Garden-Craft Old and New Part 12

CHAPTER VII.

THE TECHNICS OF GARDENING--(_continued._)

"I cannot think Nature is so spent and decayed that she can bring forth nothing worth her former years. She is always the same, like herself; and when she collects her strength is abler still. Men are decayed, and studies; she is not."--BEN JONSON.

The old-fashioned country house has, almost invariably, a garden that curtseys to the house, with its formal lines, its terraces, and beds of geometrical patterns.

But to the ordinary Landscape-gardener the terrace is as much anathema as the "Kist o' Whistles" to the Scotch Puritan! So able and distinguished a gardener as Mr Robinson, while not absolutely forbidding any architectural accessories or geometrical arrangement, is for ever girding at them. The worst thing that can be done with a true garden, he says ("The English Flower Garden," p. ii), "is to introduce any feature which, unlike the materials of our world-designer, never changes. There are positions, it is true, where the _intrusion of architecture_ and embankment into the garden is justifiable; nay, now and then, even necessary."

If one is to promulgate opinions that shall run counter to the wisdom of the whole civilised world, it is, of course, well that they should be p.r.o.nounced with the air of a Moses freshly come down from the Mount, with the tables of the law in his hands. And there is more of it. "There is no code of taste resting on any solid foundation which proves that garden or park should have any extensive stonework or geometrical arrangement.... Let us, then, use as few oil-cloth or carpet patterns and as little stonework as possible in our gardens. The style is in doubtful taste in climates and positions more suited to it than that of England, but he who would adopt it in the present day is an enemy to every true interest of the garden" (p. vi).

So much for the "deadly formalism" of an old-fashioned garden in our author's eyes! But, as Horace Walpole might say, "it is not peculiar to Mr Robinson to think in that manner." It is the way of the landscape-gardener to monopolise to himself all the right principles of gardening; he is the angel of the garden who protects its true interests; all other moods than his are low, all figures other than his are symbols of errors, all dealings with Nature or with "the materials of our world-designer" other than his are spurious. For the colonies I can imagine no fitter doctrines than our author's, but not for an old land like ours, and for methods that have the approval of men like Bacon, Temple, More, Evelyn, Sir Joshua, Sir Walter, Elia, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Morris, and Jefferies. And, even in the colonies, they might demand to see "the code of taste resting on any solid foundation which proves" that you shall have any garden or park at all!

"If I am to have a system at all," says the author of "The Flower Garden" (Murray, 1852), whose broad-minded views declare him to be an amateur, "give me the good old system of terraces and angled walks, the clipt yew hedges, against whose dark and rich verdure the bright old-fashioned flowers glittered in the sun." Or again: "Of all the vain a.s.sumptions of these c.o.xcombical times, that which arrogates the pre-eminence in the true science of gardening is the vainest.... The real beauty and poetry of a garden are lost in our efforts after rarity.

If we review the various styles that have prevailed in England from the knotted gardens of Elizabeth ... to the landscape fashion of the present day, we shall have little reason to pride ourselves on the advance which national taste has made upon the earliest efforts in this department"

("The Praise of Gardens," p. 270).

"Large or small," says Mr W. Morris, "the garden should look both orderly and rich. It should be well fenced from the outer world. It should by no means imitate either the wilfulness or the wildness of Nature, but should look like a thing never seen except near a house"

("Hopes and Fears").

The whole point of the matter is, however, perhaps best summed up in Hazlitt's remark, that there is a pleasure in Art which none but artists feel. And why this sudden respect for "the materials of our world-designer," when we may ask in Repton's words "why this art has been called Landscape-gardening, perhaps he who gave the t.i.tle may explain. I see no reason, unless it be the efficacy which it has shown in destroying landscapes, in which indeed it is infallible!" But, setting aside the transparent shallowness of such a plea against the use of Art in a garden, it argues little for the scheme of effects to leave "nothing to impede the view of the house or its windows but a refreshing carpet of gra.s.s." To pitch your house down upon the gra.s.s with no architectural accessories about it, to link it to the soil, is to vulgarise it, to rob it of importance, to give it the look of a pastoral farm, green to the door-step. To bring Nature up to the windows of your house, with a scorn of art-sweetness, is not only to betray your own deadness to form, but to cause a sense of unexpected blankness in the visitor's mind on leaving the well-appointed interior of an English home. As the house is an Art-production, so is the garden that surrounds it, and there is no code of taste that I know of which would prove that Art is more reprehensible in the garden than in the house.

But to return. The old-fashioned country house had its terraces. These terraces are not mere narrow slopes of turf, such as now-a-days too often answer to the term, but they are of solid masonry with bal.u.s.trades or open-work that give an agreeable variety of light and shade, and impart an air of importance and of alt.i.tude to the house that would be lacking if the terrace were not there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF ROSERY, WITH SUNDIAL.]

The whole of the ground upon which the house stands, or which forms its base, const.i.tutes the terrace. In such cases the terrace-walls are usually in two or more levels, the upper terrace being mostly parallel with the line of the house, or bowed out at intervals with balconies, while the lower terrace, or terraces, serve as the varying levels of formal gardens, pleasure-grounds, labyrinths, &c. The terraces are approached by wide steps that are treated in a stately and impressive manner. The walls and bal.u.s.trades, moreover, conform, as they should, to the materials employed in the house; if the house be of stone, as at Haddon, or Brympton, or Claverton, the bal.u.s.trade is of stone; if the house be of brick, as at Hatfield or Bramshill, the walls and bal.u.s.trades will be of brick and terra-cotta. The advantage of this agreement of material is obvious, for house and terrace, embraced at one glance, make a consistent whole. There is not, of course, the same necessity for consistency of material in the case of the mere retaining walls.

As one must needs have a system in planning grounds, there is none that will more certainly bring honour and effect to them than the regular geometrical treatment. This is what the architect naturally prefers. The house is his child, and he knows what is good for it. Unlike the imported gardener, who comes upon the scene as a foreign agent, the architect works from the house outwards, taking the house as his centre; the other works from the outside inwards, if he thinks of the "inwards"

at all. The first thinks of house and grounds as a whole which shall embrace the main buildings, the outbuildings, the flower and kitchen-gardens, terraces, walls, forecourt, winter-garden, conservatory, fountain, steps, &c. The other makes the house common to the commonplace; owing no allegiance to Art, a specialist of one idea, he holds that the worst thing that can be done is to intrude architectural or geometrical arrangement about a garden, and speaks of a refreshing carpet of gra.s.s as preferable.

As to the extent, number, and situation of terraces, this point is determined by the conditions of the house and site. Terraces come naturally if the house be on an eminence, but even in cases where the ground recedes only to a slight extent, the surface of a second terrace may be lowered by increasing the fall of the slope till sufficient earth is provided for the requisite filling. The surplus earth dug out in forming the foundations and cellars of the house, or rubbish from an old building, will help to make up the terrace levels and save the cost of wheeling and carting the rubbish away.

Like all embankments, terrace walls are built with "battered" fronts or outward slope; the back of the wall will be left rough, and well drained. A backing of sods, Mr Milner says, will prevent thrust, and admit of a lessened thickness in the wall. The walls should not be less than three feet in height from the ground-level beneath, exclusive of the bal.u.s.trade, which is another three feet high.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF TENNIS LAWN, TERRACES, AND FLOWER GARDEN.]

The length of the terrace adds importance to the house, and in small gardens, where the kitchen-garden occupies one side of the flower-garden, the terrace may with advantage be carried to the full extent of the ground, and the kitchen-garden separated by a hedge and shrubs; and at the upper end of the kitchen-garden may be a narrow garden, geometrical, rock, or other garden, set next the terrace wall.

The treatment of the upper terrace should be strictly architectural. If the terrace be wide, raised beds with stone edging, set on the inner side of the terrace, say alternately long beds with dwarf flowering shrubs or hydrangeas, and circles with standard hollies, or marble statues on pedestals, that shall alternate with pyramidal golden yews, have a good effect, the terrace terminating with an arbour or stone Pavilion. Modern taste, however, even if it condescend so far as to allow of a terrace, is content with its gra.s.s plot and gravel walks, which is not carrying Art very far.

Laneham tells of the old pleasaunce at Kenilworth, that it had a terrace 10 ft. high and 12 ft. wide on the garden side, in which were set at intervals obelisks and spheres and white bears, "all of stone, upon their curious bases," and at each end an arbour; the garden-plot was below this, and had its fair alleys, or gra.s.s, or gravel.

The lower terrace may well be twice the width of the upper one, and may be a geometrical garden laid out on turf, if preferred, but far better upon gravel. Here will be collected the choicest flowers in the garden, giving a ma.s.s of rich colouring.

Although in old gardens the lower terrace is some 10 ft. below the upper one, this is too deep to suit modern taste; indeed, 5 ft. or 6 ft. will give a better view of the garden if it is to be viewed from the house.

At the same time it is undeniable that the more you are able to look _down_ upon the garden--the higher you stand above its plane--the better the effect; the lower you stand, the poorer the perspective.

Modern taste, also, will not always tolerate a bal.u.s.traded wall as a boundary to the terrace, but likes a gra.s.s slope. If this poor subst.i.tute be preferred, there should be a level s.p.a.ce at the bottom of the slope and at the top; the slope should have a continuous line, and not follow any irregularity in the natural lie of the ground, and there should be a simple plinth 12 to 18 in. high at the bottom of the slope.

But the mere gra.s.s slope does not much help the effect of the house, far or near; a house standing on a gra.s.s slope always has the effect of sliding down a hill. To leave the house exposed upon the landscape, unscreened and unterraced, is not to treat site or house fairly. There exists a certain necessity for features in a flat place, and if no raised terrace be possible, it is desirable to get architectural treatment by means of bal.u.s.trades alone, without much, or any, fall in the ground. The eye always asks for definite boundaries to a piece of ornamental ground as it does for a frame to a picture, and where definite boundaries do not exist, the distant effect is that of a house that has tumbled casually down from the skies, near which the cattle may graze as they list, and the flower-beds are the mere sport of contingencies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL PLAN OF THE PLEASAUNCE, VILLA ALBANI, ROME.]

Good examples of terrace walls are to be found at Haddon, Claverton, Brympton, Montacute, Bramshill, Wilton, and Blickling Hall. If truth be told, however, all our English examples dwindle into nothingness by the side of fine Italian examples like those at Villa Albani,[43] Villa Medici, or Villa Borghese, with their grand scope and array of sculpture. (See ill.u.s.tration from Percier and Fontaine's "_Choix des plus celebres maisons de plaisance de Rome et de ses environs_." Paris, MDCCCIV.)

[Footnote 43: See accompanying plans.]

The arrangement of steps is a matter that may call forth a man's utmost ingenuity. The scope and variety of step arrangement is, indeed, a matter that can only be realised by designers who have given it their study. As to practical points. In planning steps make the treads wide, the risers low. Long flights without landings are always objectionable.

Some of the best examples, both in England and abroad, have winders; as to the library quadrangle, Trinity Coll., Cambridge; Donibristle Castle, Scotland; Villa d'Este, Tivoli; the gardens at Nimes. The grandest specimen of all is the Trinita di Monte steps in Rome (see Notes on Gardens in _The British Architect_, by John Belcher and Mervyn Macartney).

It is impossible to lay down rules of equal application everywhere as to the distribution of garden area into compartments, borders, terraces, walks, &c. These matters are partly regulated by the character of the house, its situation, the section and outline of the ground. But gardens should, if possible, lie towards the best parts of the house, or towards the rooms most commonly in use by the family, and endeavour should be made to plant them so that to step from the house on to the terrace, or from the terrace to the various parts of the garden, should only seem like going from one room to another.

Of the arrangement of the ground into divisions, each section should have its own special attractiveness and should be led up to by some inviting artifice of archway, or screened alley of shrubs, or "rosery"

with its trellis-work, or stone colonnade; and if the alley be long it should be high enough to afford shade from the glare of the sun in hot weather; you ought not, as Bacon pertinently says, to "buy the shade by going into the sun."

Again, the useful and the beautiful should be happily united, the kitchen and the flower garden, the way to the stables and outbuildings, the orchard, the winter garden, &c., all having a share of consideration and a sense of connectedness; and if there be a chance for a filbert walk, seize it; that at Hatfield is charming. "I cannot understand,"

says Richard Jefferies ("Wild Life in a Southern Country," p. 70), "why filbert walks are not planted by our modern capitalists, who make nothing of spending a thousand pounds in forcing-houses."

A garden should be well fenced, and there should always be facility for getting real seclusion, so much needed now-a-days; indeed, the provision of places of retreat has always been a note of an English garden. The love of retirement, almost as much as a taste for trees and flowers, has dictated its shapes. Hence the cedar-walks,[44] the bower, the avenue, the maze, the alley, the wilderness, that were familiar, and almost the invariable features of an old English pleasaunce, "hidden happily and shielded safe."

[Footnote 44: One of the finest and weirdest cedar-walks that I have ever met with is that at Marwell, near Owslebury in Hampshire. Here you realise the wizardry of green gloom and sense of perfect seclusion. It was here that Henry VIII. courted one of his too willing wives.]

This seclusion can be got by judicious screening of parts, by shrubberies, or avenues of hazel, or yew, or sweet-scented bay, with perhaps cl.u.s.ters of lilies and hollyhocks, or dwarf Alpine plants and trailers between. And in all this the true gardener will have a thought for the birds. "No modern exotic evergreens," says Jefferies, "ever attract our English birds like the true old English trees and shrubs. In the box and yew they love to build; spindly laurels and rhododendrons, with vacant draughty s.p.a.ces underneath, they detest, avoiding them as much as possible. The common hawthorn hedge round a country garden shall contain three times as many nests, and be visited by five times as many birds as the foreign evergreens, so costly to rear and so sure to be killed by the first old-fashioned frost."

Another chance for getting seclusion is the high walls or lofty yew hedge of the quadrangular courtyard, which may be near the entrance.

Such a forecourt is the place for a walk on bleak days; in its borders you are sure of the earliest spring flowers, for the tender flowers can here bloom securely, the myrtle, the pomegranate will flourish, and the most fragrant plants and climbers hang over the door and windows. What is more charming than the effect of hollyhocks, peonies, poppies, tritomas, and tulips seen against a yew hedge?

The paths should be wide and excellently made. The English have always had good paths; as Mr Evelyn said to Mr Pepys, "We have the best walks of gravell in the world, France having none, nor Italy." The comfort and the elegance of a garden depend in no slight degree upon good gravel walks, but having secured gravel walks to all parts of the grounds, green alleys should also be provided. Nothing is prettier than a vista through the smooth-shaven green alley, with a statue or sundial or pavilion at the end; or an archway framing a peep of the country beyond.

As to the garden's size, it is erroneous to suppose that the enjoyments of a garden are only in proportion to its magnitude; the pleasurableness of a garden depends infinitely more upon the degree of its culture and the loving care that is bestowed upon it. If gardens were smaller than they usually are, there would be a better chance of their orderly keeping. As it is, gardens are mostly too large for the number of attendants, so that the time and care of the gardener are nearly absorbed in the manual labour of repairing and stocking the beds, and maintaining and sweeping the walks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN SHEWING ARRANGEMENT OF SUNK FLOWER GARDEN, YEW WALK, AND TENNIS COURT.]

But if not large, the grounds should not have the appearance of being confined within a limited s.p.a.ce; and Art is well spent in giving an effect of greater extent to the place than it really possesses by a suitable composition of the walks, bushes, and trees. These lines should lead the eye to the distance, and if bounded by trees, the garden should be connected with the outer world by judicious openings; and this rule applies to gardens large or small.

Ground possessing a gentle inclination towards the south is desirable for a garden. On such a slope effectual drainage is easily accomplished, and the greatest possible benefit obtained from the sun's rays. The garden should, if possible, have an open exposure towards the east and west, so that it may enjoy the full benefit of morning and evening sun; but shelter on the north or north-east, or any side in which the particular locality may happen to be exposed, is desirable.

The dimensions of the garden will be proportionate to the scale of the house. The general size of the garden to a good-sized house is from four to six acres, but the extent varies in many places from twelve to twenty, or even thirty acres. (See an admirable article on gardening in the "Encyclopaedia.")

Before commencing to lay out a garden the plan should be prepared in minute detail, and every point carefully considered. Two or three acres of kitchen garden, enclosed by walls and surrounded by slips, will suffice for the supply of a moderate establishment.[45] The form of the kitchen garden advocated by the writer in the "Encyclopaedia" is that of a square, or oblong, not curvilinear, since the work of cropping of the ground can thus be more easily carried out. On the whole, the best form is that of a parallelogram, with its longest sides in the proportion of about five to three of the shorter, and running east and west. The whole should be compactly arranged so as to facilitate working, and to afford convenient access for the carting of heavy materials to the store-yards, etc.

[Footnote 45: As the walls afford valuable s.p.a.ce for the growth of the choicer kinds of hardy fruits, the direction in which they are built is of considerable importance. "In the warmer parts of the country, the wall on the north side of the garden should be so placed as to face the sun at about an hour before noon, or a little to east of south; in less favoured localities it should be made to face direct south, and in the still more unfavourable districts it should face the sun an hour after noon, or a little west of south. The east and west walls should run parallel to each other, and at right angles to that on the north side."]

There can, as we have said, be no fixed or uniform arrangement of gardens. Some grounds will have more flower-beds than others, some more park or wilderness; some will have terraces, some not; some a pinetum, or an American garden. In some gardens the terraces will lie immediately below the main front of the house, in others not, because the geometrical garden needs a more sheltered site where the flowers can thrive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF SUNK FLOWER GARDEN AND YEW HEDGES.]