Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth

by Alice Morse Earle

Many call Chicory or Succory our bluest flower. Thoreau happily termed it "a cool blue." It is not often the fortune of a flower to be brought to notice and affection because of a poem; we expect the poem to celebrate the virtues of flowers already loved. The Succory is an example of a plant, known certainly to flower students, yet little thought of by careless observers until the beautiful poem of Margaret Deland touched all who read it. I think this a gem of modern poesy, having in full that great element of a true poem, the most essential element indeed of a short poem—the power of suggestion. Who can read it without being stirred by its tenderness and sentiment, yet how few are the words.

"Oh, not in ladies' gardens,
My peasant posy,
Shine thy dear blue eyes;
Nor only—nearer to the skies
In upland pastures, dim and sweet,
But by the dusty road,
Where tired feet
Toil to and fro,
Where flaunting Sin
May see thy heavenly hue,
Or weary Sorrow look from thee
Toward a tenderer blue."

I recall perfectly every flower I saw in pasture, swamp, forest, or lane when I was a child; and I know I never saw Chicory save in old gardens. It has increased and spread wonderfully along the roadside within twenty years. By tradition it was first brought to us from England by Governor Bowdoin more than a century ago, to plant as forage.

In our common Larkspur, the old-fashioned garden found its most constant and reliable blue banner, its most valuable color giver. Self-sown, this Larkspur sprung up freely every year; needing no special cherishing or nourishing, it grew apace, and bloomed with a luxuriance and length of flowering that cheerfully blued the garden for the whole summer. It was a favorite of children in their floral games, and pretty in the housewife's vases, but its chief hold on favor was in its democracy and endurance. Other flowers drew admirers and lost them; some grew very ugly in their decay; certain choice seedlings often had stunted development, garden scourges attacked tender beauties; fierce July suns dried up the whole border, all save the Larkspur, which neither withered nor decayed; and often, unaided, saved the midsummer garden from scanty unkemptness and dire disrepute.

The graceful line of Dr. Holmes, "light as a loop of Larkspur," always comes to my mind as I look at a bed of Larkspur; and I am glad to show here a "loop of Larkspur," growing by the great boulder which he loved in the grounds of his country home at Beverly Farms. I liked to fancy that Dr. Holmes's expression was written by him from his memory of the little wreaths and garlands of pressed Larkspur that have been made so universally for over a century by New England children. But that careful flower observer, Mrs. Wright, notes that in a profuse growth of the Bee Larkspur, the strong flower spikes often are in complete loops before full expansion into a straight spire; some are looped thrice. Dr. Holmes was a minute observer of floral characteristics, as is shown in his poem on the Coming of Spring, and doubtless saw this curious growth of the Larkspur.

"Light as a Loop of Larkspur."

Common annual Larkspurs now are planted in every one's garden, and deservedly grow in favor yearly. The season of their flowering can be prolonged, renewed in fact, by cutting away the withered flower stems. They respond well to all caretaking, to liberal fertilizing and watering, just as they dwindle miserably with neglect. There are a hundred varieties in all; among them the "Rocket-flowered" and "Ranunculus flowered" Larkspurs or Delphiniums are ever favorites. A friend burst forth in railing at being asked to admire a bed of Delphinium. "Why can't she call them the good old-time name of Larkspur, and not a stiff name cooked up by the botanists." I answered naught, but I remembered that Parkinson in his Garden of Pleasant Flowers gives a chapter to Delphinium, with Lark's-heel as a second thought. "Their most usual name with us," he states, "is Delphinium." There is meaning in the name: the flower is dolphin-like in shape. Of the perennial varieties the Delphinium brunonianum has lovely clear blue, musk-scented flowers; the Chinese or Branching Larkspur is of varied blue tints and tall growth, and blooms from midsummer until frost. And loveliest of all, an old garden favorite, the purely blue Bee Larkspur, with a bee in the heart of each blossom. In an ancient garden in Deerfield I saw this year a splendid group of plants of the old Delphinium Belladonna: it is a weak-kneed, weak-backed thing; but give it unobtrusive crutches and busks and backboards (in their garden equivalents), and its incomparable blue will reward your care. There is something singular in the blue of Larkspur. Even on a dark night you can see it showing a distinct blue in the garden like a blue lambent flame.

"Larkspur lifting turquoise spires
Bluer than the sorcerer's fires."