There is one question in connection with English horticulture to which at first sight it does not seem quite easy to give a satisfactory answer. Are the flower-shows, the number of which is constantly increasing, an advantage or not? They certainly stimulate the production of magnificent fruit, of beautiful florist-flowers, and of handsome stove and greenhouse plants. But how do they affect the gardens in which these prize specimens are grown? It is mere matter of fact that, when a gardener begins to think of exhibiting, he is very apt to pay undue attention to the plants which will secure him prizes and reputation. If his master is satisfied with the usual monotony of garden-beds, why should the gardener give special attention to what can be of no service to himself? So he throws his whole strength into some bunches of grapes, some dozen roses, some trained chrysanthemums. And this is not the worst of it. The “dressing” of particular blooms has recently become an art, and little curling-irons are employed to get petals into their proper shape, and other various devices are used for various flowers. But there is after all a morality in these things. It is allowable to cut away superfluous petals, but it is not allowable to insert fragments of another blossom. This seems to be the limit. Now we confess the whole system seems to us thoroughly bad, and we recommend the managers of flower-shows to forbid “dressing” of every kind. If not exactly dishonest in itself, it leads on, and very easily, to the worst forms of dishonesty. But indeed, in almost every aspect, nothing can be more spoiling to the gardener than these flower-shows so constantly are. In the first place, the prize-ticket generally asserts that the prize is adjudged to “Mr.——, gardener to——.” The owner of the garden is nobody, and the gardener is everything. The prize is in almost every case regarded as the unchallenged property of the gardener, who has, nevertheless, won the prize by his master’s plant, reared at his master’s expense, and at the cost of time which has made him too frequently neglect much more important matters.
Is it any wonder if horticulture in its best sense—that is, the culture of the garden as a whole—is not what it should be? No gardener can get prizes for well-kept beds, for effects of harmonious colouring, for arrangement of shrubberies, for the grouping of herbaceous plants. He is tempted for the sake of a single specimen to sacrifice the beauty of a whole plant, or the clusters of an entire fruit-tree. That it is most important for nurserymen to be able to compare new species, or new varieties of old species, is of course undeniable. That our ordinary flower-show is for the ordinary spectator an extremely pretty sight is no less certain. But we are satisfied that in the majority of cases it is the wiser course for any one who really cares about his garden, and would rather have a succession of well-cultured flowers than some merely exceptional success, to discourage his gardener from exhibiting.
In conclusion, I can only repeat that “the English flower-garden” may afford far greater pleasure than it does at present. We must learn to look on plants, not as mere points of colour, but as old friends on whose coming we can rely, and who, returning with the recurring seasons, bring back with them pleasant memories of past years. And if, as often happens, they are plants consecrated by song or legend, the imagination is quickened as surely as the heart is stirred. We must remember, too, that our personal delight in a garden is entirely independent of its size or the perfection of its appliances. A child’s garden, such as Mary Howitt once described, a few pots of musk or mignonette on the window-ledge of a schoolboy’s study, will afford a pleasure which acres of garden, left only to the gardener’s care, can never give. “How can I care for this garden? It is so much too large to care about”—a lady, who owns one of the famous gardens in the north of England, once said to me; and it was impossible not to appreciate the difficulty.
Indeed, as with everything else, the garden will soon grow dull, and the flowers lose their attraction, unless we take the management, partly at least, into our own hands, and be masters not in name but in reality. It is not necessary to understand every matter of detail, though our interest will strengthen as our practical knowledge grows; but at least we may make up our minds as to what we want to have done, and then take care that the gardener carries out our orders. We are too often the absolute slaves of our gardeners, and they in turn (of course I am not speaking of exceptions) are too often the slaves of an unintelligent routine. We have learnt, as Bacon said, “to build stately sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection.” It is really about time that we learnt the more difficult lesson.
NOTES.
NOTE I.
THE GARDENER BOWER-BIRD.