In the north, or entrance court, we have been busy transplanting some large Apple trees that had overgrown their place, and setting free the trimmed Yews between which they grew. The blackness of these formal, cut Yews shows well against the old walls, which are covered with very aged Greengages and golden Drops. On the turf between each of the pyramid Yews, broad oblong beds have been made; in April we hope to plant them with pink China Roses, which are to grow very dwarf, and to flower the whole year through! The border round the Roses may be blue Nemophila; or perhaps the lovely Santolina Fragrans, with the soft grey foliage.
I think the “going in” to one’s house should be as bright and cheerful as it is possible to make it. But how hard it is to brighten up a north aspect! ours has hitherto been far too gloomy. In the garden, the bed of Roman Roses is warmly matted over for the winter. This brave little red China Rose is one of my great favourites; it goes on flowering for ever! Even now, when the matting is raised a little bit, I can see buds and leaves and the red of opening blooms. I call it the Roman Rose chiefly because it grows at Florence; which is so very Irish, that I think there must have been some better reason now forgotten. The Rose hedges in the beautiful Boboli Gardens are crimsoned over with blossoms as early as the end of March; with us, however, it needs protection when planted in the open ground.
Under the east wall is our only Christmas Rose; it is a very large plant, and over it was built up, about a month ago, a little green bower of Spruce Fir branches. The shelter is to save the blooms from frost, which so often tarnishes their whiteness with red. Almost daily, as I passed, I have peeped in to watch the cluster of white buds nestled snugly within. The buds have duly swelled and lifted one by one their heads, and now this morning our first bunch of perfect Christmas Roses has been gathered. This flower must, I think, be dear to every one with a heart for flowers. Its expression is so full of innocence and freshness—for it is not only human persons who have expression in their faces! and then the charm of its Myrtle-like stamens and clear-cut petals—snow-cold to the touch—and its pretty way of half-hiding among the dark leaves—always ready to be found when sought—and always with so many more blossoms than had been hoped for! To some, indeed, the associations bound up with the Christmas Rose—with even the sound of its name—may be dearer than all its outward loveliness; recalling, perhaps, the house and garden of their childhood, and happy Christmases of long ago; “the old familiar faces,” and tones of the voices that are gone. I must here make the confession that last year, in my anxiety for the whitest possible of blossoms, I had glass placed over the plant; and in spite of warnings, put matting over that; all which ended at Christmas in a fine show of green Roses! In the pits there are several of the smaller kind coming on in pots, which will soon be ready to cut. These are easy enough in their ways. But the Christmas Rose out in the border is a difficult thing to grow; full of quirks and fancies, and like a woman, hard to please. Once, however, it settles down in any spot, it will thrive there; and then will sooner die than take to a new place.
Dec. 13.—Our second white frost has vanished, and the grass appears again with a moist and pleasant smell. The forest of the Fantaisie is thinned, and the encircling Laurels trimmed. The whole took just half a winter’s day to do. At the end of the turf walk, between the bushes and the golden Yews, peers out a Spindle tree, with its pink and scarlet fruit. The birds seem not to care for it, for the fruit is all there—untouched. I wonder if the name of Spindle comes from the unnatural thinness of the tree!
After these many years of working to a special end, we seem now to have almost reached it in one direction, for the garden looks well-nigh as green and furnished in winter as in summer—so far, at least, as the outline of verdure goes. The Yew hedges, and Pines, and perennial greens are at their best now, in mid-winter; they would even seem to have grown and thickened out since the summer died away. Watching the growth of these trees and hedges has been the delight and solace of many a troubled time, and one cannot but feel the most affectionate interest in them. In the centre of a triangular-shaped bit of lawn, surrounded by Conifers, we have placed a large stone vase on a square stone pedestal. The vase is old and grey, and had long stood in another place, where it made no show. The grey stone looks well against the warm greens that back it, and will look better when the season comes to fill it with bright summer flowers. The trees that stand around all wear a sort of charmed double life—at least to me—silently, fancifully.
It was at a time of sickness that the sleepless hours of the long winter nights came to be passed in spirit with the trees in the garden, and especially with half-a-dozen or so of our beautiful straight young Pines. Dare I tell the secret? They all became knights and ladies of King Arthur’s Court! The great Wellingtonia standing a little apart is Arthur himself. The Nordmanniana, with its whorls of deepest green and strong upward shoot of fifteen inches in the year, is Sir Launcelot. The gold-green softly-feathered Douglas Fir, Sir Bedevere. The young Cedar of Lebanon, with fretted boughs of graceful downward sweep, Sir Agravaine. Sir Bors is a rounded solemn English Yew, of slow and steadfast growth. Sir Palomides—a fine pillar-shaped Thuia—towers between Sir Gawaine and Sir Gaheris, who are both clad in the wondrous green with almost metallic lustre of Cupressus Lawsoniana erecta viridis. These all stand round the triangular lawn, and amongst them comes, by some strange chance, St. Eulalie, a lovely Pine (Abies Amabilis), whose robe of grey-blue tufted foliage wraps her feet, and trails upon the grass.
Beyond, on the long lawn next “the par,” stands Sir Tristram, the fine young Pinsapo; he all but perished in the frost of 1879-80, but now he seems to have drawn new strength and vigorous green from that nearly fatal conflict with his terrible enemy. On the house lawn, the Deodara, is the fairy Morgan-le-faye. Near her stood Sir La Cote-mal-taille, an ill-formed Lawsoniana; but he is now transplanted elsewhere. King Mark is a rather wretched ill-grown Cedrus, in summer almost hidden by Laburnums. Dame Bragwaine is a curious Cryptomeria Elegans; she has so many names (seven, at least, that I know of), and she takes such odd diverse disguises! once, loaded with heavy snow, she had to be supported by a stake, and took the semblance of a bear leaning on a ragged staff. In summer she is green, and in winter she wears a dress of purple brown; in rain or heavy dew she is spangled all over with diamonds and pearls. Queen Guinevere was never represented; no tree was found to fit her character. But near King Arthur and Sir Tristram, the two great Pampas tufts, still waving wintry plumes, are “La Beale Isoude” and “Isoude les Blaunch Mains.”
From our foolish garden-dreaming let us rest, and turn with a long look of revering love to the great Oak, that stands in his strength out in the park field, beyond the garden. On three sides round are lines of guardian Elms, in all their pride of delicate leafless intricacy; alone, amid the leafless ones, rises the Oak, wearing still his crown of brown, sere leaves. Smooth and straight grows up the giant stem, full twenty feet to the spring of the lowest branch. Two brother Oaks stand on either side. Their form is more rounded, more perfect; but high above them the great Oak uprears his head—unconcerned, and grandly branched, though shattered by every fierce west wind that blows. Every storm works some loss, but from the way each torn limb lies, you would say he had thrown it down in proud defiance. The wood-pigeons shelter among the summer leaves; the autumn ripens a rich store of acorns; and now, as I survey him from the terrace walk, or gaze upwards from the wet dead leaves beneath, through all the mystery of his bare and spreading boughs, I think of Keats’ stanza—
“In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,