COUNTRY LIFE PETER QUINCE
There comes a time for all owners of large gardens when the insistent clamour of the outside world can no longer be denied. I speak of large gardens, not gardens of great beauty or gardens singularly well stocked with rare and precious plants; in this respect size is the prime source of vulnerability. "It is time," the proprietor of the extensive property is told, "that you were Open to the Public." The proprietor, whether he be a fanatical grower of flowers or an absentee tycoon who knows his own grounds no better than he knows St James's Park, is instantly placed at a disadvantage. It is idle for him to pretend that his garden is unworthy of the honour: the object of the Opening is not to flatter the garden but to raise money for charity.
"But my roses have all got black spot," he protests; or, " My gardner has lumbago and the flower beds are knee-deep in weeds." This sort of excuse cuts no ice with the hard-headed organisers of such matters. They have a large and enviable property in their sights, and no wriggling on the part of its owner will induce them to desist until the advertisements have been drafted, the tickets provided and the rota of ladies ready to sit at the gates and receive money has been drawn up.
They know, of course, that once the die has been cast the garden will somehow, probably through the expenditure of unprecedented effort, be brought up to scratch on the day; or at any rate near enough to it to gratify the sharp-eyed visitors with a sense that, delightful though it all is, if only they had charge of the arrangements the standard would be raised by just that trifle that makes all the difference. The owner, moreover, being as much complimented by the enterprise as alarmed at the possibility of disgrace which it offers, is disinclined to protest too much; all gardeners are vain of their creations and nurture a small seed of selfsatisfaction over their works.
Our village has just had the double pleasure of having two large gardens made Open to the Public on the same day, a happening which may have added almost intolerably to the tensions in the two establishments in question, but which contributed extra zest to the enjoyment of the rest of us, by adding to the simple and virtuous pleasures of garden-watching a spice of malicious satisfaction at the politely-disguised but unmistakable element of competition thus introduced. The hundreds who travelled from afar to inspect the gardens, parking their cars on the village green, no doubt thought this of minimal importance; but for the locals, who loyally paid up to inspect gardens Spectator, July 3, 1971 which on any other day of the year they could have had the run of for nothing, it was the making of the occasion. I had never before realised how closely even the most expensively-maintained of gardens mirror the personalities of their owners. It is not the most welcome of reflections, I found later, contemplating my own imperfect patch of ground, but great truths often are uncomfortable. Each of these two gardens on display was large, ambitious and covetable; but whereas one was at many points a shade slapdash, liable to reveal a bit of ground-elder amid the roses or an unseemly intrusion of dandelions on the croquet lawn, the other was undeviatingly perfectionist, with every leaf and flower and blade of grass submitting meekly to the demands of the tireless presiding genius. This subtle contrast in gardening styles was made more piquant by the fact that one of the gardens was in the classic, formal, well-organised tradition, with abundant paths, numerous trees trained against old brick walls and, over to one side, a glimpse of an extensive kitchen garden; while the other was romantic, asymmetrical, a sequence of delicious green vistas between handsome trees and curving belts of shrubs. It was the essay in formality which fell, short of its ideal by disclosing here and there those small faults which the visiting gardener's eye invariably settles upon; while the roman tic scene presented by the other garden was unblemished by so much as a single weed or a single whisker of grass untrimmed. Whether the two proprietors, charming and undemonstrative Englishmen that they are, ever guess how much of their characters they have placed on view in their gardens, I do not know; but they could hardly have revealed more about themselves if they had offered their private diaries for the entertainment of the paying visitors to their grounds. It was, mercifully, one of this summer's rare sunny days and the traffic through both sets of gates was steady. As the afternoon wore on, there was a good deal of local speculation as to which of the two attractions would pull in the greater number of visitors. Each of the proprietors paid a brief courtesy visit to his rival's premises, and was loud in admiration while, possibly, surreptitiously making an estimate of the numbers patronising the competing establishment. Some hours after it was all over the village learned the outcome of the unspoken contest. Whether the ladies at the gates had tactfully fiddled the figures, or the more senior organisers had done some diplomatic arithmetic, or, simply, everyone who bothered to visit one garden had thought it worth his while to visit the other also, we shall never know: but it was, we decided, altogether satisfactory for the village that the day should have ended in a dead heat.
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