Beyond the lawn and a belt of Spanish Chestnut I have a little cottage that is known as the Hut. I lived in it for two years while my house was building, and may possibly live in it again for the sake of replenishing an over-drained exchequer, if the ideal well-to-do invalid flower-lover or some such very quiet summer tenant, to whom alone I could consent to surrender my dear home for a few weeks, should be presented by a kind Providence. Meanwhile it is always in good use for various purposes, such as seed-drying, pot-pourri preparing, and the like.

The garden in front and at the back is mainly a June garden. It has Peonies, Irises, Lupines, and others of the best flowers of the season, and a few for later blooming. The entrance to the Hut is through Yews that arch overhead. Close to the right is a tall Holly with a Clematis montana growing into it and tumbling out at the top. The space of garden to the left, being of too deep a shape to be easily got at from the path on the one side and the stone paving on the other, has a kind of dividing backbone made of a double row of Rose hoops or low arches, rising from good greenery of Male Fern and the fern-like Sweet Cicely. This handsome plant (Myrrhis odorata) is of great use in many ways. It will grow anywhere, and has the unusual merit of making a good show of foliage quite early in the year. It takes two years to get to a good size, sending its large, fleshy, aromatic roots deep down into the soil. By the end of May, when the bloom is over and the leaves are full grown, they can be cut right down, when the plant will at once form a new set of leaves that remain fresh for the rest of the summer. Its chief use is as a good foliage accompaniment or background to flowers, and no plant is better for filling up at the bases of shrubs that look a little leggy near the ground, or for any furnishing of waste or empty spaces, especially in shade. From among the Ferns and Myrrhis at the back of this bit of eastern border rise white Foxgloves, the great white Columbine, and the tall stems of white Peach-leaved Campanula. Nearer to the front are clumps of Peonies. But, as one of the most frequented paths passes along this eastern border, it was thought best not to confine it to June flowers only, but to have something also for the later months. All vacant places are therefore filled with Pentstemons and Snapdragons, which make a show throughout the summer; while for the early days of July there are clumps of the old garden Roses—Damask and Provence. The whole south-western angle is occupied by a well-grown Garland Rose that every summer is loaded with its graceful wreaths of bloom. It has never been trained or staked, but grows as a natural fountain; the branches are neither pruned nor shortened. The only attention it receives is that every three or four years the internal mass of old dead wood is cut right out, when the bush seems to spring into new life.

Passing this angle and going along the path leading to the studio door in the little stone-paved court, there is a seat under an arbour formed by the Yews; the front of it has a Dundee Rambler Rose supported by a rough wooden framework. On the right, next the paving, are two large standard Roses with heads three and four feet through. They are old garden Roses, worked in cottage fashion on a common Dog-rose stock. One is Celeste, of loveliest tender rose colour, its broad bluish leaves showing its near relationship to Rosa alba; the other the white Mme. Plantier. This old Rose, with its abundant bunches of pure white flowers, always seems to me to be one of the most charming of the older garden kinds. It will grow in almost any way, and is delightful in all; as a pillar, as a hedge, as a bush, as a big cottage standard, or in the border tumbling about among early summer flowers. Like the Blush Gallica, which just precedes it in time of blooming, it is one of the old picture Roses. Both should be in quantity in every garden, and yet they are but rarely seen.

The border next the paving has clumps of the old garden Peonies (P. officinalis). By the time these are over, towards the end of June, groups of the earlier orange Herring Lilies are in bloom. A thick and rather high Box edging neatly trims these borders, and favours the cottage-garden sentiment that is fostered in this region. At the back of the Yews that form the arbour is one end of the Hidden Garden. Going along the path, past the projection on the block-plan of the Hut, which represents the large ingle of the studio, we come to the other bit of June garden behind the little cottage. Here again, the space being over-wide, it is divided in the middle by a double border of Rosemary that is kept clipped and is not allowed to rise high enough to prevent access to the border on each side.

On the side next the Hut the flowers are mostly of lilac and purple colouring with white. Pale lilac Irises, including the fine I. pallida dalmatica and the rosy lilac variety, Queen of the May, perennial Lupines, white, bluish lilac and purple—one of a conspicuous and rare deep red-purple of extreme richness without the slightest taint of a rank quality—a colour I can only call a strong wine-purple; then a clump of the feathery, ivory-white SpirÆa Aruncus, the large Meadowsweet that is so fine by the side of alpine torrents. There are also some flesh-pink Albiflora Peonies and lower growths of Catmint, and of the grand blue-purple Cranesbill, Geranium ibericum platyphyllum; with white and pale yellow Spanish Irises in generous tufts springing up between. At the blunt angle nearly opposite the dovecote is a pink cloud of London Pride; beyond it pale yellow Violas with more white Spanish Iris, leading to a happy combination of the blue Iris Cengialti and the bushy Aster Olearia Gunni, smothered in its white starry bloom. An early flowering Flag Iris, named ChamÆleon, nearly matches the colour of I. Cengialti; it is the bluest that I know of the Flag Irises, and is planted between and around the Olearias to form part of the colour-picture.

Beyond this group, and only separated from it by some pale yellow Irises, are two plants of the Dropmore Anchusa, marked A on the plan, of pure pale blue, and another clump of SpirÆa Aruncus, marked S, and one of a good pure white Lupine, with some tall clear yellow Irises and white Foxgloves. Now the colouring changes, passing through a group or two of the rich half-tones of Irises of the squalens section to the perennial Poppies; P. rupifragum nearest the path and, next to it, P. pilosum; both of a rich apricot colour. Backing these is a group of the larger hybrid that nearly always occurs in gardens where there are both P. rupifragum and P. orientale. In appearance it is a small orientale with a strong look of rupifragum about the foliage. As a garden plant it has the advantages of being of an intermediate size and of having a long season of bloom, a quality no doubt inherited from rupifragum, which will flower more or less throughout the summer if the seed-pods are removed. A plant of Oriental Poppy of the tone of orange-scarlet that I know as red-lead colour, and some deep orange Lilies complete this strongly coloured group.

In the north-western clump, where there are some Thorn-trees and two Thuyas, the dominant feature is the great bush of an old garden rambling Rose that looks as if its parentage was somewhere between sempervirens and arvensis. I can neither remember how I came by it nor match it with any nursery kind. It stands nearly opposite the Hut kitchen window, and when in full bloom actually sheds light into the room. I know it as the Kitchen Rose. The diameter of the bush is even greater than the plan shows, for it overwhelms the nearest Thuya and rushes through the Thorn, and many of its shoots are within hand-reach of the back path. The rest of this clump is occupied by plants of tall habit—the great Mullein (Verbascum orientale), the Giant Cow-Parsnip (Heracleum), and white Foxgloves.

The plan shows how the border of early bulbs, described in a former chapter (now a mass of hardy Ferns, as shown at p. 7), lies in relation to this part of the garden. There is also a grand mass of Oriental Poppy and Orange Lilies in half-shade on the other side of the path, where it turns and is bordered with Berberis. This makes a fine distant effect of strong colour looking north-west from the southern end of the bulb-border.

I greatly wish I could have some other June borders for the still better use of the Flag Irises, but not only have I quite as much dressed ground as I can afford to keep up, but the only space where such borders could be made has to be nursery-ground of plants for sale. But though I am denied this pleasure myself, I should like to suggest it to others, and therefore give plans of two borders of different colourings. There would be no great harm if they came opposite each other, though perhaps, as colour-schemes, they would be rather better seen singly and quite detached from each other.

It must be remembered, as in all cases of planting flower borders, that they cannot be expected to show their full beauty the year after planting. Irises will give a few blooms the first season, but are not in strength till their second and third years. China Roses must have time to grow. Tree Lupines must be planted young, and, though they make rapid growth, they also do not fill their spaces till the third year. Lupine Somerset is a desirable hybrid, not quite a true Tree Lupine, though it has a half-woody growth. Its best colour is a clear, lively light yellow, but it readily varies from seed to whitish or washy purplish tints. As the seedlings often show bloom the first season in the seed-bed, the colours should be noted and marked, for some of the light purples are pretty things, with more refinement of character than the same colourings in the old Tree Lupines. Both the tree and hybrid kinds may have their lives much prolonged—for if they are not specially treated they are short-lived things—by judicious pruning. After flowering, each branch should be cut well back. It is not enough to cut away the flowers, but every branch should be shortened about two-thirds as soon as the bloom is over and the seed-pods begin to form.

The plans show the two schemes of colouring. The upper is of white, lilac, purple and pink, with grey foliage; the lower of white, yellow, bronze-yellow and, for the most part, rich green foliage. They will show mainly as Iris and Lupine borders, and are intended to display the beauty of these two grand plants of early summer. The kinds of Iris are carefully considered for their height, time of blooming, and colour-value. In the yellow border is one patch of clear, pale pure blue, the Dropmore Anchusa, grouped with pale yellows and white.

In the purple border are some important front-edge patches of the beautiful Catmint (Nepeta Mussini), a plant that can hardly be over-praised. The illustration shows it in a part of a border-front that is to be for August. For a good three weeks in June it makes this border a pretty place, although the Catmint is its only flower. But with the white-grey woolly patches of Stachys and the half-grown bushes of Gypsophila, and the Lavender and other plants of greyish foliage, the picture is by no means incomplete. Its flowery masses, seen against the warm yellow of the sandy path, give the impression of remarkably strong and yet delightfully soft colouring. The colour itself is a midway purple, between light and dark, of just the most pleasing quality. As soon as the best of the bloom is done it is carefully cut over; then the lateral shoots just below the main flower-spike that has been taken out will gain strength and bloom again at the border's best show-time in August. In another double flower border that is mostly for the September-blooming Michaelmas Daisies the Catmint is cut back a little later.

One of the joys of June is the beauty of the Scotch Briers. On the south side of the house there are Figs and Vines, Rosemary and China Roses; a path and then some easy stone steps leading up to the strip of lawn some fifty feet wide that skirts the wood. To right and left of the steps, for a length equal to that of the house-front, is a hedge of these charming little Roses. They are mostly double white, but some are rosy and some yellow. When it is not in flower the mass of small foliage is pleasant to see, and even in winter leaflessness the tangle of close-locked branches has an appearance of warm brown comfort that makes it good to have near a house.

June is also the time of some of the best of the climbing plants and slightly tender shrubs that we have against walls and treat as climbers, such as Solamum crispum and Abutilon vitifolium and the hardy Clematis montana; but some notes on these will be offered in a further chapter.

One is always watching and trying for good combinations of colour that occur or that may be composed. Besides such as are shown in the plans, the following have been noted for June:

In rock-work the tiny China Rose Pompon de Paris, also the tender pink Fairy Rose, with pale lilac tufted Pansy and Achillea umbellata.

The pretty pale pink dwarf Rose Mignonette, with the lilac of Catmint (Nepeta Mussini) and the grey-white foliage of Stachys and Cineraria maritima.

In a cool, retired place in a shrubbery margin, away from other flowers, the misty red-grey-purple of Thalictrum purpureum with the warm white foam-colour of SpirÆa Aruncus.

On bold rock-work, a mass of a fine-coloured strain of Valerian (Centranthus) with a deep scarlet-crimson Snapdragon. This is a success of reciprocally becoming texture as well as colour; the texture having that satisfying quality that one recognises in the relation of the cut and uncut portions of the fine old Italian cut-velvets.