Long life
Loveliest of pulsatillas
Nigel Nicolson
When I was 15 or so, we were visited by the famous Cretan rebel, Eleutherios Venizelos, who became Prime Minister of Greece. He was one of my heroes, and I awaited his arrival with great excitement, hoping that he would come dressed as an Evzone. Instead, he was wearing a most unsuitable suit. I walked him round the garden. Suddenly he remarked, 'I would like to shed a few tears'. Thinking that he was moved by the beauty of the scene, I replied, 'Yes, it is very lovely, isn't it?' You mistake me, young man,' he said. 'I wish to go to the lavatory.' I had never heard that particular euphemism before.
I was reminded of this incident when I began drafting a lecture which I am to give next week on the subject, 'What is a garden for?' There have been several visitors to our garden who, like Venizelo had no idea what a garden is for, and hope that I will terminate the tour as soon as possible. They talk about other subjects, like Hong Kong. Infuriated, I have interrupted, 'But you're not in Hong Kong now. You're in Kent.' The visitor replied, 'But it reminds me of Hong Kong.' I cannot conceive how he reached that conclusion.
If one can assume too great an interest in one's visitors, one can also be dumb- founded by their superior erudition. I do not know by name every plant in our gar- den, but when stumped, I can usually read the answer on a half-hidden label. Where there is no label, I invent a name, and if the plant is small enough, it is always the same name. 'That,' I say with confidence, 'is Pul- satilla palpitans.' The visitor makes a note, and three weeks later I hear from him: 'I have tried every nursery in my neighbour- hood, and none of them has ever heard of it. Can you help?'
As a boy I was the labourer in our gar- den, clearing up the rubbish of centuries and planting the first hedges. In this way I absorbed a little knowledge of how living things react to soil, but not much. Last year, in Long Island, where the gardens are immaculate, I boasted to an audience that nobody can really appreciate a garden until they had worked in one themselves, and then realised by glancing at the first three rows, that not one of them had ever dirtied his or her hands. Their gardens were all designed, planted and maintained by hired help, and were all the lovelier for it. I was able to change the sails of my discourse in time to avoid giving offence, but I was left with the question, 'What is a garden for?'
Undoubtedly one of its purposes is to improve on nature. I am not an admirer of nature in the raw, except at a distance. The Garden of Eden must have been hideous, full of snakes and rotten apples. A friend of my family was once landed with a garden far too large for him and, rather than tin- ker with it, he declared it to be 'a wild gar- den' which did not convince his indignant neighbours who were competing for the test-kept village' prize. On the other hand, a garden can be too formal. Marco Polo cannot genuinely have admired the Persian 'paradise' where the fountains alternately spouted milk, honey and wine, and our grandparents cannot have given more than a single glance of appreciation at the elabo- rate parterres that disfigured their lawns.
I shall conclude my lecture by saying that thanks to Jekyll and Lutyens no garden has ever been more beautiful than the English garden of today, and enjoin my audience to fill their flower-beds with Pulsatilla palpi- tans.
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