For October, l>)23 



253 



Fireside Gardening 



HENRY J. ECKSTEIN 



M^' title niay 

 parailoxical. 



impress tlu- practical gardener as 



And vet, in any activity there must exist, un- 

 derneath the reality, the realm of imaginative 

 thought. Although gardening may appear to be con- 

 fined to simple actuality, this is none the less true. 

 When the gardener has laid aside his tools, crops 

 and seeds, lie must perforce take time for the planning 

 of the ap]iroaching season's work, and at that time 

 the opportunit}-, in fact the need, for the employment 

 of imagination and vision presents itself. 



Somewhere along in February or March, preferably 

 as early as January, the gardener naturallv turns 

 toward the preparation for the coming garden year. 

 When Nature coinmences to display its new life, with 

 the swelling of buds and the rising of the sap, he also 

 feels a new life rising in him, increasing as Spring ap- 

 proaches. In April he is at full blast; as interest 

 grows, new hopes, new ideas, and greater efforts 

 crowd on him, as if he did not know of the discour- 

 agements and obstacles lying in wait — lilights, dis- 

 eases, droughts and accidents. Flushed with the suc- 

 cess of the first blooms, he rushes on madly, flaunting 

 his joys and garden beauties, tilting away quite un- 

 touched by coming adversities. When these are first 

 encoimtered in mid-Summer, he struggles bravely to 

 defy them. But toward the end, when the last plant- 

 ings have been made and nothing remains to be done 

 but cultivation, his enthusiasm is likely to wane. I 

 often think that August brings the gardener's sever- 

 est trials. Not only does the dry heat naturally make 

 energetic effort difficult for the gardener, but it 

 sorely tries the garden itself as well. Routine work 

 and discouragements that are often overwhelming 

 affect his interest and endurance. 



This thought is very quaintly expressed by Maund 

 in his Botanic Garden. "Mid-Summer, or the Summer 

 solstice, presents itself to the contemplative man as 

 that point of time which, like the prime of life, may 

 be called the pivot of our expectations, on which 

 anxieties change their balance. With what desires, 

 hopes and anticipations each vernal ray inspires the 

 zealous botanist, just as buoyant spirits excite the 

 youthful mind. Pleasurable prospects still continue 

 to arise till that fated day — the longest of the year. 

 to which we have just alluded, like the strongest of 

 man's life — when no longer does each succeeding day 

 outstretch its predecessor in length or strength, but 

 a shadowy reverse commences, when the season of 

 brilliancy has risen to its zenith, or man to the per- 

 fection of his nature, then, and not till then, arrives 

 a full reflection on declining days. If, however, the 

 cultivator of a flower garden, or the years of human 

 life, has indulged due thought of a future season, if 

 his young plants be well trained, his whole garden in 

 good culture, and he has made preparation to meet 

 the icy hand of a W'inter fast approaching, all is well : 

 he fears not present nor future storms, all seasons 

 alike afiford him pleasure." 



But the true gardener goes through to the end, 

 eager to commence anew, engrossed in new ideas. 

 He reaches this phase in the early Autumn, facing the 

 long Winter without any opportunity for actual en- 

 deavor, other than the making of plans. 



This appears to me as the seasonal adaptation of 

 the gardener to his work and the laws of his material. 



It is the psychological explanation of what 1 like to 

 call "Fireside Gardening." 



But it does not by any means comprehend all of it. 

 At the fireside we can build our dream gardens where 

 everything grows easily and profusely, free from all 

 adversity or misadventure. Surrounded by books and 

 catalogs, working among memories and fond visions, 

 the gardener builds a garden which in every way ex- 

 presses and fulfills his ideals. There are no weeds, 

 no pests, no failures, just succession after succession 

 of perfect flowers, enfolding each in their precise 

 turn, taking with the utmost regularity and depend- 

 al)ility their place in the harmonious scheme of his 

 picture garden. As he sits by the fire and sees lovely 

 white lilies, gracefully opening against gigantic staft's 

 of delphinium, the mice are not unlikely feeding on 

 the Inilbs under the snow, but he knows it not. Or 

 the frost is killing the roots of some other tender 

 treasure, while he is so confidently counting on these 

 same plants as vital to his next year's achievement. 



He reads in the books of the greatest of all garden- 

 ers, the English, of this or that fine thing which he has 

 never grown, and it seems the easiest thing in the 

 world to grow. Indeed it is rather a poor gardener 

 who does not straightaway drop the books and order 

 seed or plant. Is there anything more delightful or 

 simple than to follow the precepts of Mrs. JckvU, as 

 she so facilely describes those perfect, harmonious 

 gardens of hers, where, month by month, new vistas 

 enfold in the subtlest of color schemes, magnificently 

 blended in the greatest of profusion? 



Or as he pores over catalogs his list lengthens be- 

 yond his capacity, as he is enticed by the occasionally 

 misleading descriptions. The results of all experience 

 are forgotten and cast to the winds as he capitulates 

 before the allurements of seedsmen, who are ever 

 ready with their "of easiest culture," "no garden is 

 complete without this rare gem," "altogether a charm- 

 ing variety," "easily raised and blooming continu- 

 ously," and what not. One is often tempted to think 

 that seedsmen must have a dictionary exclusively 

 their own where "continuous" and "easy" have dif- 

 ferent meanings than the common ones, or else mean- 

 ings obsolete to all but seedsmen and most assuredly 

 foreign to the practical gardener. Or are the seeds- 

 men only more imaginative and visionary than the 

 gardener? 



With equal facility and joy the Alpine enthusiast 

 follows Reginald Farrer into japan or Thibet, or over 

 the sterner Rockies. Or else he passes "A Collecting 

 Day Above Arolla" with him and is amazed at the 

 ease with which he brings the treasures there culled 

 into his own gardens. Mr. Farrer is the most human,' 

 the most graceful and poetic of all writers on gardens, 

 in my mind. He has so delightful a sense of humor, 

 so engaging a personality, that in reading him it be- 

 comes no difficulty whatsoever to grow almost two 

 hundred Saxifraga, or to find the right soil and place 

 for such elusive plants as Androsace. Gentiana or 

 Ramodia. The frailest, the most sensitive and "miffi- 

 est" of Alpines seem to bloom for Mr. Farrer in his 

 garden, and his descriptions of them are so fascinat- 

 ing, his modesty makes his success so much a matter 

 of fact, that we cannot read him without immediately 

 growing these same things ourselves. 

 Yes! growing them — in our fireside gardens. And 



