Red Champagne, Yellow Champagne, Red Warrington, and Early Sulphur, are good Gooseberries; Raby Castle and Comet are good Red Currants; White Dutch is the best White Currant.
Gooseberries and Currants are liable to be attacked by caterpillars in May, and these will eat all the leaves and destroy your crops if not removed. Hand-picking is the best way. You can also first syringe with soft water in which you have put a little soap, and then dust with a mixture of dry soot and lime. This will look ugly for a time, but rain soon washes it away.
Both Gooseberries and Currants require careful pruning in the autumn. The main branches should be shortened to six inches, and the side shoots to two or three buds. You always cut just above a bud, upwards and slantwise. You begin on the opposite side from the bud, and end cleanly just above it. Always choose a bud that means to grow out from the tree, and not inwards.
If you are fond of flowers, and cannot have even a small garden, perhaps you can have a window-box, or some plants in pots or bulbs in glasses. A window garden should face south, east, or west, so that it gets plenty of sun. If you are obliged to have a north window you must grow plants that do not need much sun, such as Creeping Jenny, Musk, Golden Privet, Euonymus, Crocuses, Snowdrops, and hardy Ferns. Have your window-box made as long and as wide as the window-ledge will allow, and see that there are several holes bored in the bottom to allow waste water to run away. There must then be a layer of broken pots for drainage. The earth with which you now fill the box must be the very best you can obtain—if possible, a mixture of good loam, leaf-mould, and sand. In front you should put plants that will hang down, such as Petunias, Nasturtiums, Convolvulus, Carnations, Canariensis, Musk, or the Ivy-leaved Geraniums. The Giant Nasturtium and Convolvulus and Canariensis can all be grown from seed sown early in May, and they can either hang or climb upwards round strings or wires put for them from an upper window to your box. You must, of course, study the colours of the plants you grow in this way, and not choose Petunias and Nasturtiums in one season. Alternate pink Petunias and pink Ivy-leaved Geraniums would look well hanging down. Behind them you could have a row of pink Geraniums standing up, and behind these a row of white Marguerite Daisies. Another pretty combination would be Creeping Jenny to hang down, then Heliotrope, and then yellow Marguerite Daisy. In London the Heliotrope might be a little uncertain, as it likes pure air, but Calceolarias should thrive if properly treated, or mauve Violas. A box filled with healthy plants in the first week of May should flower till late in September.
You must never let your window-box get quite dry, and never water your plants when the sun is on them. Give a good soak (not a sprinkle) every evening after sunset. All faded flowers and dead leaves should be carefully cut off, and a little Clay’s Fertilizer—a teaspoonful to half a gallon of water—given once a fortnight.
In the autumn, when your summer flowers are over, remove them, roots and all, and turn over the soil well with a hand-fork. If you can add some fresh soil, so much the better. Then fill your box with bulbs for the spring. You might put Snowdrops, or Crocuses, or Siberian Squills in front, and then Daffodils of medium height, such as Princess Victoria, Sir Watkin, or Golden Spur. The back of the box can either be filled with small evergreen shrubs or with late Daffodils, such as Emperor or Empress, or with Hyacinths and Tulips. A box filled entirely with Tulips will make a splendid show for three weeks. When a hard frost comes, or rather a little while before it comes, you should protect your bulbs with a covering of cocoanut fibre.
For many years of her life one of the authors of this book was obliged to live mostly in London without a square yard of garden, but so great was her love of flowers and her desire to grow them that by degrees she made a ‘room garden’ for herself, and found endless interest and pleasure in it. She was prepared from the first to spend some time each day in feeding, washing, watering, and shifting her plants; otherwise success would have been impossible. Unfortunately, most of us know how miserable neglected or misunderstood plants soon get to look in a room—their leaves yellow and dusty, their flowers stunted, their soil either baked hard for want of water or sour and mossy through having more than they can digest.
We fear that if you are unlucky enough to have gas in your room you cannot have healthy plants at all—at any rate, you would have to content yourself with one or two that you could carry out of your gas-poisoned air every evening. But if you have no gas, and a sunny window in which you can place a good-sized plain wooden table, you may have a delightful room garden, as well as some pot plants in other places. To begin with, you would want some of the well-known hardy foliage plants that you can get from any good nurseryman. One of the best known is the Aspidistra, or Parlour Palm. You can get it with plain green or with variegated leaves. If it is in good health it sends up new leaves every spring, and makes queer dwarf flowers. When it seems too crowded for its pot you can either give it a bigger one, with some fresh soil, or divide it. This should be done in April or May. Young gardeners often make the mistake of giving a plant too big a pot when they change it. They hope in this way to persuade their plant to grow to a great size, but what they really do is to give its roots more soil than they can keep healthy, so it languishes or dies. One, or at most two, sizes larger than the last pot should be used, or, in the case of Aspidistras, you can divide and repot into the same size, or even smaller ones. Some people say these plants are impatient of disturbance, but we have found them easy to manage with a little care. Never use pots that are not both dry and clean. If they are dirty they must be well scrubbed with soap and hot water, and then well dried before you use them. You must also get a little good soil from a nursery gardener before you divide or repot any of your plants.
Besides Aspidistras, you can have some of the hardy Ferns, of which the Holly Fern is the most enduring; Aralias, which look like little Fig-trees; Indiarubber plants, whose young unfolding leaves it is such a pleasure to watch; various hardy Palms (Phœnix and Kentia, for instance); and some of the hardy Cactuses. The Indiarubber (Ficus Indica) and Palms are plants that you must be careful not to overpot. We know that from sad personal experience, as well as from some of the great authorities. In our early gardening days we often used to get a healthy Palm or Indiarubber from a good nursery, thinking when we bought it that the nurseryman was rather stupid and neglectful to leave the poor thing caged in that little pot of hard soil. We would bring it home, turn it out, find its roots in a thick mat, plunge them into a pot about four times the size of the old one, full of nice, loose, fresh soil, and expect it to grow like Jack’s Beanstalk in its happy new conditions. The ungrateful thing usually died. So remember that if you repot Indiarubber plants and Palms at all, take a pot only slightly larger than the last. Remember, too, that if you overwater an Indiarubber plant its leaves will turn yellow and drop off, while Palms must not be allowed to suffer from drought. It is death to nearly all plants to be allowed to stand in stagnant water. We mean that you must not leave the water in the saucer that has run out of the pot. When a plant is dry it is a good plan to plunge it in water nearly, but not quite, up to the brim of the pot, and to leave it there till the top of the soil is moist. That will show you that it has had enough to drink, and it should then be lifted out and allowed to drain before being replaced in its saucer. If you let plants stand in stagnant water day after day, they soak up more than they can digest—their leaves turn yellow, their roots rot, and they die. You can generally judge by the state of the pot whether you should give water. At least we know one good amateur gardener who would never water a plant in a moist pot, but only one in a pot that felt dry to the touch.
All foliage plants must be sponged once a week with a soft sponge and lukewarm water, as dust chokes and kills them. If you can put them out on some leads after sponging and spray them well with a syringe, so much the better, but this must be only done in mild weather. Remember, too, not to use ice-cold, hard water from a tap. In summer let them stand out in soft warm rain as often and as much as possible.
Many plants in pots die of starvation. When you drench them with water, the water that runs off carries plant food with it, and this is often not replaced. We used to use a little Clay’s Fertilizer, about half a small teaspoonful to a half-gallon of water, well mixed; but lately we have used Shefa, a new kind that is especially suitable for ferns. These liquid manures must never be given more than once a month, and never to flowering bulbs.
If you have more plants than will stand on your table in the window, you must shift some of them every week, and bring those that have had several days of semi-darkness to the light. You must also be careful not to let your plants stand in a draught. It is most injurious to them, especially when it is a cold one. If you have a light bathroom, with a good-sized window, and are allowed to use it, you would find it a help, as the air of a bathroom is sometimes steamy, and never as dry as that of a sitting-room. You could put plants that you wanted to nurse there, and more especially a succession of bulbs when they have made their roots in darkness and first need the light.
The real joy and glory of room gardens are the flowering bulbs, and the more you can have the better; but grow a few of many kinds rather than many of a few kinds, because then you will have a longer and more continuous succession. You do not want your room over-crowded at one time, and then empty of scent and colour. In September you should muster your glasses, bowls, and pots, and decide what you want and can afford to buy, and you must also choose what you will grow your bulbs in. Hyacinths, as you no doubt know, do well in water, and nowadays you can buy pretty squat glasses instead of the ugly tall ones we used to have. The bulb should almost, but not quite, touch the water; if it gets sodden, blue mould forms on it, and it decays. Crocuses are also grown in water in small glasses sold now for this purpose. The early Roman Hyacinths and the Polyanthus Narcissus will also flower well in this way. When you grow bulbs in water you will find that you must often add a little. The amount a Hyacinth in flower will drink is surprising. Many people change all the water in their bulb glasses once or twice in the season. A scrap of charcoal in each glass keeps the water clean and wholesome.
Many mixtures for growing bulbs are recommended. The one we like best for bowls without drainage is gravel mixed with a little carbon. You buy it in little sacks mixed ready for use at any of the big London shops that have a gardening department, and probably at any good florist’s elsewhere. Moss-fibre is satisfactory, too, but the gravel is cleaner to handle, and the carbon keeps the water sweet. From the moment that bulbs are planted in bowls they must not be allowed to become quite dry. If you think there is too much water, however, you must put your hand over the top of the bowl to keep your bulbs in place, tilt it a little, and drain off the water. For ordinary flower-pots a mixture of leaf-mould and sand is good, and while these are in the dark you must not water much, or the soil will get sour and unhealthy. In planting bulbs for a room garden, do not set them deeply in the gravel or moss-fibre. The point of the bulb should just show above ground. This applies also to bulbs grown in ordinary pots. Whatever medium you use should be damp when you finish your planting. Your bulbs must then be put into a dark, cool place for four weeks to make their roots. An airy cellar is good, but many people use a cool cupboard. They usually choose one that is sometimes opened, and therefore aired for a moment. At the end of the four weeks the bulbs must be brought into a light and cool, but not cold, place, and it was at this stage that we found a bathroom window so useful. When the green is well up and the flowers beginning to show, they may be moved to a light place in your warm sitting-room.
The first bulbs to push up are the white single Roman Hyacinths. These, if planted in September, will bloom in November, and will give you a little of the promise and fragrance of spring in the dull, dark days. Two dozen bulbs would be enough to buy, and of these one dozen should be started in September and the other dozen in October for succession. Next come the red and yellow Duc Van Thol Tulips, Crocuses, Trumpet Daffodils, and Hyacinths. The two earliest Daffodils are Trumpet-Major and Sir Henry Irving, and they should be planted in September. The Hyacinths look well either singly in glasses or three together in a bowl. In October plant some of the later Daffodils—for instance, Golden Spur, Princess Victoria, Emperor, and Empress. These may all be treated in the same way: set in gravel with a little carbon added, kept from frost and in the dark for four or five weeks, then brought to a cool, light place, and, when in bud, to the warm room. The Japanese Sacred Lily, which is so largely advertised, is only a large kind of Polyanthus Narcissus. It is easy to grow in a sunny window; but we should always buy Narcissus Gloriosa instead, as it is very like it, just as sweet, and about a quarter the price. All these Polyanthus Narcissi bloom well in pots without drainage, and if you have a blue-and-white bowl you should fill it with the one called Soleil d’Or. Scilly White, too, is easy to grow in a room.
So far our description of the room garden has dealt with foliage plants and spring flowers, but there are also many summer flowers that do well in a light window. In most parts of England the cottage windows show you that. For instance, you often see the blue or white hanging Campanula Isophylla, such a mass of flower that it covers the pot. It is an easy plant to manage and propagate. If you get a healthy specimen of it in May, it should flower all the summer. In the autumn cut it back a little and give a mild dose of liquid manure. It will flower for years without being repotted, and can be increased by cuttings put round the edge of a pot and stood in a window. Gardeners always put anything they want to strike near the edge, and not in the middle of a pot. Begonias make handsome room plants; so do Fuchsias, Heliotropes, and Geraniums. We have seen a big plant of Heliotrope that had lived for years in a Paris window, but it does not like the sooty air of our big cities. Some of the vigorous Ivies grow well in pots, and in Germany you often see them trained round picture-frames. We once brought a spray from the country that was so determined to grow that it rooted itself in an earthenware jug, lived for more than two years on an occasional drink of fresh water, and only died when we were away from home and could not attend to it. Geraniums would rather be dry than wet. The pretty white Spiræa and the little trailing yellow Musk are both very thirsty plants, and flag at once if you neglect them. The Vallota Purpurea, the Scarborough Lily, is a splendid window plant. When once you have potted it you should not disturb it, as it flowers best when it is almost bursting the pot with its big onion-shaped bulbs. The Vallota never cares to be wet, and after it has flowered it needs very little water; yet it must not become bone-dry. You will say these are difficult directions, and we can only agree with you. Gardening is an art that in the end must be largely learned by experience, and the earlier you begin to practise it the sooner you will find out some of the things all the books in the world cannot tell you. You cannot give a recipe for watering as you can give one for a cake or a pudding, because the same plant will need different quantities in different conditions and at different times. When you see leaves flag in their flowering season, they probably want water; when they turn yellow and drop off, they have probably had too much. In winter you must not water in a room likely to feel frost at night, as that would help to freeze the roots. You are sure to have some failures and some successes with your plants to the end of your gardening days, but every failure ought to teach you, and every success will spur you on. The true gardener loves his art so well that he will grow what he can even under difficult conditions.
Keep your plants free from dust on their leaves.
Keep stagnant water out of their saucers. See that those in undrained bowls are just moist, but not wet.
Give all the light and air possible, but remember that draughts are injurious.
This is the story of a Japanese garden made by one of the authors when she was in her London home, and had to grow all her plants in a window-box and in a room. The Japanese, as you probably know, think that size in a garden does not matter, provided that everything is in proportion, and they produce the most wonderful effects of landscape gardening in a small space. The one in the room was copied as nearly as possible from a photograph of a real one. To begin with, a zinc tray was made, five feet long, two feet wide, and four inches deep. At one end a hill was arranged of good-sized stones bedded in earth. Halfway up the hill grew a dwarf Japanese Fir-tree. It was really in a pot, but the pot was hidden by Moss and stones. On the other side of the hill, a little lower down, there was an Orange-tree, covered with small red oranges. These are to be had at any good flower shop for five shillings. The Orange-tree lasted a year with care, but the Fir-tree lasted five years in London, and is still alive in a West Country garden. Down the centre of the hill a staircase was made of small, flat stones wedged into the earth, and beside this several sorts of tiny hardy Ferns grew. At the base of the hill a good many plants in pots were arranged to look as natural as possible, but all the pots were bedded in earth and covered with Moss. Some paths were arranged with flat stones, and one of them led to the lake. This was made of a green earthenware dish eighteen inches long and an inch and a half deep. Ferns hung over its edge, and one or two hardy water-plants grew on its surface, while over a corner of it there was a wooden bridge. At the back of the lake there was a tall Umbrella Fern that looked like a Bamboo. Stones were artfully arranged so as to break the straight lines of the dish, and in the spring bulbs grown in very small pots were flowering near it. Some of the miniature Daffodils do well for such a purpose, and so do Crocuses, Snowdrops, and Squills. The dwarf Japanese trees you need for such a garden are rather expensive, but if you do not mind that you can get many beautiful kinds. Any of the Japanese curio dealers would sell little china temples, houses, lanterns, and figures that add to the quaint charm of a garden made in this way. If you please, you may call it artificial, but that is a word you may apply to any form of gardening. When you have made your Japanese garden with great skill and patience, and kept it in good order by unfailing care and attention, you will be rather vexed if other people who cannot keep a Fern alive exclaim: ‘Very curious, certainly, but quite artificial.’ Of course you will smile politely and say nothing, but in your mind there will be some lines from Shakespeare’s ‘Winter’s Tale’ which will comfort and support you. They come in that scene where Perdita says so many beautiful things about the flowers in her garden—when she talks of the Marigold that goes to bed with the sun and with him rises weeping; and of Daffodils that come before the swallow dares, and take the winds of March with beauty. But in her garden she has no streaked Gillyvors (Stocks), and she tells Polixenes, the King, that she will not grow them because they are ‘artificial.’ ‘There is an art,’ she says, ‘which in their piedness shares with great creating Nature.’ And Polixenes answers her:
‘Say there be;
Yet Nature is made better by no mean,
But Nature makes that mean: so, o’er that art,
Which you say adds to Nature, is an art
That Nature makes.’
But you mustn’t take this quotation as an excuse for carpet-bedding.
Unless you live in a warm corner of these islands and have a sunny garden, you will not be able to do much this month. If you have any empty ground it should be dressed with manure, dug on a mild day, and left with a rough surface. The frosts then help to break it up, and when spring comes it will be powdery and friable.
Fruit-trees should be dusted after a slight rain with slaked lime or fresh soot, as this kills moss, lichen, and the insect pests that lodge in the rough places of the bark.
Iris Stylosa should be flowering now in the South of England, and even in colder climates under a south wall. Slugs are fond of these plants, and eat them up when they are in bud. If you notice that this is happening, you must dust with wood-ashes or soot. Gather the flowers with a sharp upward jerk when in tight bud, and put them in a room in tepid water to expand.
Snowdrops, Winter Aconites, Crocuses, Squills, early Daffodils, and Grape Hyacinths will all begin to push towards the light this month. When they are growing in heavy soil that cakes badly, you help them by carefully loosening it a little with a hand-fork. You must not do this in frosty weather.
All delicate plants will need protection now. A piece of rough matting supported by sticks at the comers is enough for many things. It is not a bad plan first to stretch a piece of wire-netting across the sticks and fasten it securely. By day it lets in light and air, and at night the mat or sacking is easily thrown over it. If ever you are on the Riviera you will see the gardeners put their plants to bed every evening as carefully as if they were children, while in this country, where much cold is expected, you see numbers of plants in any well-tended garden protected the whole winter with coverings of bracken or matting. When the plant you want to protect is below ground (a delicate bulb or tuber, for instance, or one that quite dies down in winter), you need only pile on manure or ashes or dead leaves to act as a blanket. We know someone who grew tuberoses successfully out of doors in a Cornish garden, and in the winter he protected them with little heaps of ashes, which he did not remove till the May frosts were over. In most parts of England manure is used as a protection for Roses and slightly delicate climbers; but a skilful gardener will shelter many of his delicate plants with little tents that he makes of twigs and bracken. We have seen them all shapes and sizes in a North Country garden where many rare things are grown. Some enclosed the plant altogether, and some gave it shelter, but let in sun and air on the south side.
This is the month when seed lists arrive, and remind you that spring is coming. Remember that it is easier to buy seeds than to grow them well, and do not order more than you have room for, or any requiring conditions you cannot give them.
All weeds should be destroyed this month, both in the path and the edging, as well as in the border. If you have Dandelions or Hemlock, cut their heads off, and cover the remains with common salt. Plantains and most other weeds may be killed in time in this way.
Perhaps you remember that line in Tennyson about Geraint glancing at Enid ‘as careful robins eye the delver’s toil.’ You are sure to think of it this month when you begin to fork over your garden, for wherever you turn the soil there you will see a robin with its red breast and bright eyes looking for food. Never drive one away, for they eat wood-lice, grubs, and worms, but do no harm to plants. A nice big toad—not a frog, but a rough, grey toad—is a most desirable friend, too, as he will eat ants, wood-lice, and flies. Ants are sometimes most mischievous in a garden. They do not eat plants, but they eat certain aphides they find on the roots. Anyhow, they will kill your pet plant if they are so inclined. You see it turn yellow and die, and when you take it up you find its roots gnawed away. We do not pretend that this is a scientific description of what happens, but only one we can relate out of our own sad experience. We once built a wall with great care, meaning to grow many beautiful rock plants on it. We could not understand why they flourished for a time, and then died. Then we found the ants and tried to kill them in various horrid ways that made us feel like inquisitors. We won’t harrow you with them, because they were not only cruel, but useless. At last we asked one of the best gardeners we knew what he did when one of his plants was attacked by ants, and he said he only knew of one thing to do, and that was to remove the plant.
Lady-birds, as well as birds and toads, are friends in your garden, as they eat aphides—what the little girl in one of Anstey’s stories calls ‘those horrid little green atheists.’ Sparrows you must keep away this month with black cotton amongst your Crocuses if you want to see the flowers whole and upright. When you find their yellow petals strewn on the ground, you will know that the mischievous birds have been at them. In mild springs some of the herbaceous plants begin to push up young leaves this month. The Phloxes are amongst the earliest. Look out for slugs, or they will devour the early shoots of many plants, often so greedily that the plant cannot recover.
Japanese Lilies are now arriving, and should be planted in peat and sand. The sand keeps off slugs and attracts moisture. They should have a thick dressing of manure on the top to keep out frost.
Sweet-peas may be sown this month without harm, but it is too early for your other seeds, as long as you depend on an outdoor garden. The impatient, inexperienced gardener reaps nothing but failure when he sows too early. If you are lucky enough to have a frame, you will find it most useful, even though the elaborate, costly hot-beds described in gardening books are beyond your reach. A simple hot-bed can be made with some manure, which must be put in the frame and turned over two or three times with a garden fork. It is then spread out flat, and covered with good garden soil. You can either sow your seeds in this soil or put your seed-boxes on it a few days after it is made. If a hot-bed cannot be made you can fill your frame with cinders, and place your seed-boxes on them. The boxes must be lifted in some way, so as to be near the glass, or the seedlings would grow spindly. On warm days you must open your frame and let in air, or the soil will turn sour and mossy. In showery weather let in rain, and in a drought water judiciously. The four elementary things to remember about seeds grown in a frame are: they must be raised in some way, so as to be near the glass; they must have air to keep the soil healthy; they must be shaded from strong sunshine; and they must be moist, but not too moist. You do not want them either to be withered by drought or smothered by moss.
This is a busy month in the garden. When it ‘comes in like a lion’ you have to sit idle; but directly there are mild, dry days you should be at work. Wherever you mean to sow seeds the ground should be well dug, and then raked smooth and fine. If you just rake the top, and leave the soil beneath in a hard cake, your seeds will be like those sown in the parable that fell on stony ground and had no depth of earth. They will spring up, but they will have no roots, and when the sun comes they will wither away. In a cold climate Sweet-peas and Mignonette should not be sown till the middle or end of this month, and most other seeds will do better if sown in April. March is too early for Nasturtiums or Convolvuluses, two flowers most children wish to grow.
Towards the end of the month you can divide those herbaceous plants that are not spring-flowering, if you wish to increase them. You must not disturb plants that are just going to flower, but all the strong kinds will stand division and transplanting when they have only sent up young leaves. For instance, you could take up a Phlox, a Michaelmas Daisy, or even a Pyrethrum, on a showery day, pull it to pieces, and find that every bit made a strong plant by the autumn. In the rock garden the mossy Saxifrages that have bald places in the middle should be taken up, divided, and firmly replanted. This is the way to treat many little rock plants that grow themselves shabby in a year or two.
Any new hardy perennials you want may be planted in favourable March weather, and so may the autumn-flowering Gladioli.
Most of the hardy annuals may still be sown this month. Those sown in March will be coming up, and you must remember what we told you about the importance of thinning out. In some gardens nearly all annuals are raised in boxes, and pricked out in the borders where they are to bloom. We tell you this because you may belong to a garden where you can get all the annuals you need given this month in the shape of little ready-made seedlings. You must plant them several inches apart on a showery day, and shade them from the sun at first; a tent made of four sticks and a newspaper will serve when there is no wind. As soon as they have taken root, and look well established, it is a good plan to pinch off their tips with your thumb and finger, because then they will make spreading side shoots, and give you more flowers. You can pinch most of your annual and herbaceous plants in this way when they are young, but you must not do it to any plant growing from a bulb or a corm, such as a Lily or a Gladiolus. Some tuberous plants, such as Dahlias, may be pinched with advantage.
Roses are pruned in March or April, but the different varieties need different treatment. You must get some good advice about your special kinds, or be content to cut away the dead-looking wood. The green fly begins this month, and you should keep your Roses free from it, either with an aphis brush or by spraying with quassia chips and water as recommended on p. 126.
Weed hard this month, as you do not want any weeds to seed themselves, and they will do so if you neglect them.
The leaves of your early-flowering bulbs will now begin to look shabby, but you must put up with that if you do not mean to throw away your bulbs or to lift them carefully to the wild garden. Daffodil leaves may be tied up with string or raffia if they are sprawling over seedlings, or over plants you want seen. Weeds grow fast this month, and should be diligently removed. Gardeners weed with a Dutch hoe, but it is an implement that does more harm than good if unskilfully used. You will find when you first try to use one how easy it is to damage the young shoots of your treasures with a hoe, and that in a crowded corner it is far safer to weed with a knife or a small hand-fork.
The middle or the end of May is an exciting time in gardens, because we then bring out our half-hardy plants. Dahlias, delicate annuals, and bedders are all put into the borders when the early May frosts are over. If possible, this should be done in showery weather. Two or three dull, damp, warm days save a gardener a deal of trouble in shading and watering at this time of year. In case the weather is fine and dry, however, remember that a great deal can be done by planting each plant in a little puddle of water and shading it with a flower-pot or a box, or any little tent you can invent. When the nights are warm these coverings can be removed at sunset and replaced in the early morning. You will have to judge in each case how many days of such care a plant requires. When its roots are well established, it will look after itself by day as well as by night.
You know, of course, that plants must never be watered when the sun is on them. Nevertheless, if ever you see a plant flagging badly in the sun, and plainly dying for a drink, you may give it one carefully at its roots. Do not let the water touch its leaves, and, if possible, shade it for the rest of the day.
A great many biennial and perennial seeds are sown in May, for a gardener must work for the years to come as well as for the present one. It is a good plan to try to grow one biennial and one perennial every year, as two boxes of seedlings do not give you too much work. Be sure to get your seed at one of the best places, for nothing is more disappointing than to take great pains with inferior seed.
Look carefully at your Rose-trees every day this month, and remove any leaves that are curled and stuck together. Each one contains a grub, that will become a caterpillar and devour the foliage of the tree later on. Leaves that are merely curled by cold, and not stuck together, must not be picked off.
Convolvulus seed may be sown in the open this month.
Many plants will now require staking. We have told you how this should be done at the end of the chapter on ‘Hardy Perennials.’ Towards the end of the month you will find the leaves of Crocuses and Snowdrops quite dead, so that you can remove them without injuring the bulbs. At the beginning of the month you can still put out bedding plants, half-hardy annuals, and biennials. A plant may be put into the open ground out of a pot at almost any time of the year. It is the safest way of transplanting in hot weather, but you must distinguish between plants that have been honestly grown in pots and those that a nurseryman has potted from boxes a day or two ago. When the soil falls away and leaves the root and stem quite bare, your plant will want care and shade as much as if you had just pulled it out of a box yourself.
Your Primroses and Auriculas should be taken up and divided this month if you wish to increase them. Let them spend the summer in a moist, shady corner of the garden. You will probably lose them all if you plant them where it is hot or dry.
During this month and the next, when the soil is heated by the summer sun, you take cuttings and pipings, and make layers of the plants you wish to strike. Pinks are increased when they have done flowering, but the young shoots of the Carnation are often layered while the older shoots are still in flower.
Daffodil leaves should now come away with a touch, and without injury to the bulbs. Every day this month you should visit your garden with a pair of scissors, and cut off all dead flowers and all annuals that are going to seed. Not one Sweet-pea must be allowed to make a pod, and your Mignonette will have a longer flowering season if you can cut off the green seed-vessels directly they appear. Perhaps you will like some of your Love-in-a-mist to form its handsome seed-pods and sow itself for next year. One pink Canterbury Bell, too, would give you seed enough to fill a big garden; but its seedlings will probably not be pink if you have allowed blue and white ones to grow near it.
When your Lupins, Pyrethrums, and Delphiniums go out of flower, you can either cut off the flowering stems and leave the rest of the plant, or you can cut down the whole plant close to the ground. When you cut down severely you should give a little extra food in the shape of manure, bone-meal, or Clay’s Fertilizer. We did not include Pyrethrums in our short list of perennials, because they are rather capricious: easily managed in some gardens, and bad-tempered in others. Slugs devour them. If they are given to you, and you want to cut them down, do it rather gingerly, and in damp, dull weather. We are not speaking by any orthodox tradition, but out of our own experience, as we have lost many a fine clump through being told that they could be cut down sharply after flowering. In dry weather the operation kills them.
The chief things to do this month are to enjoy your garden, to cut your flowers, and to keep things tidy. Pinks, Pansies, and Carnations may be increased in the ways we have explained. If you have Rose-trees of your own, or are allowed to take a few cuttings from other people’s, you should try to grow some on their own roots. We have told you how to take the cutting and how to plant it in the chapter on ‘Roses.’ The bulb lists arrive this month, and you must decide what bulbs you want for autumn planting.
Your spring-flowering bulbs should be planted this month. In some cases it cannot be done, because their places are not vacant yet, or because you mean to dig over your whole garden later in the autumn. But where complete reorganization is unnecessary, try to find room for your bulbs as soon as possible.
If you have any biennial or perennial plants grown from seed sown in May, they should now be strong and big enough to transplant to their flowering quarters. This is an operation you can carry out either in autumn or spring, but not in winter. Frost soon kills plants that have not had time to take a firm hold of the soil.
Autumn brings much labour in the garden in the shape of tidying, weeding, and preparing for next year. Annuals that have become shabby may be pulled up and thrown away. They will leave a bare place that you must dig over well. Before you replant it you must consider whether what you are going to plant would like a little manure beneath its roots, or as a blanket on the top. A greedy annual has probably impoverished the soil.
Herbaceous plants that flower in spring may all be divided and reset now.
In October great operations are carried out in herbaceous borders. New plants come in from nurserymen or friends; old ones are cut down, fed, and in some cases divided; seedlings are put in groups where they are to flower. These things are done all through the autumn, according to convenience. In a mild district you may go on till Christmas planting out and reorganizing your borders. In a cold one get it done at the end of summer, before the frosts come. Any bulbs you have not planted in September should go into the ground now.
There is still plenty to do in the garden on a fine day. In a wild garden or shrubbery some people leave all the dead leaves lying. We think that this is advisable in a big country garden, but not in a small, compact town one, that should look trim and well-tended. Your flower border you should keep as neat as your bedroom. All weeds, dead leaves, and rubbish must be removed now, and if you have plants that need protection you will give them tidy heaps of manure, ashes, or dead leaves. See that the labels and sticks marking plants and bulbs are firmly in the ground. Cut down herbaceous plants that have done flowering. Throw away the annuals that have become shabby. Lift your Dahlias on a dry day, cut their stems to within three inches of the crown of the roots, and put them, stem downwards, in an airy place to dry. During the winter they must be kept from frost, but not altogether from air. They are often stored in a shed, or on the floor of a cool greenhouse.
Remember that this is the chief month in the year for planting Roses, and do it at the beginning rather than the end.
Any part of your garden that is empty may be dug over and manured now. The surface should then be left in a rough state, so that the winter frosts can work the soil well, and prepare it to receive seeds and young plants in the spring.
November and December are two most important months in the gardening year. All the digging and the alterations you have planned during the summer are taken in hand now. In a cold climate you would be careful to finish your planting early in November, but in the South and West of England you might still be busy with a new rockery or a new flower border. Even in the South you must now expect winter weather, and should complete your preparations for protecting delicate plants. One of the enchanting discoveries you make when you become a gardener is that there is no ‘dead’ season in these islands. In the milder corners you may have Roses, Violets, and Primroses all through the winter, while the early spring bulbs push their spikes through the soil before you have gathered your last Chrysanthemum. But even in a cold climate, when all your plants seem to be asleep beneath the snow, you can be busy indoors for your garden. It is a good plan to make plenty of large wooden labels, as the little ones you buy are easily lost. If you have the use of a shed or an attic, you may wish to repaint your watering-can and wheelbarrow; and out of doors you can sort all your stakes, and point those used for Sweet-peas with a sharp, strong knife. Besides, you will probably have some bulbs and foliage plants indoors that require your care.
If you have any Christmas Roses (Hellebores) in your garden, it is well worth while to make a roof over them with strong stakes and sacking. Then the air can get in at the sides, but the roof prevents the rough winter rains from splashing their faces with soil. When Christmas is over you have January, the worst of the winter months, before you, and after that you will say to yourself every day that ‘spring is coming.’ Even during a cold February the lengthening afternoon lights say this to you a little clearer every week, and during the spell of mild weather that nearly every February brings you will find many other promises of spring in your garden. So the year goes round for us, a tangled tale of work and pleasure, success and failure, hope and disappointment. The great gardener must be wise and humble, or he would not be great; so he knows to the end of his days that he has much to learn. The child who first plants his little plot should also teach himself this lesson. Then, if he observes his plants attentively and patiently, he will in the course of years become a gardener.
‘Who loves a garden
Still his Eden keeps,
Perennial pleasures plants,
And wholesome harvests reaps.’
Aconite, Winter, 85
Alonsoas, 40
Alstrœmerias, 85
Alyssum Saxatile, 157
Anthericum Liliastrum (St. Bruno’s Lily), 157
Antirrhinums (Snapdragons), 157
Arabis, 158
Arenaria Balearica, 158
Aspidistra, 198
Aubrietias, 158
Auriculas, 224
Bedding plants, 107
Begonias, 86
Biennials, 91
Calceolarias, 110
Campanula Isophylla, 206
Medium, 98
Persicifolia, 170
Pyramidalis, 169
Campanulas, 98, 158, 169, 170, 206
Candytuft, 168
Canterbury Bells, 98
Carnations, 131
Ceanothus Veitchii, 176
Christmas Roses, 231
Chrysanthemums (Summer), 62
Clarkia, 33
Clematis, 176
Climbing Roses, 119
Columbine, 57
Convolvulus Major, 178
Crocuses, 73
Cyclamens, 170
Daffodils, 75
Dahlias, 88
Daisies, Marguerite, 110
Day Lilies, 148
Delphinium, 50
Dividing, 219, 224
Edging, 15
Eschscholtzia, 40
Evening Primrose, 60, 100
Everlasting Peas, 178
Forget-Me-Not, 104
Foxgloves, 104
Fruit, 190
Geraniums, 110
Gladioli, 82
Godetias, 34
Grape Hyacinth, 81
Gypsophila Paniculata, 61
Helianthemums, 158
Heliotropes, 110
Herbaceous plants, 219
Hop, 177
House-leeks, 160
Hyacinths, 80, 202
Hybrid Perpetuals, 116
Iberis Sempervirens, 159
Iris Pumila, 159
Stylosa, 159, 212
Irises, 53, 84, 159, 212
Japanese Anemones, 56
Japanese gardens, 208
Jasmine, 177
Labels, 231
Larkspurs, 34
Lavender, Sweet, 61
Lettuce, 184
Lilies, Day, 148
Orange, 144
Sacred, 205
Tiger, 146
Lilies of the Valley, 148
Lilium Auratum, 146
Candidum, 142
Speciosum, 145
Lime, 9
Lithospermum Prostratum, 159
Lupins, 55
Malope, 33
Manure, 8
Marguerite Daisies, 110
Martagon, 145
Michaelmas Daisies, 66
Mignonette, 31
Mint, 188
Mixtures for growing bulbs, 203
Montbretias, 84
Musk, 207
Mustard and Cress, 183
Narcissus, 75
Nasturtiums, 36
Nigella, 35
Onions, Spring, 187
Orange Lilies, 144
Oriental Poppies, 52
Palms, 199
Pansies, 95
Parsley, 189
Paths, 3
Peas, Everlasting, 178
Peas, Sweet, 24
Peonies, 58
Perennial Candytuft, 168
Phlox Setacea, 160
Pinks, 139
Polyanthus Narcissus, 203
Poppies, Shirley, 38
Pricking out, 21
Primroses, 47, 224
Pyrethrums, 225
Radishes, 186
Roman Hyacinths, 202
Roses, Christmas, 231
Climbing, 119
Sacred Lilies, 205
Saxifrages, 160
Sedums, 160
Seed, 18
Sempervivums, 160
Shirley Poppies, 38
Siberian Squills, 74
Situation of gardens, 1
Snapdragons, 101
Snowdrops, 72
Soil, 1
Speedwell, 160
Spiræa, 207
Spring Onions, 187
Squills, Siberian, 74
Staking, 68
Stocks, 105
Summer-flowering Chrysanthemums, 62
Sunflowers, 37
Sweet Lavender, 61
Peas, 24
William, 98
Tea Roses and Hybrid Teas, 117
Tiger Lilies, 146
Tools, 11
Trenches, 10
Tropæolum, Speciosum, 174
Tufted Pansies, 95
Tulips, 81
Vallota Purpurea, 207
Violets, 64
Wallflowers, 93
Water, 202
Winter Aconite, 85
Wistaria, 173
THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD