men usually seek sunny positions for their gardens, so that even those obliged to be contented with the north side of the hill would scarcely appreciate some of the above–named positions. what, the gloomy and weedy dyke as a garden! yes, there are ditches, dry and wet, in every district, that may readily be made more beautiful than many a “modern flower–garden.” but what would grow in them? many of the beautiful wood and shade–loving plants of our own and similar latitudes—things that love not the open sunny hill–sides or wide meadows, but take shelter in the stillness of deep woods or in dark valleys, are happy deep[37] between riven rocks, and gaily occupy the little dark caves beneath the great boulders on many a horror–stricken mountain gorge, and which garland with inimitable grace the vast flanks of rock that guard the dark courses of the rivers on their paths through the hills. and as these dark walls, ruined by ceaseless pulse of the torrent, are beautiful exceedingly, how much more may we make all the shady dykes and narrow lanes that occur everywhere! for while the nymph–gardener of the ravine may depend for her novelties on the stray grains of seeds brought in the moss by the robin when building her nest, or on the mercy of the hurrying wave, we may place side by side the snowy white wood lily (trillium grandiflorum), whose home is in the shades of the american woods, with the twin flower of scotland and northern europe, and find both thrive on the same spot in happy companionship. and so in innumerable instances. and not only may we be assured of numbers of the most beautiful plants of other countries thriving in deep ditches and in like positions, but also that not a few of them, like the white wood lily, will thrive much better in them than in any position in garden borders. this plant, when in perfection, has a flower as fair as any white lily, while it is seldom a foot high; but, in consequence of being a shade–loving and wood plant, it usually perishes in the ordinary garden bed or border, while in a shady dyke or any like position it will be found to thrive as well as in its native woods; and if in deep, free, sandy, or vegetable soil, to grow so as not to be surpassed in loveliness by anything seen in our stoves or greenhouses.
our wild flowers take possession of the stiff, formal, and[38] shorn hedges that seam the land, often draping them with such inimitable grace that half the conservatories in the country, with their collections of small red pots and small mean plants are stiff and poor compared with a few yards’ length of their blossomy verdure. the wild roses, purple vetch, honeysuckle, and the virgin’s bower, clamber above smaller, but not less pretty, wildlings, and throw a veil of graceful life over the mutilated shrubs, reminding us of the plant–life in the nest–like thickets of dwarf shrubs that one often meets on the high alpine meadows. in these islets of bushes in a sea of grass one may gather flowers after they have been all browsed down on the turf. next to the most interesting aspects of alpine vegetation, there is perhaps nothing in the world of plant–life more lovely than the delicate tracery of low–climbing things wedded to the bushes in all northern and temperate regions of the earth. perishing like the grass, they are happy and safe in the earth’s bosom in winter; in spring they come up as the buds swell, and soon after, finding the bushes once more enjoyable, rush over them as joyously as children from school over a meadow of cowslips. over bush, over brake, on mountain or lowland copse, holding on with delicate but unyielding grasp, they engrave themselves on the mind as the central type of grace. in addition to climbing pea–flowers, convolvuluses, etc., of which the stems perish in winter, we have the great tribes of wild vines, noble in foliage and often in fruit, the numerous honeysuckles, from coral red to pale yellow, all beautiful; and the clematidæ, rich, varied, and lovely beyond description, from those of which each petal reminds one of the wing of some huge[39] tropical butterfly, to those with small flowers borne in showers like drops from a fountain jet, and often sweet as hawthorn blossoms.
this climbing vegetation may be trained and tortured into forms in gardens, but never will its beauty be seen until we entrust it to the garlanding of shrub, and copse, or hedgerow, fringes of dwarf plantation, or groups of shrubs and trees. all to be done is to put in a few tufts of any desired kind, and leave them alone, adapting the kind to the position. the large, flesh–coloured bindweed, for example, would be best in rough places, out of the pale of the pleasure–ground or garden, so that its roots would not spread where they could do harm, while a delicate clematis might be placed beneath the choicest specimen conifer, and allowed to paint its rich green with fair flowers. in nature we frequently see a honeysuckle clambering up through an old hawthorn tree, and then struggling with it as to which should produce the greatest profusion[40] of blossoms—but in gardens not yet. some may say that this cannot be done in gardens; but it can be done infinitely better in gardens than it has ever been done in nature; because, for gardens we can select plants from many countries. we can effect contrasts, in which nature is poor in any one place in consequence of the comparatively few plants that naturally inhabit one spot of ground. people seldom remember that “the art itself is nature;” and foolish old laws laid down by landscape–gardeners are yet fertile in perpetuating the notion that a garden is a “work of art, and therefore we must not attempt in it to imitate nature.”
sometimes, where there are large and bare slopes, an excellent effect may be obtained by planting the stouter climbers, such as the vines, mountain clematis, and honeysuckles, in groups or masses on the grass, away from shrubs or low trees; while, when the banks are precipitous or the rocks crop forth, we may allow a curtain of climbers to fall over them.
endless charming combinations may be made in this way in many spots near most country houses. the following genera are among the climbing and clinging hardy plants most suitable for garlanding copses, hedges, and thickets:—everlasting peas (many kinds), the hardy exotic honeysuckles, clematis (wild species mainly), the common jasmine,[41] the double bramble, vines (american and the common varieties), single roses, the virginian creepers (ampelopsis), the large bindweed (calystegia dahurica), aristolochia sipho, and a. tomentosa, and several of the perennial tropæolums, t. pentaphyllum, speciosum, and tuberosum. the hardy smilax, too, are very handsome, and the canadian moonseed, only suitable for this kind of gardening.
among the families of plants that are suitable for the various positions enumerated at the head of this chapter may be named—acanthus, any variety, viola, both the sweet varieties and some of the large scentless kinds, the periwinkle, speedwells, globe flowers, trilliums, plume ferns (struthiopteris), and many other kinds, the lily of the valley and its many varieties and allies, the canadian bloodwort, the winter greens (pyrola), solomon’s seal, and allied exotic species, the may apple, orobus in variety, narcissi, many, the common myrrh, the perennial lupin, hardy common lilies, the snowflakes, all kinds of everlasting peas and allied plants, admirable for scrambling through low hedges and over bushes, windflowers, the taller and stronger kinds in lanes and hedgerows, the various christmas roses which will repay for shelter, the european kinds of gladiolus, such as segetum and colvilli, the taller and more vigorous cranes bills (geranium), the snake’s head (fritillaria) in variety, strawberries of any variety or species, the beautiful plume–leaved giant fennel, dog’s tooth violets in bare spots or spots bare in spring, the winter aconite, the barren worts, for peaty spots or leaf soil, the may flower, for sandy poor soil under trees, the dentaria, the coloured and showier forms of primroses, oxslips, polyanthus, the hardy european cyclamens[42] in carefully chosen spots, crocuses in places under branches and trees not bearing leaves in spring, the yellow and pink coronilla (c. montana and c. varia), the larger forms of bindweed, many of the taller and finer harebells, starworts (aster), for hedgerows, and among the taller plants the italian cuckoo pint (arum), and also the dragons, for warm sandy soils, the monkshoods which people fear in gardens and which do admirably in many positions; the different species of onion, also unwelcome in gardens, some of which are very beautiful, as, for example, the white provence kind and the old yellow garden allium (moly). with the above almost exclusively exotic things and our own wild flowers and ferns beautiful colonies may be made.
