Trees and Shrubs for English Gardens Part 38

Any of the shrubs recommended for the mixed flowering hedge could, of course, be used alone; and excellent it would be to have a hedge of Guelder Rose or flowering Currant or j.a.pan Quince, and how much more interesting than the usual hedge of Quick or Privet or Holly. Both sides of the flower hedge should be easily accessible, not necessarily by a hard path, but by a s.p.a.ce just wide enough to go along comfortably. An additional advantage well worth considering would be that, supposing the direction of the hedge to be east and west, the south side would flower in advance of the north, and so prolong the supply of bloom.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

PLEACHED OR GREEN ALLEYS

In the old days the pleached alley was as familiar in English gardens as the pergola of the present age. Both are interesting, and both provide grateful shadowed walks in the heat of summer. The trees most generally used in the fas.h.i.+oning of pleached alleys were the Hornbeam and Lime, both native of this country, but green alleys have been made of Yew, of _Cotoneaster buxifolia_, of Holly, and other evergreens. There are flowering Cherries of weeping habit that would suit well for such treatment, and several other small trees of pendulous growth, such as Laburnum, Weeping Ash, and the large-leaved Weeping Elm. There is an important green alley at West Dean, near Chichester, of Laburnum only.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A NUT WALK._]

The green alley differs from the pergola in that the pergola has solid and permanent supports, its original purpose, in addition to the giving of shade, being to support vines. The green alley, being made of stiffer and more woody growths, only needs a temporary framework to which to train the trees till they have filled the s.p.a.ce and formed the shape.

Hornbeam was the tree most used in former ages, and for a simple green alley nothing is better. Beech is also good. Several other of the smaller trees of weeping growth should be more used for this and the allied uses of training for arbours and other shelter-places in the garden.

The common Plane is much used on the continent for green shelters; the trees are pollarded at about eight feet high, and the vigorous young growths trained down horizontally to a slight framework.

It would be interesting to make a green alley with two or perhaps three kinds of plants whose leaf form was of the same structure. For instance, a groundwork of Weeping Ash could soon be trained into shape, and Wistaria would be best to grow all over and through it. The more stiff and woody Ash would supply the eventual solid framework, as by the time the Wistaria was making strong growth (for it is very slow to make a beginning) the whole would be well in shape, and might dispense with the framing of "carpenters' work" that is necessary for its first shaping.

It would be best to plant the Ash zigzag across the path so that the main of the head of each tree might be trained across the path and down to the ground on the opposite side, when it would occupy the s.p.a.ce between the two opposite trees.

It is important to further maintain the distinction between green alley and pergola by using in the green alley only things of a permanent and woody character; no Roses or Clematis, or any other plants of which portions are apt to die or wear out. These are proper to the pergola, whose permanent substructure makes it easier to cut away and renew those of its coverings, whether structural or growing, that are liable to partial decay.

A great many delightful things may be done with these green alleys and green shelters. Much interest is already aroused in the pergola, and when thinking of this it is well to consider these other ways of adding to the comfort and charm of our gardens. One thing, however, should be carefully considered. It should be remembered that where a path is made more important by pa.s.sing under trained green growths it should have some definite reason for being so accentuated, certainly at one and desirably at both ends. It often occurs that in laying out ground the owner wishes to have a pergola, as it were, in the air, and when there is nothing to justify its presence. It should not be put at haphazard over any part of the garden walk. If of any length, it should distinctly lead from somewhere to somewhere of importance in the garden design, and should, at least at one end, finish in some distinct full-stop, such as a well-designed summer-house or tea-house.

Another important matter is that a pergola or green alley, in the usual sense, should never wind or go uphill. It is not intended by this that shading coverings cannot be used in such places, but that they would want especial design, and it is altogether a matter of doubt if these could not be much better treated in other ways.

The circ.u.mstances of different gardens are so infinitely various that it is impossible to lay down hard rules; only general rules can be given and exceptional circ.u.mstances dealt with by exceptional treatment.

Green alleys require some attention. In winter the oldest of the wood must be cut out to make room for the young growth, and when this is lengthening vigorously it must be carefully laid in.

If the alley has an iron framework, which is necessary when such strong growing things as Wistaria are used, this may be clothed during the first few years, until the Wistaria is growing strongly, with annual climbers such as _Cobaea scandens_, _lophospermum_, _Mina lobata_, and even varieties of the large-flowered Clematis, which must be removed when the Wistaria covers the alley.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _OLD APPLE WALK (Helmingham Hall)._]

Very charming alleys are sometimes formed of fruit trees--Pear, Apple, Cherry, and Plum making delightful spring pictures, and almost as much so when in fruit in autumn. Where fruit and flower are desired every shoot must be exposed to sun and air. When densely shaded by other growths the wood does not ripen, and therefore flowers badly, if at all.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

THE GARDEN ORCHARD

One's enjoyment of the garden would be greatly increased if the orchard, which is so often thrust away into a remote corner, were brought into direct communication with it. How easily the trimmer lawn s.p.a.ces might lead through groups of flowering shrubs to the rather rougher gra.s.sy orchard. How naturally the garden Roses and ma.s.ses of free-growing Cl.u.s.ter Roses would lead to their near relations, the Pears and Apples and other fruiting trees of the great Rose order.

There is no need to make a definite break between the two; it is all the better not to know where the garden ends and the orchard begins. Towards the edge of the mown lawn there may already be trees of the Red Siberian Crab and the handsome Crab John Downie, and the pretty little Fairy Apple; while the nearer orchard trees may well be wreathed with some of the free Cl.u.s.ter Roses, such as Bennett's Seedling or Dundee Rambler.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _OLD MULBERRY AT SYON, MIDDLEs.e.x._]

If the orchard is of some extent its standard trees of Pear, Apple, Cherry, and Plum may be varied by three or four bush trees, or by some of the beautiful fruit trees of lower growth, such as Medlars and Quinces. There may also be breaks of cut-leaved Blackberry and a thicket of Crabs or Filberts, and on some one side, or perhaps more, a shady Nut alley. There is no need to be always moving the garden orchard. One wide, easy, gra.s.sy way might well be kept closely shorn, but much of the middle and side s.p.a.ces had better not be cut until hay-time, for many would be the bulbs planted under the turf, great drifts of Daffodils and Spanish Scillas, and Fritillaries for the larger effects, and Colchic.u.ms and Saffron Crocus for the later months. If the gra.s.s were mown again in September, just before the Colchic.u.ms appear, it would allow of easy access to the fruit trees in the time of their harvest, and in those interesting weeks immediately before the Apples ripen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _OLD MEDLAR TREE ON EDGE OF GARDEN ORCHARD._]

It must not be forgotten that the best use of many fruit-bearing trees is not restricted to the kitchen garden only, for many of them are beautiful things in the most dressed ground. Few small trees are more graceful in habit than the old English Quince that bears the smooth, roundish fruits. It is not only a pleasant object in leaf and flower in early summer, and in autumn glory of golden fruit, but even when bare of leaves in winter a fully matured tree is strikingly beautiful, and in boggy ground where no other tree would thrive it is just at its happiest and is most fruitful. Then many Apples are extremely ornamental, and there is a whole range of Crabs; Siberian, Chinese, and home-raised hybrids that are delightful things both in flower and in fruit. _Pyrus Maulei_, vieing in beauty of bloom with its near neighbours, the j.a.panese Quinces, quite outdoes them in glory and bounty of fruit, which in October is one of the most brilliant things in the garden. There are no better garden ornaments for foliage than Figs and Vines, and though the needful pruning of a Vine for fruit takes off somewhat of its pictorial value, which depends in some measure on the wide-flung, luscious summer growth and groping tendril, yet in any shape the Grape Vine is a thing of beauty. Some of its garden kinds also show how, in distinct departures in colour and shape of leaf, it is always beautiful; for the Parsley-leaved Vine, with its dainty and deeply-cut foliage, is a suitable accompaniment to the most refined architecture; while the red-purple leaf of the Claret Vine and its close cl.u.s.ters of blue fruit are richly ornamental in the autumn garden. A Medlar tree, with its large white bloom and handsome leaves, is desirable, and several of the Services are ornamental small trees. Every one knows the lovely pink bloom of the Almond in April, but few may have tried something that is not an experiment but a certainty--namely, the successful culture of the hardier Peaches, near relatives to the Almond, as standards in the south of England. A Peach of American origin, the Early Alexander, bears full or fair crops every year. The only danger is from leaf blister from sudden cold in May, but if its position is sheltered, or if it can be afforded the protection of a net, it will suffer but little, and perfectly ripened peaches, red all round, may be had at the end of July.

The beauty of Cherry blossom is so well known that it needs no extolling; and any great high wall looks the better at all seasons for a well-trained old Pear.

A free planting of the cut-leaved Bramble is pleasant to see on the outskirts of the garden, and is beautiful in leaf, in flower, and in fruit.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

THE WORTHY USE OF ROSES

For a full consideration of the Rose as a garden flower, one must look to such a work as "Roses for English Gardens," but as the Rose is a flowering shrub it cannot be omitted from the present volume.

In these days of horticultural prosperity and rapid progress, when there would appear to be one or more specialists devoting themselves to every worthy flower, we need scarcely say that the Rose has not been forgotten. Indeed, within the memory of many who have watched its culture for the last forty years, the rapid advance is nothing less than astonis.h.i.+ng. Our own veteran growers and some of the foreign firms seem to have vied with each other in producing new forms in the Hybrid Perpetuals and in the Teas, but it has been almost within the last decade that growers have not only deepened the interest in the cultivation of the Rose, but have immensely widened it by striking out in new directions.

It is now many years since the late Henry Bennett raised such lovely hybrids as Grace Darling and Mrs. John Laing, but the parents of these were still among the well-known H.P.'s and Teas and Chinas. But of late years hybridists have taken in hand some of the handsomer of the species, and by working them with well-established favourites have produced whole new ranges of fine Roses. Of these the most prominent have been products of _R. multiflora_, _rugosa_, _rubiginosa_, and _wichuraiana_. The striking success of many of these later hybrids is encouraging in the highest degree, and the field for future work is so immense that the imagination can hardly grasp the extent of the prospect that these earlier successes seem to open out.

There are so many ways in which Roses may be beautiful. Even in the varied form and habit possessed by the types some special kind of beauty is shown and some special garden utility is foreshadowed. And then we think of the future possibilities of the Rose garden! Already--we say it with deliberation and a feeling of honest conviction--the Rose garden has never been developed to anything like its utmost possible beauty.

The material already to hand even twenty years ago has never been worthily used.

The Rose garden to be beautiful must be designed and planted and tended, not with money and labour and cultural skill only, but with brains and with love, and with all those best qualities of critical appreciation--the specially-cultured knowledge of what is beautiful, and why it is beautiful--besides the indispensable ability of the practical cultivator.

There are in some places acres of Rose gardens, many of them only costly expositions of how a Rose garden had best not be made. The beautiful Rose garden, that shall be the living presentment of the poet's dream, and shall satisfy the artist's eye, and rejoice the gardener's heart, and give the restful happiness and kindle the reverent wonderment of delight, in such ways as should be the fulfilment of its best purpose, has yet to be made.

It matters not whether it is in the quite free garden where Roses shall be in natural groups and great flowery ma.s.ses and arching fountains, and where those of rambling growth on its outskirts shall clamber into half-distant surrounding trees and bushes, or whether it is in the garden of ordered formality that befits a palatial building; there are the Roses for all these places, and for all these and many other uses.

Indeed, for reducing the hard lines of the most formal gardens and for showing them at their best, for such enjoyment as they may give by the humanising of their rigid lines and the softening of their original intention as a display of pomp and state and the least sympathetic kind of greatness, the beneficent quality of age and accompanying over-growth may be best shown by the wreathing and clambering cl.u.s.ter Roses, whose graceful growth and tender bloom are displayed all the better for their a.s.sociation with the hard lines and rough textures of masonry surfaces.

SOME BEAUTIFUL WILD ROSES

No family of hardy shrubs is more bewildering in the multiplicity and intricacy of its nomenclature than Rosa. Although there are many species now accepted by botanists, yet the pseudo-specific names may be counted by hundreds. Fortunately for those interested in their cultivation, a good many of these names refer to plants with very unimportant distinctions (many of them, indeed, are minor forms of our native Dog Rose), and the best of the wild species are mostly grown under the names applied to them in the following notes.

Their cultivation is simple. They are like the Hybrid Perpetuals in their love for a rich loamy soil--one inclining to a clayey rather than to a sandy nature. Loving abundant sunlight, they are not happy in shady spots. The commonest mistake in their cultivation is in pruning. The notion that they have to be cut back like Hybrid Perpetuals and such-like Roses has often resulted in the loss of a season's flowers, besides destroying for the time the peculiar beauty of habit that many species possess. The shoots, often long, sucker-like growths that push from the base in summer, supply the flowers of the following year, and until they have flowered should not be touched with a knife. Whatever pruning is necessary--and it is, as a rule, a mere matter of thinning out of old worn-out stems--is to give the young growths more air and freedom. No shortening back is needed. It may always be remembered that some of the most beautiful specimens of Wild Roses in existence, especially those of rambling growth, have never been pruned at all. The chief thing is always to retain the free, unfettered grace natural to the plants. Pruning will help to do this, but it must be pruning of the proper kind.

In the wilder parts of the garden the common Dog Rose (_R. canina_) and its numerous varieties are worth a place; they flower well, and are always beautiful in fruit. The same may be said of the Sweet Briar (_R.

rubiginosa_), the fragrance of whose young growths is always a delight, whether in garden or hedgerow. _R. hibernica_, a British Rose, thought to be a hybrid between the Scotch Rose and _R. canina_, comes in the same category. It flowers earlier than the Dog Rose.

For the wild garden also there are several other Roses that may be mentioned, such as _cinnamomea_, with rosy-red flowers and crimson fruit; _nutkana_, _acicularis_, _pisocarpa_, and _californica_. Only those are mentioned that from their greater beauty and distinctness deserve a more detailed notice.

R. ALBA.--Although found wild in several parts of Europe, this, the "Common White Rose" of Linnaeus, is supposed to be a hybrid between _R.

gallica_ and the Dog Rose. It is always found in places which lead to the belief that it is not truly indigenous, but an escape from cultivated grounds. The typical plant has white flowers that are considerably larger than those of the Dog Rose, and the petals have more substance. There are now numerous double-flowered varieties in gardens, some beautifully tinged with rose.