Both Gooseberries and Currants require careful pruning in the autumn. The main branches should be shortened to six inches, and the side shoots to two or three buds. You always cut just above a bud, upwards and slantwise. You begin on the opposite side from the bud, and end cleanly just above it. Always choose a bud that means to grow out from the tree, and not inwards.
CHAPTER XIV
WINDOW, ROOM, AND JAPANESE GARDENS
If you are fond of flowers, and cannot have even a small garden, perhaps you can have a window-box, or some plants in pots or bulbs in glasses. A window garden should face south, east, or west, so that it gets plenty of sun. If you are obliged to have a north window you must grow plants that do not need much sun, such as Creeping Jenny, Musk, Golden Privet, Euonymus, Crocuses, Snowdrops, and hardy Ferns. Have your window-box made as long and as wide as the window-ledge will allow, and see that there are several holes bored in the bottom to allow waste water to run away. There must then be a layer of broken pots for drainage. The earth with which you now fill the box must be the very best you can obtain—if possible, a mixture of good loam, leaf-mould, and sand. In front you should put plants that will hang down, such as Petunias, Nasturtiums, Convolvulus, Carnations, Canariensis, Musk, or the Ivy-leaved Geraniums. The Giant Nasturtium and Convolvulus and Canariensis can all be grown from seed sown early in May, and they can either hang or climb upwards round strings or wires put for them from an upper window to your box. You must, of course, study the colours of the plants you grow in this way, and not choose Petunias and Nasturtiums in one season. Alternate pink Petunias and pink Ivy-leaved Geraniums would look well hanging down. Behind them you could have a row of pink Geraniums standing up, and behind these a row of white Marguerite Daisies. Another pretty combination would be Creeping Jenny to hang down, then Heliotrope, and then yellow Marguerite Daisy. In London the Heliotrope might be a little uncertain, as it likes pure air, but Calceolarias should thrive if properly treated, or mauve Violas. A box filled with healthy plants in the first week of May should flower till late in September.
You must never let your window-box get quite dry, and never water your plants when the sun is on them. Give a good soak (not a sprinkle) every evening after sunset. All faded flowers and dead leaves should be carefully cut off, and a little Clay’s Fertilizer—a teaspoonful to half a gallon of water—given once a fortnight.
In the autumn, when your summer flowers are over, remove them, roots and all, and turn over the soil well with a hand-fork. If you can add some fresh soil, so much the better. Then fill your box with bulbs for the spring. You might put Snowdrops, or Crocuses, or Siberian Squills in front, and then Daffodils of medium height, such as Princess Victoria, Sir Watkin, or Golden Spur. The back of the box can either be filled with small evergreen shrubs or with late Daffodils, such as Emperor or Empress, or with Hyacinths and Tulips. A box filled entirely with Tulips will make a splendid show for three weeks. When a hard frost comes, or rather a little while before it comes, you should protect your bulbs with a covering of cocoanut fibre.
For many years of her life one of the authors of this book was obliged to live mostly in London without a square yard of garden, but so great was her love of flowers and her desire to grow them that by degrees she made a ‘room garden’ for herself, and found endless interest and pleasure in it. She was prepared from the first to spend some time each day in feeding, washing, watering, and shifting her plants; otherwise success would have been impossible. Unfortunately, most of us know how miserable neglected or misunderstood plants soon get to look in a room—their leaves yellow and dusty, their flowers stunted, their soil either baked hard for want of water or sour and mossy through having more than they can digest.
We fear that if you are unlucky enough to have gas in your room you cannot have healthy plants at all—at any rate, you would have to content yourself with one or two that you could carry out of your gas-poisoned air every evening. But if you have no gas, and a sunny window in which you can place a good-sized plain wooden table, you may have a delightful room garden, as well as some pot plants in other places. To begin with, you would want some of the well-known hardy foliage plants that you can get from any good nurseryman. One of the best known is the Aspidistra, or Parlour Palm. You can get it with plain green or with variegated leaves. If it is in good health it sends up new leaves every spring, and makes queer dwarf flowers. When it seems too crowded for its pot you can either give it a bigger one, with some fresh soil, or divide it. This should be done in April or May. Young gardeners often make the mistake of giving a plant too big a pot when they change it. They hope in this way to persuade their plant to grow to a great size, but what they really do is to give its roots more soil than they can keep healthy, so it languishes or dies. One, or at most two, sizes larger than the last pot should be used, or, in the case of Aspidistras, you can divide and repot into the same size, or even smaller ones. Some people say these plants are impatient of disturbance, but we have found them easy to manage with a little care. Never use pots that are not both dry and clean. If they are dirty they must be well scrubbed with soap and hot water, and then well dried before you use them. You must also get a little good soil from a nursery gardener before you divide or repot any of your plants.