Kitabı oku: «A Woman's Hardy Garden», sayfa 5

BIENNIALS AND A FEW BEDDING-OUT PLANTS

CHAPTER IX

BIENNIALS AND A FEW BEDDING-OUT PLANTS

There are but few hardy biennials. The important ones, which no garden should be without, are: Digitalis (Foxgloves) and Campanula medium, (Canterbury Bells.)

Foxgloves and Canterbury Bells bloom in June and July for more than a month, and give a touch of glory to any garden.

Catalogues and many gardening books say that the seeds should be sown in early autumn, and the plants will bloom the following year. It is true that they will bloom when sown in the autumn, but unless kept over the winter in a cold-frame the plants will send up stalks, only about a foot in height.

Sow the seeds of Foxgloves and Canterbury Bells in the shady part of the seed-bed in early April. Keep the young plants moist. About the fifteenth of July, if there are a large number of plants and there be no other place, they should be transplanted to the vegetable garden, where they can follow early crops of peas or lettuce. Have the ground spaded finely, and make shallow trenches, perhaps six inches deep, in which put a good layer of manure and cover this with earth, then set the plants about six inches apart. Keep them well watered when the weather is dry, and the earth thoroughly stirred. By the twentieth of September or the first of October they should be transplanted to the places where they are to bloom the following year. The plants should then be a foot across, and next June will send up several stalks about three feet high. The Canterbury Bells should be six inches across in the fall, and the next year about two feet high.

A single plant of Foxgloves; White Sweet William in front

June thirteenth

Foxgloves seed themselves with great abundance, unless the stalk is cut before the seed ripens. In the spring I have the little plants, seeded in this way from the year before, taken from the borders and transplanted in rows, and find they are larger and stronger than any others.

Foxgloves, white, spotted and pale lilac, are the pride of the garden. Plant them back of the Sweet Williams, in clumps of six or eight, or else with Peonies. They blossom at the same time, and the pinks or reds of Sweet Williams or Peonies, with here and there a mass of white, and the tall, graceful spikes of the Foxgloves rising above them, produce so beautiful an effect that you will simply have to go and look at them many times a day.

Canterbury Bells. Let any one who has been at Oxford in June and July recall the Canterbury Bells in those loveliest of all gardens, New College and St. Johns, and she will not rest until they have a place in her garden. I did not know these flowers before going to Oxford, and after seeing them could not wait to raise them from seed, but bought three dozen plants to look at the first year. The roots that came to me were miserable little things, and, in spite of every care, half of them died. Those which lived and bloomed were very lovely. They begin to blossom with us about the sixth of June, and last four or five weeks. In colour they are white, pink, purple and blue.

Canterbury Bells and Foxgloves are biennials. They are sown one year and grow for a year, then bloom and die. This seems a great deal of trouble for one season’s flowers, but their beauty repays the gardener a hundred fold. They require a slight winter protection of leaves or stable litter, but care must be taken that the tops of the plants are not covered.

THE BEDDING-OUT PLANTS

And now a little about the only three bedding-out plants that I grow – Dahlias, Cannas and Gladioli. I should have said four, for there is always a large bed of about four dozen Scarlet Salvia (the Bonfire variety is the best), whose brilliant colour and sturdy growth cannot be spared. They begin to blossom in July. By driving a tall stake in the center, and other stakes around the edge of the bed of Salvia, it can be covered with burlaps or carriage covers when the nights are frosty and preserved in all its beauty until November.

Dahlias can be grown in rows in the vegetable garden, if there be no other place for them. They are decorative and desirable for cutting. Plant two or three tubers in a hill about the third week in April. They should be planted eight inches deep and three feet apart, and kept well staked. The soil should not be too rich, or they will all grow to stalk and leaf, and blossom but little. All the varieties are lovely, the Cactus kind more so, perhaps, than the others. In the autumn, when the tops have been killed by the frost, the tubers must be taken up, dried off carefully, and stored in a cellar that does not freeze.

Gladioli can be planted from April fifteenth to June fifteenth, in beds by themselves or in clumps in the borders, so that the blossoms may be had in succession. Gladioli come in many colours.

Cannas, the beautiful French varieties. These, of course, are most effectively grown in masses, and require full sun. The roots, like those of the Dahlias, increase so that there is almost double the quantity to plant the next spring. It is well to have the Cannas started in boxes in sunny windows, in tool-room or carriage-house, by mid-April. They can be kept through the winter with the Dahlias and Gladioli.

Vase of Foxgloves

June fourteenth

ROSES

CHAPTER X

ROSES

The Rose asserts her right to the title of the “queen of flowers” through her very exclusiveness. She insists upon being grown apart from other plants; otherwise she sulks and is coy, refusing to yield more than an occasional bloom. I speak from experience, having tried several times to grow Roses in the front of wide borders, where soil and sun and everything except the proximity of other plants was propitious. But they scarcely bloomed at all. Now, the same bushes, planted in rows so that a cultivator may be run between them, flourish satisfactorily. Grow Roses, then, in beds by themselves or in rows.

If one has but half a dozen Roses, let them be grown apart from other plants.

Pansies, however, can be grown in the Rose beds, as I have elsewhere described; Gladioli can also be planted among them without detriment to either. The reason for this is that the roots of these two flowers are not deep and do not interfere with the nourishment of the Roses.

Roses on their own roots should live for years, if given proper treatment. Witness the Rose bushes in gardens, where with but little care they have flourished more than a generation.

Summer-house, covered with Clematis and Crimson Rambler Roses

June twenty-first

Budded stock must be planted very deep. The joint should be at least three inches under ground. Roses grown on their own roots are more expensive than the budded stock, but a far better investment. The budded stock is apt to send up from the parent root suckers or shoots of Sweetbrier, Buckthorn, Flowering Almond, or whatever it may be. These shoots must be carefully cut off. A friend told me that, when new to Rose growing, his bed of budded Roses sent up so many strange shoots that, not knowing what to do, he dug them all up but one. This he kept as a curiosity, and now it is a bush of Flowering Almond six feet in circumference.

Everblooming Roses should be set out in the spring, about the middle of April.

Hybrid Perpetual and Hardy Roses are best set out in autumn, about October tenth. When planting, always cut the plants back to about a foot in height.

All Roses should be lifted every three years, late in October, and plenty of manure, with fresh earth and leaf-mould, mixed with sand if the soil is heavy, dug in.

After five or six years I dig up my Roses about October tenth, cut the tops down to about twelve inches, cut out some of the old wood, cut off the roots considerably, trench the ground anew, and replant. The following year the Roses may not bloom very profusely, but afterwards for four or five years the yield will be great. My physician in the country is a fine gardener, and particularly successful with Roses. We have many delightful talks about gardening. When I told him of my surgical operations upon the Roses he was horrified at such barbarity, and seemed to listen with more or less incredulity. So I asked him if, as a surgeon as well as physician, he approved, on occasion, of lopping off a patient’s limbs to prolong his life, why he should not also sanction the same operation in the vegetable kingdom. He was silent.

I shall not say much about Roses, because there is so much to say. They need a book by themselves, and many have already been written. In my garden there are not more than five hundred Roses, including the climbing varieties. They have done very well, and have not been given more care than other plants.

Rose bed carpeted with Pansies

June twenty-first

For years I did not grow Roses, fearing they would not be a success. I had read about the beetles and spiders and other creatures that attack them, and dreaded the spraying and insect-picking that all the books said must be done. But, of course, I finally yielded to the temptation of having the very flower of all flowers, in my garden, and have found the trouble slight and the reward great. I have them in beds in a little formal garden, and in rows in a picking garden.

The beds and the trenches for the rows are both made in the usual way, and every fall, in late October, before the Pansies are set out as already described, manure is dug in, and in the early spring, about the tenth of April, a handful of finely ground fresh bone-meal is stirred in around each plant with a trowel. They are sprayed with slug-shot three times between April tenth and May fifteenth, when they get a thorough spraying with kerosene emulsion, and, as a result, my Roses are not troubled with the usual pests.

In November the hardy perpetuals are all cut back to about two feet in height, and the old wood is thinned out. The everblooming Roses are cut back to a foot in height. And Roses! well, really, no one could ask better from a garden. I have not many varieties, but when I left the country last fall, the tenth of November, although ice nearly an inch in thickness had formed, there were Roses still in bloom in the garden.

The very hardy Roses, which, with a few exceptions, bloom only in June and early July, with an occasional flower in the autumn, should be planted together, as they need but slight covering. In late November the hardy ones get about a foot of stable litter over the beds. The everblooming kinds have six inches of manure, then a foot of leaves, and then a good covering of cedar branches over all. But cover late and uncover early (the very minute the frost is out of the ground), or your Roses will die.

If asked to name, from my own experience, the best dozen Roses, I should say the following were the most satisfactory: General Jacqueminot, Jubilee, Ulrich Brunner, Madame Plantier, Clothilde Soupert, Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, La France, Mrs. Robert Garrett, Princess Alice de Monaco, Soleil d’Or, Perle des Jardins, and Mrs. John Laing or Baroness Rothschild. Paul Neyron and Prince Camille de Rohan might also be added to the list.

Between Mrs. John Laing and Baroness Rothschild, it is a toss-up. Mrs. John Laing is a healthy, strong Rose, and a most constant bloomer. But none that grows is more beautiful than the Baroness Rothschild. Rather a shy bloomer; still each Rose, on its long, strong stem, surrounded by the very fine foliage that distinguishes this variety, makes a bouquet in itself. Baroness Rothschild is also vigorous, and I have never seen it attacked by the enemies of most Roses.

Climbing Roses have so much use, as well as beauty, in a garden, that my advice is, wherever there is an excuse for having one, plant it there. They do finely on the south side of a house, on arches, summer-houses and trellises. I have a trellis along one side of a grass walk three hundred and fifty feet long. At each post are planted two Roses, a Crimson Rambler and a Wichuraiana. The Wichuraiana blossoms when the Rambler is done. Imagine the beauty of this trellis when the Roses are in bloom! On the other side of this walk there is a border four feet wide, with shrubs at the back, filled, all of the three hundred and fifty feet, with many varieties of perennials, also with Lilies and annuals planted in wherever a foot of space can be found.

All of the Ramblers are good, but none blooms so luxuriantly as the crimson. The Climbing Clothilde Soupert, Baltimore Belle and Climbing Wootton are also fine. Of the Wichuraiana Hybrids, Jersey Beauty and Evergreen Gem are the best. The foliage is lovely, and the perfume of the flowers delicious.

Canterbury Bells blooming in a border

June twenty-first

The Climbing Roses should be yearly enriched in the spring with manure and bone-meal, and, after two years, some old wood should be cut out every autumn. Many of the Crimson Ramblers and Wichuraiana in my garden made growth last summer of splendid great canes, larger around than one’s thumb and from ten to fourteen feet long. Monday was the day for tying and training the Roses, and often it seemed impossible for them to grow so much in a week. It would have been incredible, had we not the actual proof before our eyes.

List of Hybrid Perpetual and Hardy Roses Blooming in June, with an Occasional Bloom in September

Red

General Jacqueminot

Prince Camilla de Rohan, (darkest Rose of all).

Jubilee.

Baron Bonstetten.

General Washington.

John Hopper.

Ulrich Brunner.

Victor Verdier.

Pink

Mrs. John Laing (constant bloomer).

Anne de Diesbach.

La France (blooms all summer).

Magna Charta.

Mme. Gabriel Luizet.

Baroness Rothschild.

Paul Neyron.

White

Margaret Dickson.

Coquette des Alpes.

White Maman Cochet (blooms continually).

Madame Plantier (blooms continually).

Coquette des Blanches.

Mme. Alfred Carriere.

Marchioness of Londonderry.

Yellow

I know but two hardy yellow Roses:

The Persian Yellow.

Soleil d’Or.

The monthly or everblooming Roses, which need very heavy covering in winter, should be planted together. The following are a few of the best and most constant bloomers:

Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, white.

Bride, white.

Clothilde Soupert, white with faint blush center.

Madame Hoste, creamy white.

Perle des Jardins, yellow.

Sunset, yellow.

Mlle. Germaine Trochon, yellow.

American Beauty, rich crimson.

Marion Dingee, deep crimson.

Souvenir de Wootton, crimson.

Bridesmaid, pink.

Hermosa, pink.

Madame de Watteville, pink.

Burbank, pink.

Mrs. Robert Garrett, pink.

Princess Alice de Monaco, petals white, edged with blush-pink.

LILIES

CHAPTER XI

LILIES

Lilies, too, should have a book for themselves. My knowledge of them is slight. Lilium auratum (Auratum Lily), the grandest of all Lilies, disappears after a few years. If large-sized bulbs are bought there will be the first year from twenty to thirty Lilies on a stalk four feet high, the second year seven to ten, the third year perhaps two or three, but oftener none at all. If you then dig for the bulb, lo! it is gone. The expense, therefore, of these Lilies is great, from their having to be often renewed. Still, do not fail to have them, if possible, for nothing can take their place. They bloom from the middle of July for about a month.

I wrote to an authority on Lilies to ask the cause of this disappearance. He told me that, as soon as planted in this country, a microbe disease attacked them and they gradually disappeared under its ravages. Botanists surely should find a specific, or antidote for this; but perhaps, like some of the most terrible diseases of the human being, it evades all research. Miss Jekyll, in her book on Lilies for English Gardens, in speaking of Lilium auratum says:

“This grand Lily, well planted, and left alone for three years, will probably then be at its best. After this the bulbs will be likely to have increased so much that it will be well to divide them.”

This would seem to imply that the Auratums thrive in England. Well, they have climate in England, even if we have weather, and English gardens will always fill American gardeners with despair.

Lilium auratum growing behind Peonies and Columbines that bloomed earlier

August tenth

Lilium candidum, which blooms before the other Lilies, is hardy and fragrant and increases rapidly. These Lilies must have full sun and light soil. About every three or four years they can be separated, which should be done as soon as the stalks turn yellow, as the bulb makes an autumn growth. For this reason the Candidums must always be bought and planted by the tenth of September. Other Lilies may be planted in the spring, when the frost leaves the ground, or in October.

Lilium speciosum rubrum thrives and increases in our climate, needs a partly shaded location and, therefore, does well when planted among Rhododendrons. It blooms after the Auratum, the end of August and first two weeks of September.

Lilium speciosum album blooms at the same time as Lilium rubrum. It is a beautiful pure white Lily with wax-like curved petals, grows best in full sun, and averages six Lilies on a stalk, although I have often counted more.

Lilium longiflorum blooms early in July. These lilies are very much like the Bermuda Lily, except that they have, as a rule, about four blossoms on a stalk, and are hardy. In my garden they have not increased.

Hansoni, a Japanese Lily, flowering in June; bright yellow in color; perfectly hardy and very desirable.

Lilium Canadense (the Meadow Lily), yellow, red and orange, increases, and is very satisfactory, but likes as moist a situation as possible.

Tigrinum, the old Tiger Lilies, both single and double. These bloom in July, increase rapidly, and by planting, when fully ripened, the little black bulbils which form on the stalk, any number of bulbs can be raised.

Funkia subcordata is the old-fashioned white Day Lily of our grandmothers’ gardens. The broad leaves of this plant are almost as handsome as the spikes of bloom. These Lilies flower best when grown in the sun, but then the leaves turn yellow – so give them a partly shaded place.

Funkia cærulea, with the blue blossom, is worthy of a place in the garden, though far from being as effective as the white-flowered variety. I also grow the kind with the small white and green variegated leaves for the sake of the foliage, so useful in house decoration.

Funkias are not, botanically speaking, Lilies, but are mentioned in this chapter because popularly known as Day Lilies and on account of the lily-like form of their blossoms.

Lily-of-the-valley should have a place in every garden. Absolutely hardy, requiring no care, it blooms prolifically in early May, fills the air with its fragrance, and is beloved by every one. The German name for this flower, Mai Glöcken (May Bells) is particularly appropriate. I have heard of one woman whose bed of these flowers, four feet by fifty feet, has yielded as many as twenty thousand sprays in one season. The pips can be set out the end of October or the beginning of November. If the bed is quite large, when the Lilies have finished blooming, some can be lifted here and there and transplanted. As the pips increase rapidly, their places will soon be filled. Lilies-of-the-valley do best in a partially shaded place, and require a deep, rich soil, well mixed with leaf-mould.

A Lily bed should be prepared, if the place is damp and drainage not good, by digging out the soil for three feet, and putting a foot of cobblestones in the bottom; then fill up with a mixture of good soil, leaf-mould and sand, and very old, well-rotted manure. In the ordinary garden that is not wet, two feet are enough to dig out the bed, and the cobblestones can be omitted. Lilies should always be set with a handful of sand around the bulb, to prevent any possibility of manure coming in contact with it, as the manure will destroy the bulb.

Vase of Lilium auratum

August second

In my garden there is no special place prepared for the Lilies, but they are grown in all the borders, the Rubrums in the shade, the others in the sun, and this year there have been thousands of them. If there are no woods near, where the men can gather leaf-mould, have the rakings of the autumn leaves put in a pile, cover with boards, and occasionally during the spring and summer have them well forked over; the next autumn there will be a quantity of the finest thing for Lilies, Rhododendrons, Ferns, or indeed any kind of plant. This should be mixed in a pile in the proportion of one wheelbarrow of mould, two of good soil, two coal-scuttlefuls of wood-ashes, one-half barrow of old manure and two spadefuls of fine bone-meal. There is also nothing better for the Roses than some of this mixture.

All Lilies do better if well mulched with clippings of lawn grass or with very old manure.

The varieties of Lilies mentioned are the easiest grown and the most satisfactory.

Lilies should always be planted in clumps of the same kind – never less than six, and the number increased according to the size of the garden. Alternate clumps of a dozen each of Lilium auratum and Lilium album planted in a border just behind Foxgloves and Canterbury Bells will come into bloom when these two biennials have finished, the Auratum first, then the Album; these four flowers will keep the border gay from early in June until the middle of September.

Lilies should be planted about eight inches deep, and have a covering of litter late in the autumn.

Vase of Lilium speciosum album and rubrum

September sixth