Part 5

These immense buttresses on the meadow side come down to a walled terrace; their foundations doubtless far below the visible base. The terrace level is some twelve feet above the grassy space below. The grass then slopes easily away for a distance of a few hundred feet to the alluvial flat of the actual meadow-land.

Large fig-trees grow at the foot of the wall, rising a few feet above the parapet of the terrace, from which the fruit is conveniently gathered.

It is in the deep, well-sheltered bays between the feet of the giant buttresses that the most interesting of the modern flower gardening at Berkeley is done.

White Lilies grow like weeds in the rich red loam, and there are fine groups of many of the best hardy plants and shrubby things, gathered together and well placed by the late Georgina Lady Fitzhardinge, a true lover of good flowers and a woman of sound instinct and well-balanced taste respecting things beautiful both indoors and out.

The chief relic of the older gardening at Berkeley is the remains of the yew hedge that inclosed the bowling-green on three sides; the fourth side having for its boundary the high retaining wall that supports the entrance road beyond the outer gate. The yews, still clipped into bold rounded forms, may have formed a trim hedge in Tudor days, and the level space of turf, which is reached from the terrace by a flight of downward steps that passes under an arch of the old yews, lies cool and sheltered from the westering sun by the stout bulwark of their ancient shade.

The yew arch in the picture shows where the terrace level descends to the bowling-green. The great buttresses of the main castle wall are behind the spectator. A bowery Clematis is in full bloom over the steps

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

MR. ALBERT WRIGHT]

to the shorter terrace above, and near it, on the lower level, is one of the great pear-trees that have been trained upon the wall, and that, with others on the keep above, brighten up the grim old building in spring-time. Campanula pyramidalis has been sown in chinks on the inner side of the low parapet, and the picture shows how handsomely they have grown, supported only by the slight nutriment they could find among the stones. But, like so many of the Bell-flowers, it delights in growing between the stones of a wall. It should be remembered how well this fine plant will succeed in such a place, as well as for general garden use. It is so commonly grown as a pot-plant for autumn indoor decoration that its other uses would seem to be generally overlooked.

SUMMER FLOWERS

The end of June and beginning of July--when the days are hot and long, and the earth is warm, and our summer flowers are in fullest mass and beauty--what a time of gladness it is, and of that full and thankful delight that is the sure reward for the labour and careful thoughtfulness of the last autumn and winter, and of the present earlier year!

The gardens where this reward comes in fullest measure are perhaps those modest ones of small compass where the owner is the only gardener, at any rate as far as the flowering plants are concerned; where he thinks out good schemes of plant companionship; of suitable masses of form and stature; of lovely colour-combination; where, after the day’s work, comes the leisurely stroll, when every flower greets and is greeted as a close friend, and all make willing offering of what they have of scent and loveliness in grateful return for the past loving labour.

This is the high tide time of the summer flowers. It may be a week or two earlier or later according to the district, for our small islands have climatic diversities such as can only be matched within the greater part of the whole area of middle Europe, though inclining to a temperate average. For the Myrtle of the Mediterranean is quite hardy in the South and South-West, and Ivy and Gorse, neither of which is hardy in North and Middle Germany, are, with but few exceptions, at home everywhere. Given, therefore, a moderately good soil, fair shelter and a true love of flowers, there will be such goodly masses as those shown in the pictures.

Advisedly is the word “true” lover of flowers used, for it is now fashionable to like flowers, and much of it is pretence only. The test is to ascertain whether the person professing devotion to a garden works in

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

MR. GEORGE C. BOMPAS]

it personally, or in any way likes it well enough to take a great deal of trouble about it. To those who know, the garden speaks of itself, for it clearly reflects individual thought and influence; and it is in these lesser gardens that, with rare and happy exceptions, the watchful care and happy invention of the beneficent individuality stamps itself upon the place.

There is nothing more interesting to one of these ardent and honest workers than to see the garden of another. Plants that had hitherto been neglected or overlooked are seen used in ways that had never been thought of, and here will be found new combinations of colour that had never been attempted, and methods of use and treatment differing in some manner to those that had been seen before.

There is nothing like the true gardening for training the eye and mind to the habit of close observation; that precious acquirement that invests every country object both within and without the garden’s bounds with a living interest, and that insensibly builds up that bulk of mentally noted incident or circumstance that, taken in and garnered by that wonderful storehouse the brain, seems there to sort itself, to distribute, to arrange, to classify, to reduce into order, in such a way as to increase the knowledge of something of which there was at first only a mental glimpse; so to build up in orderly structure a well-founded knowledge of many of those things of every-day out-door life that adds so greatly to its present enjoyment and later usefulness.

So it comes about that some of us gardeners, searching for ways of best displaying our flowers, have observed that whereas it is best, as a general rule, to mass the warm colours (reds and yellows) rather together, so it is best to treat the blues with contrasts, either of direct complementary colour, or at any rate with some kind of yellow, or with clear white. So that whereas it would be less pleasing to put scarlet flowers directly against bright blue, and whereas flowers of purple colouring can be otherwise much more suitably treated, the juxtaposition of the splendid blues of the perennial Larkspurs with the rich colour of the orange Herring Lily (Lilium croceum) is a bold and grand assortment of colour of the most satisfactory effect.

This fine Lily is one of those easiest to grow in most gardens. The true flower-lovers, as defined above, take the trouble to find out which are the Lilies that will suit their particular grounds; for it is generally understood that the soil and conditions of any one garden are not likely to suit a large number of different kinds of these delightful plants. Four or five successful kinds are about the average, and the owner is lucky if the superb White Lily is among them. But Lilies are so beautiful, so full of character, so important among other flowers or in places almost by themselves, that, when it is known which are the right ones to grow, those kinds should be well and rather largely used.

The garden in which these fine groups were painted has a good loamy soil, such as, with good gardening, grows most hardy flowers well, and therefore the grand White Lily also thrives. A few of the Lilies like peat, such as the great Auratum, and the two lovely pink ones, Krameri and Rubellum. But the garden of strong loam should never be without the White Lily, the Orange Lily, and the Tiger Lily, an autumn flower that seems to accommodate itself to any soil. The Orange Lilies are grandly grown by the Dutch nurserymen in many varieties, under the names bulbiferum, croceum, and davuricum, and their price is so moderate that it is no extravagance to buy them in fair quantity.

Flowers of pure scarlet colour are so little common among hardy perennials that it seems a pity that the brilliant Lilium chalcedonicum of Greece, Palestine, and Asia Minor, and its ally L. pomponium, the Scarlet Martagon of Northern Italy, should be so seldom seen in gardens. They are some of the most easily grown, and are not dear to buy. Another Lily that should not be forgotten and is easy to grow in strong soils is the old Purple Martagon; not a bright-coloured flower, but so old a plant of English gardens that in some places it has escaped into the woods. The white variety is very beautiful, the colour an ivory white, and the flower of a waxy texture. They are the Imperial Martagon, or Great Mountain Lily of the old writers; the scarlet pomponium, of the same shaped flower, was their Martagon Pompony. The name “pompony,” no doubt, came from the tightly rolled-back petals giving the flower something of the look of the flattened melons of the Cantaloupe kind, with their deep longitudinal furrows; the old name of these being “Pompion.” Another name for this Lily was the Red Martagon of Constantinople. It is so named by that charming old writer Parkinson, who gives evidence of its

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

MR. HERBERT D. TURNER]

popularity and former frequency in gardens in these words: “The Red Martagon of Constantinople is become so common everywhere, and so well known to all lovers of these delights, that I shal seem unto them to lose time, to bestow many lines upon it; yet because it is so fair a flower, and was at the first so highly esteemed, it deserveth his place and commendations, howsoever increasing the plenty hath not made it dainty.”

One more of the Lilies, indispensable for loveliness, should be grown wherever it is found possible. This is the Nankeen Lily (L. testaceum). It is a flower as mysterious as it is beautiful. It is not found wild, and is considered to be a hybrid between the White Lily and the Scarlet Martagon. Whether it occurred naturally, or whether it was the deliberate work of some unknown benefactor to horticulture, will now never be known; we can only be thankful that by some happy agency we have this Lily of mixed parentage, one of the most beautiful in cultivation. The name Nankeen Lily nearly, but not exactly, describes its colour, for a suspicion of pinkish warmth is added to the tender buff-colour usually so named.

Many other Lilies may be grown in different gardens, but the tenderer kinds from Eastern Asia are not for the hardy flower-border, and the vigorous American species have not yet been with us long enough to be familiar as flowers of old English gardens.