Wewill begin with Lilium Candidum, the Madonna or Cottage Lily. You know it, of course: the big white lily that the Madonna, and sometimes the angels, carry in old pictures, and that you see at its best in cottage gardens. All gardeners ask each other ‘Why do we see great healthy clumps of this lovely Lily in poor little neglected cottage gardens, while in our highly-fed and carefully-tended ones it gets the now well-known Lily disease?’ We hope your Madonna Lilies will not get it, because it is rather heart-breaking to watch its ravages. In the spring you see fine, healthy leaves, and you look forward to the tall stems that will arise from them and bear great scented, shining white flowers. But one day you notice that the leaves look rather brown. A stem has shot up, but the leaves on it look brown, too.Every day it seems to get browner and flabbier, and at last you cut it down because it is so unsightly. Sometimes these sick stems bear sick, half-decayed Lilies, but they give you no pleasure. A healthy Dandelion is far more beautiful.
One of the best amateur gardeners we ever knew used to say that there were some plants that throve on neglect, and we really believe that the Madonna Lily is one of them. The cottager who puts some healthy bulbs in dry soil, and leaves them there year after year, gets better flowers than the gardener who fusses and feeds them. There seems to be no doubt that the Lily disease has its best chance in a low, badly drained soil that holds moisture. If you can give your Lilies a dry, well-drained position, you will probably succeed with them. Buy your bulbs from a good firm, dust them well with flower of sulphur, plant them about five inches deep and nine inches apart in sand, and then never interfere with them again. Remember that their flowers will last longer if not exposed to the full midday sun, but do not plant them near the roots of the trees, or where rain cannot reach them. Theyrequire rain, but not stagnant moisture. Three bulbs together make a nice clump, and they would look well in the centre of your border. The leaves die down in winter, and when the new ones come in spring, you must look out for slugs. If you have many, surround your Lilies with lime, soot, or wood ashes. Mr. J. Weathers says that a frequent fine syringeing with warm soapy water will sometimes check the disease. If when your Lilies flower you do not want their petals dusted over with yellow pollen, you must remove the anthers, the part of the stamen that contains the pollen.
This is the splendid orange Lily with purple spots so much grown in Irish cottage gardens. It is one of the easiest and hardiest of Lilies, and looks well against a background of shrubs or ferns. The bulbs should be planted from six to nine inches deep, and need not be disturbed for years. If you have to dig yours up in spring or autumn, you can increase your stock by carefully detaching the little offsets from the parent bulbs. In time they will make flowering plants. This Lilywill grow in sunshine or shade, and in any healthy garden soil.
girl looking at lilies that are taller than she isLILIES AND ROSES.
LILIES AND ROSES.
Some Lilies make two kinds of roots—one kind from their base, and one kind from their stem. Others only make basal roots, and should, on that account, be planted in autumn. Their root action begins in October, and goes on through the winter, so that if they are lifted in spring they are seriously damaged, and may not flower. All the Martagon, or Turk’s Cap, Lilies, belong to this class. If you want them you must plant them in autumn. You can have them in crimson, white, or yellow, but the handsomest is Album, with stems from four to five feet high, carrying a large number of waxy white flowers. The petals in this species are turned back, and give the effect of a Turk’s cap or turban. They are easily grown in a mixture of loam and leaf-mould, and in a partly shaded position.
There are several varieties of this Lily, and they are all most beautiful. They flower in thelate summer and autumn, and should have a warm and sheltered situation. They should be planted in loam, peat, leaf-mould, and sharp sand. If you live in a cold district, you should give these Lilies and the Auratums a covering in winter. A mulching of manure is good for them, and will keep them warm.
The best variety of this Lily is Lilium Tigrinum Splendens. The flowers are orange-red, spotted or ‘tigered’ with blackish purple. A fine specimen sometimes reaches a height of seven feet, and bears twenty-five flowers. All the Tiger Lilies are easily grown in a well-drained soil in a partly shaded situation. They can be increased by offsets, or by the little blackish bulblets you will see on the stems amongst the leaves. These will drop and root themselves if not gathered, but they will not make flowering bulbs for some years.
This is the King of Lilies, the ‘Golden Lily of Japan,’ and a native of that country. If you live within reach of Kew Gardens, you should gothere in summer on purpose to see these splendid Lilies flowering amongst the Rhododendrons, where they have a moist, peaty soil for their roots. Mr. Wallace, of Colchester, the great authority on Lilies, says that the Auratum likes a strong soil, not too heavy, a good friable loam. It should be planted about three times its own depth, and, if you can possibly get it, in some moist sea-sand. It is one of the stem-rooting Lilies, and will sometimes get support through its flowering season from these roots only. But if it is to make good bulb growth, too, so as to come up and flower another year, it must have basal roots, and be planted directly it arrives from Japan. It requires a warm and sheltered situation, and in spring likes a mulching of well-rotted manure. Do not put it where it can be shaken by violent winds or scorched by a full midday sun. The best variety is Auratum Platyphyllum. There is one thing you must remember about all Lilies, and that is that they sometimes lie dormant for a year. We have often found they did this after removal. We once planned a fine display of the Madonna Lily in a corner of a new border, but though we bought dozens of bulbs and putthem in, none came up. We thought they must have resented the move and died; but when we grubbed down amongst them to see what had happened, we found every bulb as plump and healthy as we could wish. They were having a year’s sleep.
This belongs to the Lily Order, but it is not a bulb. It is a herbaceous plant, with a rhizome and short, fleshy roots, rather like a bunch of brownish-white fingers. They succeed in any good garden soil, but they like one that has been well manured some weeks before planting. They should be left undisturbed three or four years, and may then be divided in autumn when the leaves have withered. When you replant, put them from twelve to eighteen inches apart. The flowers are yellow or tawny, and only last for a day, or at most two. But they succeed each other quickly for several weeks. The Greek name means ‘Beauty of a day.’
There is a popular idea that the Lily of the Valley will grow in any kind of deep shade, andso you see its poor, starved leaves struggling for life under evergreen shrubs, or the strong roots of trees that steal all its nourishment. The Lily of the Valley does like shade for the greater part of the day, but it is a plant that requires proper food. It will stand sun if you give it a deep, rich soil. The best situation for it is under a wall with a north or west aspect, or in any shady place that has good soil with some sand in it, and fresh air overhead. The bed should be made in October, and the little tuberous roots set two inches apart each way, with the point of the crown just under the soil. Work the soil well amongst and over the branching roots as you plant. In a cold climate protect the bed with bracken or dead leaves in winter, or, better still, with a covering of manure. After four years your Lilies of the Valley should have grown into a thick mat of leaves. Then in October you must dig them up, dress your bed with fresh manure, soil and sand, pull your plants apart, and set them in rows again. If you can make two beds, one in sun and one in shade, you will have a longer succession of bloom. When you gather the flowers, do not pick many leaves, and, at anyrate, only one from each plant, as they nourish the crowns.
There is a pretty story of the way the Lily of the Valley came to run wild, as it does in German woods. Once upon a time, so long ago that no one in Germany had any Lilies of the Valley, there lived an Abbot who was a great gardener and a holy man. A pilgrim passing through his district was kindly received by him, and in gratitude gave him a withered-looking root that he said he had brought from a country where similar roots bore lovely scented flowers. The Abbot planted it and watched it, as he watched everything in his garden. In the spring the root sent up a few broad, shining leaves, but no flowers. He left it alone, and next year there were more leaves and two or three Lilies of the Valley, the first that had ever grown in Germany. By the third year the fame of the plant had travelled here and there, so that people who loved their gardens came to the Abbey on purpose to see it. Every year there was a bigger bed of the Lilies and a longer procession of visitors to see them, and the heart of the Abbot was filled with pride and vainglory, because he, andno other man, possessed the flowers. But he was a holy Abbot; he became afraid of the pride growing within him, and saw it to be evil. So one day he dug up every Lily of the Valley growing in his garden and carried them into the woods, and planted them here and there, that they might belong to all men, and not to him alone; and ever since the woods of Germany have been full of Lilies of the Valley.
Thevery worst advice we ever saw given about gardening was given in a popular magazine in an article on Rock Gardens. It said that all you wanted for a rockery in a town or suburban garden was a cartload of stones orbricksdumped down in a corner. We really wondered when we read it whether the writer thought that plants could feed on bricks. Soon after reading this nightmare of an article we came across Mrs. Swanwick’s clever book, ‘The Small Town Garden,’ and we will tell you what she says about the proper way to start a rockery. ‘If people who make a rockery would consider that it is to be made of earth, supported with stones or rocks, they would be much nearer the right method than those who think of a rockery as a pile of stones with a little soil dribbled in amongthem. If we bear these requirements in mind, it becomes clear that the stones or rocks must be set so as to leave no hollows empty of soil between them, nor niches kept dry by overhanging rocks, and the slope of the earth must be such that the rain will not wash it away, and expose the roots of the plants.’
It may be that a flat, sunny border cannot be spared for you, but that if you choose you may annex a grass-grown bank or slope of a hill going up to a stone wall or to shrubs. We will tell you how we once saw a place of this kind made into a charming rock garden with some blocks of limestone and a few days’ labour. The bank in this case led from an upper lawn to a lower one, and had a south aspect. The turf was all removed, the soil was thoroughly broken and mixed with sand, and then slabs of limestone were mixed into it, each one with a slight upward tilt, so as to hold the earth and catch the rain. The great point to remember about rock gardening is that every stone or rock should be wedged into the soil a little slantwise, so that the hidden end slants down and the end you see slants up. You soon find out an elementary truth of this kindfor yourself if you try to grow things in a badly-made wall or rockery. We once watched someone struggle with a loosely built granite wall that tilted a little towards him, and which had no soil in its crevices. He tried stuffing in earth, but as the slant was wrong it fell out as it dried. No rain reached the roots of his plants because the top stones sheltered the lower ones, so nothing that needed moisture would live. Perhaps in the course of years he might have coaxed some of the house-leeks to find a lodging there; but as he wanted a wall garden clothed in spring with hanging sheets of flowering plants, the only way was to pull the wall down and build it properly. Then it had earth packed into every crevice, and the stones so arranged that the rain could reach every plant set amongst them. Some plants, it is true, will live on next to nothing, but there are very few that will do without rain and will survive when their roots have reached a hollow place amongst stones.
We think that while you are a child you will probably not have much chance either of making rock gardens or of building walls; but you may have a bit of wall or garden that easily lendsitself to rock plants, and would not do well for anything else. In some parts of England you may have a garden that is rock with a sprinkling of soil on it, and the difficulty will be to find or make places for vegetables and deep-rooted shrubs and flowers. In a garden of this kind the children are quite likely to have a patch where the rocks are showing through the soil, and where it is difficult to find pockets of earth deep enough even for Daffodils or Tulips. But there are many beautiful shallow-rooted plants you can grow in such places as these, for they will not be like the silly heap of loose stones or bricks described in the magazine article. For instance, if you put a bit of the Arenaria Balearica in such a rocky corner as this, it will find its way here and there, clothing every stone with a mossy carpet, and in spring putting out thousands of tiny white starry flowers. Then there is a charming Dwarf Veronica (Veronica repens), that seems content with very little soil, increases at a great rate, and has that pretty way of clothing the stones and taking their shapes. Another of our favourite common Alpines is the Campanula Cæspitosa, a smallCampanula that sends up its quivering white or blue bells the whole summer through. It is so hardy and rambling, and increases so fast, that the fastidious rock gardener warns you not to let anything precious grow near it.
You will have to find out for yourself which rock plants are so greedy and pushing that you get tired of their company; for this must depend on your soil and climate. In Cornwall the little Arenaria Balearica spreads so quickly that you soon tear it up by the yard, while in the North of England it seems to increase slowly. In a cold district you may be glad of things that would overrun you in a warm one. Near a town people grow whatever will best endure the soot and close air. When you are older you will have to find out which plants want lime and which granite, which peat and which sand; but we will only tell you of plants now that will grow in any ordinary good garden soil mixed with a little leaf-mould and some small stones, and we will only give you the names of plants that can be got at any good nursery garden. If you can do so, get your plants in little pots, and put them into your rockery or your wall on a showery spring day.But take care that every plant has a good deep pocket of fresh soil to feed it.
Alyssum Saxatile.—This grows into a dwarf shrub in time, and is a mass of small, brilliant, yellow flowers in spring. It is very sweet, and the bees love it. It looks well near Aubrietias, or near Lithospermum Prostratum. Suitable either for a rock garden or for a loose stone wall in which you can have a deep pocket of earth for its roots.
Antirrhinums(Snapdragons).—We think the good dwarf ones are charming on rockeries. We once had some pink ones grown from Sutton’s seed that were as pretty as little Rose-bushes. On walls some of the taller ones often look well, and when they are self-sown they seem to flourish in chinks where there cannot be much food for them. If you have a wall you should sow a little seed, and be careful not to mistake the seedlings for weeds.
Anthericum Liliastrum(St. Bruno’s Lily).—A charming plant, growing from one to two feet high, and flowering in May or June. It likes asandy loam. If you want to increase it, you can divide it in the autumn.
Arabis.—If you are a London child, you will have seen this with London Pride in every London rock garden. It is the commonest of rock plants, and its white flowers make a pleasant show near Aubrietias and Alyssum in spring.
Arenaria Balearica.—This is the little creeping mossy plant we have told you of already. Put a bit on some soil near any stones you want covered.
Aubrietias.—You must know these if you have ever looked at a garden in spring. They are in various shades of mauve and purple, and make great sheets of colour on walls and rockeries. It is sometimes called Purple Rock-Cress. You can divide them in autumn, or you can grow them from seed sown in May or June.
Campanulas.—There are many varieties of blue and white Harebells that do well on walls and rockeries. Pumila, Pulla, and Cæspitosa are three well-known dwarf ones. Isophylla is a good hanging one, but not quite hardy. Persicifolia is an easily-grown tall one. They are increased by division.
Helianthemums, or Sun Roses.—These mustnot be confused with the Cistus, or Rock Roses, which are charming, but not so hardy as the Helianthemums. If you grow them from seed sown in May or June, you should in the following year have a number of dwarf shrubs bearing single flowers in a variety of shades, ranging from white and yellow to bright crimson.
Iberis Sempervirensis often called Perennial Candytuft. We have known people buy it by its Latin name, and be much disappointed to find it was the well-known white flower they had seen in all their friends’ gardens. It is not proud, and will grow almost anywhere.
Iris Pumila and Iris Stylosa.—We mention two out of the many beautiful Irises suitable for a rockery. Try to get the variety of Pumila called Cœrulea, a lovely sky-blue. Stylosa is the scented Iris that flowers in winter. It likes sun and shelter, and dry, hard ground. It must be manured.
Lithospermum Prostratum.—If we were only allowed one rock plant out of all there are, we would choose this one. It flowers nearly all the year round in some parts of England, and its blue is as vivid as the blue of a Gentian. If youcan plant it so that its roots can tuck themselves under a big rock as they grow, so much the better. We have transplanted a big plant of it successfully, but we did it in fear and trembling, as it is said to hate disturbance. You had better not try to divide it. It can only be increased by cuttings, and they are not at all easy to strike.
Phlox Setacea.—This is one of several varieties of dwarf Phloxes that are useful for edgings and rockeries. They must have sun and well-drained soil, or they damp off.
Speedwell: Veronica Repens.—There are many varieties and sizes of Veronica. Some make big garden shrubs. The one we recommend here is a tiny trailing plant, with small pale blue flowers. It increases at a great rate, and is easily divided. Slugs like it, but do not make headway against it in many gardens. It makes a pretty dwarf edging amongst stones, as it creeps amongst them, and partly covers them.
boy and girl working on rock garden next to stone-laid road“THE ROAD TO ROME.”
“THE ROAD TO ROME.”
The Sedums, Saxifrages, and House-leeks, or Sempervivums, are all suitable for rockeries. Some kinds of Sedums, or Stonecrops, grow wild in our hedges. You should get Sedum Spectabile, the Japanese Stonecrop, which bears largeheads of pink flowers in August. There are many widely differing varieties of Saxifrage, or Rockfoil; for instance, Muscoides, the Mossy Saxifrage, makes a plump, low cushion of green moss on your rockery; Sarmentosa is the well-known weed, Mother of Thousands; Umbrosa is London Pride. Some have large leaves and pink flowers; some send up pyramids of white flowers from tufts of silvery leaves. You must grow one or two at a time, and get to know them by degrees. Sempervivums are those little green rosettes you see spreading in clumps on old roofs and walls. One of the most fascinating is Sempervivum Arachnoideum, the Cobweb House-leek. It covers itself with a curious white down that looks like a spider’s web. They like a dry sandy part of the rock garden, and full exposure to the sun.
Besides these plants, you should put a few bulbs in your rockery. Some of the very small Daffodils, Narcissus Minimus or Bulbocodium look charming coming up through a mossy carpet of Arenaria Balearica, for instance. You could also have some Snowdrops, some Siberian Squills, some autumn Crocuses, some Fritillaries, andsome Dog’s Tooth Violets (Erythronium Dens Canis). We much prefer the English names for flowers, but it is often necessary to give both, so that you should recognize it in the catalogues. We heard of someone who sent to the other end of England for a plant advertised as Tussilago Fragrans, or the Winter Heliotrope, and she was much disappointed to receive a bit of the common Coltsfoot, that was an obnoxious weed in her own garden. Someone else sent for Hieracium Aurantiacum, which certainly sounds a first-class name; but she did not want a bit of the orange Hawkweed, as it had established itself more firmly than she wished in her rock garden already, and had to be kept in bounds with a spade.
We have not given you separate lists for a sunny and a shady rock garden, because we shall tell you a little in another chapter about plants that like shade. You must have some Primroses, Polyanthuses, and Auriculas on your rockery, and though they like the sun in spring, the more delicate kinds need some shelter from the hot summer sun. Try to get Primula rosea, the hardy rose-coloured Himalayan Primrose,and Primula Cashmeriana, a Primrose that sends up heads of mauve flowers on a fat stalk. Both need much moisture. Then, the Japanese Primroses are very handsome, and seed themselves when once established; and Sieboldi, with its many varieties, is easily increased, either by seed sown in spring or by division of the roots.
Now we have chosen just a few flowers for your rock garden, and with every word we write others come and look at us reproachfully, saying, ‘Why are we left out?’ We see neat little tufts of Thrift, or Sea-pink, and hanging sheets of white-flowered Cerastium, Anemones of sorts, Alpine Violas, Forget-me-nots, Hepaticas, Gentians, the finer Columbines, and shrubs of various kinds and sizes. But we have only had one aim in writing this chapter, and that was to lead you just one step towards the rock garden you must make for yourself when you are older. Then you must get yourself ‘Wall and Water Gardens,’ by Gertrude Jekyll, and ‘My Rock Garden,’ by Reginald Farrar, two books that will teach you all that books can about this most fascinating side of garden craft. But from the first one we should like to quote a short passagethat tells you how a wise gardener supplements what he learns from books by his own qualities of patience and observation.
‘Nothing is a better lesson in the knowledge of plants,’ says Miss Jekyll, ‘than to sit down in front of them, and handle them, and look them over just as carefully as possible; and in no way can such study be more pleasantly or conveniently carried on than by taking a light seat to the rock wall and giving plenty of time to each kind of little plant, examining it closely, and asking oneself and it, Why this? and Why that? especially if the first glance show two tufts, one with a better appearance than the other; not to stir from the place until one has found out why and how it is done, and all about it. Of course a friend who has already gone through it all can help on the lesson more quickly, but I doubt whether it is not best to do it all for oneself.’
That is excellent gardening advice, and you can apply it to whatever you are trying to do, whether it is a rock wall or a patch of Mustard and Cress.
We must end this chapter with a short list of things we hope you will never allow in your rock garden, and as they are all to be seen hereand there, you need not say that the advice is unnecessary. Coloured glass balls, for instance! We assure you that, especially in Germany, there are many people who think coloured glass balls beautiful objects in a garden. Others like bits of quartz, and in cottage gardens you may see sea-shells and broken glass. Then, persons who ought to know better will make a grimy erection with clinkers or broken bricks, and a home for Slugs and Woodlice with a rotting tree-stump. You must do none of these things. If you live where you can easily get stone, have a rock garden in some form, even if it is only an edging of stones to your herbaceous border, and grow some of the plants we have told you of amongst them. If you live where your walls are of brick, you may still get some plants established on them. For instance, where weeds have established themselves, you can remove them, stuff in a little good soil, and sow a few seeds of Snapdragon or Wallflower. Old brick walls make beautiful wall-gardens, and when the builder is not looking you can help on the process in a new one with a chisel, a little fine moist soil, and a few roots or seeds.
Aswe told you in our first chapter, the worst piece of ground you can have for a garden is one already occupied by the roots of trees and coarse-growing shrubs or hedges. All around London Privet hedges and grimy Laurels are to be seen everywhere, and wherever people try to grow flowers near their thievish roots the flowers languish. You may put a few Crocuses in front of a group of Laurels, but you will not get much else to flourish. Even that hardiest of Saxifrages, London Pride, leads a starved life, and you cannot know how beautiful it is until you have seen it sending up masses of its foamy pink flowers in good air and from good soil. If you not only have an impoverished and shady garden, but one under the drip of trees, you will not be able to do much with it. Still, we can tellyou about a few things we persuaded to live in a situation of this kind not far from London. You must understand that the two authors of this book have had very different gardening experiences. One is the mistress of a large and very beautiful garden running down to the sea in the West of England, while the other has been a wanderer on the face of the earth, and has worked in many gardens of varying sizes. It is usually her fate to find a wilderness, delve like Adam in it till it is a garden, and then go her ways to the next wilderness. The one you are to hear of now was not a pleasant country wilderness, where even the Briars and Nettles are growing in good clean soil and in fresh air. It was one of those disheartening builders’ gardens, where the earth looks a sort of unwholesome lumpy drab, and is full of old bricks and ginger-beer bottles. One side of it was bounded by a Privet hedge, and the soil was starved, but as it was sunny, we got the strong herbaceous things and pinks to do well in it. The other side, which was under great Horse-Chestnuts and Laburnums, got no sun at all, looked very bare, and was evidently wretched soil. We hadit well dug and dressed, and planted clumps of Michaelmas Daisy, of Iris Germanica, and of the common Evening Primrose a little way back. The Michaelmas Daisies soon made big bushes, and did very well. The Evening Primroses flowered, but ran up rather tall and spindly. The Iris did not flower well, but it increased, and made a clump of handsome leaves. In front we found that the Perennial Candytuft (Iberis Sempervirens) did well, and increased quickly. You can hardly have a more satisfactory plant for the front of a border of this kind. Crocuses came up year after year, too, but we never persuaded our Daffodils to flower more than once in this garden. Annuals we advise you strongly not to try. They are a source of disappointment in such circumstances. The pretty little yellow-flowered shrub St. John’s Wort should do well under trees, and so will some hardy Ferns.
If your garden is in the country, and is only partly shaded by trees, you can grow many beautiful things in it. Perhaps you will be able to have a background of large stones, and plant Ferns amongst them. The hardiest Ferns areMale Fern, Osmunda, Hart’s Tongue, Spleen Wort, Lady Fern, and Shield Fern, and these all like shade. Amongst the Ferns you should have Solomon’s Seal, Columbines, and Foxgloves. As far as you can, in a garden of this kind plant big patches of one flower, and not a muddle of single specimens. Have a bed of Lilies of the Valley in some part of it, and under the trees a bed of Wild Hyacinths. Snowdrops do well amongst the roots of shrubs and trees, so well that in some gardens they spread and increase like a wild flower. They are fond of peat. Primroses do well in shady places, and so does the Wood Anemone (Anemone Nemorosa). Periwinkle will flower in shade, though it likes sun part of the day. Many Saxifrages and Sempervivums (Rockfoils and Stonecrops) will do well in shady places. For instance, if you have a stone edging to your border, you will be able to have clumps of the mossy Saxifrages and of various Stonecrops. Between them the little dwarf Campanulas would do well, and give you colour all through the summer months. The splendid tall Campanula Pyramidalis might do farther back near your Ferns, if you can give itgood soil; so would Campanula Persicifolia, which grows wild in Yorkshire woods. Many Lilies like partial shade and to be near shrubs, but they should never be planted close to the roots of trees.
It is not as generally known as it should be that nearly all the Cyclamens are hardy. The Persian Cyclamen, that we know so well as a pot plant and in greenhouses, is not hardy, and you must not try that in your garden. Get some of the other species which you will find offered in any good bulb catalogue, and in winter give them a covering of moss or dry leaves. They like a dry, porous soil, mixed with a little peat or leaf-mould and some lime or old mortar. The corms are often half out of the ground, or at any rate level with it; but some gardeners, who have paid great attention to their culture, prefer to bury them just under the soil, because the roots of some species come from the top of the corm. The one thing Cyclamens will not stand is stagnant moisture. You must give them well-drained, sandy soil, mixed with a little lime. We repeat this because it is so important, and because Cyclamens are so beautiful that theyare worth any trouble you can take for them. Some flower in spring and some in autumn, and they must be planted when they are at rest: the spring ones in October or November, and the autumn ones in June. If they flourish with you their seedlings will appear naturally; otherwise you had better buy new corms when you want them. Gardeners raise them from seed, but this requires a frame or gentle heat.
In a mild climate you can grow Hydrangeas and the shrubby Veronicas in shady places, but they will not live through prolonged hard frosts.
Wethink the American who described climbing plants as ‘creepers and crawlers’ must have been first cousin to the American novelist who said the house in which his heroine lived was not disfigured by any messy plants growing near it. As you may have a wall, a paling, an arch, or the dead stump of a tree that you would like to disfigure with flowers all the summer, we will tell you of a few good hardy climbers, other than those already recommended in earlier chapters.
A creeper should always be allowed to grow as naturally as possible, and not be restrained more than is necessary by nails or by cutting back. Climbing Roses lose much of their vigour and beauty if penned severely and stretched out tight on a wall. Most climbing plants need some support at the beginning, but later in life takecare of themselves. One climber may be freely allowed to mingle with others, so that you can think out lovely combinations; but you must understand which are free growers and which are shy and delicate, or the strong will strangle the weak. The common Honeysuckle and a pink monthly Rose climb all over the front of a cottage known to us, and on the south side the exquisite Solanum Jasminoides throws its clusters of snowy flowers into them. The Honeysuckle and the monthly Rose would grow almost anywhere in these islands, but the Solanum Jasminoides, or Winter Nightshade, is only hardy in the South of England and other warm districts. It finds support for itself by a twist of its leaf-stalk (you will have watched your Giant Nasturtiums do this most cleverly), and its colour varies a little according to its place in sun or partial shade. The shoots of this creeper must be cut back in spring, when frosts are well over, and in hot weather it must be watered.
The Wistaria is one of the most beautiful of all creepers, and its long mauve racemes mix well with a Dorothy Perkins Rose. The Wistaria is a native of China, and was brought toEurope by Mr. Wistar in 1816. The original plant is still to be seen at Wistar House, grown to an immense size. It is a most useful creeper, for it will flower year after year without any attention to roots or soil. If you have one you should, if possible, get a gardener to pay its woody branches a little attention once a year, as, if left quite to themselves, they grow into an inextricable tangle, too thick in some places, and not thick enough in others.
We are sure you gardening children who live in a cold climate must often wish for a warm one. But now we will tell you about one of the most brilliant creepers known that likes to be as far north as possible, spreads like a weed in Scotland, Yorkshire, Westmorland, and is usually a ‘miffy doer’ in the West Country. This is the Flame Flower, the Tropæolum Speciosum, whose vermilion trumpets can be seen two miles away on a clear day. It is a capricious plant, sometimes failing when it has every attention, and succeeding when it is badly treated. Mr. J. Weathers tells a story of a garden in which it was planted most carefully in many places, but some tubers left over were thrust anyhowamongst the roots of an old yew. None of the correctly-planted ones came up, and the others were forgotten. In the third year someone noticed a flame-coloured flower on a Yew, and found that the badly-planted tubers were all coming up, increasing, flowering, and likely to go on for ever. It dislikes scorching heat, and needs moisture in the air. A west or north aspect suits it, and bushes or hedges amongst which it can scramble. We know a Westmorland garden where it can hardly be kept within bounds, and there they believe in deep planting. A daughter of the house got it to succeed against the wall of a cottage on the place, where it had never succeeded before. ‘What did you do?’ we asked. ‘I dug till I got to New Zealand,’ she said, ‘and then I planted it.’
If you live in the Midlands or the South, where this Chilian Tropæolum would probably not do well, you had better be content with the Ampelopsis Veitchii, the best of the Virginian creepers. It is a wonderful sight in Oxford all through September, and even in London it makes a lovely blaze of colour on many a dull house and wall. It is the least troublesome of all creepers, as itattaches itself by little suckers. We once grew the Ceanothus Veitchii with it, a shrub that is often trained against walls, and which in spring becomes a mass of powder-blue flowers. It is one of the easiest and handsomest doers we know, but be sure to get the right kind, the Gloire de Versailles or the Veitchii. There are a good many kinds of Ceanothus, and some are a very poor colour.
We have told you already about two of the Clematis tribe, the white Montana and the purple Jackmanni. The Montana must not be pruned until its flowering season is quite over. If you cut it back while it is making new shoots, you will injure it. The Jackmanni and its relations are hybrids, and you must try to get either a layered plant or one grown from seed, as the grafted ones are unsatisfactory. The flowers are produced on this year’s shoots. The plants should be cut down in winter to twelve inches from the ground. If you get one of the ‘Patens’ section, remember when you prune that the flowers are borne on the old ripened wood. Only dead wood should be cut away. Lady Londesborough, Miss Bateman, and Mrs. George Jackman, arethree well-known ones. The Wild Clematis, Vitalba, or Traveller’s Joy, will grow into a dense mass if left undisturbed. We know of a cottage where, with a Japanese Honeysuckle, it forms a rainproof porch; and even that is nothing to one at Belvoir Castle, which is twenty feet high and thirty feet in diameter.
The great advantage of Wichuriana Roses is that they are evergreen, and it is a good plan to grow one of them—for instance, the deep red Hiawatha, with the yellow Jasmine (Jasminum Nudiflorum), whose flowers come out before its leaves. If we could only have one creeper out of all there are, we would have this Jasmine, which flowers in winter, and is quite hardy. Be sure not to let anyone prune yours in autumn. Ignorant gardeners often do this, and cut off all the shoots that wanted to flower. Any pruning necessary should be done in March or April, but you need only cut out dead wood. The charming sprays, if cut in bud, come out well in water.
The Hop is a graceful, hardy, and quick-growing climber, and there is a variegated kind that some people prefer. A Hop will cover a big arch in one year. Also, if you arenot on the spot to attend to it, it will throttle every other plant near, and it will probably acquire several varieties of insect blight, and hand them on to its neighbours. One of the authors has suffered from sharing a garden with a Hop enthusiast, and she well remembers the struggle she had to rescue her Roses, Hollyhocks, and Delphiniums from the Hop’s embraces and from the green fly it encouraged. It came up year after year, too, and would not be killed.
The Everlasting Peas are most useful climbers in town gardens. They have no scent, but they give you colour, and are extremely hardy. Then, there are many annual climbers, some of which we have told you about already. If you get Convolvulus Major do not be in a hurry to sow your seeds. The seedlings are delicate, and do not seem to recover well if touched by a spring frost. The first week in May is soon enough. We have seen their blue trumpets grown with a Gloire de Dijon, and their pink ones opening all over an old Lavender bush. Another combination we remember in the same garden was a yellow Banksia Rose and a pink monthly one climbing together up an old grey stone wall.The climbing La France, too, loves a wall, and will flower in masses against one.
But we might go on for ever about the fascinations of creepers and crawlers. The real difficulty is invariably that of choice. You never have room for all you want to grow.
So you must decide for yourself what you will grow; but we advise you strongly to buy your climbers from a first-rate grower. They only cost 1s. or 1s. 6d. each; you cannot have room for many, and they last for years. The cheap stuff advertised is usually most disappointing. We once planted two of the Ampelopsis Veitchii against the same wall, one from the great Veitch himself, and one from a little man round the corner. The difference was in colour rather than in growth. Both lived, climbed, and covered the house, but it was the Veitch plant that turned glowing red and yellow. The other remained brownish-green. It was the same with a Ceanothus. The one from a good firm covered a side of the house with soft yet vivid blue in spring. A cheap one flowered, but its flowers were wishy-washy, a vexation rather than a pleasure.
Before you plant a creeper turn over the soil well, and if it is poor have some good manure forked in. We should never dream of planting a climbing Rose without digging a large hole and putting in a quantity of manure for its roots to feed on, notimmediately, but later on. There should be soil on the top of the manure, and in that your Rose should be planted, as we have told you, firmly, yet not too deeply, and with outspread roots. The main stem of your creeper should be as near its support as possible, and tied to nails, wires, or trellis, with bast or twine; but be careful not to bind it tightly, or when it grows it will be cut through. Many gardeners use little strips of cloth and nails, but the cloth shelters insects.
Tothis hour one of the authors of this book prefers unripe Greengages to ripe ones, because they remind her of those that grew against the wall of her own garden when she was a child, and which she always ate long before they were ripe. In her days children did imprudent things of this kind, but no doubt you modern children know too much about the laws of hygiene to run such risks—at least, we hope so, or we might be blamed for letting you know that anyone could eat unripe fruit and survive. We are not going to tell you much about fruit and vegetables, because a child is not likely to want his little garden to be a kitchen garden. In case you are a town child, and have never seen vegetables growing, we may as well tell you that they take a great deal of room. We know a boy inGermany who went to live in a ground-floor flat that had a tiny garden belonging to it, the kind of garden in which you can have three rose-bushes and a border of pinks. He was so fond of gardening that after school on a winter day he would amuse himself with a trowel shovelling the bare soil up and down; but he knew so little about it that he wrote to his aunt in England, saying he wished to grow Potatoes, Parsley, Mint, Honeysuckle, Runner Beans, and Vegetable Marrows. The aunt had to explain as well as she could by letter that in a garden of that size he could only grow about two Potatoes, and that he had better try a few Tulips and Daffodils instead. But when spring came she sent him some Vegetable Marrow seeds, and they were the source of a great and joyful excitement later in the year. The boy was away in the country most of the early summer, and when he got back to his little garden in August he found a huge ripe Marrow and smaller ones coming on. We can’t advise you to grow Vegetable Marrows, however, as they take a great deal of room, and require a mound or ridge. If you have a warm brick wall you should have a Peach, a Pear,a Golden Plum, a Greengage, or a White Heart Cherry. If you have a spare corner, plant a Gooseberry or a Currant bush. In your border try to grow a few Lettuces and Radishes, and some Mustard and Cress for the schoolroom tea.
The author who has survived a yearly crop of unripe plums has another vivid memory associated with her schoolroom days in the garden. She will never forget the moment when she saw her own initialsgrowingin her own little plot of ground. There they were, made of Mustard and Cress, as if someone had written them. It is a miracle you can perform for yourself any time from the end of March onwards by drawing the letters you want in the soil with a stick, and sowing your seed in them. You must remember, however, that the Mustard grows quicker than the Cress, and should be sown about three days later. Sow both seeds rather thick, and cover very slightly, or not at all. If it is dry weather water with a fine rose every evening. People often place a mat, or even a newspaper, over the seeds when first sown, as this makes them sproutquicker; but the covering must be removed the moment the seedlings appear. This may happen in twenty-four hours in favourable weather, so you must keep a good lookout. In spring and autumn choose a sunny spot for your Mustard and Cress, but in full summer give a moist and shaded position. Mustard and Cress must be cut the moment it is ready, while the seed leaves are tender, green, and short. If you leave it till it is more than about an inch high, the Mustard is too hot and the Cress is coarse.
Both the Cabbage and the Cos, or Long Lettuce, can be sown out of doors in little patches from March to August. First rake the soil very smooth and fine, and then, if you wish to have a big bed of Lettuces, draw lines an inch deep and a yard long, about ten inches apart. Sow your seed in these little ruts and rake your bed smooth, taking care that the seed is only lightly covered with soil. You will soon see lines of pale-green seedlings, but you will not have a single Lettuce if you don’t keep off slugs. They are so fond of Lettuces that gardeners oftenplant them as traps amongst Dahlias and other flowers they wish to preserve. The slugs will desert everything else for Lettuces, and can be caught in numbers on and around them at night. So if you have a sluggy garden you must catch all the slugs you can, and also dust your seedlings with soot or wood-ash. The proper time to do this is after sunset, when the leaves are a little damp with dew. When the Lettuces begin to grow up, the slugs will leave them alone, and then the rain will wash away the slight dust of ash or soot from the outside leaves.
When you have rescued your Lettuces from slugs, you must thin them severely. This is most important. You wait to do this until they are big enough to handle easily, and then you leave nine inches between each Lettuce and its neighbour in your rows. The French use the small, thinned-out Lettuces as salad mixed with Cress; and if they were washed they would be nice with bread and butter for tea—at least, they would if you had not been obliged to dust them with soot or wood-ashes. Cabbage Lettuces do not require tying, and are ready to cut when they have a firm heart of folded, crinkled leaves like little Cabbages.Some kinds of Cos Lettuce require tying, but not all. Sutton’s Superb White Cos does just as well, or better, without this extra trouble. But we think some of the good self-folding cabbage kinds are more suitable in a small garden. Mammoth White, Nonsuch, and All the Year Round are good kinds. Lettuces are more tender when they are grown quickly. It is best to sow a few at a time about once a fortnight all the summer, because they must be eaten when they are ready. If they are allowed to stand, theybolt—that is to say, they shoot up tall and begin to grow flowers. Then their leaves become tough and bitter, and they are spoiled for salad.
In London the Radishes you buy are often big and coarse. You must try to grow them as the French eat them—crisp, small, clean, and pungent, but not acrid. There are several kinds, as you probably know—some red, some white, some round like Turnips, and some long like little Carrots. The long ones, if you fancy them, should be sown in spring, and the round and oval ones in hot weather. It is of no use to try togrow Radishes in rough, lumpy ground. Your soil must be finely broken and raked before you sow your seed. If you live in a warm district you can make your first out-of-door sowing in February, but this would be too early in cold climates. Radishes must grow quickly and be eaten while they are young, or they are not worth having. On this account you should sow a tiny pinch of seed every fortnight, rather than a whole packet at once. They must be well thinned, as crowded plants make big leaves and poor Radishes. In early spring give them a sunny place, but when the warm weather comes sow in partial shade.
You will not want to grow big Onions, but some of the friends you invite to eat your salads may like some very little ones with Lettuces. The soil for Onion seed must be rolled or stamped quite hard and smooth. They never do any good in loose ground. You sow in March or April in shallow drills about six inches apart. When you have sown rake the ground lightly, and pat it smooth with a spade. As you willonly want quite small young Onions you need not thin them, but pull one or two when you want them for a salad. They will not be ready, however, for your early crops of Cress and Lettuce, as they grow slowly. Chives are more delicate than Onions, and are a great deal used abroad for omelets and salads. You need only get a clump of these, and if you want to increase it lift, divide, and replant in autumn or spring.
Children who live where there is a kitchen garden will not want to grow Mint, but we have known of children who were anxious to have a plant or two of this useful and fragrant herb. Those who do must be warned that it is an underground wanderer, and will come up where it is not welcome if not kept within bounds. The plants, if they are not to spread, should be taken up, divided, and replanted in fresh soil when they show in early spring. It does best in a moist situation. Each bit must have a good root, and should be set six to nine inches from the next. The tops, three to six inches long, will root easily in summer if inserted about halftheir length, with the lower leaves stripped off, in a cool border. In dry weather these cuttings must be watered after sunset. If you are a London child, and do not know where to get Mint plants, you could try to raise some yourself in this way, as Mint without roots is to be bought everywhere. You would, of course, have to buy it as fresh as possible.
Parsley seed takes some weeks to germinate, so you must not be impatient about it. Soon after its seed leaves appear, if you look closely you will see the pretty Parsley leaves coming. You should sow the seed thinly, and then thin again, first to three inches and then to six inches apart. All weeds must be kept down, as each Parsley plant should be big and healthy. When you gather do not strip a plant, but take a leaf here and there. When Parsley gets old and coarse the plants should be cut over, as then they will make new growth. Those that run to seed must be pulled up and thrown away. Your bed should give you Parsley all through the winter and spring—in fact, until your new plants are ready.One annual sowing in April is enough for a small supply.
We know of a lady living in a cathedral town in the South of England who has three Peach-trees (two Alexandra Noblesse and one Sea-Eagle), from which she gets more fruit than many of her neighbours who own big gardens. Even in the suburbs of London fruit ripens well, provided it is grown properly. The best Walnuts we ever ate were grown in a Surbiton garden. In the midst of a grimy city we advise you not to try fruit, as we know of no kind that would be healthy; but if you are in a country town or suburb or in the country itself, if you have a brick wall with a south aspect, and if you live in the Midlands or in some other warm corner of England, you should certainly have a tree of your favourite fruit. It is most important to get it from a first-rate grower, to prepare the ground properly, and to plant it well. November is the proper month for planting. You must get someone to dig a large hole at least two feet deep, and put in plenty of manure for the roots to find when they grow down. If your tree is to be against awall, put the main stem up against it before you begin, and then spread out the roots carefully in the shape of a fan. Any that are growing straight down must be cut off. Those that remain will be on different levels, so you must arrange the lower ones first, and put soil amongst them, then the next, and so on, till they are all comfortably spread out and covered. The hole in which you plant a tree should be rather bigger than its roots when spread out, and about a foot deep. When finished, the uppermost roots should be four inches below the soil. If you are going to grow it as a tree, and not against a wall, you must tie it to a strong stake directly it is planted. In this case you must take care that the rope you use does not chafe the bark. A short length of old hose-pipe or a band of hay is usually put between the rope and the tree where they touch each other. If the tree is to be trained against a wall, you must first cut off all damaged or broken branches, and then spread out those that remain in the shape of a fan. For this purpose you will want some little bits of cloth, a hammer and nails. Before you do it you should look at some well-trained fruit-trees carefully, and try to findout how they are done. But if you can possibly get a skilful gardener to plant your tree for you, we strongly advise you to do so, as a newly-planted fruit-tree should be cut back more or less, according to its variety and vigour. Pruning is also an operation that requires more skill and knowledge than any child can be expected to acquire. It should be done for you by the grown-up gardener. For a year or two a young tree will not require much pruning, and will not bear much fruit. If much fruit sets it should be picked off at once, or it will weaken the tree. All shoots from the roots should be cut off at once with a sharp knife.
If your wall is covered with climbing flowers, so that you have no room against it for a Peach, a Pear, a Plum, or a Cherry, you might find a corner for a Gooseberry bush, or a Red or White Currant. In the North of England you must put your Gooseberry or your Currant in the sunniest corner you can find, or the fruit will not ripen. In the South a little shade and moisture will suit it better. Gooseberries and Currants will prosper in any ordinary good garden soil, but the places for them should be well dug anddressed with manure some time before planting. They must not be put in too deeply, or the roots will send up suckers. October is a good month to plant.