Stocks (Matthiola).

These sweet-scented flowers make a display in your border all through the spring. They like a rich, well-dressed soil, and are generally poor and spindly on a starved one. The Brompton and Intermediate are good kinds to grow. Sow the seeds in summer in partial shade, and in moist weather plant out, nine inches apart, where they are to bloom. Make the soil firm round the young plants. Mr. E. T. Cook, in his ‘Gardening for Beginners,’ says that amateurs often make a mistake in rejecting the dwarf seedlings and keeping only the tall ones. The dwarf ones have more fibrous roots, and make more double flowers. The colours of Stocks have been greatly improved of late years, and if you get your seed from a good firm you need not grow the magenta ones you often see in small gardens.

CHAPTER VI
BEDDING PLANTS

By bedding plants we mean those plants that are raised in great quantities under glass, and are put out into our gardens in May. To be sure, you hear of ‘spring’ and ‘summer’ bedding, because in the autumn, when you take up your summer plants, you can fill your bed with bulbs and spring flowers, such as Stocks, Wallflowers, Primroses, and Forget-me-nots. The principal of ‘bedding’ is, you see, to plant your piece of ground, so as to have a good display twice a year. Every autumn you throw away your summer plants, and every summer you throw away your spring ones. This, at any rate, is what thousands of people with small town gardens do, and it is the form of gardening beloved of the jobbing gardener and the local florist. We recommend it to people who have money, but take no interest in their gardens, and to small children who will find it the easiest form of gardening, and even to children who live in or near great cities where some plants will lead a merry life, but where none will lead a long one. But it is not a high form of gardening, and cannot teach you much as long as you buy every six months and throw away. Of course, when you raise and increase your bedders, either spring or summer ones, you are gardening in the true sense of the word. But most of the flowers you see in town gardens from May till October are raised in heat from seeds and cuttings, and we think the appliances and the skill required would be beyond you.

However, even from the throw-away-twice-a-year plan you can learn the gardening virtues of order and method, and you can get great pleasure from the flowers. Besides, you may be able to adopt it partly, and have some plants that go on from year to year, some annuals, and some you cherish for a season and then cast out. We will assume that in October someone gave you enough bulbs to make a fine show all through March and April, but that now in May their flowers are gone and their leaves looking shabby. If you are going to have bedders you must harden your heart, dig up all the bulbs, and throw them away. Then you must prepare the soil by turning it well over and raking it fine. If someone will fork in a little well-rotted stable manure, so much the better; if that is not possible, you can add a small quantity of Clay’s Fertilizer.

Before you buy your bedders you must consider the aspect of your garden and the state and nature of your soil. Geraniums and Marguerite Daisies will stand rather poor soil, but Calceolarias, Begonias, and Heliotrope want good treatment if they are to flourish. If you have a wall at the back of your garden that is only partly covered, you should put nails a foot apart on either side and stretch string or wire across. Wire is more lasting than string, but more difficult to manage. The next thing to decide will be what colour effects you want, and for how many plants you have room. Geraniums need about a foot square each, Marguerites eighteen inches, Dwarf Marigolds nine inches. If you possibly can, buy your Geraniums, Calceolarias, Heliotropes, and Marguerites in little pots, and not in boxes, or, worse still, in dried-up, rootless cuttings sent by post. It is an elementary piece of gardening knowledge that, provided you keep off slugs and give a little shade and water at first, you can put anything out of a pot at any time. But if you are going to have many bedders, you will save yourself a great deal of trouble by putting them out in showery weather towards the end of May.

Some of the best bedders for a small garden are: