292 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



than the blossoms of the common white Willow, the yellow-twigged 

 and the other Willows of Britain and Northern Europe, which are all 

 the more grateful in air coming to us 



O'er the northern moorland, o'er the northern loam. 



What is the lesson these sweet flowers have for us ? They tell us 

 — if there were no other flowers to tell us — that a garden should be a 

 living thing ; its life not only fair in form and lovely in colour, but in 

 its breath and essence coming from the Divine. They tell us that the 

 very common attempt to conform their fair lives into tile or other 

 patterns, to clip or set them out as so much mere colour of the paper- 

 stainer or carpet-maker, is to degrade them and make our gardens ugly 

 and ridiculous, from the point of view of Nature and of true art. Yet 

 many of these treasures for the open garden have been shut out of our 

 thoughts owing to the exclusion of almost everything that did not 

 make showy colour and lend itself to crude ways of setting out flowers. 



Of the many things that should be thought of in the making of a 

 garden to live in, this of fragrance is one of the first. And, happily, 

 among every class of flowers which may adorn our open-air gardens 

 there are fragrant things to be found. Apart from the groups of plants 

 in which all, or nearly all, are fragrant, as in Roses, the annual and 

 biennial flowers of our gardens are rich in fragrance — Stocks, Mignon- 

 ette, Sweet Peas, Sweet Sultan, Wallflowers, double Rockets, Sweet 

 Scabious, and many others. These, among the most easily raised of 

 plants, maybe enjoyed by the poorest cottage gardeners. The garden 

 borders of hardy flowers bear for us odours as precious as any breath of 

 tropical Orchid, from the Lily-of-the-Valley to the Carnation, this last 

 yielding, perhaps, the most grateful fragrance of all the flowering host in 

 our garden land. In these borders are things sweeter than words may 

 tell of — Woodruff, Balm, Pinks, Violets, garden Primroses, Poly- 

 anthuses, Day and other Lilies, early Iris, Narcissus, Evening Prim- 

 roses, Mezereon, and Pansies delicate in their sweetness. 



No one may be richer in fragrance than the wise man who plants 

 hardy shrubs and flowering trees — Magnolia, May, Daphne, Lilac, 

 Wild Rose, Azalea, Honeysuckle — names each telling of whole 

 families of fragrant things. From the same regions whence come the 

 Laurel and the Myrtle we have the Laurustinus, beautiful in our sea- 

 coast and warmer districts, and many other lovely bushes happy 

 in our climate ; one, the Wintersweet, pouring out delicious frag- 

 rance in mid-winter ; Sweet Gale, Allspice, and the delightful little 

 Mayflower that creeps about in the woodland shade in North America. 

 So, though we cannot boast of Lemon or Orange groves, our climate 

 is kind to many lovely and fragrant shrubs. 



Even our ugly walls may be sweet gardens with Magnolia, Honey- 

 suckle Clematis, Sweet Verbena, and the delightful old Jasmine, still 

 clothing many a house in London. Most precious of all, however. 



