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AN ISLAND GARDEN. New Edition. With Por-
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LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER. Edited by
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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
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AN ISLAND GARDEN
CELIA THAXTER
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
<$fc tttoetfite preft CambriDge
Copyright, 1894,
fir HOUGHTON, MIFFUN & CO.
Ail rights reserved.
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MRS. MARY HEMENWAY
"WHOSE LARGENESS OF HEART IS EVEN AS THE
SAND ON THE SEASHORE "
THIS VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
" An Island Garden " was first issued ten years
ago, in an expensive form with lithographic illus-
trations in color. It has been for some time out of
print, but the continued inquiries for it are evi-
dence of its permanent interest and value. To
meet these inquiries the publishers have made the
present popular edition of the book.
BOSTON, April, 1904.
T the Isles of Shoals, among the
ledges of the largest island, Apple-
dore, lies the small garden which in
the following pages I have endeav-
ored to describe. Ever since I could remember
anything, flowers have been like dear friends to
me, comforters, inspirers, powers to uplift and to
cheer. A lonely child, living on the lighthouse
island ten miles away from the mainland, every
blade of grass that sprang out of the ground,
every humblest weed, was precious in my sight,
and I began a little garden when not more than
five years old. From this, year after year, the
larger one, which has given so much pleasure to
so many people, has grown. The first small bed
at the lighthouse island contained only Marigolds,
pot Marigolds, fire-colored blossoms which were
the joy of my heart and the delight of my eyes.
This scrap of garden, literally not more than a
vi PREFATORY
yard square, with its barbaric splendors of color,
I worshiped like any Parsee. When I planted
the dry, brown seeds I noticed how they were
shaped, like crescents, with a fine line of orna-
mental dots, a " beading " along the whole length
of the centre, from this crescent sprang the
Marigold plant, each of whose flowers was like
" a mimic sun,
With ray-like florets round a disk-like face."
In my childish mind I pondered much on this
fact of the crescent growing into the full-rayed
orb. Many thoughts had I of all the flowers I
knew ; very dear were they, so that after I had
gathered them I felt sorry, and I had a safe place
between the rocks to which I carried them when
they were withered, and hid them away from all
eyes, they were so precious even then.
The dear flowers ! Summer after summer they
return to me, always young and fresh and beauti-
ful ; but so many of the friends who have watched
them and loved them with me are gone, and they
return no more. I think of the lament of Mos-
chus for Bion :
" Ah me, when the Mallows wither in the gar-
den, and the green Parsley, and the curled ten-
drils of the Anise, on a later day they spring, in
another year; but we men, we, the great and
mighty, or wise, when once we have died, in hol-
low earth we sleep, gone down into silence."
PREFATORY vii
Into silence ! How deep, how unbroken is that
silence ! But because of tender memories of lov-
ing eyes that see them no more, my flowers are
yet more beloved and tenderly cherished.
Year after year the island garden has grown
in beauty and charm, so that in response to the
many entreaties of strangers as well as friends
who have said to me, summer after summer,
" Tell us how you do it ! Write a book about it
and tell us how it is done, that we may go also
and do likewise," I have written this book at last.
Truly it contains the fruit of much sweet and
bitter experience. Of what I speak I know, and
of what I know I have freely given. I trust it
may help the patient gardener to a reasonable
measure of success, and to that end I have spared
no smallest detail that seemed to me necessary, no
suggestion that might prove helpful.
DUST.
Here is a problem, a wonder for all to see.
Look at this marvelous thing I hold in my hand I
This is a magic surprising, a mystery
Strange as a miracle, harder to understand.
What is it ? Only a handful of earth : to your touch
A dry rough powder you trample beneath your feet,
Dark and lifeless ; but think for a moment, how much
It hides and holds that is beautiful, bitter, or sweet.
viii PREFATORY
Think of the glory of color ! The red of the rose,
Green of the myriad leaves and the fields of grass,
Yellow as bright as the sun where the daffodil blows,
Purple where violets nod as the breezes pass.
Think of the manifold form, of the oak and the vine,
Nut, and fruit, and cluster, and ears of corn ;
Of the anchored water-lily, a thing divine,
Unfolding its dazzling snow to the kiss of morn.
Think of the delicate perfumes borne on the gale,
Of the golden willow catkin's odor of spring,
Of the breath of the rich narcissus waxen-pale,
Of the sweet pea's flight of flowers, of the nettle's sting.
Strange that this lifeless thing gives vine, flower, tree,
Color and shape and character, fragrance too ;
That the timber that builds the house, the ship for the sea,
Out of this powder its strength and its toughness drew !
That the cocoa among the palms should suck its milk
From this dry dust, while dates from the self-same soil
Summon their sweet rich fruit : that our shining silk
The mulberry leaves should yield to the worm's slow toil.
How should the poppy steal sleep from the very source
That grants to the grapevine juice that can madden or
cheer?
How does the weed find food for its fabric coarse
Where the lilies proud their blossoms pure uprear ?
Who shall compass or fathom God's thought profound ?
We can but praise, for we may not understand ;
But there 's no more beautiful riddle the whole world round
Than is hid in this heap of dust I hold in my hand.
AN ISLAND GARDEN
|F all the wonderful things in the won-
derful universe of God, nothing seems
to me more surprising than the plant-
ing of a seed in the blank earth and the
result thereof. Take a Poppy seed, for
instance : it lies in your palm, the merest atom of
matter, hardly visible, a speck, a pin's point in
bulk, but within it is imprisoned a spirit of beauty
ineffable, which will break its bonds and emerge
from the dark ground and blossom in a splendor
so dazzling as to baffle all powers of description.
The Genie in the Arabian tale is not half so
astonishing. In this tiny casket lie folded roots,
stalks, leaves, buds, flowers, seed-vessels, sur-
passing color and beautiful form, all that goes to
make up a plant which is as gigantic in propor-
tion to the bounds that confine it as the Oak is
to the acorn. You may watch this marvel from
beginning to end in a few weeks' time, and if you
realize how great a marvel it is, you can but be
3
4 AN ISLAND GARDEN
lost in " wonder, love, and praise." All seeds are
most interesting, whether winged like the Dande-
lion and Thistle, to fly on every breeze afar ; or
barbed to catch in the wool of cattle or the gar-
ments of men, to be borne away and spread in all
directions over the land; or feathered like the
little polished silvery shuttlecocks of the Corn-
flower, to whirl in the wind abroad and settle
presently, point downward, into the hospitable
ground; or oared like the Maple, to row out
upon the viewless tides of the air. But if I were
to pause on the threshold of the year to consider
the miracles of seeds alone, I should never, I fear,
reach my garden plot at all !
He who is born with a silver spoon in his
mouth is generally considered a fortunate person,
but his good fortune is small compared to that of
the happy mortal who enters this world with a
passion for flowers in his soul. I use the word
advisedly, though it seems a weighty one for the
subject, for I do not mean a light or shallow affec-
tion, or even an aesthetic admiration ; no butterfly
interest, but a real love which is worthy of the
name, which is capable of the dignity of sacrifice,
great enough to bear discomfort of body and dis-
appointment of spirit, strong enough to fight a
thousand enemies for the thing beloved, with
power, with judgment, with endless patience, and
to give with everything else a subtler stimulus
which is more delicate and perhaps more neces-
sary than all the rest.
Often I hear people say, " How do you make
your plants flourish like this?" as they admire
AN ISLAND GARDEN 5
the little flower patch I cultivate in summer, or
the window gardens that bloom for me in the
winter ; " I can never make my plants blossom
like this ! What is your secret ? " And I answer
with one word, " Love." For that includes all,
the patience that endures continual trial, the con-
stancy that makes perseverance possible, the
power of foregoing ease of mind and body to
minister to the necessities of the thing beloved,
and the subtle bond of sympathy which is as im-
portant, if not more so, than all the rest. For
though I cannot go so far as a witty friend of
mine, who says that when he goes out to sit in
the shade on his piazza, his Wistaria vine leans
toward him and lays her head on his shoulder, I
am fully and intensely aware that plants are con-
scious of love and respond to it as they do to
nothing else. You may give them all they need
of food and drink and make the conditions of
their existence as favorable as possible, and they
may grow and bloom, but there is a certain in-
effable something that will be missing if you do
not love them, a delicate glory too spiritual to be
caught and put into words. The Norwegians
have a pretty and significant word, " Opelske,"
which they use in speaking of the care of flowers.
It means literally " loving up," or cherishing them
into health and vigor.
Like the musician, the painter, the poet, and
the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not
made. And he is born to happiness in this vale
of tears, to a certain amount of the purest joy that
earth can give her children, joy that is tranquil,
6 AN ISLAND GARDEN
innocent, uplifting, unfailing. Given a little patch
of ground, with time to take care of it, with tools
to work it and seeds to plant in it, he has all he
needs, and Nature with her dews and suns and
showers and sweet airs gives him her aid. But
he soon learns that it is not only liberty of which
eternal vigilance is the price ; the saying applies
quite as truly to the culture of flowers, for the
name of their enemies is legion, and they must
be fought early and late, day and night, without
cessation. The cutworm, the wire-worm, the
pansy-worm, the thrip, the rose-beetle, the aphis,
the mildew, and many more, but worst of all the
loathsome slug, a slimy, shapeless creature that
devours every fair and exquisite thing in the gar-
den, the flower lover must seek all these with
unflagging energy, and if possible exterminate
the whole. So only may he and his precious
flowers purchase peace. Manifold are the means
of destruction to be employed, for almost every
pest requires a different poison. On a closet
shelf which I keep especially for them are rows
of tin pepper-boxes, each containing a deadly
powder, all carefully labeled. For the thrip that
eats out the leaves of the Rosebush till they are
nothing but fibrous skeletons of woody lace, there
is hellebore, to be shaken on the under side of all
the leaves, mark you, the under side, and think of
the difficulties involved in the process of so treat-
ing hundreds of leaves! For the blue or gray
mildew and the orange mildew another box holds
powdered sulphur, this is more easily applied,
shaken over the tops of the bushes, but all the
AN ISLAND GARDEN 7
leaves must be reached, none neglected at your
peril! Still another box contains yellow snuff
for the green aphis, but he is almost impossible
to manage, let once his legions get a foothold,
good-by to any hope for you ! Lime, salt, paris
green, cayenne pepper, kerosene emulsion, whale-
oil soap, the list of weapons is long indeed, with
which one must fight the garden's foes ! And it
must be done with such judgment, persistence,
patience, accuracy, and watchful care ! It seems
to me the worst of all the plagues is the slug,
the snail without a shell. He is beyond descrip-
tion repulsive, a mass of sooty, shapeless slime,
and he devours everything. He seems to thrive
on all the poisons known ; salt and lime are the
only things that have power upon him, at least
the only things I have been able to find so far.
But salt and lime must be used very carefully, or
they destroy the plant as effectually as the slug
would do. Every night, while the season is yet
young, and the precious growths just beginning
to make their way upward, feeling their strength,
I go at sunset and heap along the edge of the
flower beds air-slaked lime, or round certain most
valuable plants a ring of the same, the slug
cannot cross this while it is fresh, but should it
be left a day or two it loses its strength, it has no
more power to burn, and the enemy may slide
over it unharmed, leaving his track of slime. On
many a solemn midnight have I stolen from my
bed to visit my cherished treasures by the pale
glimpses of the moon, that I might be quite sure
the protecting rings were still strong enough to
8 AN ISLAND GARDEN
save them, for the slug eats by night, he is invisi-
ble by day unless it rains or the sky be overcast.
He hides under every damp board or in any nook
of shade, because the sun is death to him. I use
salt for his destruction in the same way as the
lime, but it is so dangerous for the plants, I am
always afraid of it. Neither of these things must
be left about them when they are watered lest the
lime or salt sink into the earth in such quantities
as to injure the tender roots. I have little cages
of fine wire netting which I adjust over some
plants, carefully heaping the earth about them to
leave no loophole through which the enemy may
crawl, and round some of the beds, which are
inclosed in strips of wood, boxed, to hold the
earth in place, long shallow troughs of wood are
nailed and filled with salt to keep off the pests.
Nothing that human ingenuity can suggest do I
leave untried to save my beloved flowers ! Every
evening at sunset I pile lime and salt about my
pets, and every morning remove it before I
sprinkle them at sunrise. The salt dissolves of
itself in the humid sea air and in the dew, so
around those for whose safety I am most solici-
tous I lay rings of pasteboard on which to heap
it, to be certain of doing the plants no harm.
Judge, reader, whether all this requires strength,
patience, perseverance, hope! It is hard work
beyond a doubt, but I do not grudge it, for great
is my reward. Before I knew what to do to
save my garden from the slugs, I have stood at
evening rejoicing over rows of fresh emerald
leaves just springing in rich lines along the beds,
AN ISLAND GARDEN 9
and woke in the morning to find the whole space
stripped of any sign of green, as blank as a board
over which a carpenter's plane has passed.
In the thickest of my fight with the slugs some
one said to me, " Everything living has its enemy;
the enemy of the slug is the toad. Why don't
you import toads ? "
I snatched at the hope held out to me, and im-
mediately wrote to a friend on the continent, " In
the name of the Prophet, Toads!" At once a
force of only too willing boys was set about the
work of catching every toad within reach, and
one day in June a boat brought a box to me from
the far-off express office. A piece of wire net-
ting was nailed across the top, and upon the
earth with which it was half filled, reposing
among some dry and dusty green leaves, sat three
dry and dusty toads, wearily gazing at nothing.
Is this all, I thought, only three ! Hardly worth
sending so far. Poor creatures, they looked so
arid and wilted, I took up the hose and turned
upon them a gentle shower of fresh cool water,
flooding the box. I was not prepared for the
result! The dry, baked earth heaved tumul-
tuously ; up came dusky heads and shoulders and
bright eyes by the dozen. A sudden concert of
liquid sweet notes was poured out on the air from
the whole rejoicing company. It was really beau-
tiful to hear that musical ripple of delight. I
surveyed them with eager interest as they sat
singing and blinking together. "You are not
handsome," I said, as I took a hammer and
wrenched off the wire cover that shut them in,
10 AN ISLAND GARDEN
" but you will be lovely in my sight if you will
help me to destroy mine enemy ; " and with that I
turned the box on its side and out they skipped
into a perfect paradise of food and shade. All
summer I came upon them in different parts of
the garden, waxing fatter and fatter till they were
as round as apples. In the autumn baby toads
no larger than my thumb nail were found hop-
ping merrily over the whole island. There were
sixty in that first importation ; next summer I
received ninety more. But alas ! small dogs dis-
cover them in the grass and delight to tear and
worry them to death, and the rats prey upon them
so that many perish in that way ; yet I hope to keep
enough to preserve my garden in spite of fate.
In France the sale of toads for the protection
of gardens is universal, and I find under the head
of " A Garden Friend," in a current newspaper,
the following item :
" One is amused, in walking through the great
Covent Garden Market, London, to find toads
among the commodities offered for sale. In such
favor do these familiar reptiles stand with English
market gardeners that they readily command a
shilling apiece. . . . The toad has indeed no
superior as a destroyer of noxious insects, and as
he possesses no bad habits and is entirely inof-
fensive himself, every owner of a garden should
treat him with the utmost hospitality. It is quite
worth the while not only to offer any simple in-
ducements which suggest themselves for render-
ing the premises attractive to him, but should he
show a tendency to wander away from them, to
AN ISLAND GARDEN II
go so far as to exercise a gentle force in bringing
him back to the regions where his services may
be of the greatest utility."
One of the most universal pests is the cut-
worm, a fat, naked worm of varying lengths. I
have seen them two inches and a half long and as
large round as my little finger. This unpleasant
creature lives in the ground about the roots of
plants. I have known one to go through a whole
row of Sweet Peas and cut them off smoothly
above the roots just as a sickle would do ; there
lay the dead stalks in melancholy line. It makes
no difference what the plant may be, they will
level all without distinction. The only remedy
for this plague is to scratch all about in the earth
round the roots of the plants where their ravages
begin, dig the worms out, and kill them. I have
found sometimes whole nests of them with twenty
young ones at once. Lime dug into the soil is
recommended to destroy them, but there is no
remedy so sure as seeking a personal interview
and slaying them on the spot. They are not by
any means always to be discovered, but the gar-
dener must again exercise that endless patience
upon which the success of the garden depends,
and be never weary of seeking them till they are
found.
Another enemy to my flowers, and a truly for-
midable one, is my little friend the song-sparrow.
Literally he gives the plot of ground no peace if
I venture to put seeds into it. He obliges me to
start almost all my seeds in boxes, to be trans-
planted into the beds when the plants are suf-
12 AN ISLAND GARDEN
ficiently tough to have lost their delicacy for his
palate and are no longer adapted to his ideal of
a salad. All the Sweet Peas, many hundreds of
the delicate plants, are every one grown in this
way. When they are a foot high with roots a
foot long they are all transplanted separately.
Even then the little robber attacks them, and,
though he cannot uproot, he will "yank" and
twist the stems till he has murdered them in the
vain hope of pulling up the remnant of a pea
which he judges to be somewhere beneath the
surface. Then must sticks and supports be
draped with yards of old fishing nets to protect
the unfortunates, and over the Mignonette, and
even the Poppy beds and others, I must lay a
cover of closely woven wire to keep out the
marauder. But I love him still, though sadly he
torments me. I have adored his fresh music ever
since I was a child, and I only laugh as he sits
on the fence watching me with his bright black
eyes; there is something quaintly comical and
delightful about him, and he sings like a friendly
angel. From him I can protect myself, but I
cannot save my garden so easily from the hideous
slug, for which I have no sentiment save only a
fury of extermination.
If possible, it is much the best way to begin in
the autumn to work for the garden of the next
spring, and the first necessity is the preparation
of the soil. If the gardener is as fortunate as I
am at the Isles of Shoals, there will be no trouble
in doing this, for there the barn manure is heaped
in certain waste places, out of the way, and left
AN ISLAND GARDEN 13
till every change of wind and weather, of temper-
ature and climate, have so wrought upon it that
it becomes a fine, odorless, velvet-brown earth,
rich in all needful sustenance for almost all
plants, " well-rotted manure," the " Old Farm-
er's Almanac " calls it. But if there is no mine
of wealth such as this from which to draw, there
are many fertilizers, sold by all seed and plant
merchants, which will answer the purpose very
well. I have, however, never found anything to
equal barn manure as food for flowers, and if not
possible to obtain this in a state fit for immediate
use, it is best -to have several cart-loads taken
from the barn in autumn and piled in a heap near
the garden plot, there to remain all winter, till
rains and snows and cold and heat, all the powers
of the elements, have worked their will upon it,
and rendered it fit for use in the coming spring.
Many people make a compost heap, it is an
excellent thing to do, piling turf and dead
leaves and refuse together, and leaving it to slow
decay till it becomes a fine, rich, mellow earth.
In my case the barn manure has been more easily
obtained, and so I have used it always and with
complete success, but I have a compost heap also,
to use for plants which do not like barn manure.
As late as possible, before the ground freezes,
I dig up the single Dahlia tubers (there are no
double ones in my garden), and put them in
boxes filled with clean, dry sand, to keep in a
frost-free cellar till spring. I find Gladiolus bulbs,
Tulips, Lilies, and so forth, will keep perfectly well
in the ground through the winter at the Shoals.
14 AN ISLAND GARDEN
Over the Foxgloves, Iceland Poppies, Wallflowers t
Mullein Pinks, Picotees, and other perennials, I
scatter the fine barn manure lightly, over the
Hollyhocks more heavily, and about the Rose-
bushes I heap it up high, quite two thirds of their
whole height, you cannot give them too much,
only be careful that enough of their length, that
is to say, one third of the highest sprays, are left
out in the air, that they may breathe. In the
spring this manure must all be carefully dug into
the ground round their roots. About Honey-
suckles, Clematis, Grapevine, and so forth, I pile it
plentifully, mixed with wood ashes, which is espe-
cially good for Grapevine and Rosebushes. But
the white Lilies, and indeed Lilies generally, do
not like to come in contact with the barn manure,
so they are protected by leaves and boughs, and
the earth near them enriched in the spring, care-
fully avoiding the contact which they dislike.
When putting the garden in order in the autumn,
all the dry Sweet Pea vines, and dead stalks of all
kinds, which are pulled up to clear the ground, I
heap for shelter over the perennials, being careful
to lay small bayberry branches over first, so that
I may in no way interfere with a free circulation
of air about them. In open spaces where no
perennials are growing I scatter the manure
thickly, that the ground may be slowly and surely
enriched all through the winter and be ready to
furnish bountiful nourishment for every green
rowing thing through the summer. When the
ittle plot is spaded in April, all this is dug in and
mixed thoroughly with the soil.
AN ISLAND GARDEN 15
When the snow is still blowing against the
window-pane in January and February, and the
wild winds are howling without, what pleasure it
is to plan for summer that is to be ! Small shal-
low wooden boxes are ready, filled with mellow
earth (of which I am always careful to lay in a
supply before the ground freezes in the autumn),
sifted and made damp ; into it the precious seeds
are dropped with a loving hand. The Pansy
seeds lie like grains of gold on the dark soil. I
think as I look at them of the splendors of impe-
rial purples folded within them, of their gold and
blue and bronze, of all the myriad combinations
of superb color in their rich velvets. Each one of
these small golden grains means such a wealth
of beauty and delight ! Then the thin flake-like
brown seeds of the annual Stocks or Gillyflowers ;
one little square of paper holds the white Princess
Alice variety, so many thick double spikes of
fragrant snow lie hidden in each thin dry flake !
Another paper holds the pale rose-color, another
the delicate lilacs, or deep purples, or shrimp
pinks, or vivid crimsons, all are dropped on the
earth, lightly covered, gently pressed down ; then
sprinkled and set in a warm place, they are left to
germinate. Next I come to the single Dahlia
seeds, rough, dry, misshapen husks, that, being
planted thus early, will blossom by the last of
June, unfolding their large rich stars in great
abundance till frost. They blossom in every
variety of color except blue; all shades of red
from faint rose to black maroon, and all are gold-
centred. They are every shade of yellow from
1 6 AN ISLAND GARDEN
sulphur to flame, king's flowers, I call them,
stately and splendid.
All these and many more are planted. For
those that do not bear transplanting I prepare
other quarters, half filling shallow boxes with
sand, into which I set rows of egg-shells close
together, each shell cut off at one end, with a
hole for drainage at the bottom. These are filled
with earth, and in them the seeds of the lovely
yellow, white, and orange Iceland Poppies are
sowed. By and by, when comes the happy time
for setting them out in the garden beds, the shell
can be broken away from the oval ball of earth that
holds their roots without disturbing them, and
they are transplanted almost without knowing it.
It is curious how differently certain plants feel
about this matter of transplanting. The more
you move a Pansy about the better it seems to
like it, and many annuals grow all the better for
one transplanting; but to a Poppy it means death,
unless it is done in some such careful way as I
have described.
The boxes of seeds are put in a warm, dark
place, for they only require heat and moisture till
they germinate. Then when the first precious
green leaves begin to appear, what a pleasure it
is to wait and tend on the young growths, which
are moved carefully to some cool, sunny chamber
window in a room where no fire is kept, for heat
becomes the worst enemy at this stage, and they
spindle and dwindle if not protected from it.
When they are large enough, having attained to
their second leaves, each must be put into a little
AN ISLAND GARDEN 1 7
pot or egg-shell by itself (all except the Poppies
and their companions, already in egg-shells), so that
by the time the weather is warm enough they
will be ready to be set out, stout and strong, for
early blooming.
This pleasant business goes, on during the win-
ter in the picturesque old town of Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, whither I repair in the autumn
from the Isles of Shoals, remaining through the
cold weather and returning to the islands on the
first of April. My upper windows all winter are
filled with young Wallflowers, Stocks, single
Dahlias, Hollyhocks, Poppies, and many other
garden plants, which are watched and tended with
the most faithful care till the time comes for
transporting them over the seas to Appledore.
A small steam tug, the Pinafore, carries me and
my household belongings over to the islands, and
a pretty sight is the little vessel when she starts
out from the old brown wharves and steams away
down the beautiful Piscataqua River, with her hur-
ricane deck awave with green leaves and flowers,
for all the world like a May Day procession. My
blossoming house plants go also, and there are
Palms and Ferns and many other lovely things
that make the small boat gay indeed. All the
boxes of sprouted seedlings are carefully packed
in wide square baskets to keep them steady, and
the stout young plants hold up their strong stems
and healthy green leaves, and take the wind and
sun bravely as the vessel goes tossing over the
salt waves out to sea.
By the first of April it is time to plant Sweet
1 8 AN ISLAND GARDEN
Peas. From this time till the second week in
May, when one may venture to transplant into
the garden, the boxes containing the myriads of
seedlings must be carefully watched and tended,
put out of doors on piazza roofs and balcony
'ih rough the days and taken in again at night,
solicitously protected from too hot suns and too
rough winds, too heavy rains or too low a tem-
perature, they require continual care. But it is
joy to give them all they need, and pleasure in-
deed to watch their vigorous growth. Meanwhile
there is much delightful work to be done in mak-
ing the small garden plot ready. This little island
garden of mine is so small that the amount of
pure delight it gives in the course of a summer
is something hardly to be credited. It lies along
the edge of a piazza forty or fifty feet long, slop-
ing to the south, not more than fifteen feet wide,
sheltered from the north winds and open to the
sun. The whole piazza is thickly draped with
vines, Hops, Honeysuckles, blue and white Clem-
atis, Cinnamon Vine, Mina Lobata, Wistaria,
Nasturtiums, Morning-glories, Japanese Hops,
Woodbine, and the beautiful and picturesque
Wild Cucumber (Echinocystus Lobata), which in
July nearly smothers everything else and clothes
itself in a veil of filmy white flowers in loose clus-
ters, fragrant, but never too sweet, always refresh-
ing and exquisite. The vines make a grateful
green shade, doubly delightful for that there are
no trees on my island, and the shade is most wel-
come in the wide brilliancy of sea and sky.
In the first week of April the ground is spaded
AN ISLAND GARDEN 19
for me ; after that no hands touch it save my own
throughout the whole season. Day after day it
is so pleasant working in the bright cool spring
air, for as yet the New England spring is alert
and brisk in temperature and shows very little
softening in its moods. But by the seventh day
of the month, as I stand pruning the Rosebushes,
there is a flutter of glad wings, and lo ! the first
house martins ! Beautiful creatures, with their
white breasts and steel-blue wings, wheeling,
chattering, and scolding at me, for they think I
stand too near their little brown house on the
corner of the piazza eaves, and they let me know
their opinion by coming as near as they dare and
snapping their beaks at me with a low guttural
sound of displeasure. But after a few days, when
they have found they cannot scare me and that I
do not interfere with them, they conclude that I
am a harmless kind of creature and endure me
with tranquillity. Straightway they take posses-
sion of their summer quarters and begin to build
their cosy nest within. Oh, then the weeks of
joyful work, the love-making, the cooing, chatter-
ing, calling, in tones of the purest delight and
content, the tilting against the wind on burnished
wings, the wheeling, fluttering, coquetting, and
caressing, the while they bring feathers and straw
and shreds and down for their nest-weaving,
all this goes on till after the eggs are laid, when
they settle down into comparative quiet. Then
often the father bird sits and meditates happily
in the sun upon his tiny brown chimney- top,
while the mother bird broods below. Or they
20 AN ISLAND GARDEN
go out and take a dip in the air together, or sit
conversing in pretty cadences a little space, till
mother bird must hie indoors to the eggs she
dare not leave longer lest they grow chill. And
this sweet little drama is repeated all about the
island, on sunny roofs and corners and tall posts,
wherever a bird house has been built for their
convenience. All through April and May I
watch them as I go to and fro about my business,
while they attend to theirs ; we do not interfere
with each other; they have made up their minds
to endure me, but I adore them ! Flattered in-
deed am I if, while I am at work upon the flower
beds below, father martin comes and sits close to
me on the fence rail and chatters musically, un-
mindful of my quiet movements, quite fearless
and at home.
While I am busy with pleasant preparation
and larger hope, I rejoice in the beauty of the
pure white Snowdrops I found blossoming in their
sunny corner when I arrived on the first of April,
fragile winged things with their delicate sea-green
markings and fresh, grass-like leaves. Ever since
the first of March have they been blossoming,
and the Crocus flowers begin, as if blown out of
the earth, like long, lovely bubbles of gold and
purple, or white, pure or streaked with lilac, to
break, under the noon sun, into beautiful petals,
showing the orange anthers like flame within.
And the little Scilla Siberica hangs its enchant-
ing bells out to the breeze, blue, oh, blue as the
deep sea water at its bluest under cloudless skies.
And later, yellow Daffodils and Jonquils, " Tulips
AN ISLAND GARDEN 21
dashed with fiery dew," the exquisite, mystic
poet's Narcissus, and one crimson Peony, my
little garden has not room for more than one of
these large plants, so early blossoming and at
their end so soon.
In the first week of May every year punctually
arrive the barn swallows and the sandpipers at
the Isles of Shoals. This seems a very common-
place statement of a very simple fact, but would
it were possible to convey in words the sense of
delight with which they are welcomed on this
sea-surrounded rock !
Some morning in the first of May I sit in the
sunshine and soft air, transplanting my young
Pansies and Gillyflowers into the garden beds,
father and mother martin on the fence watching
me and talking to each other in a charming lan-
guage, the import of which is clear enough,
though my senses are not sufficiently delicate to
comprehend the words. The song-sparrows pour
out their simple, friendly lays from bush and wall
and fence and gable peak all about me. Down
in a hollow I hear the brimming note of the white-
throated sparrow, brimming is the only word
that expresses it, like " a beaker full of the warm
South," such joy, such overflowing measure of
bliss! There is a challenge from a robin, per-
haps, or a bobolink sends down his "brook o'
laughter through the air," or high and far a curlew
calls ; there is a gentle lapping of waves from the
full tide, for the sea is only a stone's - throw from
my garden fence. I hear the voices of the chil-
dren prattling not far away ; there are no other
22 AN ISLAND GARDEN
sounds. Suddenly from the shore comes a clear
cry thrice repeated, " Sweet, sweet, sweet ! " And
I call to my neighbor, my brother, working also in
his garden plot, " The sandpiper ! Do you hear
him ? " and the glad news goes from mouth to
mouth, " The sandpiper has come ! " Oh, the
lovely note again and again repeated, " Sweet,
sweet, sweet ! " echoing softly in the stillness of the
tide-brimmed coves, where the quiet water seems
to hush itself to listen. Never so tender a cry
is uttered by any bird I know ; it is the most
exquisitely beautiful, caressing tone, heard in the
dewy silence of morning and evening. He has
many and varied notes and calls, some collo-
quial, some business-like, some meditative, and
his cry of fear breaks my heart to hear when
any evil threatens his beloved nest ; but this ten-
der call, " Sweet, sweet," is the most enchanting
sound, happy with a fullness of joy that never
fails to bring a thrill to the heart that listens. It
is like the voice of Love itself.
Then out of the high heaven above, at once
one hears the happy chorus of the barn swallows ;
they come rejoicing, their swift wings cleave the
blue, they fill the air with woven melody of grace
and music. Till late August they remain. Like
the martins', their note is pure joy ; there is no
coloring of sadness in any sound they make.
The sandpiper's note is pensive with all its sweet-
ness; there is a quality of thoughtfulness, as it
were, in the voice of the song-sparrow ; the robin
has many sad cadences ; in the fairy bugling of
the oriole there is a triumphant richness, but not
AN ISLAND GARDEN 23
such pure delight; the blackbird's call is keen
and sweet, but not so glad; and the bobolink,
when he shakes those brilliant jewels of sound
from his bright throat, is always the prince of
jokers, full of fun, but not so happy as comical.
The swallows' twittering seems an expression of
unalloyed rapture, I should select it from the
songs of all the birds I know as the voice of un-
shadowed gladness.
(OD Almightie first planted a Garden,"
says Lord Bacon. " And indeed it is
the Purest of Humane Pleasures, it
is the Greatest Refreshment to the
Spirits of Man." Never were truer
words spoken.
So deeply is the gardener's instinct implanted
in my soul, I really love the tools with which I
work, the iron fork, the spade, the hoe, the
rake, the trowel, and the watering-pot are pleasant
objects in my eyes. The ingenuity of modern
times has invented many variations of these prim-
itive instruments of toil, and many of them are
most useful and helpful, as, for instance, a short,
five-pronged hand-fork, a delightful tool to use in
breaking up the earth about the roots of weeds.
Some of the weeds are so wide-spreading and
tenacious, like clover and mallow, that they seem
to have fastened themselves around the nether
millstone, it is so difficult to disengage their hold.
Once loosened, however, by the friendly little
fork, they must come up, whether they will or no.
I like to take the hoe in my hands and break
24
AN ISLAND GARDEN 25
to pieces the clods of earth left by the overturn-
ing spade, to work into the soil the dark, velvet-
smooth, scentless barn manure which is to furnish
the best of food for my flowers ; it is a pleasure
to handle the light rake, drawing it evenly through
the soil and combing out every stick and stone
and straw and lump, till the ground is as smooth
and fine as meal. This done carefully and thor-
oughly, the beds laid out neatly, with their sur-
face level as a floor, and not heaped high enough
to let the rains run off, then is the ground
ready for the sowing of the seeds.
The very act of planting a seed in the earth
has in it to me something beautiful. I always do
it with a joy that is largely mixed with awe. I
watch my garden beds after they are sown, and
think how one of God's exquisite miracles is
going on beneath the dark earth out of sight. I
never forget my planted seeds. Often I wake in
the night and think how the rains and the dews
have reached to the dry shell and softened it ; how
the spirit of life begins to stir within, and the in-
dividuality of the plant to assert itself ; how it is
thrusting two hands forth from the imprisoning
husk, one, the root, to grasp the earth, to hold
itself firm and absorb its food, the other stretch-
ing above to find the light, that it may drink in
the breeze and sunshine and so climb to its full
perfection of beauty. It is curious that the leaf
should so love the light and the root so hate it.
In his " Proserpina " John Ruskin discourses on
this subject in his own inimitable way. All he
says of this is most interesting and suggestive :
26 AN ISLAND GARDEN
"The first instinct of the stem, . . . the instinct
of seeking the light, as of the root to seek dark-
ness what words can speak the wonder of it ? "
If " the seed falls in the ground with the spring-
ing germ of it downwards, with heavenly cunning
the taught stem curls round and seeks the never
seen light." The " taught " stem ! Who taught
it ? What he says of the leaves and stems is very
beautiful; every one should read it. I really do
not know which is most wonderful of these de-
scriptions of his, but nothing could be more strik-
ing than this definition : " A root is a group of
growing fibres which taste and suck what is good
for the plant out of the ground, and by their
united strength hold it in its place. . . . The thick
limbs of roots do not feed, but only the fine ends
of them, which are something between tongues
and sponges, and while they absorb moisture
readily, are yet as particular about getting what
they think nice to eat as any dainty little boy or
girl ; looking for it everywhere, and turning
angry and sulky if they don't get it."
There could not be a better description than
this, and if any seedsman would like to make his
fortune without delay, he has only to have printed
on every packet of seed he offers for sale the
kind of soil, the food, required by each plant.
For instance, why not say of Mignonette, It flour-
ishes best in a poor and sandy soil ; so treated it
is much more fragrant than in a rich earth, which
causes it to run to leaves and makes its flowers
fewer and less sweet. Or of Poppies, Plant them
in a rich sandy loam, all except the Californias
AN ISLAND GARDEN 27
(Eschscholtzid), which do best in a poor soil. Or
of Pansies, Give them the richest earth you can
find, no end of water, and partial shade. Or, Don't
worry over drought for your Nasturtiums ; they
come from Chile and will live and thrive with less
water than almost anything else that grows;
don't trouble yourself to enrich the ground for
them; that makes them profuse and coarse of
leaves and sparing of flowers ; leave them to shift
for themselves, once having cleared them of
weeds. No flower bears neglect so well. Or,
Give your Zinnias a heavy soil; they like clay. Or,
Keep Sweet Peas as wet as you can and make the
ground for them as rich as possible. Or, Keep
barn manure away from your Lilies for your life !
they will not brook contact with it, but a rich
soil they also like, only it must be made so by
anything rather than stable manure, and they,
too, like clay ; they blossom best when it is given
them. But transport to your garden a portion of
the very barnyard itself in which to set Roses,
Sunflowers and Hollyhocks, Honeysuckles and
Dahlias. Hints of this kind would be to the unac-
customed tiller of the soil simply invaluable. How
much they would lessen failures and discourage-
ments ! And to learn these things by one's self
takes half a lifetime of sad experience.
To return to our planting. Yes, the sowing of
a seed seems a very simple matter, but I always
feel as if it were a sacred thing among the mys-
teries of God. Standing by that space of blank
and motionless ground, I think of all it holds for
me of beauty and delight, and I am filled with
28 AN ISLAND GARDEN
joy at the thought that I may be the magician to
whom power is given to summon so sweet a pa-
geant from the silent and passive soil. I bring a
mat from the house and kneel by the smooth bed
of mellow brown earth, lay a narrow strip of board
across it a few inches from one end, draw a fur-
row firmly and evenly in the ground along the
edge of the board, repeating this until the whole
bed is grooved at equal distances across its entire
length. Into these straight furrows the living
seeds are dropped, the earth replaced over them
(with a depth of about twice their diameter), and
the board laid flat with gentle pressure over all
the surface till it is perfectly smooth again. Then
must the whole be lightly and carefully watered.
With almost all the seeds sown in this bird-
blest and persecuted little garden, I am obliged
to lay newspapers or some protection over the
planted beds, and over these again sheets of wire
netting, to keep off the singing sparrows till the
seeds are safely sprouted. Last year, one morn-
ing early in May, I put a border of Mignonette
seeds round every flower bed. When I came to
the garden again in the afternoon, it was alive
with flirting wings and tails and saucy beaks and
bright eyes, and stout little legs and claws scratch-
ing like mad; all white-throats and song-spar-
rows, and hardly a seed had these merry little
marauders left in the ground. Around the edge
of each bed a groove ran, nicely hollowed by their
industrious feet, and empty as my hopes. I re-
placed the seed from my store, and this time took
great pains to lay two laths side by side over the
AN ISLAND GARDEN 29
lines I had sowed, for safety. Next morning I
found the birds again at it ; they had burrowed
under, kicked over, scratched away the light
sticks, and again the seeds were all devoured.
Patiently I planted once more, and this time
dragged from a pile of lumber heavy square
beams of different lengths, which I laid along the
borders. The birds eyed the barricades, strove
to burrow under, but were forced to give it up,
and so at last I conquered. In the course of a
week I turned over the protecting beams and
found the little Mignonette plants white as potato
shoots that have sprouted in a cellar, but safe, for
which I was devoutly thankful ! A day or two
of sun and air made them green and strong, and
all summer long I valued every fragrant spike of
flowers they gave me, doubly, because of all the
trouble I had gone through to save them. I
mention this little episode merely to illustrate the
fact that the would-be gardener requires more
patience than most mortals !
The state of the weather, the temperature of
the air, the amount of rain which falls, make all
the difference in the world in the time it takes
for the first green leaves to appear. Some seeds
take longer than others to germinate : for in-
stance, Hollyhocks, Marigolds, ten weeks Stocks
or Gillyflowers, Rose of Heaven, Zinnias, and many
others come up in from three to five days if all
circumstances are favorable, that is, if it is warm,
moist, and sunny enough ; Asters, single Dahlias,
Sunflowers, Cornflowers, Mignonette, Coreopsis,
Morning-glory, Picotee Pinks, Wallflowers, Sweet
30 AN ISLAND GARDEN
Williams, and by far the greater number of an-
nuals appear in from five to seven days ; Balsams,
Pansies, Begonias, Drummond's Phlox, Poppies,
Verbenas, Thunbergia, and many others, in from
eight to ten days ; Columbines, Flax, Artemisia,
Feverfew, Campanula, and so forth, in from ten to
twelve days ; Maurandia, Forget-me-not, Petunia,
Lantana, Nicotiana (an exquisite flower, by the
way), in from twelve to fifteen days ; Cobcea,
Gloxinia, Primroses, Geraniums, and others, in
from fifteen to twenty days ; Perennial Phlox,
Clematis, Perennial Larkspurs (which are
heavenly !), and various others, take from twenty
to thirty-five days to germinate; and as for Lu-
pines and Lilies and Ampelopsis, and the like,
they take a whole year ! But common gardeners
don't try to raise these from seed, fortunately.
With the first faint green lines that are visible
along the flower beds come the weeds, yea, and
even before them; a wild, vigorous, straggling
army, full of health, of strength, and a most mar-
velous power of growth. These must be dealt
with at once and without mercy ; they must be
pulled up root and branch, without a moment's
delay. There is clover that appears with a little
circular leaf and has a root that seems to reach
all round in the under world ; it goes everywhere
and holds on to the earth with a grip which is
unequaled by anything that grows. Not an atom
of its roots must be left in the ground, for every
thread of it will send up new shoots, and if not
watched fill all the space in a few weeks. Another
difficult weed to manage is the chickweed, which
AN ISLAND GARDEN 31
is so delicate that it breaks at the slightest touch.
It is a most all - pervading weed; it fills every
space between the flowers, overruns them like a
green mist, and will surely strangle them if left
unmolested. Alphonse Karr, who so greatly en-
joyed his garden, and wrote of it with so much
pleasure, says : " The chickweed is endowed with
a fecundity that no other plant possesses. . . .
Seven or eight generations of chickweed cover
the earth every year. ... It occupies the fields
naturally, and invades our gardens ; it is almost
impossible to destroy it."
There is a long procession of weeds to be
fought : pigweed, ragweed, smartweed, shepherd's
purse, mallow, mustard, sorrel, and many more,
which make the first crop. The second consists
largely of quitch-grass, the very worst of all, and
purslain or pusley, which Charles Dudley War-
ner has immortalized in his charming book, " My
Summer in a Garden." The roots of quitch-
grass are as strong as steel and run rapidly in
all directions underneath the surface, sending
up tender shoots that break too easily when you
touch them. The root must be found, grasped
firmly, and followed its whole length to utter ex-
termination, or the grass will come up like a giant,
and later cannot be dealt with except by pulling
up also the flowers among which it inextricably
entangles itself. The flat, olive-green leaves and
red fleshy stems of the pusley, running over the
ground in a mat, next appear ; this is easily dis-
posed of, only it continues to come up, fresh
plants in endless succession rise from the soil all
32 AN ISLAND GARDEN
summer, and must be watched and faithfully de-
stroyed.
There is one weed, or wild plant, dodder by
name, which has given my island garden the
greatest possible trouble. It is often wrongly
called gold-thread, because it looks like a tangled
mass of amber thread, but the true gold-thread is
quite different. The whole plant consists of no-
thing but these seemingly endless brittle reddish
yellow stalks with bunches of small, dull, whitish
flowers without stems, borne at intervals, with no
leaves at all. It has no root in the earth, it is a
parasite, and not at all particular as to what it
fastens itself upon ; anything that comes in its
way will answer its purpose. It is very pretty in
its place, growing among the goldenrod and blue
skullcap at the top of the rocky little coves that
slope down to the water about the island, throw-
ing itself from plant to plant, and making a mass
of translucent amber color. But alas ! when it
gets into a civilized garden, woe, woe unto that
garden ! A handful of it in bloom was brought
to my piazza twenty years ago, and some of it
was accidentally thrown into the flower beds ; I
have been fighting it ever since. I have never
yet been able to get rid of it ! Next year I found
my Nasturtiums, Cornflowers, Marigolds, and all
the rest tangled together in this yellow web, a
mass of inextricable confusion. Year after year
I waged war against it, but even yet it is not en-
tirely exterminated. I never allow a plant of it
in the garden, no seeds of it ripen there, and none
of it grows near the place outside ; not a single
AN ISLAND GARDEN 33
atom of it in my small domain could possibly es-
cape my eye, and yet its seeds come up more or
less every year; I am sure to find one or two
plants of it in the garden somewhere. They
emerge from the ground, each like a fine yellow
hair, till they are an inch and a half or two inches
long; they reach with might and main toward
the nearest legitimate growing plant, and when
they touch it cling to it like a limpet ; then they
draw their other end up out of the ground and
set up housekeeping for the rest of their lives.
They adhere to the unhappy individual upon
which they have fixed themselves with a grip that
grows more and more horrible ; they suck all its
juices, drink all its health and strength and
beauty, and fling out trailers to the next and the
next and the next, till the whole garden is a mass
of ruin and despair.
For many springs after the first year it ap-
peared I used to take a glass tumbler and go all
over the beds soon after they were laid out, pull-
ing up these tiny yellow hairs, and in an hour or
tw r o I have pulled up five or six tumblers full. I
gathered them in glasses so that I might be quite
sure of all I plucked, and because they could not
easily blow away out of such a receptacle. For
wherever they might fall, if they touched a green
growing thing they would in an astonishingly
short space of time make themselves fast for
good, or rather for ill ! Every year I watch for it
with the most eager vigilance as I weed carefully
over the whole surface of the little pleasance,
but sometimes it steals up after all the weeding
34 AN ISLAND GARDEN
is done, and, before I know it, I find it has begun
to tie the flowers together. Then I pull up all
the plants it has touched, lay them in a basket,
carry them down, and cast the whole into the sea.
It is the only way to be rid of it. I have known
it wind its inexorable way tightly up the large
smooth stem of a tall Sunflower, where I had not
thought of looking for it, till there was not an
atom of the skin of the stalk visible, only amber-
colored dodder and its white, dull flowers from
the great head of the blossoming Sunflower tree
to its root. Into the sea the whole thing went, at
once, without a moment of delay !
These are only a few of the weeds with which
one must battle, though dodder, I fancy, seldom
troubles any one on the planet as it does me. It
takes an island garden to produce so remarkable
a growth ! Most of them soon become familiar,
too familiar, indeed, and at last one learns how to
manage them. The great mistake which the
inexperienced gardener makes is in leaving a
morsel of the root of a weed in the ground. Only
by combing the earth through and through be-
tween the rows of plants with the small hand-fork
(after all the intruders have been removed as
carefully as possible with the hand), can you be
sure that they are gone. Other seeds of weeds
will be overturned and brought to the surface in
the process, and these will sprout in their turn,
but by this time the flowers will have made so
much headway that they will crowd out the new
crop of weeds enough to insure their own safety,
except in some few instances. Apple of Peru
AN ISLAND GARDEN 35
(Stramonium) is one of the most powerful and
persistent among the enemies ; a poisonous thing
with a loathsome odor, it must be watched for
and routed, which fortunately is easily done. In
its perfected growth this is the most uncanny
plant, a strong, low bush with bat-like leaves
of dark green, and long, pale lavender, lily-like
flowers, followed by a round spiked seed-vessel.
Says Hawthorne : " What hidden virtue is in
these things that it is granted to sow themselves
with the wind and to grapple the earth with this
immitigable stubbornness, and to flourish in spite
of obstacles, and never to suffer blight beneath
any sun or shade, but always to mock their ene-
mies with the same wicked luxuriance?" Mrs.
Gatty (the mother of that beautiful woman,
Juliana Horatia Ewing, who has so discoursed on
the subject of flowers and many other things as
to make all time her debtor) answers the ques-
tion, "What is a weed?" by this statement, "A
weed is a plant out of place." A keen and close
observer of nature says : " A better definition
would be, * A plant which has an innate disposi-
tion to get into the wrong place;'" and goes on
to say: "This is the very essence of weed charac-
ter in plants as in men. If you glance through
your botanical books you will see often added to
certain names, 'a troublesome weed.' It is not
its being venomous or ugly, but its being imper-
tinent thrusting itself where it has no business
and hinders other people's business that makes
a weed of it. ... Who ever saw a wood anemone
or a heath blossom out of place ? . . . What is it,
36 AN ISLAND GARDEN
then, this temper in some plants malicious as
it seems, intrusive, at all events, or erring
which brings them out of their places, thrusts
them where they thwart us and offend ? " This
seems to me the best definition of what consti-
tutes a weed that I have seen.
And their strength is mighty, and their name
is legion. If there were no other enemies which
the gardener must fight, this one of weeds alone
is quite enough to tax all his powers and patience.
Then the plants kill each other if they are left
to grow as thickly together as the seeds were
sown ; they must be " thinned out " as soon as
they have attained to their second leaf, leaving
two, three, four, or five inches between each two
plants side by side. I always leave two plants
where one would be enough, because something
is so likely to happen to destroy them, and if
there are two the hard fates may perhaps leave
one. Some things require much more space
than others. Pinks that spire up so thin and tall
can be set closer together than Poppies, which
spread widely in all directions. This pulling up
and throwing away of the superfluous plants is a
very difficult thing for me to do. I cannot bear
to destroy one of the precious young seedlings
that I have watched and tended with such love
and care, but it must be done. It is a matter of
the very greatest importance. The welfare of the
garden depends on it. I comfort myself as best
I may by saving all that will bear transplanting,
and then giving them away to the flower plots of
my fellow-gardeners on neighboring islands.
AN ISLAND GARDEN 37
Soon the whole plot mantles over all its sur-
face with the rich, warm green of vigorous leaf-
age. The new growth rejoices. That is the
right word for it. The gladness of green growing
things is apparent to any seeing eye. They re-
joice with a radiant joy in sun and rain and air
..and dew, in all care and kindness. They know
and respond to everything that is done for them.
The low-growing Drummond's Phlox is one of
the most satisfactory flowers for a beginner in the
art of gardening. There is no such word as fail
in its bright lexicon ; and it blossoms continually
from the last of June till frost. Looking care-
fully every day, by the last half of June I find the
pale clustered flower buds showing; then it is
not long to wait before the whole bed is a blaze
of varied color, a delicate woven carpet of myriad
vivid hues. In the lovely buds the petals are
folded one over the other in beautiful succession.
The flowers are five-petaled, with a faint, sweet
perfume; they are borne in flat clusters of an
exquisite, velvety texture, with a clearly marked
eye in the centre encircling the few pearl-white
stamens; this eye varies with the hue of each
different flower. There will be delicious pinks
among these Phloxes, from the palest rose to the
deepest cherry; all shades of red from bright,
light scarlet, clear and pure, to a rich black red,
the Black Warrior. There will be all heavenly
purples, pale lilacs, deep red purple and blue
purple, perfect snow white : the eye in this last is
soft green, like the touches on a Snowdrop bell.
The scarlet flowers have a ring of black-red about
3 8 AN ISLAND GARDEN
the centre, delicately gorgeous. There are almost
endless varieties and mixtures of color ; they are
full of surprises. The Star of Quedlinburg is
such a pretty, quaint change rung upon this
pleasant theme of Phloxes. The centre of the
outer line of each petal is drawn out at the edge
like the tails on the under wings of the Luna
moth. These long tails in which each petal ter-
minates give the flower the aspect of a star with
rays. "Ask of Nature why the star form she
repeats," says Emerson. It is forever repeated
among the flowers.
At bird-peep, as the' country folk have a charm-
ing way of calling the break of day, I am in my
dear garden, planting and transplanting, hoeing,
raking, weeding, watering, tying up and training
those plants that need it, and always fighting for
their precious lives against their legions of ene-
mies. There is a time of great danger upon the
island from the birds when they are migrating
northward. They come suddenly down from the
sky in myriads, on their way to the continent,
and I have known them to strip the little plot of
every green shoot in a single day, utterly bare.
Nothing but fishing nets draped over the whole
space will save the garden when these hungry
hordes descend. But I do not lose patience with
the birds, however sorely they try me. I love
them too well. How should they know that the
garden was not planted for them ? Those be-
longing to the thrush tribe are the most mis-
chievous; the others do not disturb the flower
beds so much. The friendly robin, though a
AN ISLAND GARDEN 39
thrush, only comes for worms, to which he is
more than welcome. Most of the other birds
bobolinks, kingbirds, orioles, purple finches, and
many other beautiful creatures less familiar
stay with us for a short time only, on their pas-
sage north or south every year ; but a single pair
of kingbirds build every summer in the one tall
elm-tree on the island, where also builds a cosy
nuthatch and raises a numerous family, and one
pair of most interesting kingfishers haunts the
upper cove till late in the season. A Maryland
yellow-throat began building here last summer.
For several years one pair of cuckoos lingered
through the summer, but at last ceased to come.
A few blackbirds build, the white-throats stay
late, but several varieties of swallows, the song-
sparrows, and sandpipers remain and rear their
broods. How we wish the robins would stay too,
and the orioles and all the sweet company ! But
there are no trees to shelter them. Their coming
and going, however, is a matter of the greatest
interest to the little family on the island, and we
are thrown into a state of the deepest excitement
by the apparition of a scarlet tanager, or a rose-
breasted grosbeak, or any of those unfamiliar
beauties. Once a ferruginous thrush came and
stayed a week with us in early June. Every day
when he perched on a ridge-pole or chimney-top
and sang, the whole family turned out in a body
to listen, making a business of it, attending to no-
thing else while that thrilling melody was poured
out on the silent air. That was a gift of the gods
which we could, none of us, afford to neglect !
4 AN ISLAND GARDEN
Says the wise Lord Bacon again : " And be-
cause the Breath of Flowers is far sweeter in the
Aire (when it comes and goes, like the Warbling
of Music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is
more fit for that delight than to know what be
the Flowers and Plants that doe best perfume the
Aire."
The most exquisite perfume known to my gar-
den is that of the Wallflowers ; there is nothing
equal to it. They blossom early, and generally
before June has passed they are gone, and have
left me mourning their too swift departure. I
wonder they are not more generally cultivated,
but I fancy the fact that they do not blossom till
the second year has much to do with their rarity.
It requires so much more faith and patience to
wait a whole year, and meanwhile carefully watch
and tend the plants, excepting during the time
when winter covers them with a blanket of snow ;
but when at last spring comes and the tardy
flowers appear, then one is a thousand times re-
paid for all the tedious months of waiting. They
return such wealth of bloom and fragrance for
the care and thought bestowed on them ! Their
thick spikes of velvet blossoms are in all shades
of rich red, from scarlet to the darkest brown,
from light gold to orange ; some are purple ; and
their odor, who shall describe it! Violets,
Roses, Lilies, Sweet Peas, Mignonette, and Helio-
trope, with a dash of Honeysuckle, all mingled
in a heavenly whole. There is no perfume which
I know that can equal it. And they are so lavish
of their scent ; it is borne off the garden and
AN ISLAND GARDEN 41
wafted everywhere, into the house and here and
there in all directions, in viewless clouds on the
gentle air. To make a perfect success of Wall-
flowers they must be given lime in some form
about the roots. They thrive marvelously if fed
with a mixture of old plastering in the soil, or
bone meal, or, if that is not at hand, the meat
bones from the kitchen, calcined in the oven and
pounded into bits, stirred in around the roots is
fine for them. This treatment makes all the dif-
ference in the world in their strength and beauty.
After the Wallflowers, Roses and Lilies, Mignon-
ette, Pinks, Gillyflowers, Sweet Peas, and the
Honeysuckles for fragrance, and of these last, the
monthly Honeysuckle is the most divine. Such
vigor of growth I have never seen in any other
plant, and it is hardy even without the least pro-
tection in our northern climate. It climbs the
trellis on my piazza and spreads its superb clus-
ters of flowers from time to time all summer.
Each cluster is a triumph of beauty, flat in the
centre and curving out to the blossoming edge in
joyous lines of loveliness, most like a wreath of
heavenly trumpets breathing melodies of perfume
to the air. Each trumpet of lustrous white
deepens to a yellower tint in the centre where the
small ends meet ; each blossom where it opens at
the lip is tipped with fresh pink ; each sends out
a group of long stamens from its slender throat
like rays of light ; and the whole circle of radiant
flowers has an effect of gladness and glory inde-
scribable : the very sight of it lifts and refreshes
the human heart. And for its odor, it is like the
4 2 AN ISLAND GARDEN
spirit of romance, sweet as youth's tender dreams.
It is summer's very soul.
This beautiful vine will grow anywhere, for any-
body, only give it half a chance, such is its match-
less vigor. I wonder why it is not found in every
garden ; nothing so well repays the slightest care.
Next in power come the Sweet Peas, blossoming
the livelong summer in all lovely tints save only
yellow, and even that the kind called Primrose
approaches, with its faint gold suffusion of both
inner and outer petals. I plant them by myriads
in my tiny garden all it will hold. Transplant,
I should say, because of my friends the birds, who
never leave me one if I dare plant them out of
doors. But this transplanting is most delightful.
I thoroughly enjoy digging with the hoe a long
trench six inches deep for the strong young seed-
lings, lifting them from the boxes, carefully disen-
tangling their long white roots each from the other
as I take them out, and placing them in a close
row the whole length of the deep furrow, letting
the roots drop their whole length, with no curling
or crowding, then half filling the hollow with
water, drawing the earth about the roots and
firming the whole with strong and gentle touch.
They do not droop a single leaf so transplanted ;
they go on growing as if nothing had happened,
if only they are given all the water they need.
Already they stretch out their delicate tendrils to
climb, and I love to give them for support the
sticks with which the farmers supply their pea
vines for the market; but on my island are no
woods, so I am thankful for humble bayberry and
AN ISLAND GARDEN 43
elder branches for the purpose. It is another
pleasure to go afar among the rocks for these and
wheel them to the flower beds in a light wheel-
barrow, which is one of the most useful things
one can possess for work about the garden. At
once the vines lay hold of the slender sticks and
climb to the very top, fain are they to go much
farther. But I cut the tops so that they may
branch from the sides and keep within bounds,
and they soon make a solid hedge of healthy
green. Oh, when the blossoms break from these
green hedges like heavenly winged angels, and
their pure, cool perfume fills the air, what joy is
mine!
I find Sweet Peas can hardly have too rich a
soil, provided always that they are kept sufficiently
wet. They must have moisture, their roots must
be kept cool and damp, a mulch of leaves or
straw is a very good thing to keep the roots from
drying, and they must always be planted as deep
as possible. Wood ashes give them a stronger
growth. Their colors, the great variety of them,
and their vivid delicacy are wonderful ; they are
most beautiful against the background of the sea;
they are a continual source of delight, and never
cease to bloom, with me, if gathered every day and
watered abundantly, the whole summer long, even
through the autumn till November. But they
must never be suffered to go to seed ; that would
check their blossoming at once. I revel in their
beauty week after week, bringing them into the
house and arranging them in masses every other
day. Clear glass vases are most effective for
44 AN ISLAND GARDEN
them, and they look loveliest, I think, when each
color is kept by itself. For the Princess Beatrice,
which is a divine pale pink, a shade of rose re-
fined and exquisite, there are glasses of clear pink
that repeat the hues of the flowers with magical
gradations and reflections. For the white kinds
there are white vases, the most effective of ground
glass, the opaque surface of which matches the
tone of the flowers.
Of the named kinds of Sweet Peas the most
beautiful shades of pink that I know are the
divinely delicate Princess Beatrice, the palest
rose-color; Adonis, a deeper pink, very clear
and rich; the Orange Prince, a most ineffably
splendid color of bright yellow-rose ; these together
make a combination of color that satisfies the in-
most soul. Carmine Invincible is the most
splendid red ; the Butterfly is white edged with
mauve, and combined with the delicate rose
Princess Beatrice makes a delicious harmony.
Blanche Ferry is also a lovely rose. Queen Vic-
toria is the best white I have known ; but every
year new varieties are found which seem more and
more beautiful, and it is only by trying them that
one finds which to depend on.
Of the worth of these I have mentioned I am
sure; they are the strongest growers, the freest
bloomers, and the most beautiful of their kind.
They never disappoint you if you give them the
right care. The list of flowers in my island gar-
den is by no means long, but I could discourse of
them forever ! They are mostly the old-fashioned
flowers our grandmothers loved. Beginning with
AN ISLAND GARDEN 45
Snowdrops, Crocuses, Daffodils, Narcissus, a few
Hyacinths, Scillas, an English Primrose or two,
Tulips, and several other early blooming plants,
one big red Peony, Columbine, Ragged Robin,
Cornflowers, Roses and Lilies, Larkspurs, Pinks
and Gillyflowers, Sweet Williams, Wallflowers,
Forget-me-nots, single Dahlias, Sunflowers of
every kind, and Hollyhocks of all colors, Poppies
in almost endless variety, Nasturtiums of all hues,
pot Marigolds, summer Chrysanthemums in great
variety, Rose Campion, or Rose of Heaven, Pan-
sies, Phlox, Sweet Peas, and Mignonette, Crimson
Flax and the tall blue Perennial Flax (a wonder-
ful blue!), many kinds of Coreopsis, all most
valuable and decorative, Asters, Honeysuckle
and Clematis, Morning-glories, Lavender and Fox-
gloves, Candytuft, Verbenas, Thunbergia, Pent-
stemon, the heaven-blue Ipomea, white Petunias,
because they are so beautiful by moonlight,
a few Four-o'clocks, and so forth. These are
enough for a most happy little garden. A few
more modern plants are added, a golden and a
rosy Lily from Japan, a lustrous white gold-
hearted Anemone from the same country, for au-
tumn blooming, one or two tuberous-rooted Bego-
nias, some Gaillardias and Zinnias, the fragrant
little Asperula (Woodruff), and some others.
Among the new plants one of the most interest-
ing is the Hugelia Ccerulea, which grows a foot
and a half high, with a many-branched woolly
leaf, and flowers in flat clusters of the most deli-
cious light blue. This is a flower with an atmos-
phere ; it has a quality of beauty quite indescri-
bable.
J COPY the notes of a few days' work
in the garden in May, just to give an
idea of their character and of the vari-
ety of occupation in this small space
of ground.
May ii. This morning at four o'clock the
sky was one rich red blush in the east, over a sea
as calm as a mirror. How could I wait for the
sun to lift its scarlet rim above the dim sea-line
(though it rose punctually at forty-seven minutes
past four), when my precious flower beds were
waiting for me ! It was not possible, and I was
up and dressed before he had flooded the earth
with glory. " Straight was a path of gold for
him," I said, as I gazed out at the long line of
liquid splendor along the ocean. All the boxes
and baskets of the more delicate seedlings were
to be put out from my chamber window on flat
house-top and balcony, they and the forest of
Sweet Peas to be thoroughly watered, and the
Pansies half shaded with paper lest the sun
should work them woe. At five the household
was stirring, there was time to write a letter or
two, then came breakfast before six, and by half
past six I was out of doors at work in the vast
46
AN ISLAND GARDEN 47
circle of motionless silence, for the sea was too
calm for me to hear even its breathing. It was
so beautiful, the dewy quiet, the freshness, the
long, still shadows, the matchless, delicate, sweet
charm of the newly wakened world. Such a
color as the grass had taken on during the last
few warm days ; and where the early shadows lay
long across it, such indescribable richness of
tone ! There was so much for me to do, I hardly
knew where to begin. At the east of the house
the bed of Pansies set out yesterday was bright
with promise, every little plant holding itself
gladly erect. I began with the trellis each side of
the steps leading down into the garden, and first
set out a Coboea Scandens, one to the right and
one to the left, strong, sturdy plants which I
had been keeping weeks in the house till it should
be warm enough to trust them out of doors.
They were a foot high and stretching their sensi-
tive tendrils in all directions, seeking something
for support. They grasped the trellis at once
and seemed to spread out every leaf to the warm
sun, while I poured cool water and liquid manure
about their roots, and congratulated them on their
escape into the open ground. Near them, against
the same trellis, I put down two Tropaeolum Lob-
bianum Lucifers, a new scarlet variety of these
delicate Nasturtiums, that they might climb to-
gether over the broad arch. Some time ago I had
planted there also some Mexican Morning-glories
sent me by an unknown friend, and if they come
up, and Coboea, Nasturtiums, and Morning-glories
all climb together and clasp hands with Honey-
48 AN ISLAND GARDEN
suckle, Wistaria, and Wild Cucumber, my porch
will, indeed, be a bower of beauty ! Then against
wall and fence I set out the stout bushes of single
Dahlias which have been growing ever since last
January. A new variety called Star of Lyons in-
terests me. I am anxious to know what it is like,
what its color, what its shape. It is such a pleas-
ure always to be finding new varieties and com-
binations, fresh surprises in unfamiliar flowers.
Seeking the smallest posy bed I own, into this I
transplanted another stranger, Papaver Alpinum
Roseum, a rose-colored Iceland Poppy. How I
shall watch it grow, and how eagerly wait for it
to blossom ! Eight egg-shells full of it were set
down and carefully watered. Next, a row of
baby Wallflowers were established in a long line
near the tall ones that are thick with buds. I
am going to try to have a succession of bloom
from these, if it can be accomplished, all summer.
In another bed I began to set out a few of the
choicest Sweet Peas, the new kinds ; these were
already a foot long from tip to root ends. I have
no words to tell what pleasant work this is!
After the Sweet Peas were comfortably settled, I
covered the whole bed with a length of light
mosquito net, pegging it at the corners, laying
sticks and stones along the edges to hold it down,
so that the saucy sparrows should find no loop-
hole by which to wriggle inside, they having
watched the whole process with interested eyes
from their perch on the fence-rail. How beauti-
ful it^was to be sitting there in the sweet weather,
working in the wholesome brown earth! Just be-
AN ISLAND GARDEN 49
yond the Sweet Peas I could see my strong white
Lilies springing up, a foot high already, with the
splendid hardy Larkspurs behind them, prom-
ising a wealth of white and gold and azure by
and by. From time to time through the calm
morning, as I labored thus peacefully, I heard the
loons laughing loud and clear in the stillness,
and by lifting my head could see them off the
end of the wharf at the landing swimming to and
fro with their bright reflections, catching no end
of fish and having the most delightful time,
every now and then half raising themselves from
the water and flapping their wings, showing the
dazzling white with which the strong pinions
were lined, and laughing again and again with a
wild and eerie sound. This means that a storm
is coming, I know. But I love to hear them, and
how devoutly thankful I am that there is not a
creature with a gun on this blessed island ! The
loons know it well, or they never would venture
in so near, while they shout to the morning their
wild cries.
Near me, where I had made the earth so very
wet, suddenly fluttered down a ruddy-breasted
barn swallow, the beauty ! for on such heavenly
terms are we that he did not mind me in the
least as he gathered a tiny load of mud for his
nest against the rafters in the barn, and flew away
with it low on the wind. The barn swallows do
not visit my small inclosure as often as do my
nearer neighbors, the white-breasted martins.
All this time the lovely day was slowly chang-
ing its early delicate colors and freshness for the
50 AN ISLAND GARDEN
whiter light of noon. By twelve o'clock the wind
had " hauled " from west to south, going round
through the east, and sending millions of light
ripples across the glassy water, deepening its
color to sparkling sapphire, and at last the sun
overhead seemed to pelt quicksilver in floods
upon it, and then it was dinner-time. After an
hour of rest again I took up my work. All
about, here and there and everywhere, I dug up
the scattered Echinocystus vines and set them
against the house, so that they could run up the
trellises on all sides to make grateful shade by
and by. A few straying Primroses waited to be
moved outside the fence, they take up so much
room within, and room is so precious inside the
garden. Young plants of the charming, old-fash-
ioned Sweet Rocket had to be collected from the
nooks where they had sown themselves far and
near, and set in clumps in corners. Then there
was a box of white Forget-me-nots some one had
sent me, to be established in their places, and I
finished the afternoon by planting Shirley Pop-
pies all up and down the large bank at the south-
west of the garden, outside. I am always planting
Shirley Poppies somewhere! One never can
have enough of them, and by putting them into
the ground at intervals of a week, later and later,
one can secure a succession of bloom and keep
them for a much longer time, keep, indeed, their
heavenly beauty to enjoy the livelong summer,
whereas, if they are all planted at once you would
see them for a blissful moment, a week or ten
days at most, and then they are gone. I have
AN ISLAND GARDEN 51
planted and am going to continue planting till
the middle of June, in this year of grace 1893, no
less than two whole ounces of Shirley Poppies in
all, and when one reflects that the seeds are so
small as to be hardly more than visible to the
naked eye, one realizes this to be a great many.
May 1 2th. Again a radiant day. I watched
the thin white half ring of the waning moon as it
stole up the east through the May haze at dawn.
This kind of haze belongs especially to this
month ; it is such an exquisite color, like ashes
of roses, till the sun suffuses it with a burning
blush before he leaps alive from the ocean's rim.
Again in the garden at a little after six, to find
the sparrows busy tunneling up and down the
bank, devouring the Poppies that I planted yes-
terday. How they can see the seeds at all, or
why they should care to feast on anything so
small, or why they do not all perish, as poor
Pillicoddy proposed doing, from the effects of
such doses of opium, passes my understanding.
There was nothing to be done but to plant them
all over and then trail through the dewy grass
long boards to lay up and down, covering the
bank, for protection.
First, there were the small Tea Rosebushes to
be set out in their sunny bed, made rich with
finely sifted manure and soot and a sprinkling
of wood ashes. And here let me say that all
through the spring, beginning when the hardy
Damask and Jacqueminots, etc., are just unfold-
ing their leaf buds, it is a most excellent plan to
sift wood ashes quite thickly over all the Rose-
52 AN ISLAND GARDEN
bushes, either just after a shower or after you
have been sprinkling them ; let it remain on
them for several hours, if the sun is not shining
I leave it half a day, but then it must all be
carefully washed off, every trace of it, or it will
spoil the leaves. This kills or discourages all
sorts of insect pests, and the effect of the ashes
on the soil about their roots is most beneficial to
the Roses.
As I sat in measureless content by the little
flower bed, carefully slipping my pretty Bon
Silenes and Catherine Mermets and yellow Sun-
sets and the rest out of their pots, and gently
firming them in the ground, with plenty of water
for refreshment, a cloud of the most delicious
perfume brooded about me from a bed of white
violets at the left, the hardiest, faithfulest, friend-
liest little flowers in the world. I found two
small Polyantha Roses had lived all winter in this
sheltered bed ; that was indeed a charming find !
At the back of it grows a tall Jacqueminot, a
black Tuscany Rose, and the strong white Rosa
Rugosa, a Japanese variety which bears very
large single flowers in the greatest profusion.
This Rose is extremely valuable, easily obtained,
so hardy as to be almost indestructible, and abso-
lutely untroubled by any disease or insect plague
whatever. Its foliage is always fresh and hand-
some, and its seed vessels are huge scarlet balls
as large as an average Crab-Apple, most ornamen-
tal after the flowers are gone. But the old, old
black Tuscany Rose is the most precious of all.
Mine came from an ancient garden that vanished
AN ISLAND GARDEN 53
long ago, but which used to be a glory to the
town in which it grew. It is a hardy Rose also,
in color so darkly red as to be almost black, a
warm red, less crimson than scarlet, glowing with
a kind of smouldering splendor, with only two
rows of petals round a centre of richest gold.
At the end of this bed is a Water Hyacinth float-
ing in its tub, and near it, in another tub, a large
pink Water Lily, kept over from last summer in
a frost-proof cellar, is sending up the loveliest
leaves, touched with so sweet a crimson as to be
almost as delightful as the blossoms themselves.
All the rest of this day was spent in transplanting
Asters from boxes into the beds all over the gar-
den, edging nearly every bed with them, so that
when the fleeting glory of Poppies and other ear-
lier annuals is gone there will still be beautiful
color to gladden our eyes late in the summer,
quite into the autumn days.
In the afternoon I had all the many boxes of
Sweet Peas brought to the piazza to be ready for
transplanting, but remembering the sparrows, I
covered each box carefully with mosquito netting
before leaving them for the night.
1 4th. Sunday. A storm of wild wind and
flooding rain, the storm the loons predicted ! At
breakfast my gardening brother said, " Well, my
sweet peas are all gone ! " " Oh," I cried in
the greatest sympathy, " what has happened to
them ? " for he had planted six pounds or more,
and they had come up finely. " Sparrows," was
his laconic reply. I flew to my boxes on the
piazza : they were safe, only through a tiny crack
54 AN ISLAND GARDEN
in the net over one a bird had wriggled its little
body, and pulled up and flung the plants to right
and left all over the steps. But my brother's long
rows, so green last night, were bare except for
broken stems and withering leaves. Alas, it is so
much trouble to cover such a large area with net-
ting, he thought this time he would trust to luck,
or Providence, or whatever one chooses to call it,
but it is a fatal thing to do. Now he has to
plant all over again, even though I shall share my
boxes with him, and it will make his garden very
late indeed. This time he will not fail to put
nets over all ! I sat on the piazza sheltered from
the rain and watched the birds. Unmindful of
the tempest, they skipped gayly round the garden,
over and round the steps, examined all the tucked
up boxes of Sweet Peas, wished they could get in,
but rinding it out of the question gave it up and
resigned themselves to the inevitable. To and
fro, here and there they went, peering into every
nook and corner, behind every leaf and stick and
board and stalk, busily pecking away and devour-
ing something with the greatest industry. I
drew nearer to discover what it could be, and to
my great joy found it was the slugs which the
rain had called forth from their hiding-places;
the birds were working the most comprehensive
slaughter among them. At that pleasing sight
I forgave them on the spot all their trespasses
against me.
1 5th. A thick fog wrapped the world in dim-
ness early this morning ; at eight o'clock it was
rolling off and piling itself in glorious headlands
AN ISLAND GARDEN 55
over the coast, gleaming snow white in the sun,
but here and there thin silver strips lay across
distant sails and islands, lingering as if loath to
leave the earth for the sky. I took the baskets
of plants I had found necessary to dig up to give
the rest room, and paddled across to the next
island in a little lapstreaked dory, to give them
to my neighbors for their flower plots. Great is
the pleasure in the giving and the taking. It was
such a heavenly morning, so blue and calm after
the tumult of yesterday ! Along the far-off coast
the joyous hills seemed laughing in the sunshine,
and the great sea rippled all over with smiles.
From the low shores of the islands came the
singing of the birds over the still water, with an
indescribably quiet and peaceful effect, and as I
rowed into the cove of my destination, passing
the coasts of the little island called Malaga, I saw
outlined against the sky the lovely grasses al-
ready blossoming among the rocks. A kingbird
sat on a bowlder and meditated ; there was no tree,
so he was fain to be content with a rock to sit on.
I passed him almost near enough to touch him
with my oar, but he did not stir, not he! My
errand done and the plants distributed, I hastened
back to my own dear little plot again, and up and
down all the paths I went, digging out every
unwelcome root of grass, plantain, mallow, cat-
nip, clover, and the rest, once more raking them
clear and clean. Outside, in a bed by itself, I
sunk four pots of repotted Chrysanthemums, to
be ready for the windows in early winter. All
along the piazza are the house plants waiting to
56 AN ISLAND GARDEN
be attended to, cut back, repotted, and the soil
enriched for winter blooming. Every day I at-
tend to them, a few at a time. I cannot spare
much time from my planting, weeding, watering,
transplanting, and so forth, in the garden, but
soon they will be all done. Began to transplant a
few of the hundreds of the main body of Sweet
Pea plants into the ground, carefully covering each
bed as I finished with breadths of light mosquito
netting to make them sparrow-proof. As I was
working busily I heard the sweet calling of cur-
lews, and looking up saw six of them wheeling
overhead. Such sociable birds ! They replied to
my challenge as if I had been one of themselves,
and as long as their calls were answered, lingered
near, but being forgotten presently drifted off on
the wind, their clear whistle sounding fainter and
fainter as they were lost in the distance. All the
rest of this day was spent in setting out Sweet
Peas, and it will take more than a whole day more
to finish, for I put them all round against the
fence outside, and into every space I can spare
for them within. After tea I hunted slugs as
usual, and scattered ashes and lime, but I really
feel that my friends the toads have done me the
inestimable favor of reducing their hideous num-
bers, for certainly there are less than last year so
far. Early in April, as I was vigorously hoeing
in a corner, I unearthed a huge toad, to my per-
fect delight and satisfaction ; he had lived all
winter, he had doubtless fed on slugs all the
autumn. I could have kissed him on the spot!
Very carefully I placed him in the middle of a
AN ISLAND GARDEN 57
large green clump of tender Columbine. He
really was n't more than half awake, after his long
winter nap, but he was alive and well, and when
later I went to look after him, lo ! he had crept
off, perhaps to snuggle into the earth once more
for another nap, till the sun should have a little
more power.
To our great joy the frogs that we imported
last year are also alive. We heard the soft rippling
of their voices with the utmost pleasure ; it is a
lovely liquid-sweet sound. They have not lived
over a winter here before. We feared that the
vicinity of so much salt water might be injurious
to them, but this year they have survived, and
perhaps they may be established for good.
May 2Oth. All the past days have been filled
with transplanting and the most vigorous weed-
ing. In these five days the Sweet Peas have
grown so tall I was obliged to go after sticks for
them to-day, wheeling my light wheelbarrow up
over the hill and across the island toward the
south, where among the old ruined walls of cel-
lars and houses, and little, almost erased garden
plots, the thick growth of Bayberry and Elder
offered me all the sticks I needed. Such a charm-
ing business was this ! So beautiful the narrow
road all the way, bordered by the lovely Shad-
bush in bridal white, the delicate red Cherry with
flowers so like Hawthorn as to be frequently mis-
taken for it, the pink Chokecherry, the common
Wild Cherry (which seems to attract to itself most
of the caterpillars in the land), all blossoming for
dear life, and among thickets of Blackberry, Rasp-
5 8 AN ISLAND GARDEN
berry, Gooseberry, Wild Currant, Winterberry,
Spirea, and I know not what, such crowds of flow-
ers ! The last of the gay golden Erythroniums, the
Dogtooth Violets, dancing in the breeze ; the large,
softly colored Anemones, now nearing their end ;
the banks of pearly Eyebrights ; the white Violets,
lowly and fragrant; the straw-colored Uvularia;
the ivory spikes of Solomon's Seal, just breaking
into bloom, with its companion, the starry Trien-
talis ; the tufts of Fern in cool clefts of rocks, of
these I gathered several clumps for my fernery in
the shade of the piazza. It would take too long
to tell of all the flowers I saw, but one more I
must mention. At the upper edge of a little cove
at the southwest, where the old settlement of more
than a hundred years ago was thickest, the earth
was blue with the pretty Gill-go-over-the-ground,
its charming blossoms covering the green turf and
cropping out among the loose stones, a dear,
quaint little flower in two shades of blue marked
with rich red-purple. It was too early for the
Pimpernel to be in bloom, but the pink Herb
Robert was out, the smallest of all the Geranium
family, and I saw ranks of Goldenrod more than a
foot high getting ready for autumn. To tell all I
saw and all I loved and rejoiced in would take a
whole day. Oh, the green and brown and golden
mosses, the lovely, lowly growths along the way,
and oh, the birds that sang and the waves that
leaped and murmured along the shore ! The
sweet sky and the soft clouds, the far sails, the
full joy of the summer morning, who shall tell
it ? I was so happy trundling home my barrow
AN ISLAND GARDEN 59
load of sticks piled to toppling, and finally tip-
ping it up at the garden gate ! It took the whole
afternoon to stick the Peas, and I enjoyed every
moment of it. Before putting the dry brittle
branches in the ground, with a small, light hoe I
went all over and through the earth about the
Sweet Peas, uprooting chickweed and clover, pig-
weed and dogfennel, till there was not a weed to
be seen near them. When night fell I had only
just finished this pleasant work.
2 1 st. Weeding all day in the hot sun; hard
work, but pleasant. I find it the best way to lay
two boards down near the plot I have to weed,
and on them spread a waterproof, or piece of car-
pet, and kneeling or half reclining on this, get my
face as close to my work as possible. Sitting flat
on these boards, I weed all within my reach, then
roll up a bit of carpet not bigger than a flat-iron
holder, put it at the edge of the space I have
cleared, and lean my elbow on it ; that gives me
another arm's-length that I can reach over, and
so I go on till all is done. I move the rest for my
elbow here and there as needed among the flow-
ers. It takes me longer to weed than most peo-
ple, because I will do it so thoroughly. It is
such a pleasure and satisfaction to clear the beau-
tiful brown earth, smooth and soft, from these
rough growths, leaving the beautiful green Pop-
pies and Larkspurs and Pinks and Asters, and
the rest, in undisturbed possession ! Now come
the potent heats that preface summer, and every-
thing grows and expands so fast, the process of
thinning the crowded plants must begin forth-
60 AN ISLAND GARDEN
with. Oh, for days twice as long! Yet these
approach the longest days of the year.
22d. Another glorious day of heat; the sun
fairly drove me into the shade to work among the
house plants on the piazza. Hot, hot, and bright,
and outside the garden growing things begin to
pine for showers. When the sun declined toward
the west in the afternoon, I sat in the shade and
from the veranda turned the hose with its fine
sprinkler all over the garden. Oh, the joy of it !
The delicious scents from earth and leaves, the
glitter of drops on the young green, the grati-
tude of all the plants at the refreshing bath and
draught of water ! The rich red Wallflowers sent
up fresh clouds of incense, the brilliant and deli-
cate Iceland Poppies bowed their lovely heads and
swayed with pleasure at the bright shower. But
rain is greatly needed, searching rain which shall
drench the ground and reach the roots, and give
new life to everything.
23d. Again hot, still, and splendid. Spent all
the morning hammering stakes down into the
beds near Hollyhocks, Sunflowers, Larkspurs,
Lilies, Roses, single Dahlias, and all the tall grow-
ing things. Many were tall enough to fasten to
the stakes, all will be, presently. One enormous
red Hollyhock grew thirteen feet high by actual
measurement before it stopped last year, in a
corner near the piazza. Oh, but he was superb !
At night the lights from one window streamed
through a leafy arch of clambering vine, and illu-
mined him as he swayed to and fro in the wind, a
stately column of beauty and grace. A black-red
AN ISLAND GARDEN 6l
comrade leaned against him and mingled its rich
blossoms with his brighter color, and near him
were rose, pink, and cherry, and white spikes of
bloom, lovely to behold.
All the afternoon weeding and thinning out
the plants. The large bank sloping to the south-
west outside the garden is a perfect mass of flow-
ers to be, no weeds, for I have conquered them;
but it is next to impossible to pull up plants
enough to give all room. Again and again I
have thinned them; now I think I must leave
them to their fate and let it be a case of survival
of the fittest.
24th. Last night, after having given myself the
pleasure of watering the garden, I could not sleep
for anxiety about the slugs. I seldom water the
flowers at night because the moisture calls them
out, and they have an orgy feasting on my most
precious children all night long. Before going
to bed I went all over the inclosure and, alas, I
found them swarming on the Sweet Peas ; baby
slugs, tiny creatures covering the tender leaves
and the dry pea-sticks even, thick as grains of
sand. I was in despair, and though I knew they
did not mind ashes, I took the fine sifter and
covered Peas, sticks, slugs, and all with a thick,
smothering cloud of wood ashes. Then I left
them with many misgivings and went to bed, but
not to sleep, for thinking of them. At twelve
o'clock I said to myself, You know the slugs don't
care a rap for all the ashes in the world, but the
friendly toads may be kept away by them, and
who knows if such a smother of them may not
62 AN ISLAND GARDEN
kill the precious Peas themselves ? I could not
bear it any longer, rose up and donned my dress-
ing gown, and out into the dark and dew I bore
the hose, over my shoulders coiled, to the very
farthest corners of the garden, and washed off
every atom of ashes in the black midnight, and
came back and slept in peace.
These are most anxious times on account of
the slugs. Now, every morning when I rise I
go at once into the garden at four o'clock and
make a business of slaughtering them till half
past five, when I stop for breakfast. If the
day is pleasant they are all hidden by that time,
for they dread so the touch of the sun. But in
the hoary morning dew they delight. This is the
hardest part of my gardening, and I rejoice that
not one person in a thousand has this plague of
slugs to fight. It is so difficult to destroy them ;
to see their countless legions and feel so helpless
before their numbers, to find one's most precious
favorites nibbled and ragged, and everything
threatened with destruction is a trial indeed. I
carry a large pepper-box filled with air-slaked lime
and shake it over them everywhere. They are so
small this year that it destroys them ; they turn
milky and miserably perish, but the next morn-
ing there are just as many more to take their
places. Still I patiently persevere, carefully
washing off the lime, so anxious lest it should
harm the plants, and killing by hand all the larger
monsters.
In that most charming old book, Gilbert
White's " Natural History of Selborne," I find he
AN ISLAND GARDEN 63
speaks of these arch enemies of mine as " un-
noticed myriads of small shell-less snails called
slugs, which silently and imperceptibly make
amazing havoc in field and garden ; " adding in a
note, " Farmer Young of Norton Farm says that
this spring (1777) about four acres of his wheat
in one field were entirely destroyed by the slugs,
which swarmed on the blades of corn and devoured
it as fast as it sprung."
Poor Farmer Young ! I deeply sympathize
with him and his long buried trouble !
Again White says : " The shell-less snails called
slugs are in motion all winter in mild weather and
commit great depredations on garden plants, and
much injure the green wheat."
There was a happy time when such a thing as
a slug was unknown on my island, and I well re-
member the first that were brought here among
some Moonflowers that were imported from a dis-
tant green-house. I saw them adhering to the
outside of the flower-pots and did not kill them,
never dreaming what powers of evil they would
become !
25th. Every day the garden grows more inter-
esting, more fascinating. Buds full of promise
show themselves on the single Dahlias whose
seeds were only planted in February ; on the Rose
Campions, the perennial kind, on the tall white
Lilies. The Hollyhocks are thick with buds, and
rich spikes head all the boughs of the Larkspurs,
and as for the Roses, they are simply wonderful.
The Tea Roses are loaded with buds ; on one of
the Polyanthas that lived all winter in the ground
64 AN ISLAND GARDEN
I counted fifty-two, and it is a tiny bush not more
than a foot high. The dear old Sweet Rocket is
blossoming in every corner, sending up its grate-
ful perfume. Now come days of great anxiety
about the Margaret Carnations that I have so
loved and watched and tended since the first of
March. They were splendid plants, full of health
and strength and all ready to bloom. Alas, I saw, a
day or two ago, the leaves turning yellow. I knew
too well what that meant. There was but one
thing to do. Down on my knees I went this morn-
ing, and bringing my face close to the ground,
began pulling apart the central shoot in each plant,
where the sickly color hung its flag of distress for
a signal. Down, down a cruel length, into the
very heart and core of each precious stem I tore
my reluctant way to find that abomination of
which I was in search, namely, a short fat lively
white worm ; for him I probed and brought him
up on the point of a pin, and having a small
quantity of alcohol at hand for the purpose,
dropped him into it forthwith, for instant and com-
?lete destruction. Over forty of these beasts did
destroy, and left the tattered Pinks to rest and
recover, if they could, poor things, after such a
terrible experience! These worms seem made
for all fragrant Pinks; as far as my experience
goes they never attack anything else. How in the
world, L wonder, do they know where the Carna-
tions are planted and when to come for them?
Such a scene of devastation as is my pretty bed
of Pinks of which I was so proud, dwarfed and
yellow, with their gnawed-off leaves strewn about
AN ISLAND GARDEN 65
all over the ground ! But they will put out side
shoots and patiently strive to fulfill heaven's in-
tent for them, of which they are conscious from
the least root-tip to the end of every battered leaf.
There is something pathetic as well as wonderful
in the way in which these growing things of al-
most all kinds meet disaster and discouragement.
Should they suffer misfortune like this, the lop-
ping of a limb, or the losing of buds, or any sap-
ping of their vitality, if the cause is removed,
they will try so hard to repair damages, send out
new shoots, make strenuous efforts to recover the
lost ground, and still perfect blossom and fruit as
nature meant they should. There is a lesson to
be learned of them on which I have often pon-
dered.
June 3d. This has been an exciting day, for the
Water Lilies I sent for a week ago- came in a mys-
terious damp box across the ocean foam ! I had
made their tubs all ready for them, putting in the
bottom of each the " well-rotted manure," and over
this rich earth and sand mixed in proper propor-
tions. These tubs, or rather large, tall butter firkins,
stood ready in their places along the sunniest and
most sheltered bed in the garden. Oh, the pleas-
ure of opening that box and finding each unfa-
miliar treasure packed so carefully in wet moss,
each folded in oiled paper to keep it moist, and
each labeled with its fascinating name ! The great
pink Lotus of Egypt, the purple Lily of Zanzi-
bar, and the red one of the same sort, the golden
Chromatella, the pure white African variety and
the smaller native white one, the yellow Water
66 AN ISLAND GARDEN
Poppy and the little exquisite plant called Parrot's
Feather, that creeps all about over the water and
has the wonderful living, metallic green of the
plumage of the handsome green parrots. These,
with the flourishing Water Hyacinth I already
had growing in its tub on the steps, and the bright
pink Cape Cod Lily, make ten tubs of water plants,
a most breathlessly interesting family ! And
I must not forget another tub of seedling Water-
Lilies that I am watching with the most intense
interest also. It took most of the long, happy
day to plant all these in the rich wet mud and
settle them in their comfortable quarters. I laid
some horseshoes I had picked up at different
times, and saved, round the roots to hold them
down temporarily, while I gently flooded the tubs
with water and rejoiced to see the lovely leaves
float out on the surface fresh as if they were at
home. Then I sifted clean beach sand over the
earth about them, to the depth of an inch or more,
to hold the soil down and keep the water clear,
and all was done. What delight to look forward
to the watching and tending of these new friends !
I find myself wondering what enemy will attack
these, for surely something has been made for
their destruction, which I must fight ! There is
not a growing thing in the garden that has not its
enemies and destroyers, fortunate if it has only
one. Just at this time there is a rampant little
snuff-colored spider which comes in from the
grass and fastens upon tender growths in the bor-
ders about the house, covering the succulent
leaves and stems of Wild Cucumbers and Morn-
AN ISLAND GARDEN 67
ing-glories, and even Nasturtiums and Cornflow-
ers, so thickly that the plant is not to be seen at
all for them ; they are like a brown glove over
every leaf, and they suck every drop of sap out of
the plant, leaving it perfectly white. They are
fatal on the Sweet Peas, of which they are espe-
cially fond. No poison known to me has the
slightest effect on them ; nothing but water turned
on with the hose in floods disturbs them. This
washes them away for the time being. It has to
be repeated, however, many times a day, for they
recover from their drenching and return to their
work of devastation with renewed vigor. Fortu-
nately these do not, like the slugs, last forever;
they are gone in less than six weeks ; but they
keep me busy indeed while they stay.
I am obliged to spend a good deal of time just
now hunting and destroying different bugs and
worms and so forth. The blue-green aphis ap-
pears on certain precious Honeysuckle buds, and
must be vigorously syringed with fir-tree oil before
he gets a foothold and spreads his hideous legions
everywhere. Also the lively worm that ties the
Rose leaves together and gobbles them up and
hides in a web within them, that I may find and
crush him; and the white thrip which calls for
hellebore, on the under side of them, and many
more, must be attended to before they wax strong
and bold in their villainy and defy me. A curious
plague, if I may call it so, has come upon the little
garden, in the shape of the delicious edible mush-
rooms, Coprinus Comatus, which come up all over
the place and with slow strength heave the
68 AN ISLAND GARDEN
ground and my flowers into heaps, thrusting
handsome long ivory-white, umbrella-shaped heads
on stems a foot long, up high above and over
most things in the beds. But these are eaten as
soon as they appear, and are not such a very
great trial, though I would rather they left my
dear flowers undisturbed.
! UCH thought should be given to the
garden's arrangement with regard to
economy of room, where one has but a
small space to devote to it. And where
one is unfamiliar with the habits of
growth of the various plants that are to people it,
a difficulty arises in making them effective and so
disposing them that they shall not interfere with
each other. For instance, in most cases tall plants
should be put back against walls and fences and
so forth, with the lower-growing varieties in the
foreground. If one were to plant Verbenas and
Venidium among Sunflowers and Hollyhocks, or
even among Carnation Poppies and Cornflowers,
Verbenas and Venidium would not be visible, for
their habit is to creep close to the ground, and
the tall growths would completely hide and most
likely exterminate them, by shutting from them
the sun and air without which they cannot live.
These low, creeping plants are, however, very
useful when one is planning for a succession of
69
70 AN ISLAND GARDEN
flowers. I plant Pansies, Verbenas, Drummond's
Phlox, and so forth, among my Pinks and Wall-
flowers and others of like compact habit, so that,
when the higher slender plants have done blos-
soming, the others, which seldom cease flowering
till frost, may still clothe the ground with color
and beauty. Of course it goes without saying
that climbing Vines should not be set where there
is nothing upon which they may climb. Indeed
that would be simple cruelty nothing more nor
less. Everything that needs it should be given
a support without fail all the myriad lovely
Vines that one may have with so little trouble, and
which seem to have been made to wreathe the
dwellings of men with freshness and beauty and
grace. The long list of varieties of flowering Clem-
atis, so many shapes and colors, the numerous
Honeysuckles, the Wistaria, Passion - flowers,
Morning-glories, Hops, the Dutchman's Pipe, the
Coboeas, Woodbine, and many others, not count-
ing Sweet Peas and Nasturtiums, these last
among the most beautiful and decorative of all,
every one is twice as valuable if given the support
it demands. In the case of Nasturtiums, how-
ever, which seem with endless good-nature ready
to adapt themselves to any conditions of exist-
ence, except, perhaps, being expected to live in a
swamp, it is not so important that they should
have something upon which to climb. A very
good way is to put them near a rock one wishes to
have covered, or to let them run down a bank upon
which nothing else cares to grow. They will
clothe such places with wild and beautiful luxuri-
ance of green leaves and glowing flowers.
AN ISLAND GARDEN 71
It seems strange to write a book about a little
garden only fifty feet long by fifteen wide ! But
then, as a friend pleasantly remarked to me, " it
extends upward," and what it lacks in area is more
than compensated by the large joy that grows out
of it and its uplifting and refreshment of "the
Spirit of Man."
I have made a plan of this minute domain to
show how it may be possible to accomplish much
within such narrow compass, and also to give an
idea of an advantageous method of grouping in
a space so confined. I have not room to experi-
ment with rockworks and ribbon-borders and the
like, nor should I do it even if I had all the room
in the world. For mine is just a little old-fash-
ioned garden where the flowers come together to
praise the Lord and teach all who look upon them
to do likewise.
All through the months of April and May,
when the weather is not simply impossible, I am
at work in it, and also through most of June. It
is wonderful how much work one can find to do
in so tiny a plot of ground. But in the latter
weeks of June there comes a time when I can
begin to take breath and rest a little from these
difficult yet pleasant labors ; an interval when I
may take time to consider, a morning when I may
seek the hammock in the shady piazza, and, look-
ing across my happy flower beds, let the sweet
day sink deep into my heart. From the flower
beds I look over the island slopes to the sea, and
realize it all, the rapture of growth, the deli-
cious shades of green that clothe the ground, Wild
72 AN ISLAND GARDEN
Rose, Bayberry, Spirea, Shadbush, Elder, and
many more. How beautiful they are, these grassy,
rocky slopes shelving gradually to the sea, with
here and there a mass of tall, blossoming grass
softly swaying in the warm wind against the
peaceful, pale blue water! Among the grass a few
ghostly dandelion tops yet linger, with now and
then a belated golden flower. How lovely is the
delicacy of the white bleached rocks, the little
spaces of shallow soil exquisite with vivid crimson
Sorrel, or pearly with the brave Eyebright, all
against the soft color of the sea. What harmony
of movement in all these radiant growths just
stirred by the gentle air! Here and there a stout
little bough of Chokecherry, with clustered white
blossoms tipped with pink, springing from a cleft
in the rock, lights up in sunshine, its pink more
glowing for the turquoise background of the
ocean. How hot the sun blazes ! The Blue-eyed
Grass is quite faint and drooping in the rich turf,
but the yellow Crowfoot shines strong and steady;
no sunshine is too bright for it. In the garden
the tall Jacqueminot Rosebushes gather power
from the great warmth and light, and hold out
their thick buds to absorb it and fold its splendor
in their inmost hearts. One or two of the heavi-
est buds begin to loosen their crimson velvet pet-
als and shed their delicious perfume on the air.
The Oriental Poppy glories in the heat. Among
its buds, thrust upward like solid green apples, one
has burst into burning flame, each of its broad
fiery petals as large as the whole inside of my
hand. In the Iceland Poppy bed the ardent light
i
<<<{<OuDOa uuo -
AN ISLAND GARDEN 73
has wooed a graceful company of drooping buds
to blow, and their cups of delicate fire, orange and
yellow, sway lightly on stems as slender as grass.
In sheltered corners the Forget-me-not spreads its
cool, heaven-blue clusters ; by the fence " the Lark-
spurs listen " while they wait ; the large purple
Pansies shrink and turn from the too brilliant gaze
of the sun. Rose Campions, Tea Roses, Mignon-
ette, Mangolds, Coreopsis, the rows of Sweet Peas,
the broad-leaved Hollyhocks and the rest, rejoice
and grow visibly with every moment of the glori-
ous day. Clematis and Honeysuckle almost seem
to hurry, Nasturtiums reach their shield-like leaves
and wind the stems thereof round any and every
stick and string they can touch by which to lift
themselves, here and there showing their first
glowing flowers, and climbing eagerly. The long
large buds of the white Clematis, the earliest of
all, are swelling visibly before my eyes, and the
buds of the early June Honeysuckle are reddening
at the end of every spray. In one corner a tall
purple Columbine hangs its myriad clustered
bells ; each flower has six shell-like whorls set in a
circle, colored like rich amethysts and lined with
lustrous silver, white as frost. Cornflowers like
living sparks of exquisite color, rose and azure,
white and purple, twinkle all over the place, and
the heavenly procession begins in good earnest.
The Grapevine smooths out its young leaves,
they are woolly and crimson ; the wind blows and
shows me their grayish-white under surfaces. I
think of Browning's tender song, the verse,
74 AN ISLAND GARDEN
" The leaf buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that to-day,
One day more bursts them open fully,
You know the red turns gray."
The Echinocystus plants that have sprung in
thick ranks along the edge of the beds against
the piazza are fairly storming up the trellis, hav-
ing sown themselves in the autumn ; they have
just really begun to take firm hold, and are climb-
ing hand over hand, as sailors do, with their strong
green tendrils stretching out like arms and hands
to right and left, laying hold of every available
thing by which to cling and spring upward to the
very eaves. There in August they form a closely
woven curtain of lush, light green, overhung with
large, loose clusters of starry white flowers having
a pure, delicious fragrance like honey and the
wax of the comb.
Now come the most perfect days of the year,
blue days, hot on the continent, but heavenly here,
where the cool breeze breathes round the islands
from the great expanse of whispering water. De-
lightful it is to lie here and rest and realize all
this beauty and rejoice in all its joy ! The dis-
tant coast-line is dim in soft mirage.
tt Half lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea,
The silent, sapphire-spangled, marriage-ring of the land."
It lies so lovely, far away! At its edge the
water is glassy calm, the houses and large, glim-
mering piles of buildings along its whole length
show white in the hot haze ; in the offing the far-
off sails are half lost in this shimmering veil ;
AN ISLAND GARDEN 75
farther out there is a soft wind blowing; little
fishing-boats with their sails furled lie at anchor
between us and the land, faintly outlined against
the delicate tone of the water. All is so still ! I
hear a bee go blundering into the Bachelor's But-
tons that hold up their flowers to the sun like
small, compact yellow Roses. Suddenly comes a
gush of the song-sparrow's music, but father mar-
tin sits at his door very quiet ; it is too hot on the
red roof of his little house, so he sits at its portal
and meditates while his small wife broods within,
only now and then from his pretty throat pours a
low ripple of sound, melodiously content. I am
conscious of the sandpiper calling and the full tide
murmuring, and I, too, am content.
Outside the garden fence it is as if the flowers
had broken their bounds and were rushing down
the sloping bank in a torrent of yellow, where the
early Artemisias and Eschscholtzias are hastening
into bloom, overflowing in a flood of gold that,
lightly stirred by every breeze, sends a satin shim-
mer to the sun. Eschscholtzia it is an ugly name
for a most lovely flower. California Poppy is
much better. Down into the sweet plot I go and
gather a few of these, bringing them to my little
table and sitting down before them the better to
admire and adore their beauty. In the slender
green glass in which I put them they stand
clothed in their delicate splendor. One blossom
I take in a loving hand the more closely to examine
it, and it breathes a glory of color into sense and
spirit which is enough to kindle the dullest imagi-
nation. The stems and fine thread-like leaves are
76 AN ISLAND GARDEN
smooth and cool gray-green, as if to temper the
fire of the blossoms, which are smooth also, un-
like almost all other Poppies, that are crumpled
past endurance in their close green buds, and
make one feel as if they could not wait to break
out of the calyx and loosen their petals to the
sun, to be soothed into even tranquillity of beauty
by the touches of the air. Every cool gray-green
leaf is tipped with a tiny line of red, every flower-
bud wears a little pale-green pointed cap like an
elf, and in the early morning, when the bud is
ready to blow, it pushes off the pretty cap and un-
folds all its loveliness to the sun. Nothing could
be more picturesque than this fairy cap, and no-
thing more charming than to watch the blossom
push it off and spread its yellow petals, slowly
rounding to the perfect cup. As I hold the flower
in my hand and think of trying to describe it, I
realize how poor a creature I am, how impotent
are words in the presence of such perfection. It
is held upright upon a straight and polished
stem, its petals curving upward and outward into
the cup of light, pure gold with a lustrous satin
sheen ; a rich orange is painted on the gold, drawn
in infinitely fine lines to a point in the centre of
the edge of each petal, so that the effect is that
of a diamond of flame in a cup of gold. It is not
enough that the powdery anthers are orange bor-
dered with gold ; they are whirled about the very
heart of the flower like a revolving Catherine-
wheel of fire. In the centre of the anthers is a
shining point of warm sea-green, a last, consum-
mate touch which makes the beauty of the bios-
AN ISLAND GARDEN 77
som supreme. Another has the orange suffused
through the gold evenly, almost to the outer
edges of the petals, which are left in bright, light
yellow with a dazzling effect. Turning the flower
and looking at it from the outside, it has no calyx,
but the petals spring from a simple pale-green
disk, which must needs be edged with sea-shell
pink for the glory of God ! The fresh splendor
of this flower no tongue nor pen nor brush of
mortal man can fitly represent.
Who indeed shall adequately describe any one,
the simplest even, of these radiant beings? Day
after day, as I watch them appear, one variety
after another, in such endless changes of delicate
beauty, I can but marvel ever more and more at
the exhaustless power of the great Inventor.
Must He not enjoy the work of His hands, the
manifold perfection of these His matchless crea-
tions ? Who can behold the unfolding of each
new spring and all its blossoms without feeling
the renewal of " God's ancient rapture," of which
Browning speaks in " Paracelsus " ? In that im-
mortal rapture, I, another of his creatures, less
obedient in fulfilling His laws of beauty than are
these lovely beings, do humbly share, reflecting it
with all the powers of my spirit and rejoicing in
His work with an exceeding joy.
As the days go on toward July, the earth be-
comes dry and all the flowers begin to thirst for
moisture. Then from the hillside, some warm,
still evening, the sweet rain-song of the robin
echoes clear, and next day we wake to a dim
morning ; soft flecks of cloud bar the sun's way,
;8 AN ISLAND GARDEN
fleecy vapors steal across the sky, the southwest
wind blows lightly, rippling the water into little
waves that murmur melodiously as they kiss the
shore. In this warm gray, brooding light I am
reminded of Tennyson's subtle description of
such a daybreak :
" When the first low matin chirp hath grown
Full quire, and morning driven her plough of pearl
Far furrowing into light the mounded rack,
Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea."
Through the early hours of the day the mottled,
pearly clouds keep their shape, with delicious
open spaces of tempered blue between ; by and
by the sky's tender fleece is half shadowed, to-
ward noon it melts into loose mists. Color every-
where tells against these pellucid grays, the
gold of Lemon Lilies, the flame of Iceland Poppies,
all the sweet tints of every blossom. Presently
the happy rain begins to fall, so soft, so warm, so
peaceful, the very sound of it is a pleasure ; every
leaf in the patient garden, which has waited for
the shower so long, spreads itself wide to catch
each crystal drop and treasure its deep refreshment.
All day it rains ; at night the melody lulls us to
sleep as it patters on the roof. In the night the
wind changes, and next day brings a northeast
storm again with a wild wind, but from this the
little flower plot is well protected, and I rejoice in
the thorough watering deep down among their
roots which is doing all the plants unmeasured
good. Two, perhaps three days, it lasts, the gale
blowing till there is such contention of winds and
waves about the little isle as to make a ceaseless
AN ISLAND GARDEN 79
roaring of wild breakers round its shores. When
at last the tempest wears itself out, what delight
there is in the great tranquillity that follows it,
what music in the soft, far murmurs of ceasing
strife in air and ocean, spent wrath that seems to
breathe yet in an undertone, half sullen, half re-
lenting, while the broad yellow light that lies over
sea and rocks in stillness, like a quiet smile,
promises a heavenly day on the morrow.
Then, with what fresh wealth of color and per-
fume the garden will meet the resplendent sun-
rise ! Every moment it grows more and more
beautiful. I think for wondrous variety, for cer-
tain picturesque qualities, for color and form
and a subtle mystery of character, Poppies seem,
on the whole, the most satisfactory flowers among
the annuals. There is absolutely no limit to their
variety of color. They are the tenderest lilac, the
deepest crimson, richest scarlet, white with softest
suffusion of rose ; all shades of rose, clear light
pink with sea-green centre, the anthers in a golden
halo about it ; black and fire-color ; red that is
deepened to black, with gray reflections ; cherry-
color, with a cross of creamy white at the bottom
of the cup, and round its central altar of ineffable
golden green again the halo of yellow anthers;
purple, with rich splashes of a deeper shade of the
same color, with grayish white rays about the
centre ; all shades of lavender and lilac ; exqui-
site smoke-color, in some cases delicately touched
and freaked with red ; some pure light gray,
some of these gray ones edged with crimson or
scarlet ; there are all tints of mauve. To tell all
8o AN ISLAND GARDEN
the combinations of their wonderful hues, or even
half, would be quite impossible, from the simple
transparent scarlet bell of the wild Poppy to the
marvelous pure white, the wonder of which no
tongue can tell. Oh, these white Poppies, some
with petals more delicate than the finest tissue
paper, with centres of bright gold, some of thicker
quality, large, shell-like petals, almost ribbed in
their effect, their green knob in the middle like a
boss upon a shield, rayed about with beautiful
grayish yellow stamens, as in the kind called the
Bride. Others they call this kind the Snowdrift
have thick double flowers, deeply cut and fringed
at the edges, the most opaque white, and full of
exquisite shadows. Then there are the Iceland-
ers, which Lieutenant Peary found making gay
the frosty fields of Greenland, in buttercup-yel-
low and orange and white; the great Orientals,
gorgeous beyond expression ; the immense single
white California variety. I could not begin to
name them all in the longest summer's day ! The
Thorn Poppy, Argemone, is a fascinating variety,
most quaint in method of growth and most dec-
orative. As for the Shirleys, they are children
of the dawn, and inherit all its delicate, vivid,
delicious suffusions of rose-color in every con-
ceivable shade. Of the Poppy one of the great
masters of English prose discourses in this wise.
Speaking of the common wild Poppy of the Eng-
lish fields, which grows broadcast also over most
of Europe, he says : " The splendor of it is proud,
almost insolently so," which immediately brings to
mind Browning's lines in " Sordello,"
AN ISLAND GARDEN 8l
" The Poppy's red effrontery,
Till autumn spoils its fleering quite with rain,
And portionless, a dry, brown, rattling crane
Protrudes."
Papaver Rhoeas is the common wild scarlet Poppy
that both these writers describe. John Ruskin
says : " I have in my hand a small red Poppy
which I gathered on Whit Sunday in the palace
of the Caesars. It is an intensely simple, in-
tensely floral flower. All silk and flame, a scarlet
cup, perfect edged all round, seen among the wild
grass far away like a burning coal fallen from
Heaven's altars. You cannot have a more com-
plete, a more stainless type of flower absolute ; in-
side and outside, all flower. No sparing of color
anywhere, no outside coarsenesses, no interior
secrecies, open as the sunshine that creates it;
fine finished on both sides, down to the extremest
point of insertion on its narrow stalk, and robed
in the purple of the Caesars. . . .
" Literally so. That Poppy scarlet, so far as
could be painted by mortal hand, for mortal king,
stays yet, against the sun and wind and rain, on
the walls of the house of Augustus, a hundred
yards from the spot where I gathered the weed
of its desolation. . . . The flower in my hand is
a poverty stricken Poppy, I was going to write,
poverty strengthened Poppy, I mean. On richer
ground it would have gushed into flaunting
breadth of untenable purple; flapped its incon-
sistent scarlet vaguely to the wind ; dropped the
pride of its petals over my hand in an hour after I
gathered it. But this little rough-bred thing . . .
82 AN ISLAND GARDEN
is as bright and strong to-day as yesterday. . . .
What outline its petals really have is little shown
in their crumpled fluttering, but that very crum-
pling arises from a fine floral character which
we do not enough value in them. We usually
think of a Poppy as a coarse flower ; but it is the
most transparent and delicate of all the blossoms
of the field. The rest, nearly all of them, de-
pend on the texture of their surfaces for color.
But the Poppy is painted glass; it never glows
so brightly as when the sun shines through it.
Wherever it is seen, against the light or with the
light, always it is a flame, and warms the wind
like a blown ruby. . . . Gather a green Poppy
bud, just when it shows the scarlet line at its side,
break it open and unpack the Poppy. The whole
flower is there complete in size and color, its
stamens full grown, but all packed so closely that
the fine silk of the petals is crushed into a million
of wrinkles. When the flower opens, it seems a
relief from torture; the two imprisoning green
leaves are shaken to the ground, the aggrieved
corolla smooths itself in the sun and comforts it-
self as best it can, but remains crushed and hurt
to the end of its days."
I know of no flower that has so many charm-
ing tricks and manners, none with a method of
growth more picturesque and fascinating. The
stalks often take a curve, a twist from some cur-
rent of air or some impediment, and the fine
stems will turn and bend in all sorts of graceful
ways, but the bud is always held erect when the
time comes for it to blossom. Ruskin quotes
AN ISLAND GARDEN 83
Lindley's definition of what constitutes a Poppy,
which he thinks " might stand." This is it : " A
Poppy is a flower which has either four or six
petals, and two or more treasuries united in one,
containing a milky, stupefying fluid in its stalks
and leaves, and always throwing away its calyx
when it blossoms."
I muse over their seed-pods, those supremely
graceful urns that are wrought with such match-
less elegance of shape, and think what strange
power they hold within. Sleep is there, and
Death his brother, imprisoned in those mystic
sealed cups. There is a hint of their mystery in
their shape of sombre beauty, but never a sug-
gestion in the fluttering blossom ; it is the gayest
flower that blows. In the more delicate varieties
the stalks are so slender, yet so strong, like fine
grass stems, when you examine them you won-
der how they hold even the light weight of the
flower so firmly and proudly erect. They are
clothed with the finest of fine hairs up and down
the stalks, and over the green calyx, especially
in the Iceland varieties, where these hairs are of
a lovely red-brown color and add much to their
beauty.
It is plain to see, as one gazes over the Poppy
beds on some sweet evening at sunset, what buds
will bloom in the joy of next morning's first
sunbeams, for these will be lifting themselves
heavenward, slowly and silently, but surely. To
stand by the beds at sunrise and see the flowers
awake is a heavenly delight. As the first long,
low rays of the sun strike the buds, you know
84 AN ISLAND GARDEN
they feel the signal! A light air stirs among
them ; you lift your eyes, perhaps to look at a
rosy cloud or follow the flight of a caroling bird,
and when you look back again, lo ! the calyx has
fallen from the largest bud and lies on the
ground, two half transparent, light green shells,
leaving the flower petals wrinkled in a thousand
folds, just released from their close pressure. A
moment more and they are unclosing before your
eyes. They flutter out on the gentle breeze like
silken banners to the sun, and such a color !
The orange of the Iceland Poppy is the most
ineffable color ; it " warms the wind " indeed ! I
know no tint like it; it is orange dashed with
carmine, most like the reddest coals of an in-
tensely burning fire. Look at this exquisite
cup : the wind has blown nearly smooth the
crinkled petals ; these, where they meet in the
centre, melt into a delicate greenish yellow. In
the heart of the blossom rises a round green
altar, its sides penciled with nine black lines,
and a nine-rayed star of yellow velvet clasps the
flat, pure green top. From the base of this altar
springs the wreath of stamens and anthers ; the
inner circle of these is generally white, the outer
yellow, and all held high and clear within the
cup. The radiant effect of this arrangement
against the living red cannot be told.
The Californias put out their clean, polished,
pointed buds straight up to the sun from the
first, but all the others have this fashion of droop-
ing theirs till the evening before they blow.
There is a kind of triumph in the way they do
AN ISLAND GARDEN 85
this, lifting their treasured splendor yet safe
within its clasping calyx to be ready to meet the
first beams of the day.
The Orientals are glorious, even in the vic-
torious family of Poppies. Ruskin has a chapter
on " The Rending of Leaves." I always think of
it when I see the large, hairy, rich green leaves
of this variety, which are deeply " rent," almost
the whole width of the leaf to the midrib. These
leaves grow somewhat after the fashion of a Dan-
delion, spreading several feet in all directions
from the centre, which sends up in June immense
flower-stalks crowned with heavy apple-like buds,
that elongate as they increase in size, till some
morning the thick calyx breaks and falls, and the
great scarlet flags of the flower unfold. There
is a kind of angry brilliance about it, a sombre
and startling magnificence. Its large petals are
splashed near the base with broad, irregular spots
of black-purple, as if they had been struck with a
brush full of color. The seed-pod, rising fully an
inch high in the centre, is of a luminous, inde-
scribable shade of green, and folded over its top,
a third of its height, is a cap of rich lavender,
laid down in points evenly about the crown. On
the centre of this is a little knob of deep purple
velvet, from which eleven rays of the same color
curve over the top and into each point of the
lavender cap. And round this wonderful seed-
pod, with its wealth of elaborate ornament, is a
thick girdle of stamens half an inch deep, with
row upon row and circle within circle of anthers
covered with dust of splendid dusky purple, and
86 AN ISLAND GARDEN
held each upon a slender thread of deeper purple
still. It is simply superb, and when the great
bush is ablaze with these flowers it is indeed a
conflagration of color. " The fire-engines always
turn out when my Orientals blaze up on the hill-
side," writes a flower-loving friend to me. No
garden should be without these, for they flourish
with the least care, are perfectly hardy, and never
fail to blossom generously.
[HAT every plant should select only its
own colors and forms from the great
laboratory of Nature has always seemed
to me a very wonderful thing. Each
plant takes from its surroundings just
those qualities which will produce its own especial
characteristics and no others, never hesitating and
never making a mistake. For instance, the Califor-
nia Poppies, if left to themselves, will take yellow of
many resplendent shades for their color, and never
vary their cool, gray-green, red-tipped foliage ; the
Peacock Poppy will be always scarlet- crimson,
with a black spot rimmed with white in every
petal ; the Corn Poppy will be always clear scar-
let ; the Bride a miracle of lustrous white, and
so on. Runge, a noted chemist, says : " A plant
is a great chemist : it distinguishes and separates
substances more definitely and accurately than
man can, with all his skill, his intelligence, and
87
88 AN ISLAND GARDEN
his appliances. . . . The little Daisy, which has
painted its ' wee crimson-tipped flowers,' puts the
chemist and scientific man to shame, for it has pro-
duced its leaf and stem and flowers, and has dyed
these with their bright colors from materials which
he can never change with all his arts."
By what power do they know how to select
each its own hue and shape, when earth and air
hold all the tints and forms that the Creator has
invented? The subtle knowledge of plants, in-
stinct perhaps would be a better word, is astonish-
ing. If you dig a hole in the ground and put
into it a Rosebush, filling one side of the hole
with rich earth and the other with poor soil,
every root of that Rosebush will leave the poor
half to inhabit the rich and nourishing portion.
That is a matter of course, but the instinct of the
Rose is something to think about, nevertheless.
Some one has said, speaking of a tree, " What
an immense amount of vitally organized material
has been here gathered together! It is God's
own architecture ! This mass of vegetable mat-
ter is only earth and air that have undergone
transmutation. The material alike of wandering
zephyrs and rushing storms, of gently descend-
ing night-dews and angry thunder-showers has
been here, on this spot, metamorphosed."
And I should add that into this piece of archi-
tecture God has breathed a vital spark, almost a
mind, so remarkable is the intelligent action often
manifested in many plants and trees.
A famous Frenchman, Camille Flammarion,
says : " I know a maple-tree which was dying on
the ruins of an old wall, a few feet from good rich
AN ISLAND GARDEN 89
earth (the soil in a ditch), and which in despair
threw out a venturesome root, reached the cov-
eted earth, buried itself there, and gained a solid
footing, so that by degrees, although a motionless
thing, it changed its place, let its original roots
die, and lived resuscitated upon the organ that
had set it free. I have known elms which were
going to eat up the soil of a fertile field, whose
food had been cut off from them by a wide ditch,
and who, therefore, determined to make their
uncut roots pass under the ditch. They suc-
ceeded, and returned to their regular food, much
to the cultivator's astonishment. I know an
heroic Jasmine which went eight times through a
board which kept the light away from it, and
which a teasing observer would put back in the
shade, hoping so to wear out the flower's energy,
but he did not succeed."
This happened in France, but here in New
England I myself know of a great Wistaria
which grew over one side of a fine old house in
an enchanting garden, and which did something
quite as wonderful. It was a triumph of a vine !
The butt or stump, where it emerged from the
ground, was a foot in diameter, and its branches
covered one side of the house, a space of thirty
feet by thirty feet. So large a vine required a
great deal of water, so it sent its roots down eight
feet under the foundation of the house, passed
along under the brick floor of the dairy, a distance
of fifteen feet, making a solid mat of roots under
the whole floor, reached the well and went straight
through the cracks and crevices of its stone wall
to the desired moisture. An elm root in the same
90 AN ISLAND GARDEN
garden went sixty feet or more under the founda-
tion of the house to that same well.
To quote another writer who has carefully ob-
served these things : " Plants have to the full
extent of their necessities a power of observation,
of discrimination in the selection of their food, a
knowledge of where it is to be found, and the
power to a considerable extent to obtain it. For
instance, if some animal's remains are buried in
the garden, say twenty feet from the grapevine,
the vine will know it, and the underground part
of the vine will at once change its course and
make a direct march for this new storehouse of
food, and upon reaching it will throw out an in-
credible number of roots for its consumption.
... A weeping willow was planted in a dry,
gravelly soil on the south side of a house, a
situation in every respect unsuited to this tree,
which delights in a heavy moist soil ; the result
was a slow, stunted growth. After a few years in
which it barely lived, it surprised its owner by a
vigorous growth which was as astonishing as
pleasing, and the cause was looked for. It was
found the roots in search of food had traveled
under the house a distance of some thirty feet to
the well, where they took a downward course till
they reached the water that furnished the mois-
ture which is essential to the growth of this tree.
"The movements of the squash vine when
pressed by hunger or thirst are truly wonderful.
During a severe drought if you place a basin of
water at night, say two feet to the left or the
right of a strong vine, in the morning it will be
AN ISLAND GARDEN 91
found bathing in the basin ! Is not this an indi-
cation of thought in the vine ? Does it not indi-
cate a knowledge in the vine analogous to human
understanding? . . . There must be some agent
employed to bring the vine to the fountain. . . .
" The more we study plant life the more we be-
come convinced that life is a unit, varying in form
only, not in principle. Everything capable of re-
production, growth, and development is governed
by the same law, and each is but a part of the unit
we term life."
Again to quote the famous Frenchman : " When
I breathe the perfume of a Rose," he says, " when
I admire the beauty of form, the grace of this
flower in its freshly opening bloom, what strikes
me most is the work of that hidden, unknown,
mysterious force which rules over the plant's life
and can direct it in the maintenance of its exist-
ence, which chooses the proper molecules of air,
water, and earth for its nourishment, and which
knows, above all, how to assimilate these molecules
and group them so delicately as to form this
graceful stem, these dainty green leaves, these
soft pink petals, these exquisite tints and delicious
fragrance. . . .
" This mysterious force is the animating princi-
ple of the plant. Put a Lily seed, an acorn, a grain
of wheat, and a peach-stone side by side in the
ground, each germ will build up its own organism
and no other. . . .
" A plant breathes, drinks, eats, selects, refuses,
seeks, works, lives, acts, according to its instincts.
One does like a charm, another pines, a third is
9 2 AN ISLAND GARDEN
nervous and agitated. The Sensitive Plant shivers
and droops its leaves at the slightest touch."
Climbing plants show often a surprising degree
of intelligence, reaching out for support as if they
had eyes to see. I have known a vine whose head
was aimlessly waving in the wind, with nothing
near it to which it might cling, turn deliberately
round in an opposite direction to that in which it
had been growing and seize a line I had stretched
for it to grasp, without any help outside itself, and
within the space of an hour's time. By manifold
ways they cling and climb, many by winding their
stems round and round strings or sticks or wires,
or whatever is given them, as do the Morning-
glories, Hop, Honeysuckle, Wistarias, and many
others ; but Sweet Peas, Cobcea, and so forth, put
out a delicate tendril at the end of each leaf, or
rather group of leaves. Nasturtiums, Clematis,
and others take a turn with their leaf-stems round
anything that comes in their way, and so lift and
hold themselves securely, and the Echinocystus or
Wild Cucumber has a system of tendrils strong
as iron and elastic as India-rubber. It is most in-
teresting to observe them all and ponder on their
different charming ways and habits, to help them
if they need it, and to sympathize with all their
experiences. As I work among my flowers, I
find myself talking to them, reasoning and remon-
strating with them, and adoring them as if they
were human beings. Much laughter I provoke
among my friends by so doing, but that is of no
consequence. We are on such good terms, my
flowers and 1 1
AN ISLAND GARDEN 93
Altogether lovely they are out of doors, but
I plant and tend them always with the thought
of the joy they will be within the house also. I
know well what Emerson means when he asks,
" Hast thou named all the birds without a gun ?
Loved the wood Rose and left it on its stalk ? "
and if I gather this or any other wild-flower I do
it with such reverent love that even he would be
satisfied. No one knows better and deplores
more deeply than I the wholesale destruction,
wanton and cruel, which goes on among our wild-
flowers every year; but to bring a few indoors for
purposes of study and fuller appreciation is an-
other and a desirable thing. For the wild Rose
is but partially learned when one pauses a mo-
ment in passing to admire the sweet surprise of
its beauty as it suddenly smiles up from the road-
side. It cannot be learned in a single glance,
nor, indeed, in many glances : it must be carefully
considered and lovingly meditated upon before
it yields all the marvel of its delicate glory to
your intelligence. " Consider the Lilies," said the
Master. Truly, there is no more prayerful busi-
ness than this " consideration " of all the flowers
that grow.
And in the garden they are planted especially
to feast the souls that hunger for beauty, and
within doors as well as without they " delight the
spirit of man." Opening out on the long piazza
over the flower beds, and extending almost its
whole length, runs the large, light, airy room
where a group of happy people gather to pass the
94 AN ISLAND GARDEN
swiftly flying summers here at the Isles of Shoals.
This room is made first for music ; on the polished
floor is no carpet to mufBe sound, only a few rugs
here and there, like patches of warm green moss
on the pine-needle color given by the polish to
the natural hue of the wood. There are no heavy
draperies to muffle the windows, nothing to ab-
sorb the sound. The piano stands midway at
one side; there are couches, sofas with pillows
of many shades of dull, rich color, but mostly of
warm shades of green. There are low bookcases
round the walls, the books screened by short cur-
tains of pleasant olive-green ; the high walls to
the ceiling are covered with pictures, and flowers
are everywhere. The shelves of the tall mantel
are splendid with massed Nasturtiums like a blaz-
ing torch, beginning with the palest yellow, almost
white, and piled through every deepening shade
of gold, orange, scarlet, crimson, to the blackest
red ; all along the tops of the low bookcases burn
the fires of Marigolds, Coreopsis, large flowers of
the velvet single Dahlias in yellow, flame, and
scarlet of many shades, masses of pure gold sum-
mer Chrysanthemums, and many more, all here
and there interspersed with blossoming grasses
for a touch of ethereal green. On one low book-
case are Shirley Poppies in a roseate cloud. And
here let me say that the secret of keeping Poppies
in the house two whole days without fading is
this : they must be gathered early, before the dew
has dried, in the morning. I go forth between
five and six o'clock to cut them while yet their
gray-green leaves are hoary with dew, taking a tall
AN ISLAND GARDEN 95
slender pitcher or bottle of water with me into
the garden, and as I cut each stem dropping the
flower at once into it, so that the stem is covered
nearly its whole length with water ; and so on till
the pitcher is full. Gathered in this way, they
have no opportunity to lose their freshness, in-
deed, the exquisite creatures hardly know they
have been gathered at all. When I have all I
need, I begin on the left end of this bookcase,
which most felicitously fronts the light, and into
the glasses put the radiant blossoms with an
infinite enjoyment of the work. The glasses
(thirty-two in all) themselves are beautiful : nearly
all are white, clear and pure, with a few pale
green and paler rose and delicate blue, one or two
of richer pink, all brilliantly clear and filled with
absolutely colorless water, through which the stems
show their slender green lengths. Into the
glasses at this end on the left I put first the daz-
zling white single Poppy, the Bride, to lead the
sweet procession, a marvelous blossom, whose
pure white is half transparent, with its central
altar of ineffable green and gold. A few of these
first, then a dozen or more of delicate tissue-paper-
like blossoms of snow in still another variety
(with petals so thin that a bright color behind
them shows through their filmy texture) ; then the
double kind called Snowdrift, which being double
makes a deeper body of whiteness flecked with
softest shadow. Then I begin with the palest
rose tints, placing them next, and slightly min-
gling a few with the last white ones, a rose tint
delicate as the palm of a baby's hand; then the
96 AN ISLAND GARDEN
next, with a faint suffusion of a blush, and go on
to the next shade, still very delicate, not deeper
than the soft hue on the lips of the great whelk
shells in southern seas; then the damask rose
color and all tints of tender pink, then the deeper
tones to clear, rich cherry, and on to glowing
crimson, through a mass of this to burning
maroon.
The flowers are of all heights (the stems of
different lengths), and, though massed, are in
broken and irregular ranks, the tallest standing
a little over two feet high. But there is no crush-
ing or crowding. Each individual has room to
display its full perfection. The color gathers,
softly flushing from the snow white at one end,
through all rose, pink, cherry, and crimson shades,
to the note of darkest red ; the long stems of ten-
der green showing through the clear glass, the
radiant tempered gold of each flower illuminating
the whole. Here and there a few leaves, stalks,
and buds (if I can bring my mind to the cutting
of these last) are sparingly interspersed at the
back. The effect of this arrangement is perfectly
beautiful. It is simply indescribable, and I have
seen people stand before it mute with delight. It
is like the rose of dawn.
To the left of this altar of flowers is a little
table, upon which a picture stands and leans
against the wall at the back. In the picture two
Tea Roses long since faded live yet in their ex-
quisite hues, never indeed to die. Before this I
keep always a few of the fairest flowers, and call
this table the shrine. Sometimes it is a spray of
AN ISLAND GARDEN 97
Madonna Lilies in a long white vase of ground
glass, or beneath the picture in a jar of yellow
glass floats a saffron-tinted Water Lily, the Chro-
matella, or a tall sapphire glass holds deep blue
Larkspurs of the same shade, or in a red Bohe-
mian glass vase are a few carmine Sweet Peas,
another harmony of color, or a charming dull red
Japanese jar holds a few Nasturtiums that exactly
repeat its hues. The lovely combinations and con-
trasts of flowers and vases are simply endless.
On another small table below the " altar " are
pink Water Lilies in pink glasses and white ones
in white glasses ; a low basket of amber glass is
filled with the pale turquoise of Forget-me-nots,
the glass is iridescent and gleams with changing
reflections, taking tints from every color near it.
Sweet Peas are everywhere about and fill the air
with fragrance ; orange and yellow Iceland Pop-
pies are in tall vases of English glass of light
green. There is a large, low bowl, celadon-tinted,
and decorated with the boughs and fruit of the
Olive on the gray -green background. This is
filled with magnificent Jacqueminot Roses, so
large, so deep in color as to fully merit the word.
Sometimes they are mixed with pink Gabrielle
de Luizets and old-fashioned Damask Roses, and
the bowl is set where the light falls just as it
should to give the splendor of the flowers its full
effect. In the centre of a round table under one
of the chandeliers is a flaring Venice glass as pure
as a drop of dew and of a quaintly lovely shape ;
on the crystal water therein lies a single white
Water Lily, fragrant snow and gold. By itself is
98 AN ISLAND GARDEN
a low vase shaped like a Magnolia flower, with
petals of light yellow deepening in color at the
bottom, where its calyx of olive-green leaves clasps
the flower. This has looking over its edge a few
pale yellow Nasturtiums of the Asa Gray variety,
the lightest of all. With these, one or two of a
richer yellow (Dunnett's Orange), the flowers re-
peating the tones of the vase, and with them
harmoniously blending. A large pearly shell of
the whelk tribe was given me years ago. I did
not know what to do with it. I do not like flowers
in shells as a rule, and I think the shells are best
on the beach where they belong, but I was fond
of the giver, so I sought some way of utilizing the
gift. In itself it was beautiful, a mass of glim-
mering rainbows. I bored three holes in its edge
and suspended it from one of the severely simple
chandeliers with almost invisible wires. I keep
it filled with water and in it arrange sometimes
clusters of monthly Honeysuckle sparingly; the
hues of the flowers and the shell mingle and- blend
divinely. I get the same effect with Hydrangea
flowers, tints and tones all melt together ; so also
with the most delicate Sweet Peas, white, rose, and
lilac; with these I take some lengths of the
blossoming Wild Cucumber vine with its light
clusters of white flowers, or the white Clematis,
the kind called " Traveler's Joy," and weave it
lightly about the shell, letting it creep over one
side and, running up the wires, entirely conceal
them ; then it is like a heavenly apparition afloat
in mid air. Sometimes the tender mauve and
soft rose and delicate blues of the exquisite little
AN ISLAND GARDEN 99
Rose Campion, or Rose of Heaven, with its grassy
foliage, swing in this rainbow shell, making an-
other harmony of hues.
Sometimes it is draped with wild Morning-
glory vines which are gathered with their buds
at evening ; their long wiry stems I coil in the
water, and arrange the graceful lengths of leaves
and buds carefully, letting a few droop over the
edge and twine together beneath the shell, and
some run up to the chandelier and conceal the
wires. The long smooth buds, yellow-white like
ivory, deepen to a touch of bright rose at the tips
close folded. In the morning all the buds open
into fair trumpets of sea -shell pink, turning to
every point of the compass, an exquisite sight to
see. By changing the water daily these vines
last a week, fresh buds maturing and blossoming
every morning.
Near my own seat in a sofa corner at one of
the south windows stands yet another small table,
covered with a snow-white linen cloth embroid-
ered in silk as white and lustrous as silver. On
this are gathered every day all the rarest and
loveliest flowers as they blossom, that I may touch
them, dwell on them, breathe their delightful fra-
grance and adore them. Here are kept the dain-
tiest and most delicate of the vases which may
best set off the flowers' loveliness, the smallest of
the collection, for the table is only large enough
to hold a few. There is one slender small tum-
bler of colorless glass, from the upper edge of
which a crimson stain is diffused half way down
its crystal length. In this I keep one glowing
100 AN ISLAND GARDEN
crimson Burgundy Rose, or an opening Jacque-
minot bud; the effect is as if the color of the
rose ran down and dyed the glass crimson. It
is so beautiful an effect one never wearies of it.
There is a little jar of Venice glass, the kind
which Browning describes in " The Flight of the
Duchess,"
" With long white threads distinct inside,
Like the lake-flower's fibrous roots that dangle
Loose such a length and never tangle."
This is charming with a few rich Pinks of dif-
ferent shades. Another Venice glass is irregu-
larly bottle-shaped, bluish white with cool sea-
green reflections at the bottom, very delicate, like
an aqua-marine. It is lightly sprinkled with gold
dust throughout its whole length ; toward the top
the slender neck takes on a soft touch of pink
which meets and mingles with the Bon Silene or
La France Rose I always keep in it. Another
Venice glass still is a wonder of iridescent blues,
lavenders, gray, and gold, all through, with a faint
hint of elusive green. A spray of heaven-blue
Larkspur dashed with rose is delicious in this
slender shape, with its marvelous tints melting
into the blue and pink of the fairy flowers.
A little glass of crystal girdled with gold holds
pale blue Forget-me-nots; sometimes it is rich
with orange and yellow Erysimum flowers. In
a tall Venetian vase of amber a Lilium auratum
is superb. A low jar of opaque rose-pink, lost at
the bottom in milky whiteness, is refreshing with
an old-fashioned Damask Rose matching its color
AN ISLAND GARDEN 101
exactly. This is also exquisite with one pink
Water Lily. The pink variety of the Rose Cam-
pion is enchanting in this low jar. A tall shaft
of ruby glass is radiant with Poppies of every
shade of rose and lightest scarlet, with the silvery
green of a few oats among them. A slender pur-
ple glass is fine with different shades of purple
and lilac Sweet Peas, or one or two purple Pop-
pies, or an Aster or two of just its color, but there
is one long gold-speckled Bohemian glass of rich
green which is simply perfect for any flower that
blows, and perfect under any circumstances. A
half dozen Iceland Poppies, white, yellow, orange,
in a little Japanese porcelain bottle, always stand
on this beautiful table, the few flecks of color on
the bottle repeating their tints. I never could
tell half the lovely combinations that glow on this
table all summer long.
By the wide western window a large vase of
clear white glass, nearly three feet high, stands
full of spears of timothy grass taller than the vase,
the tallest I can find, springing stately and high,
their heavy green tops bending the fine strong
stems just enough for consummate grace. These
are mixed with lighter branching grasses, and
down among the grass stalks are thrust the slen-
der stalks of tall Poppies of every conceivable
shade of red ; the whole is a great sheaf of splen-
dor reaching higher than the top of the window.
This is really imposing ; it takes the eye with de-
light.
All summer long within this pleasant room the
flowers hold carnival in every possible combina-
102 AN ISLAND GARDEN
tion of beauty. All summer long it is kept fresh
and radiant with their loveliness, a wonder of
bloom, color, and fragrance. Year after year a
long procession of charming people come and go
within its doors, and the flowers that glow for
their delight seem to listen with them to the mu-
sic that stirs each blossom upon its stem. Often
have I watched the great red Poppies drop their
fiery petals wavering solemnly to the floor, stricken
with arrows of melodious sound from the match-
less violin answering to the touch of a master, or
to the storm of rich vibrations from the piano.
What heavenly music has resounded from those
walls, what mornings and evenings of pleasant-
ness have flown by in that room ! How many
people who have been happy there have gone
out of it and of the world forever ! Yet still the
summers come, the flowers bloom, are gathered
and adored, not without wistful thought of the
eyes that will see them no more. Still in the
sweet tranquil mornings at the piano one sits
playing, also with a master's touch, and strains of
Schubert, Mozart, Schumann, Chopin, Rubin-
stein, Beethoven, and many others, soothe and
enchant the air. The wild bird's song that breaks
from without into the sonata makes no discord.
Open doors and windows lead out on the vine-
wreathed veranda, with the garden beyond steeped
in sunshine, a sea of exquisite color swaying in
the light air. Poppies blowing scarlet in the
wind, or delicately flushing in softest rose or
clearest red, or shining white where the Bride
stands tall and fair, like a queen among them all
AN ISLAND GARDEN 103
A thousand varied hues amid the play of flutter-
ing leaves : Marigolds ablaze in vivid flame ; pur-
ple Pansies, a myriad flowers, white, pink, blue,
carmine, lavender, in waves of sweet color and
perfume to the garden fence, where stand the
sentinel Sunflowers and Hollyhocks, gorgeously
arrayed and bending gently to the breeze; Sun-
flowers with broad faces that seem to reflect the
glory of the day; the Hollyhocks, tall spikes of
pale and deep pink, white, scarlet, yellow, maroon,
and many hues. Over the sweet sea of flowers
the butterflies go wavering on airy wings of white
and gold, the bees hum in the Hollyhocks, and
the humming-birds glitter like jewels in the sun ;
but whether these their winged lovers go or come,
the flowers do not care, they live their happy
lives and rejoice, intent only on fulfilling Heaven's
will, to grow and to blossom in the utmost per-
fection possible to them. Climbing the 'trellis,
the monthly Honeysuckle holds its clusters high
against the pure sunlit sky, glowing in beauty
beyond any words of mine to tell. Charming
people sit within the pleasant room among its
flowers, listening to the delicious music; others
are grouped without in the sun-flecked shadow of
the green vines, where the cool air ripples lightly
in the leaves ; lovely women in colors that seem
to have copied the flowers in the garden, and all
steeped in sweet dreams and fugitive fancies as
delicate as the perfumes that drift in soft waves
from the blossoms below. Beyond the garden
the green grassy spaces sloping to the sea are rich
with blossoming thickets of wild Roses, among
104 AN ISLAND GARDEN
the bleached white ledges, blushing fair to see,
and the ocean beyond shimmers and sparkles
beneath the touch of the warm south wind.
Enchanting days, and evenings still more so, if
that were possible! With the music still thrill-
ing within the lighted room where the flowers
glow under the lamplight, while floods of moon-
light make more mystic the charmed night with-
out. The thick curtain of the green vine that
drapes the piazza is hung over its whole surface
with the long drooping clusters of its starry flow-
ers that lose all their sweetness upon the air,
and show from the garden beneath like an im-
mense airy veil of delicate white lace in the moon-
light, a wonderful white glory. Through the
windows cut in this living curtain of leaves and
flowers we look out over the sea beneath the
moon is anything more mysteriously beautiful ?
on glimmering waves and shadowy sails and
rocks dim in broken light and shade ; on the
garden with all its flowers so full of color that
even in the moonlight their hues are visibly glow-
ing. The fair creatures stand still, unstirred by
any wandering airs, the Lilies gleam, and the
white stars of the Nicotiana, the white Poppies,
the white Asters that just begin to bloom, and
the tall milky clusters of the Phlox : nothing dis-
turbs their slumber save perhaps the wheeling of
the rosy-winged Sphinx moth that flutters like
the spirit of the night above them as they dream.
HE garden suffers from the long
drought in this last week of July,
though I water it faithfully. The sun
burns so hot that the earth dries again
^^ in an hour, after the most thorough
drenching I can give it. The patient flowers seem
to be standing in hot ashes, with the air full of fire
above them. The cool breeze from the sea flutters
their drooping petals, but does not refresh them in
the blazing noon. Outside the garden on the island
slopes the baked turf cracks away from the heated
ledges of rock, and all the pretty growths of Sor-
rel and Eyebright, Grasses and Crowfoot, Poten-
tilla and Lion's-tongue, are crisp and dead. All
things begin again to pine and suffer for the
healing touch of the rain.
Toward noon on this last day of the month the
air darkens, and around the circle of the horizon
the latent thunder mutters low. Light puffs of
wind eddy round the garden, and whirl aloft the
weary Poppy petals high in air, till they wheel
like birds about the chimney-tops. Then all is
quiet once more. In the rich, hot sky the clouds
105
106 AN ISLAND GARDEN
pile themselves slowly, superb white heights of
thunder-heads warmed with a brassy glow that
deepens to rose in their clefts toward the sun.
These clouds grow and grow, showing like Alpine
summits amid the shadowy heaps of looser vapor ;
all the great vault of heaven gathers darkness ;
soon the cloudy heights, melting, are suffused
in each other, losing shape and form and color.
Then over the coast-line the sky turns a hard
gray-green, against which rises with solemn move-
ment and awful deliberation an arch of leaden
vapor spanning the heavens from southwest to
northeast, livid, threatening, its outer edges
shaped like the curved rim of a mushroom,
gathering swiftness as it rises, while the water
beneath is black as hate, and the thunder rolls
peal upon peal, as faster and faster the wild arch
moves upward into tremendous heights above our
heads. The whole sky is dark with threatening
purple. Death and destruction seem ready to
emerge from beneath that flying arch of which
the livid fringes stream like gray flame as the
wind rends its fierce and awful edge. Under it
afar on the black level water a single sail gleams
chalk-white in the gloom, a sail that even as we
look is furled away from our sight, that the frail
craft which bears it may ride out the gale under
bare poles, or drive before it to some haven of
safety. Earth seems to hold her breath before
the expected fury. Lightning scores the sky from
zenith to horizon, and across from north to south
"a fierce, vindictive scribble of fire" writes its
blinding way, and the awesome silence is broken
AN ISLAND GARDEN 107
by the cracking thunder that follows every flash.
A moment more, and a few drops like bullets
strike us ; then the torn arch flies over in tat-
tered rags, a monstrous apparition lost in dark-
ness; then the wind tears the black sea into white
rage and roars and screams and shouts with tri-
umph, the floods and the hurricane have it all
their own way. Continually the tempest is shot
through with the leaping lightning and crashing
thunder, like steady cannonading, echoing and
reechoing, roaring through the vast empty spaces
of the heavens. In pauses of the tumult a strange
light is fitful over sea and rocks, then the tem-
pest begins afresh as if it had taken breath and
gained new strength. One's whole heart rises
responding to the glory and the beauty of the
storm, and is grateful for the delicious refresh-
ment of the rain. Every leaf rejoices in the life-
giving drops. Through the dense sparkling rain-
curtain the lightning blazes now in crimson and
in purple sheets of flame. Oh, but the wind is
wild ! Spare my treasures, oh, do not slay ut-
terly my beautiful, beloved flowers ! The tall
stalks bend and strain, the Larkspurs bow. I
hold my breath while the danger lasts, thinking
only of the wind's power to harm the garden ; for
the leaping lightning and the crashing thunder I
love, but the gale fills me with dread for my flow-
ers defenseless. Still down pour the refreshing
floods ; everything is drenched : where are the
humming-birds? The boats toss madly on the
moorings, the sea breaks wildly on the shore,
the world is drowned and gone, there is nothing
108 AN ISLAND GARDEN
but tempest and tumult and rush and roar of wind
and rain.
The long trailing sprays of the Echinocystus
vine stretch and strain like pennons flying out in
the blast, the Wistaria tosses its feathery plumes
over the arch above the door. Alas, for my bank
of tall Poppies and blue Cornflowers and yellow
Chrysanthemums outside ! The Poppies are laid
low, never to rise again, but the others will gather
themselves together by and by, and the many-
colored fires of Nasturtiums will clothe the slope
with new beauty presently. The storm is sweep-
ing past, already the rain diminishes, the light-
ning pales, the thunder retreats till leagues and
leagues away we hear it "moaning and calling
out of other lands." The clouds break away and
show in the west glimpses of pure, melting blue,
the sun bursts forth, paints a rainbow in the east
upon the flying fragments of the storm, and pours
a flood of glory over the drowned earth ; the
pelted flowers take heart and breathe again, every
leaf shines, dripping with moisture; the grassy
slopes laugh in sweet color; the sea calms itself
to vast tranquillity and answers back the touch
of the sun with a million glittering smiles.
Though the outside bank of flowers is wrecked
and the tall Poppies prone upon the ground, those
inside the garden are safe because I took the pre-
caution to run two rows of wire netting up and
down through the beds for their support. So,
when the winds are cruelly violent, the tall, brittle
stalks lean against this light but strong bulwark
and are unhurt.
AN ISLAND GARDEN 109
After the storm, in the clear, beautiful morning,
before sunrise I went as usual into the garden to
gather my flowers. To and fro, up and down
over the ruined bank I passed ; the wind blew
cool and keen from the west, though the sky was
smiling. The storm had beaten the flowers flat
all over the slope ; in scarlet and white and blue
and pink and purple and orange bloom they were
prostrate everywhere, leaves, stalks, blossoms, and
all tangled and matted in an inextricable con-
fusion. Swiftly I made my way through it, find-
ing a foothold here and there, and stooping for
every freshly unfolded cup or star or bell whose
bud the tempest had spared. As I neared the lit-
tle western gate with my hands full of blossoms to
enter the garden on my way to the house, I was
stopped still as a statue before a most pathetic
sight. There, straight across the way, a tall
Poppy plant lay prone upon the ground, and
clinging to the stem of one of its green seed-pods
sat my precious pet humming-bird, the dearest of
the flock that haunt the garden, the tamest of
them all. His eyes were tightly closed, his tiny
claws clasped the stem automatically, he had no
feeling, he was rigid with cold. The chill dew
loaded the gray-green Poppy leaves, the keen
wind blew sharply over him, he is dead, I
thought with a pang, as I shifted my flowers in a
glowing heap to my left arm, and clasped the
frozen little body in the palm of my right hand.
It was difficult to disengage his slender wiry claws
from their close grip on the chilly stalk, but he
never moved or showed a sign of life as I took
HO AN ISLAND GARDEN
him off. I held him most tenderly in my closed
hand, very careful not to crush or even press his
tiny perishing body, and breathed into the shut
hollow of my palm upon him with a warm and
loving breath. I was so very busy, there were so
many things to be done that morning, I could not
stop to sit down and nurse him back to life. But
I held him safe, and as I went up and down the
garden paths gathering the rest of my flowers, I
breathed every moment into my hand upon him.
Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed ; he made no
sign of life. Alas, I thought, he is truly dead;
when all at once I felt the least little thrill pass
through the still, cold form, an answering thrill
of joy ran through me in response, and more
softly, closely, tenderly yet I sent my warm breath
to the tiny creature as I still went on with my
work. In a few minutes more I began to feel
the smallest fluttering pulse of life throbbing
faintly within him ; in yet a few moments more
he stirred and stretched his wings, comforting
himself in the genial heat. When at last I felt
him all alive, I took a small shallow basket of
yellow straw, very small and light, and in it put
a tuft of soft cotton wool, filled a tiny glass cup
with sugar and water, honey-thick, placed it in the
basket by the cotton, then gently laid the wee bird
on the warm fluff. His eyes were still closed,
but he moved his head slowly from side to side.
The sun had risen and was pouring floods of light
and heat into the garden. I carried the basket
out into the corner where the heavenly blue Lark-
spurs stood behind the snow-whiteness of the full
AN ISLAND GARDEN HI
blossoming Lilies, and among the azure spikes I
hung the pretty cradle where the sunbeams lay
hottest and brightest on the flowers. The wind,
grown balmy and mild, rocked the tall flower-
spikes gently, the basket swayed with them, and
the heat was so reviving that the dear little crea-
ture presently opened his eyes and quietly looked
about him. At that my heart rejoiced. It was
delightful to watch his slow return to his old self
as I still went on with my work, looking continu-
ally toward him to see how he was getting on.
The ardent sunbeams sent fresh life through him ;
suddenly he rose, an emerald spark, into the air,
and quivered among the blue flowers, diving deep
into each winged blossom for his breakfast of
honey.
All day and every day he haunts the garden,
and when tired rests contentedly on the small twig
of a dry pea-stick near the Larkspurs. The rosy
Peas blossom about him, the Hollyhock flowers
unfold in glowing pink with lace-like edges of
white ; the bees hum there all day in and out of
the many flowers; the butterflies hover and waver
and wheel. When one comes too near him, up
starts my beauty and chases him away on bur-
nished wings, away beyond the garden's bounds,
and returns to occupy his perch in triumph, the
dry twig he has taken for his home the whole
sweet summer long. Other humming-birds haunt
the place, but he belongs there ; they go and come,
but he keeps to his perch and his Larkspurs faith-
fully. He is so tame he never stirs from his twig
for anybody, no matter how near a person may
112 AN ISLAND GARDEN
come ; he alights on my arms and hands and hair
unafraid ; he rifles the flowers I hold, when I am
gathering them, and I sometimes think he is the
very most charming thing in the garden. The
jealous bees and the butterflies follow the flow-
ers I carry also, sometimes all the way into the
house. The other day, as I sat in the piazza.
which the vines shade with their broad green
leaves and sweet white flowers climbing up to the
eaves and over the roof, I saw the humming-birds
hovering over the whole expanse of green, to and
fro, and discovered that they were picking off and
devouring the large transparent aphides scattered,
I am happy to say but sparingly, over its surface,
every little gnat and midge they snapped up with
avidity. I had fancied they lived on honey, but
they appeared to like the insects quite as well.
In the sweet silence before sunrise, standing in
the garden I watch the large round shield of the
full moon slowly fading in the west from copper
to brass and then to whitest silver, throwing across
a sea of glass its long, still reflection, while the
deep, pure sky takes on a rosy warmth of color
from the approaching sun. Soon an insufferable
glory burns on the edge of the eastern horizon ;
up rolls the great round red orb and sets the dew
twinkling and sparkling in a thousand rainbows,
sending its first rejoicing rays over the wide face
of the world. When in these fresh mornings I
go into my garden before any one is awake, I go
for the time being into perfect happiness. In this
hour divinely fresh and still, the fair face of every
flower salutes me with a silent joy that fills me
AN ISLAND GARDEN 113
with infinite content; each gives me its color,
its grace, its perfume, and enriches me with the
consummation of its beauty. All the cares, per-
plexities, and griefs of existence, all the burdens
of life slip from my shoulders and leave me
with the heart of a little child that asks nothing
beyond its present moment of innocent bliss.
These myriad beaming faces turned to mine seem
to look at me with blessing eyes. I feel the per-
sonality of each flower, and I find myself greeting
them as if they were human. "Good-morning,
beloved friends ! Are all things well with you ?
And are you tranquil and bright ? and are you
happy and beautiful ? " They stand in their peace
and purity and lift themselves to my adoring gaze
as if they knew my worship, so calm, so sweet,
so delicately radiant, I lose myself in the tran-
quillity of their happiness. They seem like senti-
ent beings, as if they knew me and loved me, not
indeed as I love them, but with almost a reliance
on my sympathy and care, and a pleasure in my
delight in them. I please myself with the thought
that if anything goes wrong with them, if a vine
or tender stalk droops for lack of support, or if
some insect is working them woe, or threat of
harm comes to them from any quarter, they say
to each other, " Patience ! She will be coming
soon, she will see our trouble, she will succor us,
and all will again be well."
The summer life in the garden of the winged
things of the air is most charming, the wonder-
ful creatures that have escaped, as it were, from
the earth. The life that crawls and creeps and
II 4 AN ISLAND GARDEN
devours and destroys, in the forms of slug and
cutworm and all hideous shapes, is utterly forgot-
ten as we watch these ethereal beings, fluttering,
quivering, darting, dancing, wavering, wheeling,
rejoicing aloft in merry flight. The Larkspur
spikes bend with the weight of the booming bees,
the whole blossoming space is alive with many-
colored butterflies like floating flowers, and the
humming-birds are a perpetual pleasure. They
are astir even before sunrise, when the air is yet
chill with the breath of the retreating night,
there they are, vibrating with their soft humming
over the Larkspur blossoms which are themselves
like exquisite azure birds all poised for flight,
or diving deep into the fragrant trumpets of the
Honeysuckle, everywhere flashing in emerald and
ruby as the sun's first beams strike them, like the
living jewels they are. Their fearlessness is some-
thing amazing. I never shall forget the surprise
of joy that filled me when for the first time one
alighted on my sleeve and rested, as much at home
as if I were a stick or a harmless twig ! Sparrows
and nuthatches had often alighted on my head as
I stood musing over my flowers, perfectly still,
but to have this tiny spark of brilliant life come
to anchor, as it were, on anything so earthly as my
arm was indeed a nine days' wonder ! Now it has
grown to be an old story, but it is never any less
delightful.
August 1 8th. This morning the garden was so
dry again when I sought it at sunrise, in spite of
the heavy dew, that I took the hose and turned
on the water, showering the whole place most
AN ISLAND GARDEN 115
thoroughly. When I had done the drops clung
thickly to everything, to the sprays of Sweet Peas
especially, the rough surface of their leaves
and stalks catching and holding the water more
tenaciously than the smoother foliage ; they were
begemmed, as it were, with so many sparkling
spheres of light. The tamest, dearest humming-
bird, whose home is in the Larkspurs, was greatly
excited by this unexpected and refreshing shower,
and whirred about me, uttering continually his
one fine, sweet, keen note. When my rain-storm
ceased he flew to the Sweet Peas close to his
azure bower, and sitting on a green spray already
bent with the weight of the clear drops, proceeded
to take his morning bath with the most cheerful
enjoyment. He fluttered his tiny wings and
ducked his head and wagged his tail and drenched
himself completely ; his feathers were so soaking
wet that his little body looked no bigger than a
bumble-bee ; then he flew up and lighted on the
tallest pea-stick that reached over the fence
among the Larkspurs : there sitting on his favorite
twig he rapidly preened his feathers, shook him-
self, spread his wings and tail and combed them
with his slender beak and dried them in the
broad, bright beams that poured across the gar-
den from the low sun. With claws and beak he
smoothed and arranged his dainty raiment, per-
fectly regardless of me, his ardent admirer, stand-
ing near enough to touch him with my finger.
Then he fluttered in and out among the flowers,
dipping into every dewy chalice and feasting on
his fragrant honey.
Il6 AN ISLAND GARDEN
I wonder, as I muse over the charms of these
most minute of feathered creatures, how it is pos-
sible for their tiny wings to bear them over the
miles of restless and perilous brine, to find this
rock with its nest of flowers ! Do they surmise
the hospitality that awaits them at the end of
their long journey as they steer their dangerous
way across the wastes of the salt sea on those
small, weak, quivering pinions ? Have they some
subtle inkling of the tender welcome that awaits
them here ? Do they guess how they will be ad-
mired and adored? I have filled a small glass
mug with sugar and water thick as honey, and
fastened it in a crotch of the pea-sticks for them
to feed upon ; the bees throng to it, the ants
have found it, and I hope the humming-birds will
feast there too. One morning lately, as I was busy
in the garden, a little creature brushed by me so
close I thought it was a bee ; turning to look at
it, I was sure it was a humming-bird, but such an
atom ! Its like I had never imagined. I watched
it, fascinated, as it flew here, there, and everywhere,
whirring just like a humming-bird, crazy over the
annual Larkspurs. A greenish golden sheen was
reflected from the head and back, the very color
of the little bird, and it had a small, short tail, with
a band of white round its body, which seemed
feathered, as also its mottled breast. Its bright
black eyes were like the bird's, and it hummed
with its wings in precisely the same way. Its
beak was short, and as it went from flower to
flower, probing for honey, I was perfectly sure it
was a new variety of humming-bird, the most
AN ISLAND GARDEN 117
minute that was ever created. I watched it with
breathless interest, completely puzzled by it. Per-
fectly tame, it flew all about me and investigated
the flowers in my hand. Suddenly I discovered
that it had three pairs of legs! No bird, I said,
ever had more than one, and then I was satisfied
that it must be the most marvelous moth in the
world. It was so happy and beautiful, flying
about so confidingly in the bright sunshine within
reach of my hand ! But I knew of some one to
whom it would be a treasure, so I threw a light
veil over, caught it, and sent it softly to sleep
forever with some chloroform. It was j&Lllopos
Titan, very rare, and found in the tropics.
The dazzling white Lilies blossoming now,
bright as silvery snow below the Larkspurs, are
taller than they by several feet. I wish I could
in any words paint the hues of these splendid
Delphiniums ; such shades of melting blue, some
light, others dark, some like the summer heaven,
and dashed across their pale azure wings with de-
licious rose. Now is the garden at high tide of
beauty. Sweet Peas are brilliant in all their vivid
tints ; they are doing bravely, spite of the drought,
because their roots are so well shaded. They
bloom so plenteously that they can hardly be
gathered, though they are cut daily. The Rose
Campion bed is a lake of delicate colors with its
border of scarlet Flax. Poppies of every tint are
blazing; the Hollyhocks are splendid, with their
comrades the Sunflowers; every day the single
Dahlias surprise me with new and unexpected
flowers ; the Tea Rose bed is a perpetual delight
Il8 AN ISLAND GARDEN
and astonishment ; the purple Zanzibar Lily is
blossoming in its tub and never is without its
wonderful cup afloat ; the Lotus sends up strong,
long-stemmed leaves aloft, and keeps me eagerly
looking for its promised flower of radiant pink,
its leaves are a marvel with their mystic markings
held so high above the water. The Honeysuckles
are breathing out all their sweetness on the air ;
the Pinks are out in spicy bloom ; the Mountain
Fringe drapes the doorway with cloudy green
and pale rose-color. Constellations of Marigolds
and Artemisias and Coreopsis, whole solar sys-
tems of fiery suns and stars, blossom all over the
place, and in partly shaded corners large fragrant
stars of Nicotiana shine also when twilight falls.
The Japanese Sunflowers make every spot gay
where they unfold; they are hardy; when once
they fairly get a foothold in the garden, they will
not be dislodged, and I for one would never wish
to dislodge them, though they spread and grow
and multiply rapidly, and take much space if left
to go on undisturbed. They have an indescriba-
ble golden atmosphere about them, because, I sup-
pose, of their cup-like shape ; they never stretch
their petals out flat like other Sunflowers. They
have a small brown central disk, and their " ray-
like florets " are of deep yellow, curved more in-
ward than outward. The Artemisias are in one
shade of full, rich gold, in shape like a common
field Daisy ; the Marigolds are in every shade of
yellow, orange, and flame, effulgent, some with
centres of velvet brown, some with peacock green,
some all gold, with exquisite gradations of color
AN ISLAND GARDEN U 9
through all their rays. "Ardent Marigolds!"
sang John Keats. Ardent indeed they are, with
fervors of color that glow like the beams of day.
The dark crimson Jacqueminot Roses are al-
most gone, but almost every other flower is at its
best, the whole garden in blossom at once. Dearly
I love to sit in the sun upon the doorstep with
a blossom in my hand and meditate upon its
details, the lavish elaboration of its loveliness, to
study every peculiar characteristic of each, and
wonder and rejoice in its miraculous existence, a
feast more delicate and satisfying than the honey
the birds and bees and butterflies gather from its
heart. Over my head the Coboea vine droops its
large green and purple bells, with many another
flower beside. The Tropaeolum Lucifer throng-
ing up the trellis on either hand truly merits the
name of Light-bearer; its scarlet velvet blooms
have almost an illuminating quality. I hold a
flower of the pretty Love-in-a-mist, the quaint
Nigella, and scan its charming face. It blossoms
late and long, and is a flower of most distin-
guished beauty. It is star -shaped, in tints of
white, blue, and purple, with full rich stamens
and anthers of warmer red-purple, the petals on
the back delicately veined in each variety with
fine lines of faint green. The rich cluster of
stamens is surrounded at the base by eight smaller
inner petals in different tints, so wonderful in de-
tail, so ornate in decoration as to be simply inde-
scribable. Each large outer petal is curved and
cup-shaped, yet each has its finishing point which
makes the blossom starry, and these eight inner
120 AN ISLAND GARDEN
petals radiate from the centre within, above the
larger ones. The foliage whence it gets its old-
time name, Love-in-a-mist, is like a soft green
vapor, and in the double varieties, the white es-
pecially, runs up and mixes itself with the petals.
The single varieties are much the finest. They
have a faint perfume of anise, and they are among
the quaintest and most interesting flowers I know.
I love to pore over every blossom that unfolds
in the garden, no matter what it may be, to study
it and learn it by heart as far as a poor mortal
may. If one but gazes closely into a tiny flower
of the pale blue Forget-me-not, what a chapter
of loveliness is there ! One sees at a glance the
sweet color of the starry, compact cluster, and
perhaps will notice that the delicate buds in their
cherishing calyx are several shades of rose and
lilac before they unclose, but unless one studies
it closely, how shall one know that in most cases
the himmel-blau petals are distinctly heart-shaped,
that round its golden centre it wears a necklace
of pearls, or so they seem, till on looking closer
one discovers that the effect is made by the
fluting of the whitened folds of each petal at the
base ; it looks precisely as if it wore a string of
polished beads. The tiny spot of darkness within
its inmost yellow ring holds five stamens, with
dusty anthers of paler yellow (also heart-shaped
when the flower first unfolds) in a close circle
round the pistil of pale green. Unless the eyes
are young and keen a microscope only will tell
this ; but it is one of the wisest things in the
world to carry in one's pocket a little magnifying
AN ISLAND GARDEN 12 1
glass, for this opens so many unknown gates into
the wonders and splendors of Creation. There
is such wealth of ornament, such marvelous sub-
tile thought spent on the smallest blossom ! The
" sweet and cunning hand of Nature " is so lavish
of its work, and it is all so happy, the joy is so
inexhaustible, the refreshment to the human soul
so heavenly !
The fragrant fringes of the Mignonette, how
surprising and curiously beautiful they are under
the little pocket microscope ! What elaboration
of detail, what tempered harmonies of color, what
marvels of construction ! I reach my hand for a
blossom of Coreopsis Coronata some one has let
fall on the step, what a refulgent flower! There
is something Spanish about its aspect always to
me. There are eight yellow velvet petals deeply
toothed at the edges, and rich embroideries in
red about the warmer yellow of the centre. Gor-
geous it is, and so is its relative, Coreopsis Drum-
mondii, and both have a double row of sepals, the
row nearest the corolla brown and thin and light,
the outer one much coarser and bright green.
The centre of the Drummondii is more like the
wild Rudbeckia, with markings not so ornate as
the Coronata, but in a mass, and of a brighter,
clearer red. All this family of flowers, Lanceo-
lata, Golden Banner, the deep scarlet and maroon
varieties, are superb and most decorative.
It is a great temptation to linger over the love-
liness of every flower that unfolds, but I spare
my patient readers, and leave them to pursue
these fascinating researches for themselves.
122 AN ISLAND GARDEN
I have had reward enough for all my care of
the Water Lilies (even though they had put forth
only leaves, but they have blossomed well) in the
delight of the birds over the tubs of clear water
on which the mottled leaves are floating. So
many charming creatures pause at them to drink,
and the song-sparrows bathe there daily. En-
chanting it is to watch their pretty ways as they
hop from the tub's edge upon a Lily-pad which
yields beneath their weight and lets them gently
down, but out of this they always flit and take
their own way about it, dipping and splashing
bravely till they are thoroughly drenched, then
preening and drying themselves as they sit upon
the brim, and singing their song of sweet content
when all is done.
September 23d. Now are the crickets loud in
the grass and the Hawkweed waves in pale yellow
all over the island, the autumn Dandelion, starry
on its long and slender stem. But still the gar-
den glows, and still autumn
" Sets budding more
And still more later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er brimmed their clammy cells."
Where the Hollyhocks earliest to blossom stand
bereft of all save their thick-growing, full, round
seed vessels, the late Morning-glories have
wreathed and twined themselves and hung the
stems with white and rose and heaven-blue bells,
and the later blooming stalks are rich with fresh
flowers. Still the Sweet Peas blossom as if their
AN ISLAND GARDEN 123
thick ranks were ready to fly away with myriad
wings of delicious pink, blue, purple, red, and
white. Poppies yet bloom, Rose Campions at
their brightest, hemmed in with the Scarlet Flax,
and the stars and suns of Marigolds blaze with a
matchless glory. Single Dahlias are sumptuous
in every color, and in their prime. One Coreopsis
Golden Banner is a sight to see, like a great gold
mountain heaped in the middle of the garden.
Many kinds of Helianthus make splendid the lit-
tle inclosure ; Love-in-a-mist puts out flower after
flower of mystic charm; the Asters bloom in
profusion of exquisite colors, the Comet variety,
which I think is most lovely of all. The white
Stocks are dazzling in their purity, and so fra-
grant ! Nasturtiums run riot, of course, and light
up every corner ; the Phloxes glow ; the Mourn-
ing Brides are fine in their sumptuous black-red
velvet; Verbenas are brilliant; Tea Roses blos-
soming yet ; the Giant Spider flower, Cleome
pungens, rises all over the garden in rosy purple
clouds. Mignonette is lavish of rich spikes of
bloom, and the Pansies never so splendid; im-
mense smooth, perfect flowers of every color, they
never put forth such in the summer heats. Pico-
tee pinks are bright and sweet, but the poor little
Margarets suffered too much with the venomous
carnation worm, spite of my daily care, and are
only just now sending up their buds. I shall take
them up and keep them safe in the house over
the winter. In a corner the deep blue Plum-
bago Lady Larpent blooms finely, the Foxgloves
are strong and tall, though they will not blossom
124 AN ISLAND GARDEN
till another year ; but the whole garden is a mass
of bloom and fragance, still haunted by birds,
bees, butterflies, and dragonflies; the humming-
birds are gone, I know not whither, not to return
this year. The withering vines are alive with
many little creepers and warblers and flycatchers ;
indeed, the island is full of distinguished bird-
strangers on their way south. Scores of golden
woodpeckers, or flickers, or yellow-hammers (they
have dozens of striking names) are here, and just
now two great ospreys perch on the vane above
the highest ridge-pole, and soar and perch again,
uttering strange, harsh cries. This morning a
large flock of wild geese flew over toward the
south, so low we could see the colors and the
markings of their plumage. The familiar curlews
call sweetly as in spring. Outside the garden
this tranquil morning the soft green turf that
slopes smoothly to the sea in front is shaggy with
the thick dew from which the yet low sun strikes
a thousand broken rainbows. The clumps of
wild Roses glow with their red haws in the full
light; the Elder bushes are laden with clusters of
purple berries ; Goldenrod and wild Asters bloom,
and a touch of fire begins to light up the Huckle-
berry bushes, " Autumn laying here and there a
fiery finger on the leaves." The gray rocks show
so fair in the changing lights, and all the dear
island with its sights and sounds is set in the
pale light summer-blue of a smiling sea as if it
were June, with hardly a wave to break its happy
calm. Round the horizon a band of haze, the
same ashes-of-roses color as that which makes
AN ISLAND GARDEN 125
lovely the skies of May, holds the fair world in a
light embrace for this one day ; a few white clouds
are losing themselves in the pure blue above; a
few sails gleam afar. Though the tide is full, it
makes no murmur; I hear only the drowsy bees
in the Hollyhocks, the young fledgling song-
sparrows trying their voices, learning the sweet
song their parents are pouring at intervals on the
quiet air, and the chirp and twitter of other birds,
birds of passage, with finch and thrush, nuthatch
and late robin, the whistle of a whitethroat, the
clanking jar of the kingfisher that perches on the
mast of the faithful little tug Pinafore (so many
years our only link with the mainland in winter),
as she lies at her wharf in the upper cove, and
shows his handsome blue and gray plumage and
white collar glittering in the sun. A fisherman
draws his nets in a shining white skiff, but he
makes no sound that I can hear. The season is
so divinely tranquil and sweet, all things are so
beautiful in and about the little isle, from the glit-
tering seal that emerges from the waves to sun
himself sometimes on the seaweed-covered rocks,
to the smallest flower that blossoms in my gar-
den ; from the wonderful jelly-fish that spreads its
large diaphanous cup, expanding and contracting
as it swims, and colored like a great melting opal
in the pale-green, translucent water, to the bright-
eyed bats that flitter at dusk when the evening
star is sparkling above the rich red of the sunset
sky. And that reminds me that all summer a
white bat has skittered ghostly with its dark com-
panions, as soon as twilight fell, about the place.
126 AN ISLAND GARDEN
Of a white bat never before have I heard, but all
kinds of strange and remarkable creatures find
their way here, and I am surprised at nothing.
Once more the weird laughter of the loons
comes to my ear, the distance lends it a musical,
melancholy sound. From a dangerous ledge off
the lighthouse island floats in on the still air the
gentle tolling of a warning bell as it swings on its
rocking buoy ; it might be tolling for the passing
of summer and sweet weather with that persist-
ent, pensive chime.
And so the ripe year wanes. From turfy
slopes afar the breeze brings delicious, pungent,
spicy odors from the wild Everlasting flowers, and
the mushrooms are pearly in the grass. I gather
the seed-pods in the garden beds, sharing their
bounty with the birds I love so well, for there are
enough and to spare for us all. Soon will set
in the fitful weather, with fierce gales and sullen
skies and frosty air, and it will be time to tuck up
safely my Roses and Lilies and the rest for their
long winter sleep beneath the snow, where I never
forget them, but ever dream of their wakening
in happy summers yet to be.
<t&e fcitoetfibe
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
This book is DUE on the 1* !*- Mr nH helow
SB
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