The Joys of Garden Stewardship

I sometimes think I am coming to classify my friends according to the way they act when I talk about my garden. On this basis, there are three sorts of people.

First there are those who are obviously not interested. Such as these feel no answering thrill, even at the sight of a florist’s spring catalogue. A weed inspires in them no desire to pull it. They may, however, be really nice people if they are still young; for, except by special grace, no one under thirty need be expected to care about gardens it is a mature taste. But in the mean time I turn our talk in other channels.

Then there are the people who, when I approach the subject, brighten up, look intelligent, even eager, but in a moment make it clear that what they are eager for is a chance to talk about their own gardens. Mine is merely the stepping-stone, the bridge, the handle. This is better than indifference, yet it is sometimes trying. One of my dearest friends thus tests my love now and then when she walks in my garden.

“Aren’t those peonies lovely?” I suggest.

“Yes,” dreamily; “you know I can’t have that shade in my garden because ” and she trails off into a disquisition that I could, just at that moment, do without.

“Look at the height of that larkspur!” I say.

“Yes but, you know, it wouldn’t do for me to have larkspur when I go away so early. What I need is things for April and May.”

“Well, I am not trying to sell you any,” I am sometimes goaded into protesting. “I only wanted you to say they are pretty pretty right here in my garden.”

“Yes yes of course they are pretty they’re lovely you have a lovely garden, you know.” She pulls herself up to give this tribute, but soon her eyes get the faraway look in them again, and she is murmuring, “Oh, I must write Edward to see about that hedge. Tell me, my dear, if you had a brick wall, would you have vines on it or wall-fruit?”

It is of no use. I cannot hold her long. I sometimes think she was nicer when she had no garden of her own. Perhaps she thinks I was nicer when I had none.

But there is another kind of garden manners a kind that subtly soothes, cheers, perhaps inebriates. It is the manner of the friend who may, indeed, have a garden, but who looks at mine with the eye of adoption, temporarily at least. She walks down its paths, singling out this or that for notice. She suggests, she even criticizes, tenderly, as one who tells you an “even more becoming way” to arrange your little daughter’s hair. She offers you roots and seeds and seedlings from her garden, and last touch of flattery she begs seeds and seedlings from yours.

For garden purposes, give me the manners of this third class. And, indeed, not for garden purposes alone. They are useful as applied to many things children, particularly, and houses.

Undoubtedly the demand that I make upon my friends is a form of vanity, yet I cannot seem to feel ashamed of it. I admit at once that not the least part of my pleasure in my flowers is the attention they get from others. Moreover, it is not only from friends that I seek this, but from every passer-by along my country road. There are gardens and gardens. Some, set about with hedges tall and thick, offer the delights of exclusiveness and solitude. But exclusiveness and solitude are easily had on a Connecticut farm, and my garden will none of them; it flings forth its appeal to every wayfarer. And I like it. I like my garden to “get notice.” As people drive by I hope they enjoy my phlox. I furtively glance to see if they have an eye for the foxglove. I wonder if the caléndulas are so tall that they hide the asters. And if, as I bend over my weeding, an automobile whirling past lets fly an appreciative phrase “lovely flowers ” “wonderful yellow of ” “garden there,” my ears are quick to receive it and I forgive the eddies of gasolene and dust that are also left by the vanishing visitant.

About few things can one be so brazen in one’s enjoyment of recognition. One’s house, one’s clothes, one’s work, one’s children, all these demand a certain modesty of demeanor, however the inner spirit may puff. Not so one’s garden. I fancy this is because, while I have a strong sense of ownership in it, I also have a strong sense of stewardship. As owner I must be modest, but as steward I may admire as openly as I will. Did I make my phlox? Did I fashion my asters? Am I the artificer of my fringed larkspur? Nay, truly, I am but their caretaker, and may glory in them as well as another, only with the added touch of joy that I, even I, have given them their opportunity. Like Paul I plant, like Apollos I water, but before the power that giveth the increase I stand back and wonder.

But it is not alone the results of my stewardship that give me joy. Its very processes are good. Delight in the earth is a primitive instinct. Digging is naturally pleasant, hoeing is pleasant, raking is pleasant, and then there is the weeding. For I am not the only one who sows seeds in my garden. One of my friends remarked cheerfully that he had planted twenty-seven different vegetables in his garden, and the Lord had planted two hundred and twenty-seven other kinds of things.

This is where the weeding comes in. Now a good deal has been said about the labor of weeding, but little about the gratifications of weeding. I don’t mean weeding with a hoe. I mean yanking up, with movements suited to the occasion, each individual growing thing that doesn’t belong. Surely I am not the only one to have felt the pleasure of this. They come up so nicely, and leave such soft earth behind! And intellect is needed, too, for each weed demands its own way of handling: the adherent plantain needing a slow, firm, drawing motion, but very satisfactory when it comes; the evasive clover requiring that all its sprawling runners shall be gathered up in one gentle, tactful pull; the tender shepherd’s purse coming easily on a straight twitch; the tough ragweed that yields to almost any kind of jerk. Even witch-grass, the bane of the farmer, has its rewarding side, when one really does get out its handful of wicked-looking, crawly, white tubers.

Weeding is most fun when the weeds are not too small. Yes, from the aspect of a sport there is something to be said for letting weeds grow. Pulling out little tender ones is poor work compared with the satisfaction of hauling up a spreading treelet of ragweed or a far-flaunting wild buckwheat. You seem to get so much for your effort, and it stirs up the ground so, and no other weeds have grown under the shade of the big one, so its departure leaves a good bit of empty brown earth.

Surely, weeding is good fun. If faults could be yanked out of children in the same entertaining way, the orphan asylums would soon be emptied through the craze for adoption as a major sport.

One of the pleasantest mornings of my life was spent weeding, in the rain, a long-neglected corner of my garden, while a young friend stood around the edges and explained the current political situation to me, and carted away armfuls of green stuff as I handed them out to him. The rain drizzled, and the air was fragrant with the smell of wet earth and bruised stems. Ideally, of course, weeds should never reach this state of sportive rankness. But most of my friends admit, under pressure, that there are corners where such things do happen.

Naturally, all this is assuming that one is one’s own gardener. There may be pleasure in having a garden kept up by a real gardener, but that always seems to me a little like having a doll and letting somebody else dress and undress it. My garden must never grow so big that I cannot take care of it and neglect it myself.

In saying this, however, I don’t count rocks. When it comes to rocks, I call in Jonathan. And it often comes to rocks.

For mine is a Connecticut garden. Now in the beginning Connecticut was composed entirely of rocks. Then the little earth gnomes, fearing that no one would ever come there to give them sport, sprinkled a little earth amongst the rocks, partly covered some, wholly covered others, and then hid to see what the gardeners would do about it. And ever since the gardeners have been patiently, or impatiently, tucking in their seeds and plants in the thimblefuls of earth left by the gnomes. They have been picking out the rocks, or blowing them up, or burying them, or working around them; and every winter the little gnomes gather and push up a new lot from the dark storehouses of the underworld. In the spring the gardeners begin again, and the little gnomes hold their sides with still laughter to watch the work go on.

“Rocks?” my friends say. “Do you mind the rocks? But they are a special beauty! Why, I have a rock in my garden that I have treated

“Very well,” I interrupt rudely. “A rock is all very well. If I had a rock in my garden I could treat it, too. But how about a garden that is all rocks?”

“Oh why choose another spot.”

Whereupon I reply, “You don’t know Connecticut.”

Ever since I began having a garden I have had my troubles with the rocks, but the worst time came when, in a mood of enthusiastic and absolutely unintelligent optimism, I decided to have a bit of smooth grass in the middle of my garden. I wanted it very much. The place was too restless; you couldn’t sit down anywhere. I felt that I had to have a clear green spot where I could take a chair and a book. I selected the spot, marked it off with string, and began to loosen up the earth for a late summer planting of grass seed. Caléndulas and poppies and cornflowers had bloomed there before, self-sown and able to look out for themselves, so I had never investigated the depths of the bed to see what the little gnomes had prepared for me. Now I found out. The spading-fork gave a familiar dull clink as it struck rock. I felt about for the edge; it was a big one. I got the crowbar and dropped it, in testing prods; it was a very big one, and only four inches below the surface. Grass would never grow there in a dry season. I moved to another part. Another rock, big too! I prodded all over the allotted space, and found six big fellows lurking just below the top of the soil. Evidently it was a case for calling in Jonathan.

He came, grumbling a little, as a man should, but very efficient, armed with two crowbars and equipped with a natural genius for manipulating rocks. He made a few well-placed remarks about queer people who choose to have grass where flowers would grow, and flowers where grass would grow, also about Connecticut being intended for a quarry and not for a garden anyhow. But all this was only the necessary accompaniment of the crowbar-play. Soon, under the insistent and canny urgency of the bars, a big rock began to heave its shoulder into sight above the soil. I hovered about, chucking in stones and earth underneath, placing little rocks under the bar for fulcrums, pulling them out again when they were no longer needed, standing guard over the flowers in the rest of the garden, with repeated warnings. “Please, Jonathan, don’t step back any farther; you’ll trample the forget-me-nots!” “Could you manage to roll this fellow out along that path and not across the mangled bodies of the marigolds?” Jonathan grumbled a little about being expected to pick a half-ton pebble out of the garden with his fingers, or lead it out with a string.

“Oh, well, of course, if you can’t do it I’ll have to let the marigolds go this year. But you do such wonderful things with a crowbar, I thought you could probably just guide it a little.” And Jonathan responds nobly to the flattery of this remark, and does indeed guide the huge thing, eases it along the narrow path, grazes the marigolds but leaves them unhurt, until at last, with a careful arrangement of stone fulcrums and a skillful twist of the bars, the great rock makes its last response and lunges heavily past the last flower bed on to the grass beyond.

When the work was done, the edge of the garden looked like Stonehenge, and the spot where my grass was to be was nothing but a yawning pit, crying to be filled. We surveyed it with interest. “If we had a water-supply, I wouldn’t make a grass-plot,” I said; “I’d make a swimming-pool. It’s deep enough.”

“And sit in the middle with your book?” asked Jonathan.

But there was no water-supply, so we filled it in with earth. Thirty wheelbarrow loads went in where those rocks came out. And the little gnomes perched on Stonehenge and jeered the while. I photographed it, and the rocks “took” well, but as regards the gnomes, the film was underexposed.

Thus the grass seed was planted. And we reminded each other of the version of America once given, with unconscious inspiration, by a little friend of ours:

“Land where our father died,
Land where the pilgrims pried.”

It seemed to us to suit the adventure.

As I have said, I love to have my friends love my garden. But there is one thing about it that I find does not always appeal to them pleasantly, and that is its color-schemes. Yet this is not my doing. For in nothing do I feel more keenly the fact of my mere stewardship than in this matter of color-scheme.

I set out with a very rigid one. I was quite decided in my own mind that what I wanted was white and salmon-pink and lavender. Asters, phlox, sweet peas, hollyhocks, all were to bend themselves to my rules. At first affairs went very well. White was easy. White phlox I had, and have an inheritance which from a few roots is spreading and spreading in waves of whiteness that grow more luxuriant every year. But I bought roots of salmon-pink and lavender, and then my troubles commenced. About the third season strange things began to happen. The pink phlox had the strength of ten. It spread amazingly; but it forgot all about my rules. It degenerated, some of it reverted toward that magenta shade that nature seems so naturally to adore in the vegetable world. To my horror I found my garden blossoming into magenta pink, blue pink, crimson, cardinal all the colors I had determined not under any circumstances to admit. On the other hand, the lavender phlox, which I particularly wanted, was most lovely, but frail. It refused to spread. It effaced itself before the rampant pink and its magenta-tainted brood. I vowed I would pull out the magentas, but each year my courage failed. They bloomed so bravely; I would wait till they were through. But by that time I was not quite sure which was which; I might pull out the wrong ones. And so I hesitated.

Moreover, I discovered, lingering among the flowers at dusk, that there were certain colors, most unpleasant by daylight, which at that time took on a new shade, and, for perhaps half an hour before night fell, were richly lovely. This is true of some of the magentas, which at dusk turn suddenly to royal purples and deep lavender-blues that are wonderfully satisfying.

For that half-hour of beauty I spare them. While the sun shines I try to look the other way, and at twilight I linger near them and enjoy their strange, dim glories, born literally of the magic hour. But I have trouble explaining them, by daylight, to some of my visitors who like color-schemes.

Insubordination is contagious. And I found after a while that my asters were not running true; queer things were happening among the sweet peas, and in the ranks of the hollyhocks all was not as it should be. And the last charge was made upon me by the children’s gardens. Children know not color-schemes. What they demand is flowers, flowers flowers to pick and pick, flowers to do things with. Snapdragon, for instance, is a jolly playmate, and little fingers love to pinch its cheeks and see its jaws yawn wide. But snapdragon tends dangerously toward the magenta. Then there was the calendula a delight to the young, because it blooms incessantly long past the early frosts, and has brittle stems that yield themselves to the clumsiest plucking by small hands. But calendula ranges from a faded yellow, through really pretty primrose shades, to a deep red-orange touched with maroon.

And, finally, there was the portulaca. Children love it, perhaps, best of all. It offers them fresh blossoms and new colors each morning, and it is even more easy to pick than the calendula. Who would deny them portulaca? Yet if this be admitted, one may as well give up the battle. For, as we all know, there is absolutely no color, except green, that portulaca does not perpetrate in its blossoms. It knows no shame.

In short, I am giving up. I am beginning to say with conviction that color-schemes are the mark of a narrow and rigid taste that they are born of convention and are meant not for living things but for wall-papers and portiA"res and clothes. Moreover, I am really growing callous or is it, rather, broad? Colors in my garden that would once have made my teeth ache now leave them feeling perfectly comfortable. I find myself looking with unmoved flesh no creeps nor withdrawals upon a bed of mixed magentas, scarlets, rose-pinks, and yellow-pinks. I even look with pleasure. I begin to think there may be a point beyond which discord achieves a higher harmony. At least, this sounds well. But, again, I find it hard to explain to some of my friends.

Indoors, it is another story. When I bring in the spoils of the garden I am again mistress and bend all to my will. Here I’ll have no tricks of color played on me. Sunshine and sky, perhaps, work some spell, for as soon as I get within four walls my prejudices return; scarlets and crimsons and pinks have to live in different rooms. I must have my color-schemes again, and perhaps I am as narrow as the worst. Except, indeed, for the children’s bowls; here the pink and the magenta, the lamb and the lion, may lie down together. But it takes a little child to lead them.

Out in my garden I feel myself less and less owner, more and more merely steward. I decree certain paths, and the phlox says, “Paths? Did you say paths?” and obliterates them in a season’s growth, so that children walk by faith and not by sight. I decree iris in one corner, and the primroses say, “Iris? Not at all. This is our bed. Iris indeed!” And I submit, and move the iris elsewhere.

And yet this slipping of responsibility is pleasant, too. So long as my garden will let me dig in it and weed it and pick it, so long as it entertains my friends for me, so long as it tosses up an occasional rock so that Jonathan does not lose all interest in it, so long as it plays prettily with the children and flings gay greetings to every passer-by, I can find no fault with it.

The joys of stewardship are great and I am well content.