Days and hours in a garden

by E. V. B.

JULY.

“As the last taste of sweet is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things
long past.”—Shakespeare.

X.

MIDSUMMER AND JULY.

Of Pæonies—Iris Sibirica—Green Peas—Fennel—Strawberries—Lilies—The Vine.

June 24.—“Ere the parting hour go by, quick, thy tablets, Memory.” In less than a week July will be here, and June will fade away into the past and be forgotten, while more than half its loveliness is still unnoted and untold. So here on Midsummer night, when the spirits of earth and air have power, let me call back for a moment the dear-worth vision of flowers that were my delight in the gone sweet days of early June. I would try also to fix the remembrance of a few, out of the thousand glories of the day, doomed to die before ever the story of next month begins. And first the Pæonies, which I have as yet scarcely named. Earliest of all came the crimson-pink single Pæony (Pæonia peregrina), with yellow stamens and bluish leaves, like a giant Rose of Sharon (the single red Scotch Rose); then the pale pink double; then the heavy crimson, that pales so quick in sun or rain; then, most beautiful of all, the pure, cold, white Pæony, with a faint tinge of colour on its outer petals. Last of all the large rose-red—rose-coloured, with an evanescent perfume like a dream of the smell of a wild Rose, yet in substance so staunch a flower that I have known rose Pæonies retain their beauty for two full weeks in a glass of water. All these, excepting one or two who here and there outstay the rest, are gone by.

And then the Elder! The hedgerows have been white with it; and there were days when all the air was scented with it, and the country smelt of Elder! The path under our one tree is now a milky way, covered with a myriad little fallen stars. They remind one of the far-away Olives’ starry blossoms, when they fall softly among Lady Tulips and Gladioli in May. Syringa (Philadelphus, or Mock Orange) has come and almost gone; three varieties—the old small one, the large-flowered, and the half-double sort. I like most the first, and this has also the most powerful scent. A large old bush of it grows in the grass, just without the glass door in the wall opening into the greenhouse. Dear Syringa! best hated and best loved of flowers. The lovers of it hail its blooming with enthusiasm, and break off sprigs to wear as they pass the bush, whilst others will go the other way round to avoid passing near. And now it suffers still further insult by being denied its own old name, Syringa! Even in 1597, in Gerarde’s time, there began to arise some confusion between it and the Lilac, or “Blew Pipe Tree.”

And now, at this very time, has come a new burst of Irises—the narrow-leaved kinds. Not the real Spanish Irises; their time is not yet. We have a few old plants whose flowers are deep bronze, flame-centred, in yellow gold, and a stronger, commoner kind, of full lilac colour. One little plant, growing in a pet corner by the iron gate in the south wall, has a delicate primrose and lilac-tipped bloom. And there is the great white Flag Iris, whose grand leaves stand four feet high. The right place has not yet been found for this fine plant. For three years past he has just borne with us, and no more; I fear he dislikes us—and he shows it. By the watercourse the yellow Flags are as yellow as possible, in rich contrast with their dark green leaves; and in the Fantaisie, where the China Tulip stood last month, showing bright against the dusky Cryptomeria Elegans, is now a fine root of Iris (Sibirica alba). The blue Sibirica is good, but this white variety is most lovely. One could not pass it by without remarking the peculiar whiteness of its small shapely flowers, set on such long slender stalks. How wonderful are the contrasts of white in flowers! Of those now in bloom together, one hardly knows which to call the whitest of them all. This little Iris retains through its whiteness a dim remembrance, as it were, of blue.