Instructions in gardening for ladies

by Mrs. Loudon

The Heartsease has only within the last few years ranked as a florist’s flower. It had long been a favourite in gardens as its innumerable popular names may testify; but it was reserved for a young lady, aided by an industrious and intelligent gardener, to show the world the extraordinary variations of which the flower is susceptible. About the year 1810 or 1812, the present lady Monck, then Lady Mary Bennet, had a small flower-garden entirely planted with heartseases in the garden of her father, the late Earl of Tankerville, at Walton-upon-Thames. The young lady naturally wished to get as many different sorts into her garden as possible; and at her desire, the gardener, Mr. Richardson, raised as many new kinds as he could from seed. From this small beginning the present passion for heartseases took its rise. Mr. Richardson, astonished at the great variety and beauty of his seedlings, showed them to Mr. Lee, of the Hammersmith Nursery. Mr. Lee instantly saw the advantages to be derived from the culture of the plant; other nurserymen followed his example, and in a few years the heartsease took its place as a florists’ flower. The heartsease mania was at its height from 1835 to 1838; but during the last year, it has appeared somewhat on the decline. The most splendid flowers grown for exhibition are generally hybrids, which possess, in a great degree, the qualities of both parents. Thus, though almost every heartsease has sprung partly from the wild kind, (Viola tricolor,) its other parent may be traced by its general appearance. The very large dark purple and yellow flowers are descended from Viola grandiflora, a species with large yellowish flowers; other large flowers, with dark purple upper petals, and the lower ones of a bluish tinge, are descended from V. amœna; and the offspring of V. lutea are nearly all yellow, strongly marked with very dark branched lines. The hybrids raised partly from V. altaica are of a very pale yellow, and the petals have an undulated margin; those from V. Rothomogensis, or V. hispida, are of a pale blue; and those from V. bicolor are white, slightly veined with purple, and tinged with yellow at the base. All these vary exceedingly by continual crossings, but some of the characteristics of the parents always remain.

The culture of the heartsease requires much attention. It is the habit of the plant to ripen a succession of seed during the whole of its flowering season: thus it bears flowers and ripe seeds at the same time during the whole summer. The seeds should be sown in a bed of rich garden mould, at least eighteen inches deep, and highly manured, and the young plants should be suffered to remain till they have flowered, when all the plants should be taken up, the best replanted eighteen inches apart if in a bed, or in pots or boxes, and the inferior ones thrown away. The best soil for replanting the heartsease, particularly if they are in pots or boxes, is rich loam, mixed with one-sixth of sand and one-sixth of vegetable mould; and in large towns, all these soils may be purchased in small quantities from the nurserymen. The pots and boxes should also be well drained; for it must be remembered, that though the heartsease is very liable to be scorched by the excessive heat of the sun, and will require constant watering in hot weather; it is also very liable to be damped off by cold and wet in winter. The best varieties are propagated by cuttings, taken off in spring, which grow rapidly so as to flower the same summer or autumn. These cuttings should be taken from the points of the shoots, cutting them off immediately below a joint; and they should be struck in pure white sand, as when the cutting is put into earth it is very apt to damp off. The cuttings when made should not be watered, but should be covered with a bell glass, and shaded for several days, on account of the succulent nature of the stems, and great evaporation from the leaves. Heartseases are sometimes propagated by layers, in which case the branch should be only pegged down at a joint, and not slit, on account of its tendency to damp off.

Chrysanthemums are principally winter flowers, and they are valuable for affording a brilliant show at a season when there are few other flowers to be seen. In November and December, when no other flowers are in blossom, these flowers are in full beauty; and Mr. Loudon tells me that he has seen the walls of two small street-gardens, one belonging to Mr. Ingpen at Chelsea, and the other to Mr. Allen, Chapel Street, Edgware-Road, so completely covered with them as to present a most brilliant and dazzling appearance. Chrysanthemums may therefore be safely recommended as most valuable flowers for both town and country; and their great number and beauty make them particularly interesting. There are, indeed, numerous varieties of every possible shade of yellow, brown, orange, buff, pink, reddish-purple, lilac, and white, but not blue. All the different varieties of chrysanthemums, and there are nearly a hundred named sorts, may be referred to six distinct tribes; and these are the following: 1. Ranunculus-flowered; 2. Incurved; 3. China-aster, or Daisy-flowered; 4. Marigold-flowered; 5. Tassel-flowered, or Quilled; and 6. Half-double Tassel-flowered. The ranunculus-flowered have generally small flowers, in clusters, like little roses; but the rest have large, handsome flowers, particularly the tasselled kinds, the quilled petals of which are very long, and hang down like tassels. The culture of the chrysanthemum differs according to the use which it is proposed to make of it. When it is to be flowered in pots, cuttings are taken from the tops of the shoots in April; and as soon as they have taken root they are transplanted into very small pots, where they are planted in a compost formed of equal parts of sand, loam, and peat. As soon as they begin to grow, and send out plenty of roots, they are removed into other, rather larger, pots; and this shifting is repeated eight or nine, and sometimes ten or twelve times. This constant shifting will keep the plants bushy, without the cultivator being under the necessity of pinching off the ends of the shoots; a practice which, though it answers the desired end of keeping the plants of a compact habit of growth, has yet the inconvenience of making them throw out so many shoots and leaves as to weaken the flowers. When the chrysanthemums are to be planted in the open border against a wall, their roots should be parted in autumn or early spring, and planted in very rich and highly manured, but light soil, at the foot of a south or west wall, against which they should be trained like a peach-tree, and all the superfluous shoots cut off. When planted, they should be carefully watered, not only at their roots, but all over their leaves, with a fine-rosed watering-pot, or garden-engine. They should afterwards be watered three times a-day, and occasionally with soap-suds, or manured water, that is, water in which manure has been steeped. Thus treated, the plants will grow six or eight feet high, and their flowers will not only be produced in great abundance, but they will be of enormous size, and very brilliant in their colours. The best chrysanthemums in London are at Chandler’s nursery, Vauxhall.

Bulbs and Tubers.—The most interesting bulbs in a flower-garden are the tulip, the hyacinth, and the crocus; and the most interesting tubers are the ranunculus, the anemone, and the dahlia. There are, however, many other flowers of both kinds highly deserving of cultivation. The culture of all the bulbs is nearly the same; but that of the tuberous-rooted flowers differs in different plants.

Bulbs are generally planted in autumn to flower in spring; and are taken up when their leaves begin to wither, to be kept out of the ground a month or two in complete repose before they are replanted. They are generally propagated by offsets, which are produced by the side of the old bulb; or rather, by the side of the new bulb, which is formed every year to supply the place of the old one, which wastes away. The new bulb sometimes forms beside the old one; and sometimes below it or above it; and this is one of the principal reasons why bulbs should be taken up and replanted every year; as, when this is not attended to, those bulbs that form every year below the old bulb, sink so low in the course of a few years, that they become too far removed from the air to vegetate; while those that form above the old bulb are pushed so high out of the ground that they are often killed by frost or drought. In this way, valuable plants often disappear from gardens, without their owners having the slightest suspicion of the cause. It is, however, rarely worth while to take up the common garden bulbs: such as the snow-drop, the crown-imperial, &c., every year; particularly as they generally form their new bulbs at the side of the old bulb: but even these kinds should be taken up every two or three years. When raised from seed, bulbs are generally from three to five years before they produce flowers; and they are never propagated by layers or cuttings.

Tulips.—Experienced florists raise tulips from seed to obtain new varieties; but as the young bulbs are frequently from five to seven years before they flower, this mode of propagating tulips does not suit amateurs. Even when seedling tulips do flower, they produce only self-coloured flowers, for the first two or three years, and in this state they are called breeders. To make them break, that is, produce the brilliant and distinct colours which constitute the beauty of a florist’s tulip, they are subjected to the most sudden and violent changes of soil, climate, and management. At one time, they are grown in poor soil, and only allowed enough water to keep them living; and then they are suddenly transported to the richest soil, abounding with food and moisture. Sometimes, to change the climate effectually, florists send their tulips to be grown for a year or two twenty miles or more from the place where they were raised; and then they are brought back to their native air. This laborious and unscientific mode of proceeding is, however, now rapidly giving place to a proper method of hybridizing; after which the young bulbs are brought forward by means of bottom-heat, water, and frequent shiftings, so as to flower and break the second or third season. Florists’ tulips are generally divided into four tribes, viz.—1. Bizarres, which have yellow grounds shaded with dark red or purple, and which are sub-divided into flamed, in which the red or purple is in a broad stripe or band, rising from the bottom of the petal,—and feathered, in which the dark colour forms a marginal edging to the petals, descending into them in various little delicate feathery veins. 2. Byblœmens, having white grounds shaded with violet or dark purple, and also sub-divided into flamed and feathered. 3. Roses, having white grounds shaded with rose-colour or cherry-red, and divided into flamed and feathered; and, 4. Selfs, being either a pure white or yellow. In addition to these, the French have Baguettes, very tall-stemmed tulips, the flowers of which are white, striped with dark brownish red; Baguettes Rigauts, which resemble the former, but have shorter stems and longer flowers; and Flamands, which are the same as Byblœmens. The Dutch have also a kind they call Incomparable Verport, a very finely-shaped flower, white, and feathered with bright shining brown. All these kinds are said to be varieties of one species, Tulipa Gesneriana, a native of Italy; and they all ought to have round, cup-shaped flowers, clean at the base, and with all the marks and different colours quite clear and distinct. Besides these florists’ tulips, several other species are occasionally grown in gardens: the most common of which are the little Van Thol tulips, which were named after the Duke Van Thol, and which are scarlet, edged with yellow; the wild French tulip, which is a pure yellow, and very fragrant; and the Parrot tulip, which appears to be a variety of the last, and the petals of which are yellow, irregularly striped or spotted with green, scarlet, and blue, and fringed at the margin.

The culture of the tulip, as a florist’s flower, requires unremitting attention and care; but for common garden purposes, the tulip will be found hardier, and less liable to injury from insects, &c., than most other flowers. Where tulips are grown in a regular bed, the ground should be dug out to the depth of twenty inches, or two feet. A stratum of fresh earth is laid at the bottom of the pit thus formed, on that a stratum of rotten cow-dung, and on this a stratum of loam mixed with sand. The bed should be three or four feet wide, and its surface should be slightly raised in the middle. A fresh bed should be made every year, or rather the same bed should be filled with fresh soil every season; as the exudations from the tulips will soon poison the ground for plants of the same kind, though it will be very suitable for the growth of other bulbs, and tubers. The proper distance at which the tulips should be planted in the bed is seven inches apart, every way; and their colours and kinds may be arranged according to the fancy of the planter. It is customary, where the tulips differ a good deal in height, to place the tallest in the middle, and the lower ones on the sides; and when this is the case, the centre of the surface of the bed need not be raised. The bed is protected by hoops and mats, which are contrived to open to admit light, air, and rain at pleasure. When the plants are near flowering, a path is made round the bed; and over the whole is stretched a canvass covering, supported on a wooden frame, and so contrived as to open at the sides or the top, as may be required. The bulbs are planted about two or three inches deep, and are never watered, except occasionally by admitting a gentle rain, till they are in flower. When they have done flowering, the leaves are suffered to remain till they begin to turn brown, when the bulbs are taken up, and laid with the lower part upwards on shelves to dry. When this is the case, the dry leaves and the fibrous roots are pulled or rubbed off; and the bulbs are put into drawers or boxes, divided into compartments so as to keep the named sorts apart, till the season arrives for replanting, which is the last week of October or the first of November.

Mr. Groom, of Walworth, is the principal tulip-grower in the neighbourhood of London, and he has an exhibition of them of extraordinary brilliancy and beauty every May.

Hyacinths are perhaps the most beautiful of all flowers, and when grown in a bed like tulips, they are almost equally brilliant in effect. Mr. Corsten, a Dutch florist, residing at a place he has called Hyacinth Villa, at Shepherd’s Bush, has an exhibition of this kind every April, and I have seldom seen any thing more striking. Under a tent nearly two hundred feet long, and thirty feet wide, are two beds each about one hundred and fifty feet long, divided by a walk covered with matting in the centre, and surrounded by a similar walk, with seats at each end of the tent. In these beds are above three thousand hyacinths, the colours arranged so as to form diagonal lines, and the whole presenting a perfect blaze of beauty. Hyacinths are as numerous in their named varieties as tulips, but they are not divided into any distinct tribes, except as regards their colours. The principal distinctions are the white, the pink, and the blue; but these admit of various modifications, and there are some of a pale yellow, or rather lemon colour, and some of so dark a purple as to be almost black.

The culture of the hyacinth somewhat resembles that of the tulip; but it is more difficult, from the great length to which the roots of the hyacinth descend perpendicularly, and the necessity which consequently exists for preparing the ground for them to a very great depth. There is also another peculiarity in hyacinth culture which is rather difficult of attainment; namely, that the roots require a great deal of moisture, though the bulbs should be kept quite dry. The roots also require the soil to be very rich, but that the manure used should be of the kind called cold. It will easily be seen from this enumeration of the essentials for hyacinth culture, why Holland is so pre-eminently the country for hyacinths. The dry sandy soil, raised on the numerous dykes and embankments, by means of which Holland has been rescued from the sea, affords at once a proper bed for the bulbs, and a soil easily penetrable by the roots; while the constant evaporation rising from the water which is every where found below the dykes, is just what is required for the roots. Even the manure most easily obtained in Holland is precisely that best adapted for hyacinths, as it is cow-dung unmixed with straw; and which thus contains nothing to induce fermentation and consequent heat.