One's enjoyment of the garden would be greatly increased if the orchard, which is so often thrust away into a remote corner, were brought into direct communication with it. How easily the trimmer lawn spaces might lead through groups of flowering shrubs to the rather rougher grassy orchard. How naturally the garden Roses and masses of free-growing Cluster Roses would lead to their near relations, the Pears and Apples and other fruiting trees of the great Rose order.
There is no need to make a definite break between the two; it is all the better not to know where the garden ends and the orchard begins. Towards the edge of the mown lawn there may already be trees of the Red Siberian Crab and the handsome Crab John Downie, and the pretty little Fairy Apple; while the nearer orchard trees may well be wreathed with some of the free Cluster Roses, such as Bennett's Seedling or Dundee Rambler.
OLD MULBERRY AT SYON, MIDDLESEX.
If the orchard is of some extent its standard trees of Pear, Apple, Cherry, and Plum may be varied by three or four bush trees, or by some of the beautiful fruit trees of lower growth, such as Medlars and Quinces. There may also be breaks of cut-leaved Blackberry and a thicket of Crabs or Filberts, and on some one side, or perhaps more, a shady Nut alley. There is no need to be always moving the garden orchard. One wide, easy, grassy way might well be kept closely shorn, but much of the middle and side spaces had better not be cut until hay-time, for many would be the bulbs planted under the turf, great drifts of Daffodils and Spanish Scillas, and Fritillaries for the larger effects, and Colchicums and Saffron Crocus for the later months. If the grass were mown again in September, just before the Colchicums appear, it would allow of easy access to the fruit trees in the time of their harvest, and in those interesting weeks immediately before the Apples ripen.
OLD MEDLAR TREE ON EDGE OF GARDEN ORCHARD.
It must not be forgotten that the best use of many fruit-bearing trees is not restricted to the kitchen garden only, for many of them are beautiful things in the most dressed ground. Few small trees are more graceful in habit than the old English Quince that bears the smooth, roundish fruits. It is not only a pleasant object in leaf and flower in early summer, and in autumn glory of golden fruit, but even when bare of leaves in winter a fully matured tree is strikingly beautiful, and in boggy ground where no other tree would thrive it is just at its happiest and is most fruitful. Then many Apples are extremely ornamental, and there is a whole range of Crabs; Siberian, Chinese, and home-raised hybrids that are delightful things both in flower and in fruit. Pyrus Maulei, vieing in beauty of bloom with its near neighbours, the Japanese Quinces, quite outdoes them in glory and bounty of fruit, which in October is one of the most brilliant things in the garden. There are no better garden ornaments for foliage than Figs and Vines, and though the needful pruning of a Vine for fruit takes off somewhat of its pictorial value, which depends in some measure on the wide-flung, luscious summer growth and groping tendril, yet in any shape the Grape Vine is a thing of beauty. Some of its garden kinds also show how, in distinct departures in colour and shape of leaf, it is always beautiful; for the Parsley-leaved Vine, with its dainty and deeply-cut foliage, is a suitable accompaniment to the most refined architecture; while the red-purple leaf of the Claret Vine and its close clusters of blue fruit are richly ornamental in the autumn garden. A Medlar tree, with its large white bloom and handsome leaves, is desirable, and several of the Services are ornamental small trees. Every one knows the lovely pink bloom of the Almond in April, but few may have tried something that is not an experiment but a certainty—namely, the successful culture of the hardier Peaches, near relatives to the Almond, as standards in the south of England. A Peach of American origin, the Early Alexander, bears full or fair crops every year. The only danger is from leaf blister from sudden cold in May, but if its position is sheltered, or if it can be afforded the protection of a net, it will suffer but little, and perfectly ripened peaches, red all round, may be had at the end of July. The beauty of Cherry blossom is so well known that it needs no extolling; and any great high wall looks the better at all seasons for a well-trained old Pear.
A free planting of the cut-leaved Bramble is pleasant to see on the outskirts of the garden, and is beautiful in leaf, in flower, and in fruit.