THE NATURAL GARDENS OF THE RIVER EAMONT.
TnERE is a wide difference between flowers scattered at random and the same when Nature groups them and forms wild gardens. It is as great as that between the growth of seeds spilled on waste ground and the fair order of the same blossoms in a garden made by hands. Such natural gardens are rare. It is the habit of the wild flowers to grow either so intermingled as to produce no decided effect at all, as, for instance, in the hayfields or by roadsides; or for one plant only to cover broad patches with a single hue, as do the poppies, the wild hyacinths, and, on the moors, the heather. These broad flower masses rejoice the eye,—but they are not Nature's gardens, any more than the lavender fields, or the crimson sainfoin, are the gardens of art. The chance-sown wild flowers, on the other hand, are only "items," though beautiful in themselves. When the country children pluck them to make into posies, the result is an epitome of the want of effect in the manner of their, growth; for children never try to improve upon Nature, and placing side by side the blossoms of many hues and shapes in order as they pluck them, their nosegay lacks form, and the colours break and are lost.
Among the very rare examples of Nature's gardens in this country are those on a portion of the banks of the Eamont, which divides Cumberland from Westmorland. Flora has ever been regarded as a civilised goddess, bearing baskets of the finest cut flowers, and twining wreaths of the latest varieties of roses to deck the marble temples of the gods. But she may have had a wild half-sister, Flora, Silvicultrix, who had altars built to her by the Roman soldiers guarding the frontier of the North, and who in return first laid out the wild gardens by this lovely Northern stream. The Eamont is the overspill of Ullswater, which it leaves a rapid and full-grown stream, and after coursing through the rich meadows of Penrith, and under the walls of more than one tower and fortress, past the face of cliff after cliff of crimson red, set with every form of tree and fern, and with spouting rock fountains and trickling cascades, cuts through a gorge of the eldest sedimentary rocks at Udford, and then runs between flat meadows to meet the Eden at
Eden Hall. •
A natural garden does not spring up by itself. Like others, it must be .made. Here the maker is the river itself, by means, in part, of its spates and floods. But the wild garden must also have its supply of seeds and plants, and a site undisturbed by man. In other words, it must be on land not cultivated, and which cattle do not browse. This is secured on the banks of the Lower Eamont by the margin between the high flood mark and the normal level of the river, and by the exquisite survival of moor and crag known as Udford Rocks. There are, in fact, two wild gardens adjacent, each looking on the clear and flowing river,—the upper, or rock garden, and the lower, or . herbaceous border, with line behind line of flowers, following the course of the river. Sometimes the rocks descend to the waters, and there the gardens mingle, harebells and stonecrops and tiny wild pink geraniums growing on the sunny backs of red-grey rocks, round whose feet the waters swirl; while by their sides, springing from the moist river soil, grow tall mauve cam- panulas and masses of meadow-sweet. Nor must it be forgotten that on the north or cool side of the gorge are a series of natural ferneries and moss grottoes, hanging above the flower line. The "broad effects" in the river garden are probably arranged by the spring floods, which deposit here a line of silt, there a long strip of smaller pebbles, and there again a bed of larger boulders, all sorted to size by the action of moving water. The results are astonish- ing. Here, for instance, the water is fringed by a glowing border of mimulus, a pure yellow giant musk, with a few dark spots on its lips, and exquisite green leaves, all
reflected in the stream. Behind the mimulus, on the gentle slope, is a width of some five feet of the broad leaves of the burdock. Among these burdock leaves, and contrasting like the spikes of " canna " in the elaborate bedding seen in the London parks, rise the delicate bells of tall grey-mauve campanulas of a kind only found in the North. Behind these again, on the drier ground, is a line of tall red foxgloves. Above, for a few feet, is a rock-face, covered with moss and ferns ; and then the steep bank, set with rowan and sycamores. Another water-garden effect has for its main " bed " an islet. Sloping down to this is a line of four clumps of burdock, all perfectly round, each nearly equidistant from the other, each with a swirl of shallow water breaking round it, and all in oblique line with the shore of the islet, which is set entirely with burdock, mingled with great clusters of yellow buttons, probably of "fleabane." The plant, whatever its correct name, is scarcely decorative else- where. But in this moist season, and in the river soil, each cluster of " buttons " is of perfect growth, and the very regular setting of the plants among the burdock leaves looks like the work of art. The arrangement of the clumps and the sowing of the islet, as well as the regular slant of its shore across the stream, are caused by the laying down of the stones in spates, and the scour of the current; while the big floods leave soil enough between the stones to nourish the plants. On this islet grows a regular succession id flowers, just as there is in any well-managed garden. In spring the stones are covered with a bed of yellow butter-burrs, among which the pinkish spikes of the burdock flowers push up through the sheets of drifted sand. Not a leaf has yet appeared of the forest which grows later, though the reeds are just shooting up through sand and pebbles alike. From this to the autumn effect is a complete transformation,—it is difficult to' believe that it is the same islet. The sunny shore of the river is on the Cumberland bank. On the flood-washed fringe the first border consists of two forms of meadow-sweet, one of a pinkish hue, approaching that of the paler pink spiraea ; and three very typical and striking flowers. One is the tall pale campanula mentioned before ; another is a dark-purple cam- panula, which grows on the sounder portions of the banks ; the third is the large wild blue geranium, which here, as in other parts of Cumberland, has a size, colour, and vigour of growth very unusual even in this fine plant. With these are river grasses, a large dull carmine, cone-headed flower, and, in places, the mimulus.
Earlier, the large yellow globe flower abounds there, and mountain avens. As the floods often rise beyond the level of the banks, a margin is left untilled where in rare cases a corn- field abuts on the river. This forms another flower garden. On the border between it and the oat crop there grew this year a piece of natural "bedding out" of a most unusual kind. In front of the oats ran for some yards a deep fringe of wild yellow snapdragon. This in turn was fronted by a broad band of wild blue pansies, of varying hue, but mainly of a light violet blue. The effect was as brilliant as it was unusual, and was probably obtained by the natural dispersion of the seed from a thinner setting of snapdragon and pansies last year on a seed-bed which had suited them.
The rock garden on the sunny bank of the Eamont is the counterpart or balance of the dewy walls and moss-lined cornices which overhang the northern margin of the stream, under whose bed the crags also jut, causing it to swirl and glisten in toppling curls of white. On the crest are heather and bracken, the bracken in the hollows, and the heather on the dry backs of the rock, and now lying in sheets like damsons and cream. In all the interstices the bilberries, like tiny myrtles, grow; and scattered in the crevices and on the crest and face of the crags dwarf trees of pine, of larch, of rowan, and of a thorny crab-tree jut out, while their roots embrace the squares and cubes of rock as if they had over- flowed them in some viscous state and hardened into wood. In the debris at the crag-foot, or on the broken faces, are masses of almost crimson heath and a wild briar, the fruit of which is as decorative as that of the garden briars, specially cultivated for their scarlet prickly seed.
As though to complete the illusion that some living agency had originally planted and designed this garden of the North, there are found scattered in the gorge the originals of nearly every one of our common garden fruits, besides one wild fruit. the bilberry, of such rich flavour that it might well be cultivated, did it thrive under human care. By the very margin of the stream the wild black-currants grow, their strong perfume distilling alike from the flowers in spring and the leaves in autumn. The wild red-currant grows among the rocks, and on the little moor- fringe above wild raspberries, the fruit of which, though small, is of the finest flavour. There, too, grows wild gooseberry, both the green kind and a luscious but diminutive red gooseberry, possibly sprung from garden-bred seeds sown by the birds, though the fruits are now no larger than sloes. The rowan berries, whose scarlet clusters look like flower masses, are not considered edible in England, though made into preserves further north. Lastly, among these originals of our garden small fruits growing in the gorge must be mentioned the wild strawberry, the hazel-nut, the crab-apple, and wild cherries, which further down on the Eden banks are gathered and sold for household use. The natural features which cause this garden on the Eamont are most unusual, and are limited to a short portion of its course ; but the same flowers, and some of their unfamiliar and striking combinations, are found also on the Eden and beside the tributaries of these charming Northern streams.
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