Days and hours in a garden

by E. V. B.

“Time will not run back to fetch the age of gold.”—Milton.

“In graceful succession, in equal fulness, in balanced beauty, the dance of the hours goes forward still.”—Emerson.

XII.

SEPTEMBER.

Of Psyche—Of an Old Garden—Nil Desperandum—Of Branches bearing Beauteous Fruit.

September 17.—That is not to-day! Time has since been sliding on faster and further away from summer into autumn. Yet I have a fancy to mark the date of as sweet a September day as ever shone upon this garden. I believe the people who got most enjoyment out of the sunshine of that marvellous day were the butterflies. There was a real butterflies’ ball held in the long border of single Dahlias! An hour before noon the flowers, beautiful in all the brilliance of their rainbow dyes, were visited by a dancing throng of Atalanta butterflies. Yellow, red, orange, lilac, white—every flower had its Atalanta or two. They were the finest butterflies of the kind I ever saw. Strong on the wing, and faultless in the perfection of their white-edged black velvet and scarlet suits, they were the very embodiment of joyousness. Not a jot did they care, in their pride and joy of life, though a hundred deaths surrounded them. They knew nothing at all about that, indeed. Life in the balmy air with the sunshine and the flowers was all in all to them. A few shabby Gamma moths, and hosts of humble bees, combining business with amusement, mixed in with the butterflies. By noon the whole gay company dispersed. Later in the day I found those fickle Atalantas disporting themselves upon some yellow Everlastings in another part of the garden. Butterfly life varies in our garden year by year, but I never saw so many Atalantas. This summer we have seen few Peacocks or Tortoiseshells. Orange-tips (Euchlæ cardamines) were unusually plentiful in the spring, as were also our White Cabbages throughout the summer. So much fair weather as there has been required a good supply! since two white butterflies in the morning are the sure sign of a fine day—and this summer they had always to be about in pairs. Often, a large brimstone has floated calmly by. The chalkhill blue (Polyommatus Corydon), for many past seasons noted as appearing about the Yew hedges in March, has failed us this year; there have been no humming-bird sphinxes, and the far-scented Auratum Lilies, where often on warm evenings I have sought great Hawkmoths, seem to have attracted nothing but scores of very inferior-looking Gammas. It is an intense pleasure to watch these various most beautiful beings, in all the freedom of their wayward wildness. No inducement would to me seem powerful enough—now that the barbarity of youth is past—to cause their capture and death, were they never so rare as specimens.

And now the rain and the falling leaves recall but too vividly the true date (Sept. 28), reminding me that I have to tell of the garden’s autumnal desolation; yet if the days would only keep fair and bright, enough still is left there to make one happy. The single Dahlias have won their way quite since last I wrote, and now I love them dearly. They are alone sufficient to light up half the garden. Our chief border is made up of seedlings, an exquisite variety of colours, mauve or rose-lilac coming least often, and a yellow with reddened or burnt-sienna tipped petals by far the loveliest. Named varieties are along with the Sunflowers opposite. White Queen I like the best—such large pure flowers. A White Queen with an Atalanta butterfly settling on it is a perfect little bit of contrasted colour. I am schooling myself to say Dah-lia, but habit is strong, and Daylia will persist in coming out. In Curtis’s Botanical Magazine of 1803, vol. xix., p. 762, “Dahlia Coccinea, scarlet-flowered Dahlia,” is figured. There is a note—“So named in honour of Andrew Dahl, a Swedish botanist; ... not to be confounded with Dalea, a plant named after Dale, the friend of Ray.” The pronunciation settled, the magazine goes on to say the Dahlia is “a native of South America, and may be considered as a hardy greenhouse herbaceous perennial.” These beautiful flowers are especially valuable, since rain has no effect on them, though rough winds so easily break the brittle stems. The double Dahlia is unknown in our garden; it has never been admitted. Fine as it is in form and colour, the dislike to it seems, perhaps, unreasonable, yet through some far-off association, I can never disconnect the double Dahlia from a sort of mixture of earwigs and pen-wipers! The clumps of Japanese Anemones, both white and rosy-grey, are full of an unfailing charm. We try to prolong their existence by snipping off the round seed-heads. One might as easily make ropes of sand.... The same service done to Dahlias is just within human possibility. The dark red-mauve variety shows an individuality which gives it great value in the autumn borders. The irregularly shaped flowers, whose narrow petals manifest an inclination to double, last longer than those of the other two kinds. Rain and wind have destroyed the beauty of Salvia Patens; it will bloom out again, however. The rich blue of this well-loved Salvia contrasts well with white Anemones when mixed in the flower-glasses. As for cut flowers, they are always a doubtful pleasure. I gather them with a pang, and would rather enjoy them blooming their full time out in the garden. And yet what other ornament is there—even of finest porcelain—to compare with fresh-cut flowers? Nor are pictures, nor rich satins of Italy, sufficient without flowers to make your room look bright and habitable. Even that best decoration, walls well lined with books, is the better for a few flowers on the table. So that I am not yet prepared to follow the example of the old lady who never allowed one flower in her garden to be cut, and filled her glasses with artificial Roses! Sunflowers are sprouting round their strong stems, and surrounded thus by constellations of smaller suns, are perhaps even handsomer than before. We have two curiosities of Sunflower at this moment—curious as demonstrating a resolve to exist and flower under any circumstances whatever. One is a large thick-stemmed plant, which must have met at some time with some violent discouragement; it lies curled round flat on the earth, looking almost like a poor starved cat with a large head; for, though quite overgrown with summer Phloxes and Roses, etc., one large flower at the end of its stalk tries to look up, while two or three of smaller size, growing along the stalk, do the same. In contrast to the deformity below it, a miniature Sunflower, slenderly graceful, with blossom no larger than a florin, springs out of the mortar between two bricks high up on the wall. There is no visible crevice, but some tiny nail-hole there must be where somehow a seed had lodged.

Though many borders have now begun to look forlorn, we feel the garden has done well. It is still quite full of flowers, in some parts gay, even, as it could never have been with the dulness of the most brilliant “bedding out.” The entrance court is bright with Nicotiana, scarlet Pelargoniums, Zinnias, double white Petunia, and blue Lobelias. The long-desired pink China Roses, intended for these beds once, could not be found anywhere. Such simple loveliness is out of fashion, it seems! Torch plants (Tritoma) are alight in all the edges of distant shrubberies. There are Japan Anemones and Œnothera everywhere. The Sweet Pea hedge by the tennis-court is out again in bloom. Marigolds take care of themselves. They keep going off and coming on again, shining out in the dark where least expected. Our Marigolds are of the deepest orange-gold. The seed was brought from Cannes, where their colour is always fine. They incline to turn pale with us, so we have to weed out pale faces in order to keep the stock black-eyed and fiery. Golden Rod is plentiful and useful, and I like it for the sake of old remembrance. Eighty years ago, as I used to hear, the gardens at Hampton Court knew no other flowers at all.[7] The great square beds were simply filled with Golden Rod. Those must have been happier days at Hampton Court, before carpet bedding was known—when the Yews were in all their beauty, and the fountain sent up its single lofty jet, and children played upon the mimic harp wrought in the beautiful iron gate of the Pavilion Walk, or peeped through the bars at the browsing deer.

[7] In the royal private gardens, however, at Hampton Court, rare plants were cultivated so far back as 1691; such as the Green-flowered Knowltonia Vesicatoria, etc.