The Garden, You, and I | Page 2

be an
error; therefore, the great art of the planters of a garden is to learn the
ways of the wind and to make friends with it. If the soil is sodden and
sour, it may be drained and sweetened; if it is poor, it may be nourished;
but when all this is done, if the garden lies where the winds of winter
and spring in passing swiftly to and fro whet their steel-edged tempers

upon it, what avails?
What does it matter if violet or pansy frames are set in a sunny nook, if
it be one of the wind's winter playgrounds, where he drifts the snow
deep for his pastime, so that after each storm of snow or sleet a serious
bit of engineering must be undergone before the sashes can be lifted
and the plants saved from dampness; or if the daffodils and tulips lie
well bedded all the winter through, if, when the sun has called them
forth, the winds of March blight their sap-tender foliage? Yet the lands
that send the north winds also send us the means to deter them--the
cold-loving evergreens, low growing, high growing, medium, woven
dense in warp and woof, to be windbreaks, also the shrubs of tough,
twisted fibre and stubborn thorns lying close to the earth for
windbuffers.
Therefore, before the planting of rose or hardy herbs, bulbs or tenderer
flowers, go out, compass in hand, face the four quarters of heaven, and,
considering well, set your windbreaks of sweeping hemlocks, pines,
spruces, not in fortress-like walls barring all the horizon, but in
alternate groups that flank, without appearing to do so heavily, the
north and northwest. Even a barberry hedge on two sides of a garden,
wedge point to north, like the wild-goose squadrons of springtime, will
make that spot an oasis in the winter valley of death.
A wise gardener it is who thinks of the winter in springtime and plants
for it as surely as he thinks of spring in the winter season and longs for
it! If, in the many ways by which the affairs of daily life are re-enforced,
the saying is true that "forethought is coin in the pocket, quiet in the
brain, and content in the heart," doubly does it apply to the pleasures of
living, of which the outdoor life of working side by side with nature,
called gardening, is one of the chief. When a garden is inherited, the
traditions of the soil or reverence for those who planned and toiled in it
may make one blind to certain defects in its conception, and beginning
with a priori set by another one does as one can.
But in those choosing site, and breaking soil for themselves,
inconsistency is inexcusable. Follow the lay of the land and let it lead.
Nature does not attempt placid lowland pictures on a steep hillside, nor

dramatic landscape effects in a horizonless meadow, therefore why
should you? For one great garden principle you will learn from nature's
close companionship--consistency!
You who have a bit of abrupt hillside of impoverished soil, yet where
the sky-line is divided in a picture of many panels by the trees, you
should not try to perch thereon a prim Dutch garden of formal lines;
neither should you, to whom a portion of fertile level plain has fallen,
seek to make it picturesque by a tortuous maze of walks, curving about
nothing in particular and leading nowhere, for of such is not nature.
Either situation will develop the skill, though in different directions,
and do not forget that in spite of better soil it takes greater individuality
to make a truly good and harmonious garden on the flat than on the
rolling ground.
I always tremble for the lowlander who, down in the depth of his nature,
has a prenatal hankering for rocks, because he is apt to build an
undigested rockery! These sort of rockeries are wholly separate from
the rock gardens, often majestic, that nowadays supplement a bit of
natural rocky woodland, bringing it within the garden pale. The awful
rockery of the flat garden is like unto a nest of prehistoric eggs that
have been turned to stone, from the interstices of which a few wan
vines and ferns protrude somewhat, suggesting the garnishing for an
omelet.
Also, if you follow Nature and study her devices, you will alone learn
the ways of the winds and how to prepare for them. Where does Spring
set her first flag of truce--out in the windswept open?
No! the arbutus and hepatica lie bedded not alone in the fallen leaves of
the forest but amid their own enduring foliage. The skunk cabbage
raises his hooded head first in sheltered hollows. The marsh marigold
lies in the protection of bog tussocks and stream banks.