By the way, is the Musk Rose still found in English gardens, and what is it? Two years ago I got, with infinite trouble, a root or two, but they have died down again, and I begin to doubt whether I shall ever know its scent—a scent which Bacon says comes next to the Violet in perfuming the garden's air.
April 25.—The stages in the cool vinery are now gay with Spiræas and Cinerarias. The Lilies of the Valley are over, but they have done exceedingly well this year. I wonder whether the Trillium grandiflorum or Canadian Wood-Lily is generally known. I believe it to be hardy, but it was new to me, and I had grown it in a pot in the vinery, and a very pretty little flower it is, with its three green leaves, its three green sepals, and its three white petals. I have grown in the same way, for the first time, the Primula japonica, and surely nothing can be more beautiful than its five circles of crimson blossoms, one whorl above another. I have been so pleased with it, that I have just given orders for an entire bed of it to be made, which shall remain permanently, and between the plants I am dropping in Gladiolus bulbs, so that the bed will be in beauty for many weeks.
As I have before explained, you can hardly see the various beds of my flower-garden at a glance, so that I can go to work independently of the effects of the colour produced by elaborate bedding out. To tell the truth, too, I am heartily weary of the monotony of modern gardens, with their endless Pelargoniums, Calceolarias, and Verbenas. Some few such beds I cannot of course dispense with, but I am always glad when I can reclaim a bed for permanent herbaceous plants, as in this case of the Primula japonica.
Another bed, I trust, may be successful in another way—it is a bed of the blue Nemophila insignis. Two years ago I saw in the People's Garden at Dublin, in the beginning of May, two beds, which struck me as being almost the most effective in their colouring of any I had ever seen. One was of Nemophila, the other of Virginian stock; one was a mass of the most brilliant blue, the other a blending of shades of tenderest lilac. The blooms were thick and close as possible, and the size of the flowers much finer than that of the ordinary spring-sown annuals. The manager of these gardens kindly explained to me his secret: the seeds were sown in autumn, pricked out in spring, protected during the early months, and then finally bedded out. Last year we tried with the Nemophila, but we were too soon, and the frost caught us and destroyed our plants. This year we are later, and, by giving some protection against cold and sun for a few days longer, I hope to reproduce what I saw in Dublin. Another year I may make trial of the Virginian Stock as well.
The Hyacinth bed has done fairly well, but there were too many pinks among the spikes for it to be quite successful. The Van Thol Tulips are a terrible failure. Some mice got to the bed, and, though we have killed thirteen of them, they had already eaten away so many of the crowns that some dozen Tulips, appearing here and there, are all I have. The bed of Golden Prince Tulips is, however, doing better; this always seems to me a very handsome Tulip, and I sometimes fancy has a sweetness of scent beyond all other kinds—a something, which at times half reminds one of the odour of some Tea Rose.
By the bye, I have had a Tea Rose in blossom in the vinery—of a sort I rarely see, and of which I really do not know the proper name. It used to grow over a cottage in Herefordshire, which I knew many years ago, and the Herefordshire nurseryman, from whom I got my standard, calls it "the old yellow China." Is this the right name, and is the Rose more common than I imagine? Its petals are loose and thin, and of a pale primrose colour, and before it is fully out it is at its best. Its leaves are large and handsome, and of glossy green. Its blossom has a certain half-bitter scent of Tea about it, to which the scent of no other Tea Rose can at all compare—it is so strong and aromatic.
We gathered our first forced Strawberries on the 16th; our first forced French Beans on the 17th, and our first Asparagus on April 18. This is early for us, but we are having the finest weather.