<h2>WOOD AND GARDEN</h2><div class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_001" id="Page_001"></SPAN>[001]</div>
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<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
<h4>INTRODUCTORY</h4>
<p><br/>There are already many and excellent books about gardening; but the love
of a garden, already so deeply implanted in the English heart, is so
rapidly growing, that no excuse is needed for putting forth another.</p>
<p>I lay no claim either to literary ability, or to botanical knowledge, or
even to knowing the best practical methods of cultivation; but I have
lived among outdoor flowers for many years, and have not spared myself
in the way of actual labour, and have come to be on closely intimate and
friendly terms with a great many growing things, and have acquired
certain instincts which, though not clearly defined, are of the nature
of useful knowledge.</p>
<p>But the lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others,
is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives. I
rejoice when I see any one, and especially children, inquiring about
flowers, and wanting gardens of their own, and carefully working
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_002" id="Page_002"></SPAN>[002]</span>in them. For the love of gardening is a seed that once sown
never dies, but always grows and grows to an enduring and
ever-increasing source of happiness.</p>
<p>If in the following chapters I have laid special stress upon gardening
for beautiful effect, it is because it is the way of gardening that I
love best, and understand most of, and that seems to me capable of
giving the greatest amount of pleasure. I am strongly for treating
garden and wooded ground in a pictorial way, mainly with large effects,
and in the second place with lesser beautiful incidents, and for so
arranging plants and trees and grassy spaces that they look happy and at
home, and make no parade of conscious effort. I try for beauty and
harmony everywhere, and especially for harmony of colour. A garden so
treated gives the delightful feeling of repose, and refreshment, and
purest enjoyment of beauty, that seems to my understanding to be the
best fulfilment of its purpose; while to the diligent worker its
happiness is like the offering of a constant hymn of praise. For I hold
that the best purpose of a garden is to give delight and to give
refreshment of mind, to soothe, to refine, and to lift up the heart in a
spirit of praise and thankfulness. It is certain that those who practise
gardening in the best ways find it to be so.</p>
<p>But the scope of practical gardening covers a range of horticultural
practice wide enough to give play to every variety of human taste. Some
find their greatest pleasure in collecting as large a number as possible
of <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_003" id="Page_003"></SPAN>[003]</span>all sorts of plants from all sources, others in collecting
them themselves in their foreign homes, others in making rock-gardens,
or ferneries, or peat-gardens, or bog-gardens, or gardens for conifers
or for flowering shrubs, or special gardens of plants and trees with
variegated or coloured leaves, or in the cultivation of some particular
race or family of plants. Others may best like wide lawns with large
trees, or wild gardening, or a quite formal garden, with trim hedge and
walk, and terrace, and brilliant parterre, or a combination of several
ways of gardening. And all are right and reasonable and enjoyable to
their owners, and in some way or degree helpful to others.</p>
<p>The way that seems to me most desirable is again different, and I have
made an attempt to describe it in some of its aspects. But I have
learned much, and am always learning, from other people's gardens, and
the lesson I have learned most thoroughly is, never to say "I
know"—there is so infinitely much to learn, and the conditions of
different gardens vary so greatly, even when soil and situation appear
to be alike and they are in the same district. Nature is such a subtle
chemist that one never knows what she is about, or what surprises she
may have in store for us.</p>
<p>Often one sees in the gardening papers discussions about the treatment
of some particular plant. One man writes to say it can only be done one
way, another to say it can only be done quite some other <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_004" id="Page_004"></SPAN>[004]</span>way,
and the discussion waxes hot and almost angry, and the puzzled reader,
perhaps as yet young in gardening, cannot tell what to make of it. And
yet the two writers are both able gardeners, and both absolutely
trustworthy, only they should have said, "In my experience <i>in this
place</i> such a plant can only be done in such a way." Even plants of the
same family will not do equally well in the same garden. Every practical
gardener knows this in the case of strawberries and potatoes; he has to
find out which kinds will do in his garden; the experience of his friend
in the next county is probably of no use whatever.</p>
<p>I have learnt much from the little cottage gardens that help to make our
English waysides the prettiest in the temperate world. One can hardly go
into the smallest cottage garden without learning or observing something
new. It may be some two plants growing beautifully together by some
happy chance, or a pretty mixed tangle of creepers, or something that
one always thought must have a south wall doing better on an east one.
But eye and brain must be alert to receive the impression and studious
to store it, to add to the hoard of experience. And it is important to
train oneself to have a good flower-eye; to be able to see at a glance
what flowers are good and which are unworthy, and why, and to keep an
open mind about it; not to be swayed by the petty tyrannies of the
"florist" or show judge; for, though some part of his judgment may be
sound, he is himself a slave to rules, and must <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_005" id="Page_005"></SPAN>[005]</span>go by points
which are defined arbitrarily and rigidly, and have reference mainly to
the show-table, leaving out of account, as if unworthy of consideration,
such matters as gardens and garden beauty, and human delight, and
sunshine, and varying lights of morning and evening and noonday. But
many, both nurserymen and private people, devote themselves to growing
and improving the best classes of hardy flowers, and we can hardly offer
them too much grateful praise, or do them too much honour. For what
would our gardens be without the Roses, P�onies, and Gladiolus of
France, and the Tulips and Hyacinths of Holland, to say nothing of the
hosts of good things raised by our home growers, and of the enterprise
of the great firms whose agents are always searching the world for
garden treasures?</p>
<p>Let no one be discouraged by the thought of how much there is to learn.
Looking back upon nearly thirty years of gardening (the earlier part of
it in groping ignorance with scant means of help), I can remember no
part of it that was not full of pleasure and encouragement. For the
first steps are steps into a delightful Unknown, the first successes are
victories all the happier for being scarcely expected, and with the
growing knowledge comes the widening outlook, and the comforting sense
of an ever-increasing gain of critical appreciation. Each new step
becomes a little surer, and each new grasp a little firmer, till, little
by little, comes the power of intelligent combination, the
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_006" id="Page_006"></SPAN>[006]</span>nearest thing we can know to the mighty force of creation.</p>
<p>And a garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful
watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all, it teaches
entire trust. "Paul planteth and Apollos watereth, but God giveth the
increase." The good gardener knows with absolute certainty that if he
does his part, if he gives the labour, the love, and every aid that his
knowledge of his craft, experience of the conditions of his place, and
exercise of his personal wit can work together to suggest, that so
surely as he does this diligently and faithfully, so surely will God
give the increase. Then with the honestly-earned success comes the
consciousness of encouragement to renewed effort, and, as it were, an
echo of the gracious words, "Well done, good and faithful servant."</p>
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