NOVEMBER 



IRISH GARDENING. 



73 



Flower Garden and Pleasure Grounds. 



By E. Knowldin, F.R.H.S. 



" Amid thy silent hours 



'Tis sad but sweet to dwell. 

 Where falling leaves and fading flowers 

 Around us breathe farewell." 



THEN AND NOW. — In this country of contradic- 

 tions, with its excellent climate and " wretched " 

 weather, natiu-e is kind to us in November, but, 

 in the words of an old gardener when we remarked 

 how kind and amiable thfe lady was with whom we had 

 just had an interview, he replied — "Yes, none more so, 

 but she can be otherwise," and- no matter, those are 

 pages of the past, yet, out of that past comes the 

 memory of a winter which set in with intense frost on 

 the eve devoted to apples and nuts, colcannon, and 

 barm-bracks, and other seasonable fruits, which lasted 

 till — well, till it went away, but its going left little 

 behind it in either flower garden or kitchen garden, 

 whilst the pleasure grounds were denuded of a lot of 

 things we call hardy. With apologies for the digression 

 there was too much of the farewell, and of plumbers 

 who often took leave yet they were loath to depart, and 

 too little of the pleasantry of present day Novembers. 



Second Sicht. — The flower garden now is a blaze oi 

 beauty — in the mind's eye, with its well stocked beds of 

 bulbs, wallflowers, arabis, alyssum, aubretia, and all the 

 flowers that bloom in the spring all cleaned up, grass- 

 rolled, and literally swept and garnished. How 

 thoroughly enjoyable it is, bare as it may be to the 

 common eye is amply testified by the man who has done 

 it as he tells us, "there are two hundred tulips in that 

 bed," "countless crocuses lining this border, " and so on 

 over the whole range of the flower garden, and we see 

 it as he sees it, in the glory galore of its spring possi- 

 bilities. No matter what it is now, and no matter that 

 the plenary pleasure of anticipation may never be wholly 

 realised, he is thoroughly enjoying it in the consciousness 

 of good, sound work, and we think as we see the fair 

 vision through his ej'es what a blessed thing is this 

 second sight with which gardeners seem peculiarly 

 gifted. 



Doubtful Doings.— We are looking at the flower 

 borders in much the saine way as we saw our friend's 

 flower garden — the flower borders in a dozen gardens, 

 nevertheless, and figuratively hear a dozen apologies 

 for their untidyness qualified with the assurance that 

 now the spring bedding is done they will be taken in 



iiand, and it is with a sad heart we picture what that 

 "taking in hand " will mean to at least six out of the 

 twelve. Here our second sight permits us to see 

 the orthodox trimness which will result under the 

 savagery of the tidying hand when the spreading 

 clumps of Michaelmas daisies, each with a stake 

 driven through its heart, will be manacled tight 

 round the waist like Sairey Gamp's "brolly." 

 Every bit of dead or dying foliage, nature's pro- 

 tectors, will be shorn oft" to the ground level and the 

 ^ whole thing left "clean and tidy." Heaven forgive 

 J the perpetrator of such deeds, we can't, although 

 -^he has the excuse of that similar sinner of whom 

 Crabbe wrote : " Habit with him was all the test ot 

 truth, it must be right, I've done it from my youth." 



Now OR Never.— How is it we still find such bulky 

 heaps of bulbs in our seedmen's windows ? Surely, we 

 asked, "your supply far exceeds demand?" "No," 

 we were assured, " there are heaps of orders yet to 

 come in," and that set us thinking as to whether the 

 pleasure grounds for which we pleaded last month had 

 been forgotten, especially with heaps of dafl'odils still 

 denied their natural rights, and countless crocuses 

 pushing their ivory heads up from their brown rotundities 

 as if wondering what had happened. Nevertheless, 

 there /.s- consolation in knowing that the pleasure grounds 

 in several places have recently had a good amount of 

 brightness buried in their bosoms for the first time in 

 this direction to beam forth in spring, and we cannot 

 but think that the plant lover who admires nature in her 

 happier moods, as she looks to man as her minister for 

 help, will not deny it. 



Another Worry.— We were privileged to offer a 

 few planting suggestions in the September issue, and 

 now the planting time is with us for carrying out any- 

 thing intended in this direction. We do not say the 

 time is at hand, but actually with us, and we take it, 

 few want to be told of the advantages of early planting 

 when immediate root action is induced by compara- 

 tively warm soil conditions, and the tree or shrub is to 

 a more or less extent established and ready for a start 

 without delay when the spring call comes. As we 

 make our holes so will the plant thrive, other things 

 being equal, and we say this in the teeth of the Woburn 

 worry which would have us infer that trees do better 

 for been shoved in anyhow. We may be wrong, but 

 what the Woburn experiments appear to teach is that 

 firm planting is the crux of the question. The pudding- 

 basin hole with its concave bottom we will have none 

 of, and the taking out of holes should be in such a 

 manner that they are actually larger at the bottom than 

 at top, but plant firmly, stake securely, if necessary, 

 and plant now. 



More Troible. — We neither minimise the labour 

 involved nor grudge it when particular objects are in 

 view, and an ideal is before us. For instance, one 

 planter some years ago thought it worth while to take out 

 a hole some six or seven feet deep and double that area 

 merely to plant a pampas grass : and what did he get 

 for his pains ? Well, the results were a noble clump 

 which at this season sent up its plumes but a few inches 

 short of twelve feet, and when we see a poor little starvel- 

 ing pampas, as often seen, we say, look on that picture 

 and look on this. Both the pampas, arundos. and 



