CHAPTER XIII
GRASS, GROUND, OR GRAVEL
“Where a green, grassy turf is all I crave.”
“A turf of dull, down-trodden grass
Brings summer to my heart.”
When people first take possession of the new suburban garden, be it ever so small or empty, three things are sure to be found in it; even the builder bestows as much as that upon them, though it may not be much to boast of either in quantity or quality. The three things are grass, ground, and gravel; grass for the tiny lawn, ground for the flower-beds, and gravel for the paths. Now, how are these to be apportioned? Some people crave for nothing but flowers and vegetables, so they are keenest about soil and ground; others desire to have a dry place always ready to walk about or sit in, cheap to keep up, and handy for their dog-kennels and other fancies. They are gravelites. Another set of folk are only to be made happy by grass, and I am of that number.
One of the most extraordinary things in the world is that so many garden-lovers who are kind enough to give advice about suburban plots seldom have a good word for grass. I always think it must be because they have never had to do without it themselves. The love of green turf is, I think, one of the most deeply rooted feelings of human nature; maybe it is a heritage from the days when pasture-land meant more to us than it does now, and the coming or withholding of the green blade spelled life or death. “The king himself is served by the field.”
The restful charm of the grassy garden appeals to me so much, that with a tree or two, the simplest of flowers, and a rose-bush here and there, I could content myself with nothing else, so I (for once ) cannot see eye to eye with Mrs. Earle when she says, “I am all for reducing lawns and turf except for paths in small gardens;” and elsewhere we are advised to have red gravel or a bricked or tiled square to sit on while we admire a wide border of flowers all round the edge. I should not like such a garden as this at all, and could never feel at home in it. Fancy no kindly turf to throw one’s self down upon in the noonday heat, with a book in hand and a tree overhead, or if not a tree, a parasol. If we had no lawn to be cut and trimmed, where would be the sounds that most do “rout the brood of care, the sigh of scythe in morning dew,” or the less poetical but still soothing monotone of the mowing-machine? And what a loss never to smell the fresh scent of the new-cut blades of grass as they are collected in box or barrow, and used to mulch the wilting flowers; nor to note the deliciously neat appearance of the well-rolled, carefully swept grass-plot, looking so much like a good child that has just been washed and dressed, and repays so fully for the sweet trouble it has given.
A writer on the subject of very diminutive gardens has described one that belonged to a small suburban villa. It captivated my fancy. Narrow was this tiny plot and very old, but it was grassed all over, and at one end a child’s swing had been left standing, which was covered with a thick growth of Ivy. How quaint and cool and pleasant on a summer’s day, and what a setting for a touch of white or scarlet! Any flower would look its best in such a garden.
Not long ago a contributor to Country Life wrote an article on English and Continental suburban gardens that interested me very much, but I am sorry to say there was no mention whatever in it of turf. Certainly there was not much room for grass in the plots that were described, and in some of them the gradients were too steep for grass-growing. The garden I liked best out of those mentioned was a mere strip about thirty yards long by about ten or eleven yards wide. In this small space (little more than a courtyard) was a border with vines and fruit trees and flowers, a broad brick path, and then a pleached alley of small Lime trees, the outer row close against the boundary wall. This is another of the small gardens I have read of that live in my memory and are a pleasure to think of.
Under the circumstances, it is difficult to see how its arrangement could have been improved upon. I am sure the owners, being people of taste, would have had turf also if possible, and I am still wondering what was done under the Lime avenue. The trees must have been sweet when in flower, but alas! Lime foliage falters and falls down with the first touch of frost, and then what a litter it makes. But no trees are more delightful in summer; the wind stirs so gently in the boughs, with eloquent soft speech of leaves.