Garden-Craft Old and New

by John Dando Sedding

And yet if I dare speak my mind "sike fancies weren foolerie;" and it were hard to find a good word to say for them from any point of view whatever. Their wobbly shapes are not elegant; they have not the sanction of precedent, even of epochs the most barbarous. And though they make pretence at being a species of art, their mock-formality has not that geometric precision which shall bind them to the formal lines of the house, or to the general bearings of the site. Not only do they contribute nothing to the artistic effect of the general design, but they even mar the appearance of the grass that accommodates them. Design they have, but not design of that quality which alone justifies its intrusion. No wonder "Nature abhors lines" if this base and spurious imitation of the "old formality," that Charles Lamb gloats over, is all that the landscape-garden can offer in the way of idealisation.

One other feature of the old-fashioned garden—the herbaceous border—requires a word. It is worthy of note that, unlike the modern, the ancient gardener was not a man of one idea—his art is not bounded like a barrel-organ that can only play one invariable tune! While the master of the "old formality" can give intricate harmonies of inwoven colours in the geometric beds—"all mosaic, choicely planned," where Nature lends her utmost magic to grace man's fancy—he knows the value of the less as well as the more, and finds equal room for the unconstrained melodies of odd free growths in the border-beds, where you shall enjoy the individual character, the form, the outline, the colour, the tone of each plant. Here let the mind of an earlier generation speak in George Milner's "Country Pleasures":

"By this time I have got round to the old English flower-bed, where only perennials with an ancient ancestry are allowed to grow. Here there is always delight; and I should be sorry to exchange its sweet flowers for any number of cartloads of scentless bedding-plants, mechanically arranged and ribbon-bordered. This bed is from fifty to sixty yards long, and three or four yards in width. A thorn hedge divides it from the orchard. In spring the apple-bloom hangs over, and now we see in the background the apples themselves. The plants still in flower are the dark blue monkshood, which is 7ft. high; the spiked veronica; the meadow-sweet or queen-o'-the-meadow; the lady's mantle, and the evening primrose. This last may be regarded as the characteristic plant of the season. The flowers open about seven o'clock, and as the twilight deepens, they gleam like pale lamps, and harmonise wonderfully with the colour of the sky. On this bed I read the history of the year. Here were the first snowdrops; here came the crocuses, the daffodils, the blue gentians, the columbines, the great globed peonies; and last, the lilies and the roses."

And now to apply what has been said.

Since gardening entails so much study and experience—since it is a craft in which one is so apt to err, in small matters as in large—since it exists to represent passages of Nature that have touched man's imagination from time immemorial—since its business is to paint living pictures of living things whose habits, aspects, qualities, and character have ever engaged man's interest—since the modern gardener has not only not found new sources of inspiration unknown of old, but has even lost sensibility to some that were active then—it were surely wise to take the hand of old garden-masters who did large things in a larger past—to whom fine gardening came as second nature—whose success has given English garden-craft repute which not even the journeyman efforts of modern times can quite extinguish.

These men—Bacon, Temple, Evelyn, and their school—let us follow for style, elevated form, noble ideals, and artistic interpretation of Nature.

For practical knowledge of trees and shrubs, indigenous or exotic—to know how to plant and what to plant—to know what to avoid in the practice of modern blunderers—to know the true theory and practice of Landscape-gardening, reduced to writing, after ample analysis—turn we to those books of solid value of the three great luminaries of modern garden-craft, Gilpin, Repton, Loudon.

And it were not only to be ungenerous, but absolutely foolish, to neglect the study of the best that is now written and done in the way of landscape-gardening, in methods of planting, and illustration of botany up to date. One school may see things from a different point of view to another, yet is there but one art of gardening. It is certain that to gain boldness in practice, to have clear views upon that delicate point—the relations of Art and Nature—to have a reliable standard of excellence, we must know and value the good in the garden-craft of all times, we must sympathise with the point of view of each phase, and follow that which is good in each and all without scruple and doubtfulness. That man is a fool who thinks that he can escape the influence of his day, or that he can dispense with tradition.

I say, let us follow the old garden-masters for style, form, ideal, and artistic interpretation of Nature, and let us not say what Horace Walpole whimpered forth of Temple's garden-enterprise: "These are adventures of too hard achievement for any common hands." Have we not seen that at the close of Bacon's lessons in grand gardening he adds, that the things thrown in "for state and magnificence" are but nothing to the true pleasure of a garden?

The counsels of perfection are not to be slighted because our ground is small. In gardening, as in other matters, the true test of one's work is the measure of one's possibilities. A small, trim garden, like a sonnet, may contain the very soul of beauty. A small garden may be as truly admirable as a perfect song or painting.