Pages from a garden note-book

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CHAFTEB PAOS

I. Pages from a Garden Note-Book ... 1

II. Lilacs and Other Spring Flowers . . 27

II Lilacs And Other Spring Flowers

Then it was so cold I had no inclination to stay. Of ny Spring delights, lilacs, apple-trees in bloom and nightingales, the two last are over and the first going; ... for roses there was not even a white one on the 10th of June though they used to blow as religiously as the Glastonbury thorn.

-—Horace Walpole to the Countess of Upper Ossort, Strawberry Hill, June 13th, 1782.

II

LILACS AND OTHER SPRING -FLOWERS

/^FTEN I wonder whether names of places ^^ and of things speak to others as they do to me. Meaningless or poor names seem almost an affront, while beautiful or significant names start trains of thought leading in singularly pleasant directions. The names of Pullman cars are a curious study. Who named them.'^ Why are so many of these names foolish, almost to the point of imbecility? — almost as if letters had been shaken together in a box and drawn at random to constitute a word.

But there are exceptions, and one is the name of a car in which I lately travelled in Indiana, with **Middlebush" on its doors. "'Middlebush,'" said I on seeing it. "Here is something to think of" — landscape planting flashed into the mind on sight; the bush which may connect the taller and the lower shrubs in some planting small or large; the bush which might bloom in mid-season.

The Middlebush of our Michigan spring is undoubtedly the lilac or syringa. Early shrubs have lost their blossoms; the shadbush, the wild plum, Spircea arguta^ Forsythias are long since green again after their white and gold of earliest spring; and yet the great tribe of the mock oranges, the Philadelphus, is still to hang its whitening wreaths, still to breathe out upon the airs of evening that unmatched fragrance. Hydrangea arhorescens will follow these; then mid- June, and the procession of most of the familiar flowering shrubs is over.

Let us, translating Middlebush into lilac, consider one of the most fascinating of all subjects, the lilac in some of its species and varieties. I bring to this a mind over-enthusiastic perhaps, for in a modest way I am collecting. The first blooming of my young trees occurred last spring. The trees themselves were set out two years ago this last autumn, and last spring all but four or five of sixty varieties showed some flowers, while many of the little three-foot things were in themselves bouquets of loveliest color.

There is for me only one way in which adequately to set down my impressions of a particular flower or plant; that is, with that flower or plant before me. In May I rarely walk about even our small place without the pencil and the

LILACS AND SPRING FLOWERS

memorandum block; and the notes which follow were made in the very presence of the lovely things themselves. If these comments seem extravagant, the excuse is the overwhelming beauty of the flowers, and that excitement which the gardener always feels when confronted for the first time with something as fine as it is new to him. Let me name some few of these lilacs, and add a word or two concerning each. For better descriptions I would send you to what Professor Sargent, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Havemeyer, Mr. Dunbar, and Mr. Barry have written upon these flowers. I have not compared my notes with theirs, nor did I consult theirs before making these, as I wished to be quite unprejudiced in my comments. The earliest of all to bloom was Syringa Giraldii; delicate pinkish, a very open cluster, graceful, and free flowering. Marechal Lannes carried immense bluish-mauve flowerets, the thyrsus not very large but most effective for the size and color of its flowerets; exceedingly handsome. Mme. Antoine Buchner is a very distinct flower; buds of a faded pink, flowers of pinkish-white, slightly double. The flower clusters here were rather open and branching; this is a lilac of great slendemess and elegance.

Pasteur has superb blooms of rich reddish purple. Its thyrses are tall and open, with large single flowerets. Coerulea superba has small but full clusters, rather bluish in tone. This variety is particularly free-flowering with loose branches, a great beauty. The bloom of Danton is of a very fine, clear, deep red-purple, with a large floweret. President Fallieres is one of the loveliest, a charming semi-double pinkish bloom. Loose clusters of flowers came in tremendous numbers upon this three-foot specimen the first year after planting. Claude Bernard, with its palest lavender-pink flowers, is also very free-blooming. President Poincare has enchanting bluish flowers, double, with reddish-purple buds, buds and flowers an interesting contrast in color. Vestale is marked by many spikes of single white bloom on terminal branchlets. There is a special charm for me in Rene Jarry-Desloges, whose palest bluish-lavender flower, double, has a delicacy all its own. Thunberg is lovely because of its deep-red buds all the way up the thyrsus of pink-lavender bloom. This gives a remarkable richness to the clustering flowers, which appear in four steeples, as one might say, to each cluster.

Syringa Diderot, though moved in autumn, has

LILACS AND SPRING FLOWERS

borne a cluster of flowers at every terminal point; in its first time of blooming, however, the flowers were not remarkable, reminding one only of the common lilac. Lamartine had a faint blooming — so did Miss Ellen Willmott — enough to show that here is a treasure in white lilacs. Small double flowerets appeared on this lilac last year, greenish or creamy, and very round buds. Mirabeau also gave one breath in flowers and expired; but I was too late in examining this to describe it.

Syringa Milton's flowers are of a dull, rich lavender; a small floweret, but very fine in color. Marechal Lannes is a very full double, and of a good bluish-lavender. The fine loose and twisting petals of each floweret give a beautiful effect to the cluster of bloom, an effect of softness not always present in lilacs. Pasteur's distinguished habit of bloom sets it apart. The tall, upright thyrses of mauve flowers are set in sprays of large dark-green leaves. The play of light and shade upon the mauve and green is one of those special spring delights upon which the possessor of this lilac may almost surely count.

Cavour has the most unbelievable number of seven pinnacles of flowers to each thyrsus — large flowerets at that — in each cluster. And for the

S3 brilliance of this lilac in sun I have no adequate words. As for the species lilacs, S, pubescens, which when grown is like a tree of pale heliotrope, with a delicate fragrance unlike that of any lilac ever known; S. villosa^ with its loose pale-pink flowers (never shall I forget my first sight of this, cut with the pale-pearly Iris florentina or iris Storm King) ; and S. macrostachya, one of the most enchanting of all, very pinkish — one has to see these in order to realize their beauty. Here I mention only three, but there are many others; and the collecting and comparing of such subjects is well worth the endeavor of many years of a gardener's life. It happens that my lilacs are placed only four feet apart in the rows where they stand; and I am now in that painful condition of mind of wishing I could in some way keep them back; for such rounds of bloom, such fascinating little flower-covered shrubs, there can hardly be in any other genus.

I remember a suggestive sentence of Professor Sargent's: "The person who first arranges a fine border of the newer shrubs with regard to color and succession of bloom, will have done a great thing for horticulture in America." How simple this would be in lilacs, if one only lived near the great Arboretum, or that amazingly fine collection

LILACS AND SPRING FLOWERS

at Highland Park in Rochester, and could watch their leafy, flowery progress through the months, make notes, have a trial ground of one's own sufficiently large, and — most important of all — start the work when young.

So strong is habit, especially habit of mind, that, seeing these lilacs of our own, many in bloom at once, set out without regard to anything but the few feet of space allotted to each, it was impossible not to think of them as sometime or somewhere properly planted; planted with a view to contrast of color, to contrast of form, to harmony in hues, and especially to see them blooming above other spring flowers, whose beauty should only accentuate their own.

The pinkish group in these lilacs, for those who prefer this color, is President Fallieres, Montaigne, Frau Antoine Buchner (Buchner in Ridgway is "pale rose purple"); a group of deepest mauve flowers, Danton, President Poincare, Marechal Lannes, Marceau, and Milton. The contrast in size of floret between those of Ccerulea and Emile Gentil is astonishing. For strong contrast in color I suggest using these pairs together: Thunberg, Marechal Lannes; Jarry-Desloges, Danton; Marceau, macrostachya; Diderot, Jarry-

Desloges; Fallieres, Gen til; Montaigne, Dan ton; Coerulea, Gilbert, and macrostachya. The bluest of my little collection are Ccerulea superba, Gilbert, Emile Gentil, and R. Jarry-Desloges.

Most of these lilacs are still costly, anywhere from $2.50 to $5.00 each. These suggestions are made that those who covet this beauty for themselves can get more interest out of the buying of even two or three specimens. It is easy in choosing blindly to secure monotony, and that, of all things, is the pity in securing living subjects. The loss of charm, of education of the selective faculty in gardening, is one of the greatest of pities.

Turning now to an even more fascinating side of the lilac, its use with other flowers, there is a field which few people have explored. One becomes desperate here for new adjectives. The old ones cannot express the feeling of freshness of interest in the combining of new flowers with old. It is an experience apart. For instance, below a group of the bluer lilacs, Emile Gentil and Ccerulea superba, two tulips stand out beyond others as the ones for the place — Bleu Celeste and Ewbank. These I have held below the lilacs in bloom and know whereof I speak. Late myosotis — Perfec-

LILACS, MYOSOTIS, AND TULIP " INNOVATION '

LILACS AND SPRING FLOWERS

tion or Royal Blue — with Mertensia virginica is perfection grown below Syringa pubescens. On ground beneath the lovely clusters of Diderot, tulip Bleu Celeste, and again the forget-me-not. President Fallieres, that heavenly lilac, should have as neighbor tulip Fairy Queen ; and for a picture unsurpassed let the gardener place below Jarry-Desloges that early Iris germanica, Storm King, or Florentina perhaps, with loose groups of Tulipa retrqflexa^ if possible the large form of this tulip offered by one or two dealers — a very tall sort of palest yellow. Again, below SyriJiga pubescenSy iris Mrs. Alan Gray and a floor of forget-me-nots, is an arrangement the mere contemplation of which should cause any winter to pass quickly. Cavour seems to call for pale-lavender Darwin tulips near. These are very fine contemporaries. Try the small flower experiments, I beg of you; and bear in mind that splendid sentence of Miss Jekyll's lately written, *' There is no finality in gardening."

When we think of and plan and eventually see some of these spring pictures, which really can be better done in America than elsewhere, then the photographs of Miss Jekyll's Nut Walk, with daffodils and primroses, will not discourage but encourage us; the pictures of her spring garden will serve only to show that beauty is not the possession of England alone. For authorities tell us that America is par excellence the climate for the lilac. An experienced Dutchman once said that Europe could show no such spring spectacle as is to be seen in Mr. Havemeyer's Long Island gardens of lilacs in May; and, so far as is known, there are but two enemies of the lilac in this country — wet and the borer. Old trees have been seen to droop and fail and even die in the Middle West in an over- wet spring; but this type of season is the exception with us. Many a time in winter, if the cold seems long, the snows too persistent, I walk through my lilac rows, and the sight of those stout green buds, hearty and cheerful in the zero weather, is the best promise possible of winter's end and a spring to come.

Ill

Grass and leaves we have in such abundance, that our landscapes are even uncommonly luxuriant. Nebuchadnezzar, who used to eat his dominions, would here be the most opulent prince upon earth.

■ — Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, Strawberry Hill, Sept. 25, 1782.

Ill

AS time goes on the lover and observer of - gardening in its many forms cannot but notice the great appreciation of interest in springflowering bulbs. Among these nothing has sprung more quickly into favor under the public eye than the late tulip. One may consider it as firmly settled in American gardening affections for many years to come. And when ultimately the grower of these beautiful subjects shall have tried all the varieties in our own dealers' lists, all that he may have found in foreign ones — if he then sighs for more tulip worlds to conquer, think of the further joys that shall be his as he realizes that from that point on he is a collector! He finds himself in the happy valley of a general knowledge of the tulip kingdom. He has now and only now qualified as one who may climb the pleasant slopes which lead to the knowledge of hybridizing, to that of the rarer varieties of tulip such as the Old English or Florists*. Membership in one or two of the small societies of enthusiasts in special tulips should now be open to him, and one of the lower summits of tulip satisfaction is attained.

Among the many attributes which endear this bulb to the gardener is its adaptability for use in small plots or gardens. Brilliant effects can be had in spaces almost absurdly small, if spring flowers are used. How these minute squares of color catch and delight the eye in spring ! And this is not only because gay color is welcome then.

There is in Pennsylvania not far from its great eastern city, in a countryside of gentle beauty so like the Sussex Downs that one often fancies himself in England, one of these charming smaller gardens on a hillside. A constant and changing beauty in flowers marks it, but in May, with all the freshness of the spring about, it is a flashing jewel with its tulips and abundance of other effective low-growing spring flowers.

On a day in mid-May we descend from a brickpaved terrace shadowed by a great pine, to a gentle slope of turf toward this little garden, enclosed by a four-foot hedge of clipped privet. On the right, still below the sloping ground, an old stone spring-house is seen, hung with clouds of lavender wistaria. White lilacs in full beauty flank the garden-gate — a picket gate set in a white archway which supports a mass of rambler rose foh'age at its freshest and best.

Through the green-and-white entrance we pass into a dazzhng garden on two levels, turf-walked, privet-hedged, cedar-accented, framing a most delicate and unstudied effect of spring color in flowers. The gateway is half-way up the slope of the lower or perennial garden, and as we turn to the right we see, below the retaining wall which serves as a boundary for the lower end, benches and table for the al fresco tea set beneath the shade of the great maple-tree.

Here are eight beds of tulips beautifully planted by those whose color-sense is sure, a vision of loveliness about the 10th of each May. Tones of clear lavender, rich violet, and paler and darker rose form the scheme. The effects thus created by the use of Darwin, Cottage, and Breeder tulips and larger or smaller groupings of Phlox divaricata are those to cause an artist to rejoice, so perfect are they.

Below budding peonies, and as a foreground for iris leaves, is a drift of the delicious phlox we now begin to know so well, its lavender charmingly enhanced by loose groups of the tulip Bleu Celeste, of a medium violet hue, beyond it. To the left the soft, cool pink of tulip Flamingo shows itself in perhaps not more than five tall flowers — a suggestion to use a small number of these glorious blooms and thus rid some of us of the mistaken feeling that in numbers of tulips there is strength.

Farther on in the sunlit garden stands Flamingo again, with Dream in its pale-lavender dress beyond; then green spaces of young leaves of delphiniums, with tulip Lantern's silvery lilac next and tulip Clara Butt beyond. The mounds of young greens in varying tones among all these tulips of light, clear colors furnish a wonderful setting for the glories of the flowers themselves. Whether from a distance or close at hand the composition is perfect.

The play of light and shade on such a garden is in itself memorable. Phlox divaricata in a background of shadow with tulip Bleu Celeste in sun in the foreground form a rich spring picture. Also the semi-careless arrangement of flowers with regard to variety in height and color strikes one at every turn as being remarkably successful. An order of placing uncommonly good is this — tulips Bleu Celeste, Flamingo, Dream, Lantern {syn. Nizza)y Clara Butt, with Phlox divaricata interwoven, and touches of the little gray-leaved

TULIPS IN A PENNSYLVANIA GARDEN

FOUNTAIN IN A PENNSYLVANIA GARDEN flax (Linum perenne) accidental in effect. Foliage of perennial phlox and the incised leaves of delphiniums form the green background for these delightful flowers.

A touch of running water adds much to a garden picture. It is here in a very simple wall fountain where the stream falls into a shallow basin made by half of an ancient millstone, flanked by a planting of Iris Kaempferi. This fountain is really below and outside of the garden and near the seats under the maple, but fountain, jar, pool, and sun-dial — this last is placed in the rose garden — all are upon the same axis.

Nora Ware, a very small lavender tulip, is used in the beds here; Dream stands back of it, flanked by the foliage of peony and lupine, with tulip Le Reve, beloved by all who know it, in the foreground. Back of this group again, more green, more green, and tulip Bleu Aimable beyond. The color of Bleu Aimable is the same as that of Bleu Celeste, but the former is a single tulip of the Darwin type. Clara Butt stands beyond this grouping, at a distance sufficient to keep its cooler rose-pink from conflict with the strange and lovely color of Le Reve.

All through this garden, too, in certain springs at the time of tulip bloom, little colonies of Narcissus poeticus are in flower. These, the only white in the garden since the general scheme is lavender and pale to bright rose, give that delicate effect which is found when stevia, gypsophila, and other fine-flowering whites are added to bowls or bouquets of subjects which are decidedly strong in form and color.

On leaving the garden by its gateway toward the house, it is a marvel to lift one's eyes from all this beauty within formal limits and above a bar of dark hedge to see long garlands of wistaria in full bloom along the old stone wall of the spring-house, the quaint little building without which no Pennsylvania or Maryland farm-woman in the old days was expected to perform the duties of a housewife. The spring-house now serves as a studio.

Too much can never be said of the charm of the Pennsylvania farmhouse — the old farmhouse, generally of blue limestone most beautifully laid. The proportions of some of these, their delicacy of color, and their comfortable, convenient placing and rare environments of fine tree groupings make the old rural architecture of that State a thing to covet and enjoy. Those old builders understood not only what to build but how and where to set their houses for shelter and for practical purposes; wherefore, a picture of high beauty was, sometimes unconsciously, created. When considering foregrounds such as this charming little formal garden affords, the backgrounds furnished by near-by buildings, or by a landscape soft and finished, can hardly be passed by without a word, so bound up together are all the elements of such a picture. And I am always wondering why Pennsylvania is not the resort of more people who love beauty which belongs to nature and to man.

If I may let this spring garden serve as a text for further tulip preachings, I would tell of an effect on our own grounds in Michigan. From the house in which we live a walk of dark brick, like the house, runs east some sixty feet to the street. To dwell upon the borders flanking the sides of an insignificant walk such as this may sound a bit presumptuous; but let me quickly say that last year these borders were positively kaleidoscopic in effect. And to encourage those who think they can do little in gardening because of restricted space, I will give approximate measurements as well as some account of the plantings.

This walk is some five feet in width and runs from east to west. Some years ago word came to me concerning the interesting manner in which grapes were grown in low festoons along the walks of certain Lenox kitchen-gardens; wherefore, lacking other place for grapes, and thinking that the little decoration of such vines might not be out of place here, I set to the south of this walk and only ten inches from it a number of two-foot iron posts nine feet apart, painted dark green and connected by drooping chains. Every other length between posts now has its grape: Caco — the fine new cross between Catawba and Concord — for a reddish sort, and Niagara for the greenish color. Grape leaves are allowed to grow only scantily on these low vines, as too many leaves would obscure the effect of line and form.

To the north of this walk, throughout its length, grows a line of Thunberg's barberry, and sometime I intend to replace these by Wilson's, or some one of the new cotoneasters. These take a space, brick-edged on the sides and ends, away from the walk, of about six by sixty feet, whereas the space of open ground under the grapes across the walk is only two feet wide, with grass at its southernmost boundary. Below both grapes and barberries the ground is entirely covered, or destined to be, with Vinca minor, the common green myrtle, a delight in both summer and winter.

Through this covering of rich green arose last April a host of lovely crocuses, planted in the following order: Pallas, Tilly Koenen, Julia Culp, Mikado, Pallas again, Ovidius, and one touch of the so-called Largest Golden Yellow, making an effect of lovely lavender violet and white with the yellow to give a strong and sudden contrast. Across from it, and just as crocus colors were fading and their delightful leaves making their presence felt, as if unexpectedly, sprang into flower long, loose groups of narcissus Sir Watkin, tulip White Hawk, tulip Fred Moore, and the beautiful double early tulip Safrano, leading up to some fair-sized groups of mahonia below the walls of the house. Before and among these shining-leaved shrubs rose quantities of the daffodil I now prefer to all others, Narcissus Leedsii, White Lady. Its beauty is nothing short of regal; and to use a common phrase of our English confreres, it is a "good doer."

Following the crocus bloom here came a gay, loose-flung line of blowing flowers, in colors ranging from tawny orange through deep and pale yellow to ivory white — flowers double, flowers single, flowers tall, slender, graceful, flowers round and heavy-headed. Little art is required to gain such effects. The most careless planting of these particular varieties of bulbs must result beautifully. A little thought for the progression of color, a little watchfulness as to overcrowding or setting too far apart — that is all.

But I am in danger of being led astray by the beauty of individual flowers, and must return to the border planting of the walk long enough to say that when the flowers last named have finished blooming, when their leaves in turn carpet the ground in patterns of blue-greens and yellowgreens, then we begin to see for the first time the spires of buds on the rounded and symmetrical Canterbury bells on either side of the walk. These are three feet apart, and as their buds develop we see that they are white upon the south side of the walk and light purple on the north; and a third even row to the north of the barberries is all of that good pink tone which is to me the very best in these flowers. From crocuses to Canterbury bells is a long way in spring and early summer. Yet one must remember that if there happened to be a green moment between flowering periods it was in itself a thing to revel in, and so engrossing that the opening of the next arrangement of flowers took place with an unexpected promptness which gave that surprise which is perhaps the dearest gift his ground can give the gardener.

Does any word other than "welcome" better describe one's feelings as to the spring? The flowers of this enchanting time keep the expression almost hourly in mind; and is it an undue use of the imagination to fancy that the reason for the special charm of spring flowers about the house-door is that they speak that precious word "welcome" to those about to enter? How marvellous that by the heavenly means of color and fragrance we may send forth the very spirit of our houses even beyond their gates.

IV

I have been In town but one single night this age, as I could not bear to throw away this phoenix June. It has rained a good deal this morning, but only made it more delightful. The flowers are all Arabian. — Horace Walpole to the Countess of Ailesbuby, Strawberry Hill, June 25, 1778.

IV

FOR those who cannot or who will not travel, and whose gardening interests still leap across seas to other lands, substitutes in the way of photographs prove the alternative, supplemented, of course, by written description. And, since substitutes some of us must and will have, pictures of the type with which this writing deals are as near perfection as such things may be.

Here, to the eye accustomed to finding color, light, and shade in pictures, are these qualities in high degree. Here are shown forth a particularly interesting ancient dwelling in Wales and its gardens in the spring, Mathern Palace, for thirteen hundred years an episcopal residence.

In 1894 the property came into the hands of Mr. W. Avray Tipping, the distinguished English writer on architecture. Under his able direction the conversion of the old house to meet the needs of modern living was done without losing one whiff of the savor of an antique time. That Mr.

Tipping is one of the best of amateur gardeners, too, one cannot doubt who sees these pictures and who has read of his later horticultural achievements at a newer place, Mounton House.

In his own words he thus tells briefly the story of the gardens of Mathern Palace:

"If the house is essentially old, the gardens are absolutely new. The sordid untidiness of a hopelessly ill-contrived and unrepaired farmstead prevailed in 1894. There was a potato patch or two amid the rubbish-heaps, and some evidence still remained of a farmer's wife who had liked her few flowers but had not been able to cope with the difiiculties of the situation. Here, again, care was taken not to lessen the value of the picturesque but plain old building by detailed architectural effect. Terraces were laid out on the southern slope, but they were walled simply and with the local limestone. A good deal of pavement was used, and broad grass-ways, edged with borders and backed by yew hedges, were contrived. The steeper slope to the west was made into a rock garden leading down to old fish-ponds, where a good deal of water gardening was introduced. All this was taken out of a field and orchard, the trees of which were retained, and a matured effect

From a pholograpli., Lupunijid touiilri/ Life, London

MATHERN PALACE; THE OLD QUADRANGLE was almost at once produced. The climate and the soil are good, and the whole of the gardens, as the illustrations will show, are rich in jfloral effect. The simple, old-fashioned aspect of the English country home of the past, that had its farmery attached, and that drew no hard-and-fast division between its flower and vegetable gardens, has been sought for and obtained.

"The title of the house has descended from the days of the episcopal lords marchers, and it implies a certain grandeur in no way reflected by the place as it is to-day. It aims at being a quiet home where the simple life may be led."

We have not, it is true, the rich backgrounds in buildings for such garden pictures as these, but ours is a climate unsurpassed for spring gardening — subjects in untold variety, not only our fine native flora, but plants, shrubs, and trees from the round world itself, and we may, we do have spring pictures unsurpassed. Such delicious disposings of tulips and myosotis as are here shown should not discourage but stir us to fresh hope and effort in gardening. Still, how could such flowers as these of Mathern Palace appear anywhere to such advantage as when they shine against close-shaven foliage, as in the grass alley^ or when each colored cup of tuHp and sky-blue cluster of myosotis are thrown into relief against the smooth turf, as seen in the old quadrangle ?