About Orchids | Page 4

up too much room for general service. One must have a
few for colour; but the mass should be Teas, Noisettes, and, above all,
Bengals. This day, the second week in October, I can pick fifty roses;
and I expect to do so every morning till the end of the month in a sunny
autumn. They will be mostly Bengals; but there are two exquisite
varieties sold by Messrs. Paul--I forget which of them--nearly as free
flowering. These are Camoens and Mad. J. Messimy. They have a tint
unlike any other rose; they grow strongly for their class, and the bloom
is singularly graceful.
The tiny but vexatious lawn was next attacked. I stripped off the turf,
planted drain-pipes along the gravel walk, filled in with road-sweepings
to the level of their tops, and relaid the turf. It is now a little picture of a
lawn. Each drain-pipe was planted with a cutting of ivy, which now
form a beautiful evergreen roll beside the path. Thus as you walk in my
garden, everywhere the ground is more or less above its natural level;
raised so high here and there that you cannot look over the plants which
crown the summit. Any gardener at least will understand how
luxuriantly everything grows and flowers under such conditions.
Enthusiastic visitors declare that I have "scenery," and picturesque
effects, and delightful surprises, in my quarter-acre of ground!
Certainly I have flowers almost enough, and fruit, and perfect seclusion
also. Though there are houses all round within a few yards, you catch
but a glimpse of them at certain points while the trees are still clothed.
Those mounds are all the secret.

II.
I was my own gardener, and sixteen years ago I knew nothing whatever
of the business. The process of education was almost as amusing as
expensive; but that fashion of humour is threadbare. In those early days
I would have none of your geraniums, hardy perennials, and such
common things. Diligently studying the "growers'" catalogues, I looked
out, not novelties alone, but curious novelties. Not one of them "did
any good" to the best of my recollection. Impatient and disgusted, I
formed several extraordinary projects to evade my ignorance of
horticulture. Among others which I recollect was an idea of growing
bulbs the year round! No trouble with bulbs! you just plant them and
they do their duty. A patient friend at Kew made me a list of genera and
species which, if all went well, should flower in succession. But there
was a woeful gap about midsummer--just the time when gardens ought
to be brightest. Still, I resolved to carry out the scheme, so far as it went,
and forwarded my list to Covent Garden for an estimate of the expense.
It amounted to some hundreds of pounds. So that notion fell through.
But the patient friend suggested something for which I still cherish his
memory. He pointed out that bulbs look very formal mostly, unless
planted in great quantities, as may be done with the cheap sorts--tulips
and such. An undergrowth of low brightly-coloured annuals would
correct this disadvantage. I caught the hint, and I profit by it to this
more enlightened day. Spring bulbs are still a _spécialité_ of my
gardening. I buy them fresh every autumn--but of Messrs. Protheroe
and Morris, in Cheapside; not at the dealers'. Thus they are
comparatively inexpensive. After planting my tulips, narcissus, and
such tall things, however, I clothe the beds with forget-me-not or Silene
pendula, or both, which keep them green through the winter and form a
dense carpet in spring. Through it the bulbs push, and both flower at
the same time. Thus my brilliant tulips, snowy narcissus poeticus,
golden daffodils, rise above and among a sheet of blue or pink--one or
the other to match their hue--and look infinitely more beautiful on that
ground colour. I venture to say, indeed, that no garden on earth can be
more lovely than mine while the forget-me-not and the bulbs are
flowering together. This may be a familiar practice, but I never met

with it elsewhere.
Another wild scheme I recollect. Water-plants need no attention. The
most skilful horticulturist cannot improve, the most ignorant cannot
harm them. I seriously proposed to convert my lawn into a tank two
feet deep lined with Roman cement and warmed by a furnace, there to
grow tropical nymphæa, with a vague "et cetera." The idea was not so
absolutely mad as the unlearned may think, for two of my relatives
were first and second to flower Victoria Regia in the open-air--but they
had more than a few feet of garden. The chances go, in fact, that it
would have been carried through had I been certain of remaining in
England for the time necessary. Meanwhile I constructed two big