Instructions in gardening for ladies

by Mrs. Loudon

The natural, or English style, as it is called abroad, however beautiful it may be in pleasure-grounds, is very ill adapted to a flower-garden, which is essentially artificial. The principal beauty of a flower-garden consists, indeed, in the elegance with which it has been arranged, and the neatness with which it is kept; or, in other words, in the evidence it affords of the art that has been employed in forming it. This being the case, it is quite clear that an artificial mode of arrangement is more suitable to it than any other, as it is best adapted for keeping up the harmony of the whole. In all cases, therefore, where the garden is large enough to show a formal figure to advantage, the artificial mode of arrangement should be adopted; and wherever it is adopted, the beds should be planted so as to form masses of different-coloured flowers. Where, however, the garden is very small, and no part of it can be set entirely apart for flowers, no attempt should be made to produce masses of colour in regular forms; but the plants should be arranged along the borders singly, or in patches, as may be best adapted to display the individual beauties of each. In some cases, flowers may be planted in borders, so as to form a miniature representation of the natural system: as, for instance, first there may be planted anemones and ranunculuses, interspersed with patches of Flos Adonis, larkspurs, &c. to come into flower when the anemones and ranunculuses have done flowering; next should be some poppies and fumitories; and next, stocks and wall-flowers. In this manner, the beds might be arranged, by mixing perennials and annuals, so as to form an ornamental botanic garden during the whole of the flowering season; and the flower-garden would thus become not merely a source of elegant amusement, but also actually of scientific knowledge, without any appearance of formal arrangement.

When the flower-garden is to be a geometrical one, the best way of designing it is to draw a figure on paper consisting of angular, circular, or serpentine forms, to represent beds, and arranging them so as to form a whole. This may appear easy at first, but to do it well, requires a great deal of both taste and ingenuity; as each form should not only harmonize well with the others, but be handsome in itself. Where the space to be laid out is small, the figure may be more complex, and the separate beds more grotesque in their shapes, than where the garden is large: but where a large space is devoted to flowers, only simply formed beds should be adopted. The reason for this is, that where the beds are of bizarre shapes, they require to be seen at one coup-d’œil to have a good effect; whereas simple and uniform shapes may be seen either together or alone, without producing any disagreeable impression on the mind. Thus, in large flower-gardens, a succession of circles or ovals at regular distances, so as to form continually changing vistas to the spectator who walks through them, will have a much better effect than any geometric figure, the parts composing which appear ridiculous when disjointed. Whatever figures may be adopted, as soon as they have been sketched on paper, each bed should be coloured; to try what arrangement of colours will be best suited to the form of the beds, &c. The colours, of course, should be those usually found in flowers: for example, yellow, scarlet, blue, pink, orange, and purple; and they should be arranged, not only with a view to effect, but with regard to the practicability of filling the beds with suitable flowers. The colours above mentioned may, however, generally be procured, and a bed of white flowers may be added at pleasure wherever it may appear necessary.

The forms of the beds having been decided on, the next step is to mark them on the ground, and this is done in several different ways. One is by covering the figure with squares, and then forming much larger squares with pack-thread over the ground; that part of the outline of the figure contained in each of the small squares is then to be transferred to the corresponding large square, by tracing it on the ground with the point of a stick. When the pattern is regular, it is sometimes marked on the ground by stretching a garden-line from one point to another by means of pegs. When this line is so arranged as to form the proper figure, it is chalked, and made to thrill between the pegs, so as to transfer the chalk in the proper lines to the ground. When circles are to be traced, it is done by first fixing a stake in the centre, and then forming a loop at the end of a cord, and putting it over the stake. One end of the cord being thus fastened to the stake, the other end should be stretched out to the extremity of the radius or half-diameter of the circle, and a short pointed stick should be tied to it, with which, the circle may be traced all round. An oval is made by tracing two circles, the outer edge of one of which just touches the centre of the other; a short line is then drawn at the top, and another at the bottom, and this, when the central lines are obliterated, forms the oval. Many other ways will suggest themselves, and may be adopted: the essential points in all being to have the ground first dug, and made perfectly smooth and level; and then to have the figure clearly and accurately traced out and tested by measurement, before any of the beds are formed, or the turf or gravel laid down.

Planting the beds and forming the walks require nearly as much care as tracing out the figure. Many persons, however, are not aware of this: they think, if the figure be good and accurately traced on the ground, that nothing more will be required; or, if any thing more be necessary, it is only to indicate the proper colours of the beds to the gardener.

This, however, is not enough; low plants producing abundance of flowers must be chosen, and these must be carefully trained, or pegged down, so as to cover the beds entirely, or the effect will be destroyed. If, for example, a bed of scarlet be wanted, a lady would probably think that her gardener would have no trouble in finding abundance of scarlet flowers; and having told him the colour, she would give herself no further trouble. Now the kind of scarlet flower to be used, depends entirely on the position of the bed, and the kinds of flowers used in the other beds. If these flowers have been dwarfs, and trained so as entirely to cover the ground, the scarlet flower used, should be the verbena melindres, (or chamdrifolia as it is now called,) or some of its varieties, and each stem should be pegged down close to the ground. Thus treated, and supplied with abundance of water, being grown in rich light soil, on a porous subsoil or well drained, the verbena will soon become a splendid mass of scarlet, almost too dazzling for the eye to bear, unless it be relieved by grass walks between the beds. If, on the contrary, the bed in question had been planted with one of the scarlet lobelias, or even scarlet geraniums, the effect would have been quite different, from the taller growth of the plants, and the greater proportion of leaves to their flowers. Where geraniums are grown to produce an effect in beds, the plants should be kept bushy while in the green-house or frame, by continually shifting them into larger pots, or frequently taking off the points of their shoots; and when planted out, they should be at least a foot or eighteen inches asunder, increasing the distance, if the plants are very large. The kind should be the Frogmore or Dropmore varieties; and the plants should be well watered, and frequently pruned wherever they throw up long shoots. Other plants should be treated in a similar manner; and great care should be taken to keep all the plants in the beds which are to combine to form a figure, of the same height, and equally covered with flowers. The centre bed alone may have taller plants. Where the walks are of gravel, a greater proportion of leaves may be allowed to the flowers; but a geometrical flower-garden never looks half so well on gravel as on grass.

The walks of a geometrical flower-garden, if of grass, may be laid down with turf, or sown with grass seeds; and in either case they should never be pared (as that would enlarge the beds, and destroy their proportion to the walks), unless some part should accidentally project into the bed, when it should be removed, and the turf pressed down so as to form the same gradual slope from the bed to the walk as in the other part. Where the walks are of gravel, the beds should have a neat edging of box, or any other plant that may be preferred, kept quite low and narrow, by frequent pruning, but which should never be clipped.

The Culture of Flowers.—The ornamental flowers grown in gardens may be all arranged under the heads of annuals, biennials, perennials, bulbs, tubers, corms, flowering dwarf shrubs, climbers, twiners, trailers, and rock plants; and as the culture of the plants in each division is nearly the same, I shall say a few words on each, particularizing those plants which require a different treatment from the ordinary routine of their kind.

Annuals.—Most of the hardy annual flowers should be sown in March, April, or May, in the open border where they are intended to remain. The usual method of sowing in the borders, is, first to loosen the ground with a fork, and to break it very fine; after which it should be made perfectly level, and raked. A circle is then made by pressing the bottom of a flower-pot saucer, three or four inches in diameter, on the ground; and six or eight seeds are spread over the level surface thus formed: a little soil is then sprinkled over them, and the surface slightly pressed again with the saucer. If the weather, or the soil be dry, a slight watering should be given to the seeds after sowing, with a watering-pot having a very fine rose; but this must be done carefully, as too much water would wash the seeds out of their place. It is usual, after sowing, to stick a flat stick into the ground in the centre of the patch with the name of the flower upon it; and it is better to write these names very plainly, with a rather soft black-lead pencil than with ink, as the ink is very apt to run, and to render the words indistinct. Very neat little tallies, called monogrammes, made of very smooth wood, and prepared for writing on, are sold at the principal seed shops. It is customary with many gardeners, after sowing flower seeds, to turn a flower-pot over them; and this practice is useful in keeping the seeds moist by preventing evaporation, while the hole in the bottom of the pot admits enough light and air for germination. The flower-pot should, however, be removed as soon as the young plants appear above ground; as if kept on longer, the plants would be drawn up, and their stems would become so elongated, and consequently so weak, that they would never recover their strength or beauty. Flowering plants should always be kept dwarf and compact; not only on account of the superior neatness of their appearance, but because tall, ill-grown plants never produce fine flowers. For this reason, as soon as annuals attain their second pair of leaves they should be thinned out; and again, when about a foot high, if necessary. As the plants grow they should be watered occasionally; and when of a proper height, staked and tied up, if of a kind to require support. As soon as the flowers fade they should be cut off; unless, as is sometimes the case, the plant has very ornamental seed pods, in which case they may be left on. It is seldom worth while for any lady to save her own seed; but when she does so, the plants for that purpose should be grown in a back garden or reserve-ground, as they greatly disfigure a flower-garden. All annuals, indeed, should be taken up, and carried to the refuse heap as soon as they cease to be ornamental; as in their withered state, they only call up unpleasant images in the mind.

Tender annuals are raised on a hot-bed, and though generally sown in February, are not planted in the open ground till May. When they have been raised in pots, the contents of each pot should be carefully turned out, and put into a hole made to receive them without breaking the ball of earth that has formed round the roots of the plants. As some plants, as for example stocks, and all the cruciferæ, require a rich soil, a hole may be dug in the border a foot or eighteen inches in diameter, and about the same depth, and filled with a rich compost of equal parts of garden mould, decayed leaves, and well rotted manure, or what is much better, with either the remains of the trenches in which celery was grown the preceding summer, or the earth used in covering, or that laid round, manure while fermenting for a hot-bed. The hole should be filled with this compost, so as to raise it about six inches higher than the rest of the border, to allow for the new earth sinking, and the annuals should be planted in the centre, and carefully shaded for a few days by a flower-pot being turned over them. The mode of making and managing a hot-bed has been already given in the second chapter of this work; but the readiest way for the inhabitants of a suburban villa to obtain half-hardy annuals, is to purchase them from some nurseryman when ready for transplanting. The usual price is from two-pence to four-pence for a dozen plants; and thus, for a couple of shillings, a sufficient number of plants may be procured to make a splendid display for a whole summer. No one should, indeed, attempt to manage a hot-bed, who has not some person to pay constant attention to it; as one day’s neglect respecting giving air, watering, &c. will often destroy the hopes of a whole season.

The Californian annuals require peculiar treatment. These plants are very hardy, and though many of them are of short duration in flower, they may, by proper management, be contrived to produce a brilliant effect during the whole summer. For this purpose a well-trodden path, or a piece of very hard ground, should be covered about an inch thick with very light rich soil; and the seeds of any of the Californian annuals should be sown in it. These will stand the winter, and in February or March, when the flower-beds have been dug over, and made quite smooth, the annuals should be taken up with the spade in patches and laid on the bed; the spaces between the patches being filled up with soil, and the whole made quite firm and compact, by beating each patch down with the back of the spade. As soon as the patches have been removed, fresh earth should be spread on the hard ground, and fresh seeds sown in it, the plants springing from which will be ready to transfer to the beds as soon as the first series have done flowering; and in this way a succession of flowers may be kept up nearly all the year, observing to dig over the bed in the flower-garden to which the flowers are to be transplanted, and to rake it smooth every time the old flowers are removed, in order to prepare it for the new ones.