Part 29

And so, hoping all things for my garden, I went to pay visits to other people's gardens.

One grand garden filled me with anything but envy. It was so terribly trim, such rows of variegated geraniums, big calceolarias, featherfew and lobelia. I determined never to treat any bed or border to edgings; to mass even lobelia together and only break it with taller plants, such as geraniums, of the pure good colours quite possible I found, or salvias or fuchsias. Here was line after line, pattern after pattern; surely they were the "goodly sights" Bacon had seen in tarts!

Grand beds of coleus and begonias there were, but these were beyond me, savouring too much of the greenhouse, and all the flowers in the rooms spoke of gardeners and hot-houses.

"I don't think my gardener cares much for herbaceous things," said my hostess. "What flowers do live out of doors? in this climate, I mean."

And I found out that a greenhouse gardener very seldom does care for herbaceous things.

But another smaller garden made me envious. How the plants grew in that blessed soil, with a little river meandering through. No difficulty about water, and that was half the difficulty of flower cultivation overcome.

I knew at once that all I wanted for perfect contentment was one small stream and one small conservatory, then things should march; but I suppose even that highly-blessed woman had a "but" in her lot.

Gardeners are so good to one another. I long for the day when I too shall say, "Oh, I will send you some of that, wait until the autumn," and "You care for this? I can spare some." They must feel they are really doing so much good in the world.

It was a proud moment when one said, "If you have Canterbury-bells to spare, send me some; mine have failed me, they are wretched specimens, and will never do any good."

And mine were sturdy; I knew that.

Old Lovell was another of my customers. He was to have some sweet-Williams and some foxgloves, and I was to have two clumps of Turk's head in exchange, and some of the many young plants surrounding his big clump of that June joy, rosy red valerian. From my other friends I had promises of many good things; the small perennial sunflower, soleil d'or, some nice Michaelmas daisies, the useful pink and white Japanese anemone, a yellow lupin and some of the white variety. More delphiniums, too, I accepted with thankfulness, and I felt my garden growing and growing as the kind promises flowed in.

* * * * *

So back to my own garden with eyes terribly open to its deficiencies, "a poor thing, but mine own," at least, "mine own" for a time, and certainly "mine own" to improve; therefore the deficiencies were not to appal me, though they were still the most striking feature of my garden. The yellow beds still flared, the antirrhinums still marched, and, perhaps most consoling of all, the little plants for next year, and those for always, were well and thriving. The summer had not passed in vain as far as they were concerned. No, nor passed in vain even where it only chronicled failures, for Ignoramuses must take their share of these too, as a necessary part of their education; and how the spring and summer had opened my eyes!

The red ash berries strewed the ground; the birds saw to that, finding pleasure in breaking them off with a knowing jerk of the head and not a bit from hunger; the convolvulus, nasturtium and canariensis were flinging themselves in wild confusion; there was a kind of riot even among the flowers and weeds in the long border. A few roses, especially the good old "Gloire," were giving a little after-show, but a touch of finality had come to my garden, and when a hush passed over it, broken only by an early falling leaf, I knew autumn had come, and I scarcely paused to say good-bye to my first summer's gardening, so eager was I for all that autumn meant in the way of work for the future.

* * * * *

SEASON IV

Autumn

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

So said George Eliot, and with all due reverence for her opinion, my soul would fly in the opposite direction, seeking the spring. If the autumn led straight on to spring I could love it more, but through its stillness I hear the winter blast; its gorgeous colouring scarce hides the baring boughs; day by day death lays a withering hand on flower and tree; day by day the sun runs quicker to its golden resting-place. Have you ever noticed how great a difference there is between the sun's summer and winter march across the heavens? Note the tree behind which he sinks in June and then again in November. A whole third of the heavens separates the two; and what does that not mean to us of lack in light and warmth? "Ah! would that the year were always May." And yet there are days, such days of perfect beauty that the year could never spare them. They come in early autumn, and it is as though a recording angel passed, so sweet, so solemn is the hush, the pause, with which Nature holds her breath and listens as she lays open her store of harvest to the "Well done" of the voiceless blessing.

And then, the blessed rest-day over, she turns about. "To work!" seems to be the order. "Away with these old flowers! No more need for pod-making; wither up the annuals, cut down the perennials, stop those busy youngsters and their growing process for a bit, shake off the leaves, they will come in useful later on, but pile them up now and let the children scuttle through them with happy feet, and have a good clear-out before you go to sleep and wake up again in the springtime--'the merry, merry springtime.' Away, you birds, and look out for yourselves those of you who stay; get your nests ready and your stores safely housed, my small friends of fur and feather, for my work is now to purge and to winnow, to try and to test, and woe betide the weaklings!" So the wind, Dame Nature's mighty broom-maiden, prepares her best besom, and there is soon a thorough good house-cleaning, to the great discomfort of the inhabitants.

Well, we have to put up with it; and the best plan is to do a little of the same work on one's own account, that so, being in harmony with Nature, one's temper is less sorely tried.

* * * * *

There is enough to be done.

I hardly consider September an autumn month, but the calendar does, so I will mention first one bit of work well worth doing. Sow a good long row of sweet-peas. Make a shallow trench and prepare it as was done in the spring, and before Nature stops all growth above ground you will have a lusty row of little plants five to six inches high. These I should stake before the winter, as a means of protection from frost and snow; and next year, a month earlier than most of your friends, you will have sweet-peas of a height, a size and profusion to make them all envious. And that is, of course, a consummation most devoutly to be wished.

Some people's autumn borders are things of great joy and beauty. Looking on the Master's profusion, I felt like the Queen of Sheba, for I expect she thought her own house and grounds a very poor show when she got back to Sheba. But I did not, like that celebrated queen, turn and bless him unreservedly. I felt more like--much more like--abusing Griggs.

Let me tell you what an autumn border can be like; not in my own poor words, but as a master-hand painted a Master's garden, and, though not my Master's garden, the description fits.

"Against the deep green of the laurels, the rhododendron and box are sunflowers six feet high, lit up each of them with a score of blooms, and hollyhocks, taller still, are rosetted with deep claret flowers and mulberry and strange old pink. Between them bushes of cactus dahlias literally ablaze with scarlet. In front are standard roses, only crimson and damask, and now in October bright with their second bloom. Hiding their barren stems, compact and solid, an exquisite combination of green and purple, are perennial asters--a single spike of them, with its hundreds of little stars, makes a noble decoration in a room--and humbler, if more vivid, companies of tritonia. Here and again are old clumps of phlox, of fervent carmine or white starred with pink, and, to my mind, of singular beauty, the rudbeckias in brilliant clusters of chrome yellow.