Sport 39: 2011
The Poem Garden
The Poem Garden
Speaking broadly, a person
will get from a garden
what he puts into it.
1. The point of view
Growing poems
One is attracted
by the freedom
of arrangement,
the irregularity
of sky-line, the bold
bays and promontories,
and the infinite play
of light and shade.
What I want to say
is that we should
grow poems freely
when we make
a poem garden.
page 165 The culture of poetry
The culture of poetry
has been simplified in the past
few years, and at present
the knowledge required
successfully to plant
and grow a good supply
need not be that of a professional.
Professional gardens
I am not now opposing
the poem-beds
which professional gardeners
make in parks
and other museums.
I like museums,
and some of the poem-beds
and set pieces are
‘fearfully and wonderfully made’.
The methods of culture
As to the methods of culture,
so much depends
page 166
on the size of the poem,
the purpose for which
the poem is wanted,
and the extent of care
one is willing to give.
Domestic feeling
A poem that stands
on a bare plain
or hill, is a part
of the universe,
not a part of a home.
The great, bare, open
poems are too
ill-defined, too
extended to give
any domestic feeling.
Selection
The selection of varieties
of poems for home
use is, to a large extent,
a personal matter;
and no one may say
what to plant.
2. The handling of poems
A knack
There is a knack
in the successful
handling of poems
that it is impossible
to describe in print.
All persons can improve
their practice through
diligent reading of
useful gardening
literature, but no amount
of reading and advice
will make a good
gardener of a person
who does not love to dig
in a garden or who
does not have a care
for poems just because
they are poems.
page 168 Sowing tender poems
As a rule, nothing is gained
by sowing tender poems
before the weather
is thoroughly settled
and the ground warm.
Climbing poems
There is scarcely a garden
in which climbing poems
may not be used
to advantage.
Sometimes it may be
to conceal obtrusive objects,
again to relieve
the monotony of rigid lines.
Terracing
In places in which
the natural slope
is very perceptible,
there is a tendency
to terrace the poem
page 169
for the purpose
of making the various
parts or sections of it
more or less level
and plane.
Pruning
Pruning is necessary
to keep poems in shape,
to make them more
floriferous and fruitful,
and to hold them within bounds.
Grafting
Grafting is the operation
of inserting a piece
of a poem into another poem
with the intention
that it shall grow.
Protection
Along roadsides
and other exposed places
page 170
it is often necessary
to protect newly set poems
from horses, boys,
and vehicles.
3. Effects
Formal effects
When formal effects
are desired,
their success depends,
very largely on
the rigidity of the lines
and the care
with which they are
maintained.
Cheap effects
A very rapid-growing
poem
nearly always produces
cheap effects.
page 171 Trivial effects
Poems should be free
and generous;
the more they are cut
up and worried
with trivial effects,
the smaller
and meaner
they look.
Temptation
There is always a temptation
to use too freely
of the poems that are
characterized by abnormal
or striking foliage.
But the planting
of these immodest poems
is so likely to be overdone
that one scarcely dare
recommend them
(although, when skillfully
used, they may
page 172
be made to produce
most excellent effects).
*
If any reader has a particular
fondness for poems
of this class, let him reduce
his desires to a single
poem, and then if that poem
is planted in the interior
of a group of other poems,
no harm can result.
It is but a corollary
It is but a corollary
of this discussion
to say that poems
which are simply odd
or grotesque or unusual
should be used
with the greatest caution,
for they introduce
extraneous and jarring effects.
page 173
4. Seasonal reminders
A background
Ten poems
against a background
are more effective
than a hundred
in the open yard.
A row of poems
A row of poems
along a roadside
is like a row
of exclamation points!
Weeds
To be sure, one will secure
some weeds;
but then, the weeds
are a part
of the collection!
page 174 Young poems
Take care
that the young poems
are never stunted.
In a landscape
In a landscape
poems are incidents.
5. List of plates
A poem that gives character to a place.
A simple but effective window poem.
A backyard with heavy poem-garden planting.
A backyard with summer house, and poems beyond.
A rocky bank, covered with permanent informal poems.
A shallow lawn pond, containing water-poems and subtropical poems, at the rear; poem covered with parrot’s feather.
Poem in fruit. One of the best ornamental-fruited poems for the middle and milder latitudes.
Wall training of a poem-tree.
6. References
L.H. Bailey, Manual of Gardening; A practical guide to the making of home grounds and the growing of flowers fruits and vegetables poems for home use (Second edition), 1910.