There is another good double flower-border in this pleasant garden. In
the sunny month of August the fine Summer Daisies (_Chrysanthemum
maximum_), Phloxes and Lavender are in beauty, and some bloom remains
upon the climbing Roses. The Box-edging, stout and strong, can withstand
the temporary encroachments of some of the border flowers, for in such a
garden, rule is relaxed whenever such latitude tends to beauty. Here and
there, where the little edging shrub showed signs of unusual vigour, it
has been allowed to grow up on the understanding that it shall submit to
the shears, which clip it into rounded ball-shapes of two sizes, one
upon another, like loaves of bread.
A garden like this, of moderate size, and needing no troublesome
accessories of glasshouses, or even frames, and very little outside
labour, is probably the very happiest possession of its kind. As the
seasons succeed each other new pictures of flower beauty are revealed in
constant succession. After the day’s work in the best of the daylight is
over, its owner turns to it for pleasant labour or any such tending as
it may need. Every group of plants meets him with a friendly face, for
each one was planted by his own hands. His watchful eye observes where
anything is amiss and the needful aid is immediately given.
In a great garden this vigilant personal care of plants as individuals
is impossible. However able a man the head gardener may be, or however
much he may love and wish to cherish the flowers under his care, his
duties and responsibilities are too many and too onerous to admit of his
being able to enjoy this intimate fellowship; but in the humbler garden
the close relationship of man and flowers, with all its beneficent and
salutary serviceableness to both, seems to be exactly adjusted.
Such a garden it is that fulfils its highest purpose; that giving of
the pleasure--the rich reward of the loving toil and care that have
gone to its making; every plant or group in it doing its appointed work
in its due season--that giving of “sweet solace” according to the
well-fitting wording of our far-away ancestors.
And when the day’s work is done, and the light just begins to fail, no
one knows better than the artist that then is the best moment in the
garden--when the colours acquire a wonderful richness of “subdued
splendour” such as is unmatched throughout the lighter hours of the long
summer day. Then it is that the flowers of delicate texture that have
grown faint in the full heat, raise their heads and rejoice; that the
tall evening Primrose opens its pale wide petals and gives off its faint
perfume; that the little lilac cross-flowers of the night-scented Stock
open out and show their modest prettiness and pour forth their
enchanting fragrance. This early evening hour is indeed the best of all;
the hour of loveliest sight, of sweetest scent, of best earthly rest and
fullest refreshment of body and spirit.
[Illustration: LEVENS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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