"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."

D

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

So said George Eliot, and with all due reverence for her opinion, my soul would fly in the opposite direction, seeking the spring. If the autumn led straight on to spring I could love it more, but through its stillness I hear the winter blast; its gorgeous colouring scarce hides the baring boughs; day by day death lays a withering hand on flower and tree; day by day the sun runs quicker to its golden resting-place. Have you ever noticed how great a difference there is between the sun\'s summer and winter march across the heavens? Note the tree behind which he[Pg 192] sinks in June and then again in November. A whole third of the heavens separates the two; and what does that not mean to us of lack in light and warmth? "Ah! would that the year were always May." And yet there are days, such days of perfect beauty that the year could never spare them. They come in early autumn, and it is as though a recording angel passed, so sweet, so solemn is the hush, the pause, with which Nature holds her breath and listens as she lays open her store of harvest to the "Well done" of the voiceless blessing.

And then, the blessed rest-day over, she turns about. "To work!" seems to be the order. "Away with these old flowers! No more need for pod-making; wither up the annuals, cut down the perennials, stop those busy youngsters and their growing process for a bit, shake off the leaves, they will come in useful later on, but pile them up now and let the children scuttle through them with happy feet, and have a good clear-out before you go to sleep and wake up again in the springtime—\'the merry, merry springtime.\'[Pg 193] Away, you birds, and look out for yourselves those of you who stay; get your nests ready and your stores safely housed, my small friends of fur and feather, for my work is now to purge and to winnow, to try and to test, and woe betide the weaklings!" So the wind, Dame Nature\'s mighty broom-maiden, prepares her best besom, and there is soon a thorough good house-cleaning, to the great discomfort of the inhabitants.

Well, we have to put up with it; and the best plan is to do a little of the same work on one\'s own account, that so, being in harmony with Nature, one\'s temper is less sorely tried.
T

There is enough to be done.

I hardly consider September an autumn month, but the calendar does, so I will mention first one bit of work well worth doing. Sow a good long row of sweet-peas. Make a shallow trench and prepare it as was done in the spring, and before Nature[Pg 194] stops all growth above ground you will have a lusty row of little plants five to six inches high. These I should stake before the winter, as a means of protection from frost and snow; and next year, a month earlier than most of your friends, you will have sweet-peas of a height, a size and profusion to make them all envious. And that is, of course, a consummation most devoutly to be wished.

Some people\'s autumn borders are things of great joy and beauty. Looking on the Master\'s profusion, I felt like the Queen of Sheba, for I expect she thought her own house and grounds a very poor show when she got back to Sheba. But I did not, like that celebrated queen, turn and bless him unreservedly. I felt more like—much more like—abusing Griggs.

Let me tell you what an autumn border can be like; not in my own poor words, but as a master-hand painted a Master\'s garden, and, though not my Master\'s garden, the description fits.

"Against the deep green of the laurels, the rhododendron and box are sunflowers six[Pg 195] feet high, lit up each of them with a score of blooms, and hollyhocks, taller still, are rosetted with deep claret flowers and mulberry and strange old pink. Between them bushes of cactus dahlias literally ablaze with scarlet. In front are standard roses, only crimson and damask, and now in October bright with their second bloom. Hiding their barren stems, compact and solid, an exquisite combination of green and purple, are perennial asters—a single spike of them, with its hundreds of little stars, makes a noble decoration in a room—and humbler, if more vivid, companies of tritonia. Here and again are old clumps of phlox, of fervent carmine or white starred with pink, and, to my mind, of singular beauty, the rudbeckias in brilliant clusters of chrome yellow.

"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[Pg 196] 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?"[2]

[2] 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,[Pg 197] 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[Pg 198] for ever. Unless the new ideal be lived up to, the latter state is worse than the first.
I

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.

[Pg 199]

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,[Pg 200] 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[Pg 201] 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[Pg 202] 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."

[Pg 203]

"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."

Then we walked back to the house, and I wished I too had a train to catch that I might never, never look at my garden again.

The Others said I was very depressed for some days, but at last I resolutely faced my garden.

"You are all wrong," I said, "made wrong from the beginning, and I can\'t alter you, but[Pg 204] as you are the only one we have I must just make the best of you. One thing I can do, and that is to have down the old holly hedge and make a pergola."

So I approached the Others.

They agreed at once that we wanted vistas, and jumped at the pergola, but Jim shook his head.

"No go," said he, and said no more.

"But I am not sure about a vista of cabbages and onions," remarked a cautious One. "I don\'t like them in any form."

"But I should have borders of flowers everywhere," and the Visitor\'s picture rose in my mind. "You don\'t mind asparagus."

"No, if you can keep your vistas to that."

"But a pergola! Mary, that sounds a large order."

"Yes. But this is a thing that affects us all, so we must all make an effort."

"Does your effort mean ￡ s. d.?"

"Something very like it."

And there was a chorus of "Oh\'s" and "That\'s all very fine! but—"

"Well, you are all for it, anyhow?" I said.

[Pg 205]

"Oh, yes, we are all for it."

"Then I am going to tackle his Reverence."

"There he is, then, at the bottom of the lawn, with a slaughtered bunny in his hand, so the moment should be auspicious."

But it wasn\'t.

I approached my subject delicately, mindful of the overwhelming sense of impossibility with which the Visitor\'s suggestions had filled my soul; but when it dawned on his Reverence that I wanted not only to erect a pergola but to cut down the holly hedge, it then transpired that the holly hedge was the joy of his heart and the pride of his eyes; when other things failed, and snails ate the onions, that hedge was always there, always green, always solid, and always a consolation.

I explained my views and he explained his, and then we both explained them together; he said I was very obstinate, and I said he was not allowing me a free hand. He said he did, and I said, "Then may I do it?" He said, "Certainly not," and I said, "Very good, then, I resign the garden." I[Pg 206] heard his laugh—a hearty one—as I marched with dignity back to the drawing-room.

"Well!" the Others cried, "you look as though you had had a lively time."

"I could have told you exactly what his Reverence would say and saved you the trouble of a row."

I tried to squash Jim with a look, but nothing under many hundredweights could do that. So I said coldly,

"We had no row; and little boys don\'t always know what their elders will say."

"Bet you I know what he said to you. And on the whole I agree with him. It\'s no use taking a bigger bite than you can chew."

"It isn\'t a bigger bite than—Jim, you are very vulgar! But I don\'t care now, I have given up the garden."

"Resigned your stewardship!" said Jim, tragically. "Anything over of the five pounds? I wouldn\'t retire yet, you can\'t have saved enough."

"Don\'t talk nonsense, Mary. At least, it[Pg 207] doesn\'t matter what you talk, you can\'t do it," said one of the Others.

"Can\'t I? we shall see," hardening my heart.

"What did his Reverence say to your resignation?"

"He—he didn\'t say anything."

"He laughed! I heard him," said Jim, "and he is splitting his sides telling the Young Man all about it."

"He isn\'t! Jim, go quick, interrupt them. I won\'t let them talk of m—my garden."

Jim is really a nice boy; he swaggered off with his hands in his pockets, whistling, and joined the two men. I knew he would give the conversation the turn I wished.

I began to cool down. It was easy to say I would "resign" the garden, but could I? Putting pride aside, was not my interest in all those young promising plants for the spring too deep for me now to desert them? Had I not rooted, amongst other things, too much of myself in my garden for me now lightly to withdraw?

While I pondered I strolled down the[Pg 208] garden, and coming up the other side ran into the group of three viewing the holly hedge from the back.

"It is one of the best holly hedges I have ever seen," his Reverence was saying. "Cut it down! Why, it would be sheer madness."

Then the Young Man, without noticing me, began,

"All the same, you do want an opening somewhere. It is quite true that fine hedge shuts you in very much."

"I like being shut in," said his Reverence; "but I might consider your idea of an opening here, an archway in the middle, particularly as the hedge is already rather thin in one place, only \'Mary, Mary, quite contrairy.\'"

"You had better not abuse me, because I am listening," I put in.

"Oh, here you are. I was going to say you had resigned."

"If you had heard all your Visitor suggested you would have thrown up the living."

"Bumptious fellow! I should not have listened to him."

[Pg 209]

"But you told me to."

"Because I had had enough of him."

"But what he said was true. It is absolutely immoral to have that curveting path, that hideous paling, and this bisecting hedge."

"Well, Mary, I did give you credit for some common sense."

"It\'s un-common sense I am blessed with, and I am trying to educate you up to higher ideals for the garden."

But I had taken his arm.

"Then do it by degrees. The Young Man suggests a peep-hole through the hedge. Will that satisfy you?"

"Well, may I have this gravel path up and make a border here?"

"What! more borders? However will you and Griggs manage those you have already?"

"Perhaps if I have this I won\'t poach any more on the kitchen garden."

His Reverence looked at the gravel path critically. "I don\'t see that we need this path very much, but it means a lot of work to take away this gravel and bring in good[Pg 210] mould. It is no use having a bad border while you are about it. Who is to do it?"

"Griggs and—and help," I answered boldly, "and you shall direct."

"And you won\'t resign?"

"I will think better of my decision."

"And I may keep my holly hedge?"

"For the present, until I have educated you up to the pergola."

"Oh! thank you."

Then I explained fully to the Young Man the glories and delights of a pergola and vistas; and he is quite ready to help fix the iron arches, fasten overhead the wire netting, train the clambering roses, vines and clematis, and—cut down the holly hedge.

His Reverence\'s education will take a little time, I expect. In the meanwhile the archway made in the broad gap cut in his holly hedge will help to train his eye to the beauty of vistas.

But how the Visitor would despise my compromising soul!

It was judicious of me to give his Reverence the direction of the new border. I[Pg 211] heard nothing of expense, and, once started, he went ahead in thorough fashion.

The gravel was carted away, and some feet of stony earth. Then we came to a layer of good though light soil. The backs of shrubberies, a small wood at the bottom of a field, a bank in the kitchen garden were all taxed for their share of the best soil we could get, and this, finally mixed in with some old turf and manure, made a border that looked promising. There was no need to begin with a layer of broken china and sardine tins, for the drainage in my soil was more than sufficient, and this disappointed Jim, who said he was ready with a fine collection, had that substratum been necessary.

And then, my new border ready, I launched out.

It was to be partly herbaceous, partly for bulbs and annuals.

The promised plants, which began to come in, supplied me with some delphiniums and small perennial sunflowers. I moved there some of my young plants of oriental poppies, planting them near together until they[Pg 212] should have expanded. Then I selected my lilies. The auratum and other delightful varieties I had to leave out, but the white Madonna lily would thrive, and croceum, an orange-coloured bloom, and the soft apricot shade of an elegans promised to be hardy. These were placed in front of the delphiniums and room left for big sunflowers in the spring. Half forward the Canterbury bells, sweet-Williams and tall campanulas were placed in clumps, and in front of them, well buried, were groups of the Spanish and English irises, meant, as they succeed each other, to keep bright patches of yellow, purple and white flowering there for some time. They are not very dear—five shillings a hundred—and I now began to reckon on a new five pounds. Montbresias, too, I launched into, and left spaces for groups of gladiolas to join them in the spring. Then for early flowering I introduced my thriving young wallflowers, always in groups, not rows, and some of the dear narcissi and gorgeous tulips would, I thought, be admired before other things had a chance. To end up with, and be gay to[Pg 213] the verge of gaudy, I had forget-me-nots and pink silene.

Even the thought of the Visitor could not disturb my satisfaction over my new border. He had not given me his views on flowers.
T

The archway where the holly hedge was sacrificed for my vista was formed of two iron staves bent into arches and joined with wire netting of eighteen inches wide. The village blacksmith supplied the staves; they measured some fourteen feet when they arrived, but were cut and buried until the archway was at its highest point seven feet; and the wire netting was fastened on by my usual assistants. The Young Man was very neat-handed. Then we consulted as to its covering, and, had all suggestions been taken, it would have had to bear a vine on account of its foliage; a virginian creeper for the red leaves in autumn; a Gloire de Dijon since it seemed to prosper in my soil; clematis,[Pg 214] both montana and flamulata, and any number of the coloured varieties; a wisteria, as we had none; a pink and a white banksia; a W. A. Richardson and a crimson rambler. My arch having but two sides I was obliged to offend a good many voters, and, despite jeers as to my former failures, I decided on giving the crimson rambler another try. I chose also a white banksia and a clematis montana, with free promises of introducing other clematis and annual creepers later on, and carrying out all ideas when once I had my pergola.
E

Even after this supreme effort my autumn\'s work was only just beginning. There was the verandah with its failures to tackle. The beginning of November I unearthed the ramblers that even still refused to ramble, and soon the cause of their stunted condition was laid bare.

"Pot bound! Whoi," said Griggs, "so they are! Curious! I don\'t moind \'avin\' see\'d \'em[Pg 215] look like that. Maybe I was drefful \'urried at the toime and never paid no \'eed."

As he spoke he tore at the poor roots, confined with a web-like substance just the shape of the pot they had come in.

Anyone, absolutely any Ignoramus, must have seen the hopelessness of planting a rose-tree with its roots cramped like that. It was impossible for the poor plant to strike out, make itself at home, and get enough nourishment to grow on. How it had managed to live was the marvel. And they were all the same, W. A. Richardson and the other ramblers yellow and red; the standards had not come in pots, so their fate had been better.

It was soon done, and I felt that prisoners had been released. We gave them turf mould and manure mixture to strengthen them.

But it was not only the roses; all the creepers, excepting one clematis, had made but poor growth. At last the mystery was solved.

A spreading beech threw its grateful shade over half the house and grew within three yards of one end of the verandah. How far-reaching were its roots I now discovered, and[Pg 216] their greedy feelers taking every bit of nourishment, both deep and near the surface, my creepers fought an unequal fight for their daily bread. The condition of the roots of a poor honeysuckle reminded one of prisoners of the Bastille.

But how to circumvent the tree? how to teach it manners? For there it must stay, and so must the creepers and plants. We could cut the roots, but they would come again.

Griggs scratched his head. "It\'s Natur\', that\'s wot it is, an\' that ere tree \'ave been \'ere longer than any of us. So you can\'t do nothink."

"We must do something. Young Man, are you thinking?"

"Hard," was the answer.

"Let\'s build an underground wall," suggested Jim. But we all shook our heads and thought again.

"Let\'s sink something," said the Young Man.

"Oh! a tub, an oil tub!" I almost shouted.

"Why, yes," said the Young Man. "I was[Pg 217] thinking of zinc, but that sounds so airtight and stuffy."

"Wouldn\'t a wooden tub rot away, though? A coffin goes to pieces pretty quick," said Jim.

"Well, it will give them a better chance, and perhaps the roots will get accustomed to going round. Anyway they can be renewed," said the Young Man, cheerfully. "If no other idea is forthcoming, let us go and find some tubs."

Now, how long wooden tubs will last under ground I cannot say, but we did then and there sink four tubs beneath the gravel, and filled them with good mixture, making holes and placing stones at the bottom for drainage, and there the roots of the poor starvelings had, at least for a time, a good meal, and when growing time comes I expect the honeysuckle, the roses and the clematis to do justice to their fare.

The further end of the verandah was almost out of reach of the greedy roots, as the long white streamers of the flamulata proved.

It is a satisfaction when things grow and[Pg 218] flower and flourish as books and catalogues have led you to expect.
T

Two of my green tubs were now emptied of the still rampant leaves of the nasturtium and the strong-growing geraniums. It seemed a pity to cut short any vigorous life at the dying season of the year, but Jack Frost would feel no compunction, and I might as well try and live up to the Master\'s maxim of "getting forward"; so after refilling my tubs with as wholesome a mixture as I could, I planted in each four good roots of my old friend hellebore, and had them placed just under the verandah.

The Others at first looked askance. "Will they flower?" I bade them examine the already formed buds. For I bought my hellebore in promising condition at one shilling and sixpence each, and by moving them with a good solid lump of earth round the roots I hoped not to check their development. I bought the common kind of white Christmas[Pg 219] rose, niger, and also a pinky-purple kind, with tall graceful heads called atrorubens.

And when the robins, the snow, the sunshine and my Christmas roses all came together, my verandah realised a very pretty Christmas-card effect, and the Others said, "That is not at all bad." Then the jasmine growing under the verandah burst also into golden stars, its growth of one year having been carefully left alone, and I received as much praise as though I had done something wonderful, which is often the way of the world.

"Luck was with glory wed."

This, however, is very previous, and I must go back to the end of October.
I

I determined the Others should not complain next spring of lack of colour. The sturdy little forget-me-not plants were placed all round the narrow verandah border, and bright red[Pg 220] tulips, I allowed myself fifty for that purpose, were buried between their roots a foot apart. That effect ought to be gay.

In the small inner border between the windows that open on to the verandah I placed the violets from their too shady bed. By taking them up with good balls of earth I hoped not to check any flowering aspirations they might have, and as this was done in October they did recover, and in November and December they kept the verandah sweet, and ought to do even better in March.

Under the study windows I planted a good mass of my red and yellow wallflowers, not only to delight the eye but to send up the fragrance that fills one with the joy of life and spring, and that his Reverence might open his windows in April and say, "Well, the garden is growing;" I also gave him a touching border of forget-me-nots.

Then, too, the desolate front border needed attention. It was always a trial, for it was the poorest of my poor soil, and much robbed by laurels, laburnum and may in the background. I knew I ought to re-make the[Pg 221] whole border, and treat it as I had treated the new one; but prudence bade me lie low and leave it for another year. I removed the old things, the clumps of seedlings, marigolds, zinnias and the gallant little antirrhinums, who had now marched their last march, also geraniums and dahlias; the latter being carefully dried and stored in an open wooden box in the potting-shed.

Griggs kindly gave it "a bit of a dig," and removed the stones that struck even him as being rather heavy for a border. I wish the worms could be taught to carry their useful work a little further and not only dig up the stones but place them in piles by the wayside.

We supplemented the poverty of the border with a little of our manure heap diet, and here I may remark that our savoury heap was composed of all kinds of material besides that derived from the stable. The grass mowings, border trimmings, leaf sweepings, also all refuse of roots and vegetables, after having formed............