Old Time Gardens Part 11

We have grown so familiar with some old doubled blossoms that we think little of their being double. One such, symmetrical of growth, beautiful of foliage, and gratifying of bloom, is the Double b.u.t.tercup. It is to me distinctly one of our most old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers in aspect. A hardy great clump of many years' growth is one of the ancient treasures of our garden; its golden globes are known in England as Bachelor's b.u.t.tons, and are believed by many to be the Bachelor's b.u.t.tons of Shakespeare's day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dahlia Walk at Ravensworth.]

Dahlias afford a striking example of the beauty of single flowers when compared to their doubled descendants. Single Dahlias are fine flowers, the yellow and scarlet ones especially so. I never thought double Dahlias really worth the trouble spent on them in our Northern gardens; so much staking and tying, and fussing, and usually an autumn storm wrenches them round and breaks the stem or a frost nips them just as they are in bloom. A Dahlia hedge or a walk such as this one at Ravensworth, Virginia, is most stately and satisfying. I like, in moderation, many of the smaller single and double Sunflowers. Under the reign of _Patience_, the Sunflower had a fleeting day of popularity, and flaunted in garden and parlor. Its place was false. It was never a garden flower in olden times, in the sense of being a flower of ornament or beauty; its place was in the kitchen garden, where it belongs.

Peas have ever been favorites in English gardens since they were brought to England. We have all seen the print, if not the portrait, of Queen Elizabeth garbed in a white satin robe magnificently embroidered with open pea-pods and b.u.t.terflies. A "City of London Madam" had a delightful head ornament of open pea-pods filled with peas of pearls; this was worn over a hood of gold-embroidered muslin, and with dyed red hair, must have been a most modish affair. Sweet Peas have had a unique history.

They have been for a century a much-loved flower of the people both in England and America, and they were at home in cottage borders and fine gardens; were placed in vases, and carried in nosegays and posies; were loved of poets--Keats wrote an exquisite characterization of them. They had beauty of color, and a universally loved perfume--but florists have been blind to them till within a few years. A bicentenary exhibition of Sweet Peas was given in London in July, 1900; now there is formed a Sweet Pea Society. But no societies and no exhibitions ever will make them a "florist's flower"; they are of value only for cutting; their habit of growth renders them useless as a garden decoration.

We all take notions in regard to flowers, just as we do in regard to people. I hear one friend say, "I love every flower that grows," but I answer with emphasis, "I don't!" I have ever disliked the Portulaca,--I hate its stems. It is my fate never to escape it. I planted it once to grow under Sweet Alyssum in the little enclosure of earth behind my city home; when I returned in the autumn, everything was covered, blanketed, overwhelmed with Portulaca. Since then it comes up even in the gra.s.s, and seems to thrive by being trampled upon. The Portulaca was not a flower of colonial days; I am glad to learn our great-grandmothers were not pestered with it; it was not described in the _Botanical Magazine_ till 1829.

I do not care for the Petunia close at hand on account of its sickish odor. But in the dusky border the flowers s.h.i.+ne like white stars (page 180), and make you almost forgive their poor colors in the daylight. I never liked the Calceolaria. Every child in our town used to have a Calceolaria in her own small garden plot, but I never wanted one. I care little for Chrysanthemums; they fill in the border in autumn, and they look pretty well growing, but I like few of the flowers close at hand.

By some curious twist of a brain which, alas! is apt not to deal as it is expected and ought to, with sensations furnished to it, I have felt this distaste for Chrysanthemums since I attended a Chrysanthemum Show.

Of course, I ought to love them far more, and have more eager interest in them--but I do not. Their sister, the China Aster, I care little for.

The Germans call Asters "death-flowers." The Empress of Austria at the Swiss hotel where she lodged just before she was murdered, found the rooms decorated with China Asters. She said to her attendant that the flowers were in Austria termed death-flowers--and so they proved. The Aster is among the flowers prohibited in j.a.pan for felicitous occasions, as are the Balsam, Rhododendron, and Azalea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Petunias.]

Those who read these pages may note perhaps that I say little of Lilies.

I do not care as much for them as most garden lovers do. I like all our wild Lilies, especially the yellow Nodding Lily of our fields; and the Lemon Lily of our gardens is ever a delight; but the stately Lilies which are such general favorites, Madonna Lilies, j.a.pan Lilies, the Gold-banded Lilies, are not especially dear to me.

I love climbing vines, whether of delicate leaf or beautiful flower. In a room I place all the decoration that I can on the walls, out of the way, leaving thus s.p.a.ce to move around without fear of displacement or injury of fragile things; so in a limited garden s.p.a.ce, gra.s.s room under our feet, with flowering vines on the surrounding walls are better than many crowded flower borders. A tiny s.p.a.ce can quickly be made delightful with climbing plants. The common Morning-glory, called in England the Bell-bind, is frequently advertised by florists of more encouragement than judgment, as suitable to plant freely in order to cover fences and poor sandy patches of ground with speedy and abundant leaf.a.ge and bloom.

There is no doubt that the Morning-glory will do all this and far more than is promised. It will also spread above and below ground from the poor strip of earth to every other corner of garden and farm. This it has done till, in our Eastern states, it is now cla.s.sed as a wild flower. It will never look wild, however, meet it where you will. It is as domestic and tame as a barnyard fowl, which, wandering in the wildest woodland, could never be mistaken as game. The garden at Claymont, the Virginia home of Mr. Frank R. Stockton, afforded a striking example of the spreading and strangling properties of the Morning-glory, not under encouragement, but simply under toleration. Mr. Stockton tells me that the entire expanse of his yards and garden, when he first saw them, was a solid ma.s.s of Morning-glory blooms. Every stick, every stem, every stalk, every shrub and blade of gra.s.s, every vegetable growth, whether dead or alive, had its encircling and overwhelming Morning-glory companion, set full of tiny undersized blossoms of varied tints. It was a beautiful sight at break of day,--a vast expanse of acres jewelled with Morning-glories--but it wasn't the new owner's notion of a flower garden.

In my childhood flower agents used to canva.s.s country towns from house to house. Sometimes they had a general catalogue, and sold many plants, trees, and shrubs. Oftener they had but a single plant which they were "booming." I suspect that their trade came through the sudden introduction of so many and varied flowers and shrubs from China and j.a.pan. I am told that the first Chinese Wistarias and a certain Fringe tree were sold in this manner; and I know the white Hydrangea was, for I recall it, though I do not know that this was its first sale. I remember too that suddenly half the houses in town, on piazza or trellis, had the rich purple blooms of the _Clematis Jackmanni_; for a very persuasive agent had gone through the town the previous year. Of course people of means bought then, as now, at nurseries; but at many humble homes, whose owners would never have thought of buying from a greenhouse, he sold his plants. It gave an agreeable rivalry, when all started plants together, to see whose flourished best and had the amplest bloom. Th.o.r.eau recalled the pleasant emulation of many owners in Concord of a certain Rhododendron, sold thus sweepingly by an agent. The purple Clematis displaced an old climbing favorite, the Trumpet Honeysuckle, once seen by every door. It was so beloved of humming-birds and so beautiful, I wonder we could ever destroy it. Its downfall was hastened by its being infested by a myriad of tiny green aphides, which proceeded from it to our Roses. I recall well these little plant insects, for I was very fond of picking the tubes of the Honeysuckle for the drop of pure honey within, and I had to abandon reluctantly the sweet morsels.

We have in our garden, and it is shown on the succeeding page, a vine which we carefully cherished in seedlings from year to year, and took much pride in. It came to us with the Ambrosia from the Walpole garden.

It was not common in gardens in our neighborhood, and I always looked upon it as something very choice, and even rare, as it certainly was something very dainty and pretty. We called it Virgin's-bower. When I went out into the world I found that it was not rare, that it grew wild from Connecticut to the far West; that it was Climbing Fumitory, or Mountain Fringe, _Adlumia_. When Mrs. Margaret Deland asked if we had Alleghany Vine in our garden, I told her I had never seen it, when all the while it was our own dear Virgin's-bower. It doesn't seem hardy enough to be a wild thing; how could it make its way against the fierce vines and thorns of the forest when it hasn't a bit of woodiness in its stems and its leaves and flowers are so tender! I cannot think any garden perfect without it, no matter what else is there, for its delicate green Rue-like leaves lie so gracefully on stone or brick walls, or on fences, and it trails its slender tendrils so lightly over dull shrubs that are out of flower, beautifying them afresh with an alien bloom of delicate little pinkish blossoms like tiny Bleeding-hearts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Virgin's-bower.]

Another old favorite was the Balloon-vine, sometimes called Heartseed or Heart-pea, with its seeds like fat black hearts, with three lobes which made them globose instead of flat. This, too, had pretty compound leaves, and the whole vine, like our Virgin's-bower, lay lightly on what it covered; but the Dutchman's-pipe had a leaf.a.ge too heavy save to make a thick screen or arch quickly and solidly. It did well enough in gardens which had not had a long cultivated past, or made little preparation for a cherished future; but it certainly was not suited to our garden, where things were not planted for a day. These three are native vines of rich woods in our Central and Western states. The Matrimony-vine was an old favorite; one from the porch of the Van Cortlandt manor-house, over a hundred years old, is shown on the next page. Often you see a straggling, sprawling growth; but this one is as fine as any vine could be.

Patient folk--as were certainly those of the old-time gardens, tried to keep the Rose Acacia as a favorite. It was hardy enough, but so hopelessly brittle in wood that it was constantly broken by the wind and snow of our Northern winters, even though it was sheltered under some stronger shrub. At the end of a lovely Salem garden, I beheld this June a long row of Rose Acacias in full bloom. I am glad I possess in my memory the exquisite harmony of their s.h.i.+mmering green foliage and rosy flower cl.u.s.ters. Miss Jekyll, ever resourceful, trains the Rose Acacia on a wall; and fastens it down by planting st.u.r.dy Crimson Ramblers by its side; her skilful example may well be followed in America and thus restore to our gardens this beautiful flower.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Matrimony-vine at Van Cortlandt Manor.]

One flower, termed old-fas.h.i.+oned by nearly every one, is really a recent settler of our gardens. A popular historical novel of American life at the time of the Revolution makes the hero and heroine play a very pretty love scene over a spray of the Bleeding-heart, the Dielytra, or Dicentra. Unfortunately for the truth of the novelist's picture, the Dielytra was not introduced to the gardens of English-speaking folk till 1846, when the London Horticultural Society received a single plant from the north of China. How quickly it became cheap and abundant; soon it bloomed in every cottage garden; how quickly it became beloved! The graceful racemes of pendant rosy flowers were eagerly welcomed by children; they have some inexplicable, witching charm; even young children in arms will stretch out their little hands and attempt to grasp the Dielytra, when showier blossoms are pa.s.sed unheeded. Many tiny playthings can be formed of the blossoms: only deft fingers can shape the delicate lyre in the "frame." One of its folk names is "Lyre flower"; the two wings can be bent back to form a gondola.

We speak of modern flowers, meaning those which have recently found their way to our gardens. Some of these clash with the older occupants, but one has promptly been given an honored place, and appears so allied to the older flowers in form and spirit that it seems to belong by their side--the _Anemone j.a.ponica_. Its purity and beauty make it one of the delights of the autumn garden; our grandmothers would have rejoiced in it, and have divided the plants with each other till all had a row of it in the garden borders. In its red form it was first pictured in the _Botanical Magazine_, in 1847, but it has been commonly seen in our gardens for only twenty or thirty years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: White Wistaria.]

These two flowers, the _Dielytra spectabilis_ and _Anemone j.a.ponica_, are among the valuable gifts which our gardens received through the visits to China of that adventurous collector, Robert Fortune. He went there first in 1842, and for some years constantly sent home fresh treasures. Among the best-known garden flowers of his introducing are the two named above, and _Kerria j.a.ponica_, _Forsythia viridissima_, _Weigela rosea_, _Gardenia Fortuniana_, _Daphne Fortunei_, _Berberis Fortunei_, _Jasminum nudiflorum_, and many varieties of Prunus, Viburnum, Spiraea, Azalea, and Chrysanthemum. The fine yellow Rose known as Fortune's Yellow was acquired by him during a venturesome trip which he took, disguised as a Chinaman. The white Chinese Wistaria is regarded as the most important of his collections. It is deemed by some flower-lovers the most exquisite flower in the entire world. The Chinese variety is distinguished by the length of its racemes, sometimes three feet long. The lower part of a vine of unusual luxuriance and beauty is shown above. This special vine flowers in full richness of bloom every alternate year, and this photograph was taken during its "poor year"; for in its finest inflorescence its photograph would show simply a ma.s.s of indistinguishable whiteness. Mr. Howell has named it The Fountain, and above the pouring of white blossoms shown in this picture is an upper cascade of bloom. This Wistaria is not growing in an over-favorable locality, for winter winds are bleak on the southern sh.o.r.es of Long Island; but I know no rival of its beauty in far warmer and more sheltered sites.

Many of the Deutzias and Spiraeas which beautify our spring gardens were introduced from j.a.pan before Fortune's day by Thunberg, the great exploiter of j.a.panese shrubs, who died in 1828. The Spiraea Van Houtteii (facing page 190) is perhaps the most beautiful of all. Dean Hole names the Spiraeas, Deutzias, Weigelas, and Forsythias as having been brought into his ken in English gardens within his own lifetime, that is within fourscore years.

In New England gardens the Forsythia is called 'Suns.h.i.+ne Bush'--and never was folk name better bestowed, or rather evolved. For in the eager longing for spring which comes in the bitterness of March, when we cry out with the poet, "O G.o.d, for one clear day, a Snowdrop and sweet air,"

in our welcome to fresh life, whether shown in starting leaf or frail blossom, the Forsythia s.h.i.+nes out a grateful delight to the eyes and heart, concentrating for a week all the golden radiance of sunlight, which later will be shared by sister shrubs and flowers. _Forsythia suspensa_, falling in long sweeps of yellow bells, is in some favorable places a cascade of liquid light. No shrub in our gardens is more frequently ruined by gardeners than these Forsythias. It takes an artist to prune the _Forsythia suspensa_. You can steal the suns.h.i.+ne for your homes ere winter is gone by breaking long sprays of the Suns.h.i.+ne Bush and placing them in tall deep jars of water. Split up the ends of the stems that they may absorb plentiful water, and the golden plumes will soon open to fullest glory within doors.

There is another yellow flowered shrub, the Corchorus, which seems as old as the Lilac, for it is ever found in old gardens; but it proves to be a j.a.panese shrub which we have had only a hundred years. The little, deep yellow, globular blossoms appear in early spring and spa.r.s.ely throughout the whole summer. The plant isn't very adorning in its usual ragged growth, but it was universally planted.

It may be seen from the shrubs of popular growth which I have named that the present glory of our shrubberies is from the j.a.panese and Chinese shrubs, which came to us in the nineteenth century through Thunberg, Fortune, and other bold collectors. We had no shrub-sellers of importance in the eighteenth century; the garden lover turned wholly to the seedsman and bulb-grower for garden supplies, just as we do to-day to fill our old-fas.h.i.+oned gardens. The new shrubs and plants from China and j.a.pan did not clash with the old garden flowers, they seemed like kinsfolk who had long been separated and rejoiced in being reunited; they were indeed fellow-countrymen. We owed scores of our older flowers to the Orient, among them such important ones as the Lilac, Rose, Lily, Tulip, Crown Imperial.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Spiraea Van Houtteii.]

We can fancy how delighted all these Oriental shrubs and flowers were to meet after so many years of separation. What pleasant greetings all the cousins must have given each other; I am sure the Wistaria was glad to see the Lilac, and the Fortune's Yellow Rose was duly respectful to his old cousin, the th.o.r.n.y yellow Scotch Rose. And I seem to hear a bit of scandal pa.s.sing from plant to plant! Listen! it is the Bleeding-heart gossiping with the j.a.panese Anemone: "Well! I never thought that Lilac girl would grow to be such a beauty. So much color! Do you suppose it can be natural? Mrs. Tulip hinted to me yesterday that the girl used fertilizers, and it certainly looks so. But she can't say much herself--I never saw such a change in any creatures as in those Tulips.

You remember how commonplace their clothes were? Now such extravagance!

Scores of gowns, and all made abroad, and at _her_ age! Here are you and I, my dear, both young, and we really ought to have more clothes. I haven't a thing but this pink gown to put on. It's lucky you had a white gown, for no one liked your pink one. Here comes Mrs. Rose! How those Rose children have grown! I never should have known them."

CHAPTER VIII

COMFORT ME WITH APPLES

"What can your eye desire to see, your eares to heare, your mouth to taste, or your nose to smell, that is not to be had in an Orchard? with Abundance and Variety? What shall I say? 1000 of Delights are in an Orchard; and sooner shall I be weary than I can reckon the least part of that pleasure which one, that hath and loves an Orchard, may find therein."

--_A New Orchard_, WILLIAM LAWSON, 1618.

In every old-time garden, save the revered front yard, the borders stretched into the domain of the Currant and Gooseberry bushes, and into the orchard. Often a row of Crabapple trees pressed up into the garden's precincts and shaded the Sweet Peas. Orchard and garden could scarcely be separated, so closely did they grow up together. Every old garden book had long chapters on orchards, written _con amore_, with a zest sometimes lacking on other pages. How they loved in the days of Queen Elizabeth and of Queen Anne to sit in an orchard, planted, as Sir Philip Sidney said, "cunningly with trees of taste-pleasing fruits." How charming were their orchard seats, "fachoned for meditacon!" Sometimes these orchard seats were banks of the strongly scented Camomile, a favorite plant of Lord Bacon's day. Wordsworth wrote in jingling rhyme:--

"Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed Their snow-white blossoms on my head, With brightest suns.h.i.+ne round me spread Of spring's unclouded weather, In this sequester'd nook how sweet To sit upon my orchard seat; And flowers and birds once more to greet, My last year's friends together."

The incomparable beauty of the Apple tree in full bloom has ever been sung by the poets, but even their words cannot fitly nor fully tell the delight to the senses of the close view of those exquisite pink and white domes, with their lovely opalescent tints, their ethereal fragrance; their beauty infinitely surpa.s.ses that of the vaunted Cherry plantations of j.a.pan. In the hand the flowers show a distinct ruddiness, a promise of future red cheeks; but a long vista of trees in bloom displays no tint of pink, the flowers seem purest white. Looking last May across the orchard at Hillside, adown the valley of the Hudson with its succession of blossoming orchards, we could paraphrase the words of Longfellow's _Golden Legend_:--

"The valley stretching below Is white with blossoming Apple trees, as if touched with lightest snow."

In the darkest night flowering Apple trees s.h.i.+ne with clear radiance, and an orchard of eight hundred acres, such as may be seen in Niagara County, New York, shows a white expanse like a lake of quicksilver.

This county, and its neighbor, Orleans County, form an Apple paradise--with their orchards of fifty and even a hundred thousand trees.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Apple Trees at White Hall, the Home of Bishop Berkeley.]

The largest Apple tree in New England is in Ches.h.i.+re, Connecticut. Its trunk measures, one foot above all root enlargements, thirteen feet eight inches in circ.u.mference.

Its age is traced back a hundred and fifty years. At White Hall, the old home of Bishop Berkeley in the island of Rhode Island, still stand the Apple trees of his day. A picture of them is shown on page 194.

The sedate and comfortable motherliness of old Apple trees is felt by all Apple lovers. John Burroughs speaks of "maternal old Apple trees, regular old grandmothers, who have seen trouble." James Lane Allen, amid his apostrophes to the Hemp plant, has given us some beautiful glimpses of Apple trees and his love for them. He tells of "provident old tree mothers on the orchard slope, whose red-cheeked children are autumn Apples." It is this motherliness, this domesticity, this homeliness that makes the Apple tree so cherished, so beloved. No scene of life in the country ever seems to me homelike if it lacks an Apple orchard--this doubtless, because in my birthplace in New England they form a part of every farm scene, of every country home. Apple trees soften and humanize the wildest country scene. Even in a remote pasture, or on a mountain side, they convey a sentiment of home; and after being lost in the mazes of close-grown wood-roads Apple trees are inexpressibly welcome as giving promise of a sheltering roof-tree. Th.o.r.eau wrote of wild Apples, but to me no Apples ever look wild. They may be the veriest Crabs, growing in wild spots, unbidden, and savage and bitter in their tang, but even these seedling Pippins are domestic in aspect.

On the southern sh.o.r.es of Long Island, where meadow, pasture, and farm are in soil and crops like New England, the frequent absence of Apple orchards makes these farm scenes unsatisfying, not homelike. No other fruit trees can take their place. An Orange tree, with its rich glossy foliage, its perfumed ivory flowers and buds, and abundant golden fruit, is an exquisite creation of nature; but an Orange grove has no ideality.

All fruit trees have a beautiful inflorescence--few have sentiment. The tint of a blossoming Peach tree is perfect; but I care not for a Peach orchard. Plantations of healthy Cherry trees are lovely in flower and fruit time, whether in j.a.pan or Ma.s.sachusetts, and a Cherry tree is full of happy child memories; but their tree forms in America are often disfigured with that ugly fungous blight which is all the more disagreeable to us since we hear now of its close kins.h.i.+p to disease germs in the animal world.

I cannot see how they avoid having Apple trees on these Long Island farms, for the Apple is fully determined to stand beside every home and in every garden in the land. It does not have to be invited; it will plant and maintain itself. Nearly all fruits and vegetables which we prize, depend on our planting and care, but the Apple is as independent as the New England farmer. In truth Apple trees would grow on these farms if they were loved or even tolerated, for I find them forced into Long Island hedge-rows as relentlessly as are forest trees.

The Indians called the Plantain the "white man's foot," for it sprung up wherever he trod; the Apple tree might be called the white man's shadow.

It is the Vine and Fig tree of the temperate zone, and might be chosen as the totem of the white settlers. Our love for the Apple is natural, for it was the characteristic fruit of Britain; the clergy were its chief cultivators; they grew Apples in their monastery gardens, prayed for them in special religious ceremonies, sheltered the fruit by laws, and even named the Apple when p.r.o.nouncing the blessings of G.o.d upon their princes and rulers.