Lily of the Valley (Convallaria Majalis).
There is a popular idea that the Lily of the Valley will grow in any kind of deep shade, and so 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 any rate, 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, and no 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.
CHAPTER X
ROCK AND WALL GARDENS
The very 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 or bricks dumped 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 among them. 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 kind for 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 lends itself 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 small Campanula 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.