Gardening
On the eve
Denis Wood
Towards the end of May the country is poised at the edge of summer. The loud Wagnerian longueurs of the full opera of roses, delphiniums and phlox are still some way off, but although the year is hardening to summer, some of the more sensitively scored overture remains. Dandelions in grass by the roadside have given way to buttercups, which are also making sheets of gold in meadows by the river. In the garden there is still a quality of freshness as of first love, and of its transience also. Lilacs are still with us, Katherine Havemeyer is the essential lilac, deep purple-lavender in colour. A real blue is Firmament, opening pinkish-mauve, but turning soon to an unmistakable sky-blue. A very solid double white is Madame Lemoine, but the best of all for me is Buffon, whose gentle pink flowers fade to softest amethystine tones. All of these were raised in France at Nancy by Emile
Lemoine, Madame Lemoine in 1890, the others between 1921 and 1932.
This is the time too for irises, the most distinguished sculptured plants in the garden. Iris florentina, whose rhizomes are dried to make orris root, is thought to be the prototype of the fluer-de-lis of French heraldry. Its flowers are almost white, but tinged with pale lavender, seldom seen in gardens although it is still in nurserymen's catalogues and ought to be more widely grown. In his book Paradis in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (1692), Parkinson mentions a great Dalmation Flowerdeluce. This may be what we know as Iris pallida dalmaticci, whose great charm is its tall blue-grey leaves and soft lavender coloured flowers. It seems almost to have vanished from nurserymen's lists, except for The Plantsmen of Sherborne, Dorset, who can still supply it. The best of all the blues is still Jane Phillips, a fairly pale blue, Harbor Blue and Blue Rhythm are others. Cliffs of Dover has white flowers with a ruffled milky-white beard, 3 ft 6 ins high, and an even taller one is White City. 'there is a variety of iris known as plicata which de Jager accurately describes as having stippled, dotted, stitched or suffused colour on a light ground. Of these Rosy Veil is enchanting, its delicate whiteness being stitched with rose-heliotrope along the margins. Another is Snow Tracery, which is again white but stitched with pale blue-violet.
Double Chinese peonies will not be seen until June, but the old cottage peonies will be in flower about now. Paeonza officinalis, double pink, double white anddouble red; these come out for
Pentecost. The red one, crimson not scarlet, is very much the colour of hangings put round the
pillars of churches in Italy, of the great church of the Fran i in Venice
for instance, where I once went in as Mass was ending in clouds of incense and stood in the crowd looking up at Titian's glowing Assumption.
In Venetian churches red and white carnations are used for much of the decoration, but in the church of San Michele on the island of that name, the cemetery island of Venice, I have seen large pots of tall white moon daisies. These are just large flowered marguerites grown on to make what we would call half"standards 4-5 ft high. Quite plain, rather undistinguished starry white flowers with yellow centres, but distilling an extraordinary serenity and stillness. They can be had in pots in this country 3-4 ft high from major florists such as Rassells of the Earl's Court Road in London, but supplies are limited.
In Malory's Morte D'Arthur the high feast of Pentecost had great significance. . . "So ever the King had a custom that at the feast of Pentecost in especial afore other feasts in the year, he would not go that day to meat until he 'had heard or seen a great marvel."
What great marvels can we look for this year at the Royal Horticultural Society's great spring show at Chelsea? All the flowers of the year will be spread at our feet, and a cupboard full of sorcerer's non-poisonous poisons. Where shall we look for grace? Among the flower arrangers baying at the new stygian Euthanasias, or the startled gentlemen transfixed by the brand new Aphrodosias, with their flaming stigmas?
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