"She was explaining that she hadn't actually done any gardening yet, because in Gower Street one doesn't garden, except window-boxes [...]; but this hadn't stopped her from reading nurserymen's catalogues and studying manuals, and planning what flowers she would grow if ever she got the chance, - a weakening literature, she admitted, and one she hadn't indulged in very often, because it made her dream dreams instead of attending to her duties. Those luscious descriptions of exquisite flowers - what was the use, she asked, [...] of reading them, and getting all stirred up and excited? Her duty lay indoors among ink and paper, and no good thinking of what was going on in places where there were roses. But each year, towards the middle of April, a lilac-bush in the next door backyard, a single lilac-bush left over from days when God still had some sort of say in Gower Street, began to bloom, and it was amazing how difficult this made it for her; not difficult to stick to her post, because there was never any thought of being able to leave that, but difficult, exceedingly, to concentrate on what she was doing. Fortunately, father never would have the window open, so she was spared the intoxication of the scent, the divine scent that had drenched all the spring mornings of the world since the first lilac flowered in Paradise. Father, who wrote about April so beautifully -"
From Father by Elizabeth von Arnim (delightful, so far!)
The picture is Mme. Lemoine, the lilac outside my window, in her May splendour.
Lovely lilac!
There are very sizable (for C London) back gardens associated with rows of houses in at least part of the west side of Gower Street to this day, though from the street itself you would indeed only have the option of window boxes.
Posted by: Dark Puss | 20 March 2021 at 03:00 PM