Part 30

"Three times in the long border Japanese anemones, mixed white and terra cotta, mark noble periods in the great curve of colour; and at corresponding intervals, as you walk round, your eye catches the beautiful response, set further forward, of clumps of chrysanthemums, lemon yellow and Indian red, tiny flowers, no doubt, 'for chrysanthemums', but sweetly pretty in their profusion and artless growth. Is that enough? Well, then, for more. There are the snapdragons in every shade of snapdragon colour, and geums now making second displays of flower, and penstemons; and salvias shaded in butterfly-blue, and Iceland poppies, and the round lavender balls--like the spiked horrors which genial Crusaders wore at the end of chains for the thumping of Saracens and similar heathens--which the Blessed Thistle bears.

"Can you see this October garden at all?"

In Garden, Orchard and Spinney, by Phil Robinson.

Indeed, that must look something like a garden border; and after all, friend Ignoramus, it is not totally out of your reach. Even with my disadvantages some of those glories can be mine.

The sunflowers, of course, I had, and though rather roughly staked by my old enemy, yet their golden heads were there, and by diligent decapitation they continued until I "did up" the border. The dahlias did fairly, and some of the poor little water-starved annuals picked up a little and gave patches of colour, notably the marigolds. The Michaelmas daisy--which is here called "perennial aster"--gave but little bloom; all my bushy perennial plants will be better next year. The golden rod, that old inhabitant, was fine and useful even this first September. It kept the big jar in the drawing-room going with dahlias and sunflowers, but the day came all too soon when even these gave out, and then I fell back on Dame Nature and plundered her hedgerows. Such leaves, such yellows and reds, and berries, black, red and green, never was a bunch more beautiful than that provided by the country lanes; and if only a garden would go wild in such a fashion I should leave it to itself. But that is the trouble. When once civilisation has laid her hand on flower or savage there is no going back; one must progress, the primitive conditions are lost for ever. Unless the new ideal be lived up to, the latter state is worse than the first.

* * * * *

I had been collecting ideas as well as had experience during the summer months, and some of the ideas were greatly augmented by a Visitor who came into the garden during the month of October. He had had varied experiences during the years, not so many either, of his pilgrimage, and after having claimed America, Australia, India as his fields of action, and ranching, mining, pearl-fishing, architecture and the stock exchange as some of his employments, I was not surprised to find he had also made a thorough study of the art of Gardening; in fact, had thought of landscape gardening as a profession.

His Reverence had said, "Get him to give you some advice; he knows all about it."

So I sought this fount of knowledge.

My garden looked indeed a poor thing seen through his eyes.

He stood taking in the general effect.

"Hump!--ha!--yes!--you ought to have all that cleared away," waving a hand towards a shrubbery which indeed looked as though it needed judicious pruning; "it is in the wrong place, and it would add considerably to the size of the lawn if it were done away with. And that path, you notice the fatal curve. Why in the name of Reason make a curve when a straight line leads quicker between two places? Curves and circles are an abomination in a garden. Don't you see it?"

"Oh, quite, but I didn't make that path."

"No, but why tolerate it? I can assure you I could not live with that silly crooked line waving itself aside like a fanciful damsel. Pah! Get that altered for one thing, and then, don't have it gravelled. Between grass, what can look so staring and hideous as that patch of yellow? Not that yours is very yellow, been down some time, eh? Buy some old slabs of slate, quite easy to get. Go round to the old churches; you are sure to find some Philistine parson removing the old slate leading through the churchyard and putting down hideous, gritty gravel! You can benefit by his crass stupidity. And then--ah, yes--don't have wire fencing between the garden and that field. Prettily-laid-out field that is, too. I congratulate you on that clump of trees. Very nice! yes, very nice But that aggressive railing paling thing! Away with it! and have a sunk fence if you need anything."

"Sheep are sometimes put in that field," I said timidly, for I felt, in spite of that clump of trees, that I was responsible for a great deal of fearful ignorance.

"Oh, well, a sunk fence will keep them out. Now let us walk on a bit. Dear, dear, how those two round beds hurt one! Remind one of bulls'-eyes, don't they? You must not have round beds, have them in squares; two oblongs would fit in better there. But let me see, ah, yes, that would be better. Now look here. Take away that hedge"--he pointed to the holly hedge dividing the lawn from the kitchen garden--"right away; make there a good border, that will give you the colour, and you can do away with those beds."

"But the kitchen garden!"

"Don't you like the look of a kitchen garden? Nothing more beautiful. Border everything with flowers, and think what a vista you have from your window."

"Oh, I know. I want an opening somewhere."

"An opening! You want it open, not boxed in like this. The intention of hedges was to shut out the roads or one's prying neighbours. You have neither. For goodness' sake give yourself room. What is there so attractive in that prickly hedge? But if you want a division, if you must keep the vulgar vegetables in their place, why, put up a pergola!"

"Oh!" I exclaimed. Pergola somehow suggested fairy-land, or Italian lakes at the least.

"Yes, pergola. Now just see it. Beautiful green lawn. By the way, you must have this re-turfed, it is quite hopeless; good grass leading straight down to that hedge, no pathway between," and he shuddered. "Do away with the prickly hedge, have a border of bright flowers taking its place; behind that a pergola of roses, through which you get vistas of all the good sprouting green things, and clumps of flowers, hedges of sweet-peas, banks of poppies, and everything bright and beautiful, with suggestions of gooseberry bushes and strawberry beds, and feathery carrots and waving asparagus. Now, how does that sound?"

"Delightful," I replied, sinking on a garden seat with a most doleful sigh, and looking from that picture to the one that lay before me.

"Ah, yes," following my eye, "and don't forget that path; straight, mind you, and slates. There is something about a wet slate bordered with grass that gives you sensations of coolness and repose that really consoles you for the rain. You try it! Now, I daresay I could suggest a good many more things that need doing, but I suppose you won't manage more this autumn."

"It is very kind of you," I began.

"Oh, not at all, not at all. I assure you it is a great pleasure to suggest improvements. Now here you have a little garden, nothing much about it, you may say, but at once I see what can be made of it. My mind is full of the higher vision, until really sometimes it is a shock to me to come back to real earth, as it were, and find how far it is from the ideal."

"Yes, I should think so," I murmured.

"Of course that is what is needed for landscape gardening, to which I gave special attention at one time. Flowers I have not yet taken up; but shrubs! ah, well, I think I won't begin on shrubs, for I have to catch that train."