In the preliminary preparation of borders or beds, provided the soil be well dug to a depth of two or three feet, a really heavy dressing of farm-yard manure should be well incorporated—say about a ton to every two hundred square yards. The manure should not be buried, but should be intimately mixed with the whole depth of soil. A light sandy soil will take a heavier, and a heavy soil a lighter dressing than the average one suggested. The beds should be manured and otherwise prepared sometime before the planting is to take place, as many plants and especially many bulbous plants cannot stand the proximity of fresh and rank manure.
When the ground is thus properly prepared at the start, little more actual cultivation is needed in the case of most hardy herbaceous plants beyond annual top dressing with manure, occasional loosening of the surface soil where not covered by dwarf plants, weeding, and occasional thinning or division of big clumps. Whenever a plant is taken up, the opportunity should be seized to add a fork-load of rotten manure to the spot vacated. Top dressings should as far as possible be placed round plants in early spring, just before new growth starts, as the manure is then soon covered and concealed by foliage.
Bone meal, finely-broken bones, small quantities of guano, and even carefully-applied nitrate of soda (half-an-ounce to the square yard) have their respective values, but the novice will be wise in placing reliance on farm-yard manure for the bulk of his plants.
[SEED-SOWING AND TRANSPLANTING]
The gardening beginner will be well advised to obtain the greater number of his perennials as plants; but there are some which are easily grown from seeds, and seed-sowing is the method by which all the hardy annuals and biennials are to be raised. In the case of annual and biennial plants, such as sweet-peas, mignonette, nasturtiums, convolvuluses, nigellas, and the rest, the seed may well be sown in the open borders or beds, if the soil be but well dug and finely divided. It is advisable, however, to mix a little sand and leafmould with the soil, and to give the seed-bed a good watering on the night previous to sowing the seeds, if the soil be otherwise dry. At the same time it is necessary to avoid sowing when the ground is sticky after or during heavy rain. The seed having been sown in finely-pulverised soil which is neither too wet nor too dry, it is a good practice to press the seed-bed, either by the use of a roller, or by patting it with the flat of a spade. This tends to promote the flow of a continuous supply of moisture from the deeper parts to the surface of the soil by means of capillary attraction. As, however, this proceeding also promotes a continuous loss of soil-moisture by evaporation, the surface should be loosened by hoe or rake as soon as the young plants appear—indeed, in the case of the more deeply-buried seeds, such as sweet-peas, the surface should be slightly disturbed as soon as the sowing and pressing have been performed. In dry weather, evaporation from the seed-bed may be checked by shading it with a screen placed about two feet above the surface.
As to the depth at which seed should be sown, much depends on the variety, as also on the nature of the soil and the season of the year; but it may be taken as a general rule that small seeds should be covered by a depth of soil about equal to their thickness, whilst seeds such as sweet peas should be sown two inches deep. The soil must not be allowed to become quite dry, but great care is to be taken in watering, which should be done, when necessary, with a watering-pot provided with a very fine rose. Those perennials, such as the columbines, campanulas, poppies, and primroses, which are easily to be raised from seed, may be sown in open beds, but, as they are somewhat slower in germinating, it will usually be found more satisfactory to sow them in shallow earthenware pans containing a mixture of loam, sand and leaf-mould. The soil in the pans can best be kept moist by occasionally dipping the seed-pan in a vessel of water, being very careful not to lower it so that the surface of the soil is below the surface of the water. A sheet of glass may be placed as a cover to the seed-pan until germination takes place; but, in order to check evaporation from the surface, care should be taken not to "damp off" the young seedlings through excessive moisture and insufficient air.
There is one great rule to be borne in mind in sowing all kinds of seed, and that rule, printed in largest type, should be placed wherever gardeners are to be found:—SOW THINLY. Do not rely too much on subsequent thinning out, but allow space for development from the first, for at no stage of its career should a young plant be pressed upon by its neighbour. A knowledge of the size and habit of the mature plant is therefore necessary in order to estimate the requisite space between the seeds. It must, however, be remembered that a certain proportion of seeds will fail to germinate, and that a certain proportion of seedlings will fall victims to disease and snails. In the case of plants which are intended to be transplanted from the seed-bed or seed-pan, it is of course the size of the seedlings at the transplanting stage which has to be borne in mind in judging of the correct distance between the seeds. But it is a point which cannot be too often drubbed into young gardeners—and old ones too for that matter—that one well-grown plant is better than twenty badly grown ones. Also it should ever be remembered that a plant starved in infancy suffers for it throughout its career.