WHEN SPRING COMES TO GRAVETYE 
WILLIAM ROBINSON 
A Brief Peep into the Beauties of the English Spring Garden by 
the Author of “The English Flower Garden” with Some Sug¬ 
gestions that May be Well Applied in Our Own Conditions 
Author’s Note: For several generations the flower gardens of England, the parterres of France, 
and one might say the whole of Europe and the cooler parts of North America too, have been robbed of 
much of their possible value and beauty by massing half-hardy plants set out in early summer, a process 
termed “bedding out” or “mosaiculture"; which means that all the plants must be torn up and 
replanted twice a year—in the fall for the spring flowers, and in the early summer for mid-summer and 
fall display. Having fought against this system as being costly and contrary to natural beauty and 
artistic effect in my journalistic days, when I came into land of my own I tried to make it clear to all that the true spring garden could best be got through plantings 
to last in lawn, orchard, copse, or wood. So 1 planted thousands of spring flowers in that way, and also by lake or stream-side, even on the near-by railway 
enbankments, and pictures to last came about in that way. It was worth doing for these alone, but there was another reason—to free the flower garden of the 
laborers and of the spring bedder, and leave us at liberty to make a true flower garden for the summer of all the nobler flowers of the warm season—impossible with 
the never-ending and wasteful efforts of replanting the whole place twice a year. 
'OR serious reasons I dissented wholly from the system 
of flower gardening in general use, and resolved 
to do all I might to show the right way to better things. 
Costly, labor-wasting, never artistic in effect, it worked 
also in every way against the very existence of the true flower 
garden. The very plants used were often poor in effect and in 
their association—and the men misusing their labor for trifling 
ephemeral ends. My aim is for the flower garden to endure and 
increase every year in interest and beauty. It cannot be so if 
the precious ground within view of 
the living rooms is dug up twice 
every year. The queen of flowers, 
the Rose, is shut out; Clematis, the 
most graceful of all the climbers of 
the northern world, may not be seen; 
and many noble plants of the cold 
and temperate regions cannot be 
grown under that system. 
So my first care was to get a spring 
garden in the turf, in wood, copse or 
orchard, and so clear the way for the 
true summer flower garden, the most 
charming feature of the country house 
in any northern or temperate land. 
And the notes which follow tell how 
a spring garden was made seven-fold 
more beautiful than the stereotyped 
bedding, and at little cost or care. 
Spring in England has not always 
been kindly dealt with by our writers; 
and Mr. Lowell who was American 
Ambassador here noticed that, and, 
writing from a country house in Eng¬ 
land, defended our spring, and spoke 
of the long birth and its charm. 
Daffodils. I felt I had good ma¬ 
terial in the Daffodils of the moun¬ 
tains of Europe, and they have never 
failed me. Many thousands of bulbs 
were planted in many and various 
places. Some came in sacks from 
friends, and they were set in the 
woods, pastures, hedgerows, by the 
lake-side, in lanes. In every available 
position 1 put these flowers that have 
been a delight ever since. My soil, 
a cool loam, suited them, and we have 
nearly three months of their beauty, 
and from the day they were first 
planted have given no trouble. One 
The life of William Robinson is a long romance in the service 
of beauty: his scorn of stilted conventionalisms, his under¬ 
standing of nature’s fundamental ways has led modern garden¬ 
ing into the sane and beautiful paths it now treads. So many 
achievements are gathered about the name of this illustrious 
gardener that only an outstanding few can here be cited: 
Founder and editor of a half-dozen publications including “The 
Garden”, “Gardening Illustrated”, “Flora and Sylva”; author 
of “The English Flower Garden”, “Alpine Flowers for English 
Gardens”, “The Parks and Gardens of Paris”, “Home 
Landscapes” and a number of other books. The two 
hundred or more acres of Gravetye, Mr. Robinson’s Sussex 
home, exemplify with living vigor the beauty of his beliefs 
drawback is the gypsies—the Romany folk—nomads, who come 
here at certain times of the year and claim the flowers as wild. 
They rob us, but where we have myriads of flowers we do not 
even miss what they take. The gypsies take the flowers to the 
nearest towns, and sell them. 
\\ indflowers (Anemone) in the Grass. The most brilliant 
of these charmers is the scarlet Windflower of the southwest 
of France,, which grows in the turf of the lawn. [It does not 
thrive in our Eastern States. Ed.] 
In wild gardening like this the test is 
grass—to live in and thrive in. The 
Appenine Windflowers of the Italian 
mountains are happy in the grass 
—thriving in the sun, but the bloom 
lasts longer in a shady place. There 
is a white form of this Windflower, 
but it is not so pretty as the blue. 
The Greek Windflower (A. blanda) 
thrives in sandy soil. It is a very 
beautiful blue, varying into purple 
and pink—white does not occur in the 
Appenine Windflower. The Pasque 
Flower (A. Pulsatilla) is a fascinating 
hardy beauty of the spring, and in the 
chalky soils of France and Britain it 
is of easy culture in the garden; and 
to prolong its singular beauty it is 
well to have some on the north side 
of a low wall. The most welcome 
of this lovely group is a sky blue 
form of the usually white Wood 
Windflower increasing rapidly in any 
copse or wood. 
Bluebells. In our woods we 
have the Bluebell or Wood Hya¬ 
cinth (Scilla), which come in myr¬ 
iads. Some of the foreign kinds 
are beautiful, especially the Spanish 
one; the Siberian Squill, and also 
the little S. italica, quite happy in 
meadows. 
Blue-Eyed Mary (Omphalodes 
verna). Is charming for early flower 
in wood or copse, running about freely 
in any soil. It grows so closely, plant 
by plant, that it almost keeps the 
weeds away. In beauty very like our 
Forget-me-not, but earlier in spring. 
i io 
