence will not always take my words of wisdom seriously.

"What, more posts! Why, he is clerk and grave-digger and bell-ringer! Would you like me to retire in his favour?"

"I am speaking seriously, Father. If anything is to be made of this garden it can't be done whilst that old idiot remains here."

"I fear he must remain here. I have inherited him. His position is as firm as mine."

"Not as gardener!"

"No; but he can't live on his other earnings. No, Mary, put your best foot foremost and make something of old Griggs and the garden and the five pounds. And now take this bulb catalogue. I have not had time to look it through, and perhaps it may not be too late to get some things in for the spring. But don't spend all the five pounds on bulbs," he shouted after me as I left the study.

And so I plunged into gardening, a very Ignoramus of the Ignorami, and what is herein set down will be written for the edification, instruction, warning and encouragement of others belonging to that somewhat large species.

* * * * *

I opened the bright-coloured catalogue. Oh! what fascination lurks in the pages of a bulb catalogue. The thick, highly-glazed leaves turn with a rich revelation on both sides. It scarcely needs the brilliant illustrations to lift the imagination into visions of gorgeous beauty. Parterres of amazing tulips, sheets of golden daffodils, groups of graceful, nodding narcissus, the heavy, sweet scent of hyacinths comes from that glorious bloom "excellent for pot culture"; and here in more quiet letters grow the early crocus--yellow, white, blue and mixed--and snowdrops. Ah! snowdrops, coming so early, bringing the promise of all the rich glory that is to follow. And scillas, aconites, chionodoxa or "Glory of the Snow"!

What were all those lovely, to me half unheard-of names that could be had for two shillings and sixpence, three shillings or four shillings and sixpence a hundred? They bloomed in February and March, they were hardy and throve in any soil. Oh! how they throve in the pages of that catalogue.

And anemones! My mind rushed to the joys of the Riviera, revealed in occasional wooden boxes, mostly smashed, sent by friends from that land of sunshine, and whose contents, when revived, spoke of a wealth of colour forever to be associated with the name of anemone. To grow them myself, rapture! "Plant in October or November." It was still November; they must be ordered at once, "double," "mixed," "single," "fulgens"; they were "dazzling," "effective," "brilliant," and began to flower in March.

I was plunged into a happy dream of month succeeding month, bringing each with it its own glory of radiant bloom, very much after the manner of Walter Crane's picture-books. Life was going to be well worth living.

So now to make my first list and secure all this treasure for the coming beautiful flower-laden year.

I made a list; and then, mindful of the limited nature of even five pounds and all that would be required of it, I made up a long row of figures. This gave me an ugly jar.

Flowers should be given freely and graciously, not bought and sold, to everyone by everyone for the promotion of beauty and happiness upon earth. Any good Government should see to this. But present arrangements being so defective, I had to remodel my list considerably. I cheered up with the thought, however, that bulbs were not annuals, but on their own account, so I had heard, grew and multiplied quietly in the earth.

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