Part 19

In this favoured land the common Laurel is a beautiful tree, thirty feet high; the mildness of the winter climate allowing it to grow unchecked. Only those who have seen it in tree form in the best climates of our islands, or in Southern Europe, know the true nature of the Laurel’s growth, or the poetry and mystery of its moods and aspects. The long grey limbs shoot upward and bend and arch in a manner almost fantastic. Sometimes a stem will incline downwards and run along the ground, followed by another. In the evening half-light they might be giant silver-scaled serpents, writhing and twisting and then springing aloft and becoming lost to sight in the dim masses of the crowning foliage. Seen thus one can hardly reconcile its identity with that of the poor, tamed, often-clipped bush of every garden. The Laurel is so docile, so easily coerced to the making of a quickly-grown hedge or useful screen, that its better qualities as an unmutilated tree in a mild district are usually lost sight of.

The house at Abbey Leix is a stone building of classical design of the middle of the eighteenth century. On the northern front is the entrance

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

SIR JAMES WHITEHEAD, BART.]

forecourt; on the southern, the garden. Here, next the house, is a wide terrace, bounded on the outer side by the parapet of a retaining wall, and next the building, by a running guilloche of box-edged beds filled with low-growing plants. The terrace has a semi-circular ending, near the eastern wall of the house, formed of an evergreen hedge, with a wooden seat following the same line, and a sundial at the radial point. At the other end, the terrace ends in a flight of downward steps leading to large green spaces, with fine trees and flowering shrubs, and eventually to the walled gardens. Straight across the terrace from the house is the parterre, whose centre ornament is an unusually well-proportioned fountain of the same date as the house. It is circular in plan, with a wide lower basin and two graduated superimposed tazzas. From this, four cross-paths radiate; the quarters are filled mainly with half-hardy flowers such as Gladiolus; the design being accentuated at several points by the upright growing Florence Court Yews. The parterre is inclosed by a low wall, backed by a clipped evergreen hedge; on the wall stand at intervals graceful stone figures of amorini, identical in character with those shown in the picture of Phlox and Daisy, and apparently designed by the same hand.

The steps at the western end of the terrace are wide and handsome, and are also ornamented with sculptured amorini. The path leads onward, at first directly forward, but a little later in a curved line through a region of lawn and stream, with trees and groups of flowering shrubs. Here and there, on the grass by itself, is one of the free-growing Roses, rightly left without any support, and showing the natural fountain-like growth that so well displays the beauty of many of the Roses of the old Ayrshire class and of some of the more modern ramblers. The path passes one end of an avenue of large trees, and, after a while, turning to the left, reaches the kitchen gardens, consisting of several walled inclosures. One of these, of which one wall is occupied by vineries, has been made into a flower garden, where hardy flowers, grandly grown, are in the wide borders next the wall. A portion of such borders, in an adjoining compartment of the garden, forms the subject of the picture.

The inner space is divided into two squares, one having as a centre a rustic summer-house almost hidden by climbing plants; from this radiating grass paths pass between beds of flowers. The outer borders in the next walled compartment are ten feet wide, and are finely filled with all the best summer plants, perennial, annual and biennial. The fine pale yellow Anthemis tinctoria is here grown in the way this good plant deserves, and its many companions, Hollyhocks, Delphiniums, Japan Anemones, Phloxes and Lavender; annual Chrysanthemums, Gladiolus, Carnations, Tritomas, and all such good things, are cleverly and worthily used, and, with the graceful arches of free Roses and white Everlasting Pea, make delightful garden pictures in all directions.

The garden of Abbey Leix is one of those places that so pleasantly shows the well-directed intention of one who is in close sympathy with garden beauty; for everywhere it reflects the fine horticultural taste and knowledge of Lady de Vesci, who made the garden what it is.

MICHAELMAS DAISIES

Early in September, when the autumn flowers are at their finest, some of the Starworts are in bloom. Even in August they have already begun, with the beautiful low-growing Aster acris, one of the brightest of flowers of lilac or pale purple colouring. From the time this pretty plant is in bloom to near the end of October, and even later, there is a constant succession of these welcome Michaelmas Daisies. The number of kinds good for garden use is now so great that the growers’ plant lists are only bewildering, and those who do not know their Daisies should see them in some good nursery or private garden and make their own notes. As in the case of Phloxes, the improvement in the garden kinds is of recent years, for I can remember the time when it was a rare thing to see in a garden any other Michaelmas Daisy than a very poor form of Novi-Belgii, a plant of such mean quality that, if it came up as a seedling in our gardens to-day, it would be sent at once to the rubbish heap.

When the learner begins to acquire a Daisy-eye he will see what a large proportion of the garden kinds are related to this same Novi-Belgii, the Starwort of New England. The greater number of the garden varieties are derived from North American species, but they hybridise so freely that it is now impossible to group the garden plants with any degree of botanical accuracy. But the amateur may well be content with a generally useful garden classification, and he will probably learn to know his Novi-Belgii first. Then he will come to those Novi-Belgii that are from the species lævis, rather wider and brighter green of leaf and only half the height. Then, once known, he cannot mistake Novæ-Angliæ, with its hairy and slightly viscid stem and foliage, and strong smell, and its two distinct colourings--rich purples and reddish pinks. Then again, if he observes his plants in early summer, he can never mistake the heart-shaped root-leaves of cordifolius for any other. This is one of the most beautiful of the mid-season Starworts, with its myriads of small flowers gracefully disposed on the large spreading panicles. Of this the best known and most useful are A. cordifolius elegans and a paler-coloured and most dainty variety called Diana.

Once seen he can never forget the low-growing early A. acris or the good garden varieties of A. Amellus, both from European species. Several other kinds, both tall and short, early and late, will be added to those named, but these may be taken as perhaps the best to begin with.

Where space can be given, it is well to set apart a separate border for these fine plants alone. This is done in the garden where Mr. Elgood found his subject. Here the Starworts occupy a double border about eight feet wide and eighty feet long. They are carefully but not conspicuously staked with stiff, branching spray cut out the winter before from oaks and chestnuts that had been felled. The spray is put in towards the end of June, when the Asters are making strong growth. The borders are planted and regulated with the two-fold aim of both form and colour beauty. In some places rather tall kinds come forward; in the case of some of the most graceful, such as cordifolius Diana, the growths being rather separated to show the pretty form of the individual branch. In others it was thought that their best use was as a flowery mass. Each kind is treated at the time of staking according to its own character, and so as best to display its natural form and most obvious use. Like all the best flower gardening it is the painting of a picture with living plants, but, unlike painting, it is done when the palette is empty of its colours. Still the good garden-planter who has intimate acquaintance and keen sympathy with his plants, can plant by knowledge and faith; by knowledge in his certainty of recollection of the habit and stature and colour of his plants; by faith in that he knows that if he does his part well the growing thing will be docile to his sure guidance.

In these borders of Michaelmas Daisies one other flowering plant is

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

MR. T. NORTON LONGMAN]

admitted, and well deserves its place, namely, that fine white Daisy Pyrethrum uliginosum, otherwise Chrysanthemum serotinum. There can be no doubt that it is a daisy flower and that it blooms at Michaelmas; facts that alone would give it a right to a place among the Michaelmas Daisies. But it has all the more claim to its place among them in that it is the handsomest of the large white Daisies, and, though there are white kinds and varieties of the perennial Asters, not one of them can approach it for size or pictorial effect. There is also the still taller Chrysanthemum leucanthemum or Leucanthemum lacustre, but this is a plant that has an element of coarseness, and unless the spaces are large, and the Asters are thrown up to an unusual size by a strong and rich soil, it looks heavy and out of proportion.

Towards the front of the main portions of the Aster borders are rather bold, but quite informal edgings of grey-leaved plants such as white Pink, Stachys and Lavender-cotton; in places only a few inches wide, as where the rich purple, gold-eyed Aster Amellus comes to within a few inches of the path, in the white Pink’s region, or again, where the grey, bushy masses of Lavender-cotton run in a yard deep among the Daisies.

About fifteen sorts are used in this double border; very early and very late ones are excluded, so as to have a good display from the third week of September for a month onward. They are mostly in rather large groups of one kind together.

There is a more than usual pleasure in such a Daisy garden, kept apart and by itself; because the time of its best beauty is just the time when the rest of the garden is looking tired and overworn--evidently dying for the year. Some trees are already becoming bare of leaves; the tall sunflowers look bedraggled; Dahlias have been pinched by frost and battered by autumn gales, and it is impossible to keep up any pretence of well-being in the borders of other hardy flowers.

Then with the eye full of the warm colouring of dying vegetation and the few remaining blooms of perennial Helianthus and half-hardy marigolds of the fading borders, to pass through some screening evergreens to the fresh, clean, lively colouring of the lilac, purple and white Daisies, is like a sudden change from decrepit age to the brightness of youth, from the gloom of late autumn to the joy of full springtide.

Another excellent way of growing the perennial Asters is among shrubs, and preferably among Rhododendrons, whose rich green forms a fine background for their tender grace, and whose stiff branches give them the support they need.

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

MRS. CAMPBELL]

ARLEY

Throughout the length and breadth of England it would be hard to find borders of hardy flowers handsomer or in any way better done than those at Arley in Cheshire. The house, an old one, was much enlarged by the late Mr. R. E. Egerton-Warburton, and the making of the gardens, now come to their young maturity, was the happy work of many years of his life. Here we see the spirit of the old Italian gardening, in no way slavishly imitated, but wholesomely assimilated and sanely interpreted to fit the needs of the best kind of English garden of the formal type, as to its general plan and structure. It is easy to see in the picture how happily mated are formality and freedom; the former in the garden’s comfortable walls of living greenery with their own appropriate ornaments, and the latter in the grandly grown borders of hardy flowers.

The subject of the picture is the main feature in the garden plan. A path some fifteen feet wide, with grassy verges of ample width, and deep borders of hardy flowers. What is shown is about one fourth of the whole length. At the back of the right-hand border is the high old wall of the kitchen garden; on the left, as grand a wall of yew, ten feet high and five feet thick, its straight line pleasantly broken and varied by shaped buttresses of clipped yew, whose forms take that distinct light and shade, and strong variations of solidity of green colouring, that make the surfaces of our clipped English yew so valuable a ground-work for masses of brilliant flowers.

The same yew buttresses are against the wall on the right, placed symmetrically with the ones opposite. Near the end, as shown in the picture, the last pair of buttresses come forward the whole width of the border, each buttress ending in an important shaped finial to the front. Between these and the well-designed alcove in stone masonry that so satisfactorily ends the walk, is a space of turf, leading on the left, through an arch cut in the ten-foot-high yew hedge, to the bowling-green. Nothing can make a more effective shelter than such grand yew hedges; the solid wall itself is scarcely better. Even on the roughest days, with a storm of wind of destructive power outside, the space within is calm and sheltered, and the flowers escape that cruel battering from fierce blasts that add so much to the difficulty of gardening in exposed places. But the planting and thus providing this much-needed shelter is just good gardening, and when, in addition, it is done to a design of happy invention and true proportion, with just such refinements of detail and ornament as are suited to the garden’s calibre and the owner’s endowment, then, with the addition of splendid masses of good flowers grandly grown, do we find gardening at its best.