Days and hours in a garden

by E. V. B.

E. V. B.,

IN 1884.

PREFACE.

IF for a sixth reprint of Days and Hours in a Garden a new Preface was deemed advisable, still more so, perhaps, should there be something new prefixed to the Seventh Edition, although, indeed, it contains nothing that in any sense is new. Neither new words nor any new vignettes appear therein. Nevertheless we venture to hope that perhaps new readers may be found. Since the last edition was published some three years have come and gone, with their world-old roll of seasons and their burden of inevitable change. The garden has three times slept beneath the rains and the snows of winter, and has awakened in spring with the birds and the bees. Meanwhile, the shrubs are taller and larger, and the trees have extended their roots and stretched out their branches over lawns and gravel paths. And the summer shade, so coveted in other days, has broadened, while, on the other hand, it has become more hard to maintain in their wonted brilliancy our borders and flowerful closes. The axe and the pruning-knife have been busy during the winter months; and many a fine Laurel, in all its wealth of glossy green, has been laid low, and with Yew and the full-foliaged Phylleria, and more than one tall Deodara,—become a burnt sacrifice to “Apollo’s sunny ray.” For the south sunshine must be let in, no matter what the cost. In certain ways the garden may be said to suffer change; and chiefly when the grace and softly rounded loveliness of various evergreens which do not bear the shears—Cryptomeria Elegans, Red Cedar, and the like—after a course of years begins to wane. Even to the upward-pointing Cypress middle life in an English garden is not becoming. And as the larger trees increase in size, so the overshadowed lawns diminish. And thus the slower progress of some of our trees has given place to a rapid growth, which bids fair to overstep all bounds of such limited space as ours. The Douglas Fir and the branching Cedar of Lebanon keep growing into one another, while Excelsa touches them both, and wants to reach across to the clump of Yew and Laburnum. Their near neighbour the Sequoia already rises to the height of fifty feet, and measures over nine feet round at some two feet from the ground. Nordmaniana alone (most beautiful of all), through having five times lost his leader, is forced to greater moderation. Still, although no future of green maturity can ever compensate the earlier, expectant delight of watching our young trees’ youth, all is not lost; for the pleasures carried away by Time, Time itself replaces by others to the full as sweet. It may be that favourite plants become established and yield a larger harvest of beauty, or that deep-laid plans ripen into bright perfection, while a thousand garden joys arise fresh each year, nay, well-nigh every day. As to the living frequenters of the garden, whose presence there for the most part enhances our enjoyment of it, the tomtits and nuthatches, are as busy with the cocoanuts which hang for their use all winter from the Rose-arches as the mice and the sparrows are with the crocuses; the white pigeons still circle in the air and settle upon the gables, or preen their feathers in the sunshine amongst the yellow stonecrop at the base of the old grey pillar in the parterr; the swallows return year by year to their nests within the porch; but the faithful satin-coated Collie lies still for ever under the turf by the ivied wall, and the earth lies heavy on his noble head. For these thirteen summers past he had taken his pleasure in the garden—had chased marauding cats, or bounded after apples with any playfellow of the hour, while his glad bark rang again; or as in later days, had gravely followed the steps of his mistress about the walks, or rolled upon the grass, or watched with lazy but unfailing interest his friend the Gardener at work. Four words graven on a little white marble tablet that shines amidst the dark ivy-leaves on the wall record his name and character:—

CASSIO.
TENDER AND TRUE.
May, 1876.] [Nov., 1889.

Already the Snowdrops are giving way before impatient Hepaticas and Primroses, the bare Elms are thickening with purple, and we begin to count the Gentian buds. Everywhere Nature repairs herself in ceaseless round. Only in our human lives some vacant spots there may be, where the grass will not grow green again.

E. V. B.

Huntercombe Manor,