170 



THOUGHTS ON THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



whose gentle breath enticeth forth the 

 kindly sweets, and makes them yield their 

 fragrant smells V 



And what country, we may add, so 

 suited, and climate so attempered, to yield 

 the full enjoyment of the pleasures and 

 blessings of a garden, as our own ? Every- 

 body knows the remark of Charles II., first 

 promulgated by Sir W. Temple, ' that there 

 were more days in the year in which one 

 could enjoy oneself in the open air in Eng- 

 land than in any other portion of the known 

 world.' This, which contains so complete 

 an answer to the weather-grumblers of our 

 island, bears also along with it a most en- 

 couraging truth to those ' who love to live 

 in gardens.' There is no country that of- 

 fers the like advantages to horticulture. 

 Perhaps there is not one plant in the wide 

 world wholly incapable of being cultivated 

 in England. The mosses and lichens 

 dragged from under the snows of Iceland, 

 and the tenderest creepers of the tropical 

 jungles, are alike subject to the art of the 

 British gardener. Artificial heat and cold, 

 by the due application of steam and ma- 

 nure, sun and shade, hot and cold water, 

 and even ice — mattings, flues in every va- 

 riety of pit, frame, conservative wall, 

 conservatory, green-house, hot-house, and 

 stove, seem to have realised every degree 

 of temperature from Kamskatka to Sinca- 

 pore. But apart from artificial means, the 

 natural mildness of our sky is most favora- 

 ble to plants brought from countries of either 

 extreme of temperature ; and, as their habits 

 are better known and attended to, not a 

 year passes without acclimatising many 

 heretofore deemed too tender for the open 

 air. Gardeners are reasonably cautious in 

 not exposing at once a newly-introduced 

 exotic ; and thus we know that when Par- 

 kinson wrote, in 1629, the larch, and the 

 laurel — then called bay-cherry — were still 

 protected in winter. We are now daily 

 adding to the list of our hardy plants ; hy- 

 drangeas, the tree-peony, fuchsias, salvias, 

 altromrerias, and Cape-bulbs, are now 

 found, with little or no protection, to stand 

 our mid-England winters. 



Then we alone have in perfection the 

 three main elements of gardening, flowers 

 apart, in our lawns, our gravel, and our 

 evergreens. It is the greatest stretch of 



foreign luxury to emulate these. The 

 lawns at Paris, lo say nothing of Naples, 

 are regularly irrigated to keep up even the 

 semblance of English verdure ; and at the 

 gardens of Versailles, and Caserta, near 

 Naples, the walks have been supplied from 

 the Kensington gravel-pits. It is not pro- 

 bably generally known that among our ex- 

 portations are every year a large quantity 

 of evergreens for the markets of France 

 and Germany, and that there are some 

 nurserymen almost wholly engaged in this 

 branch of trade. This may seem the more 

 remarkable to those who fancy that, from 

 the superiority of foreign climates, any 

 English tree would bear a continental win- 

 ter ; but the bare appearance of the French 

 gardens, mostly composed as they are of 

 deciduous trees, would soon convince them 

 of the contrary. It is not the severity or 

 length of our December nights that gene- 

 rally destroys our more tender exotic plants, 

 but it is the late frosts of April and May, — 

 those ' nipping frosts,' which, coming on 

 after the plant has enjoyed warmth enough 

 to set the sap in action, freeze its life- 

 blood to the heart's core, and cause it 

 to wither and die. The winter of 1837- 

 8 proved this fact distinctly, which had 

 hardly been sufficiently remarked before. 

 That year, which cut down even our cy- 

 presses, and china-roses, and from which 

 our gorse-fields have hardly yet recovered, 

 while it injured nearly every plant and 

 tree on south walls and in sheltered bor- 

 ders, and in all forward situations, spared 

 the tenderest kinds on north walls and ex- 

 posed places; and in Scotland the destruc- 

 tion was I ardly felt at all. It was the 

 backwardness of their growing state that 

 saved these plants ; and the knowledge of 

 this fact has already been brought to bear 

 in several recent experiments. The double 

 yellow rose, for instance, one of the most 

 delicate of its class, is now flowered with 

 great success in a northern exposition. It 

 has led men also to study the hybernation 

 of plants — perhaps the most important re- 

 search in which horticulturists have of late 

 engaged ; and it has been ascertained that 

 this state of winter-rest is a most important 

 element in their constitution ; but no doubt 

 it will also be found that— as the dormouse, 

 the sloth, the snake, the mole, &c, undergo 



