The English Cottage Gardens 



By Alice Martineau. 



"And -ojho can deny that the principall end of an orchard 

 is the honest delight of one ivearied with the ivorks of his 

 lawful calling? . . . What ivas Paradise but a garden 

 and orchard of trees and hearts, fidl of pleasure? And 

 nothing there but delights." 



William Lazuson (1615). 



As in Jacobean days, so now, the refreshment to a jaded 

 mind tliat a garden imparts is beyond words — and of all 

 gardens, the cottage garden is the one whose elusive 

 charm and simple familiar magic weaves a golden spell 

 of content, and even youth, about one. 



It is almost as difficult to reproduce the old English 

 cottage as to write in the sturdy simple language of the 

 Bible: though we can copy the garden yet without the 

 silver}' gray timbering, the lichen clad roof of red tiling 

 and the quarled and hoarv- apple trees of the original, we 

 feel there is something lacking. 



\\'onderful is tlie love of the cottager for his garden — 

 his cottage he leaves to the "missus." but his garden is 

 his own — representing to him something he may be un- 

 aware of, which is the concrete expression of the love he 

 feels for the beautiful and true, uncouth in manner or 

 e\en in speech, as he may be. 



In England gardening is the poor man's pleasure ; often 

 the only one he has, alas, that it should not be so in big 

 beautiful America with its sunshine and keen dr\- frost. 

 This is no time in which to compare climates. I back both 

 for being bad to beat as badness .goes ! .\nd yet beau- 

 tiful flowers can be grown in both, though the English- 

 man who expects to grow his flowers in quite the same 

 way in America as he did at home, will get some rude 

 shocks. And the American who tells you that flowers 

 won't grow in his eastern climate would also get some 

 shocks if he went around and saw some of the flowers 

 and plants that are grown out of doors in eastern 

 America. 



1 should like to see everj' house, that now has a yard 

 or two of soil, surrounded with flowers and vines as it 

 would be were it in England W'here you will not find one 

 cottage, no matter how humble, that has not its garden 

 decked with flowers. The little fence or low hedge that 

 is around these homes is of the greatest importance, for 

 it gives a certain sense of privacy, of ownership, even 

 though it can be seen through and over. It shelters the 

 little patch of ground often only the width of the house, 

 and a few feet deep. 



-And what a w-ealth of flowers can be grown in that 

 little patch. I know one owned by an old lady nearly 

 eighty, covered with mauve wistaria and a yellow climb- 

 ing rose, none of your Ramblers, just one of the great 

 "Glon,- de John" family that bloom on and on till frost. 

 .•\ little brick path runs up to the front door from the 

 wicket gate that has a bush of lilacs on one side, a 

 Maiden's Blush rose on the other. An edging of close 

 clipped box gives out its spicey smell and the beds witliin 

 are filled with heart's ease. The little golden brown and 

 purple pansy^faces all lifted up to the sun ; here and 

 there a clump of highly scented white pinks, not big, but 

 small varietV' so rarely seen now and which is so much 

 sweeter; a few plants of lupine, blue, pink and white, in 

 tall spikes ; some columbine in blue and white and the liest 

 of fragrant Old Man or Lad's Love. 



The garden is quite, quite full, so in order to have e\ en 

 more flowers, my dear old friend has erected a little tier 

 of three shelves narrowing towards the top. Here flour- 

 ish with brilliancv scarlet geraniums, some reallv noble 



fuclisias, a double white petunia, some pots of a glorious 

 crimson and gold mimulus and a plant of mauve cam- 

 panula hanging gracefully over. These pets have been 

 in the window all winter and are out for the summer. A 

 hive of bees actively pursuing their quest for honey in the 

 hot sun, making a musical accompaniment is in the far 

 corner, a quaint straw skep, so rarely seen and yet so 

 warm and comfortable for them. 



Any hard digging is done by another more active neigh- 

 bor, a lady barely seventy and a little garilen at the back 

 of the cottage helps to keep its owner all the year around 

 with the vegetables raised, but no signs of cabbage near 

 the front gate, if you please. Only all the beautiful for 

 every one to gladden their eyes with in spite of the fence. 



Tuni to another tiny cottage with steps up steeply from 

 the road and a fence of clipped lindens and quaint latch 

 gate. The brick steps mount between banks of rock 

 plants and lavender till you reach the oak perch, silvery 



.\ MOAT COTT.VflE. WITH GARDEN, nE.MJTIFl'L IN ITS 

 SI.MPI-ICITY. 



gray with weather, and where pots of geraniums rest 

 on a shelf and jjeek over rosemary bush. Here lives 

 quietly a dainty lady, forgetting her griefs in her garden, 

 therein getting more joy ami pleasure out of life on her 

 small income than ever she could in the town she has 

 left behind her. An old stone well, with a chain hang- 

 ing from great oak supports and thyme and creeping 

 jenny hanging in fringes down the side. Hedges and 

 bushes of old cabbage roses emit the attar of rose scent. 

 Tall spires of bhie larkspur and a mass of orange lilies, 



