The Lady's Country Companion; Or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally

by Mrs. Loudon

Fig. 10.

Fig. 11.

With the aid of these figures, and the pegs and strings, several very complicated gardens may be formed; for instance, that shown in fig. 12. This garden is composed of a bed in the centre for a tree rose with a circle of dwarf roses; a gravel walk surrounds these; and there are five heart-shaped beds, which may be planted with Scarlet Pelargoniums, yellow Calceolarias, Petunias white and purple, and tall yellow Mimulus; and the crescent-shaped beds, which are on grass, may all be planted with different kinds of Verbenas. This plan is also a good design for a rosery, the roses to be planted in the beds, and in the half crescents which must be on grass, with gravel walks between the grass plots.

Fig. 12. Plan for a Flower-Garden.

All the beds intended for bulbs and half-hardy plants should be particularly well drained; and the best way of doing this is, to dig out the soil to the depth of two feet or more, and then to put in a layer of brick-bats and other rubbish, to the depth of nine inches or a foot. On this should be placed a layer of rich marly soil, in which the bulbs should be planted. Dahlias, hollyhocks, and other tall-growing, showy-flowered plants, may have similar beds prepared for them, but the soil should be made very rich by the addition of the remains of an old hotbed, or some other kind of half-rotten animal manure.

You will observe, that when I give directions for planting the beds in any of the plans I send you, I merely say what may be done, and not what is absolutely necessary. Indeed, it will be better for you to vary the flowers as much as possible, according to your own taste, provided you take care that the plants are, as nearly as you can contrive it, of the same height, or that they rise gradually, and that you contrast the colours well. The rule in the latter case is, always to put one of the primitive colours (red, blue, or yellow) next another of these colours, or some colour compounded of the other two; using white wherever you cannot find any handsome plants of a colour that will suit the bed you want them for. Thus, for example, if you plant one bed with red, you may plant the next with blue, yellow, green, hair-brown, or white, but never with any shade of purple, as red enters into the composition of that colour; nor with any shade of reddish brown: purple, indeed, must always be next yellow, hair-brown, or white, but never next blue, red-brown, or red. Orange will not look well near yellow or red; and lilac must not approach blue or pink. A little practice will do more than any lengthened details; generally speaking, you may take the same taste to guide you in arranging the colours of the flowers in your parterre, that you use in choosing the colours of your dresses; and if you are in any doubt, you have only to colour the beds in the plan, and see how they look; or to stick coloured wafers on a piece of paper for the same purpose.

When you have settled what to plant in the beds of your garden, supposing you to choose the plan fig. 7., you must next think of the beds round it. I should advise these to remain unplanted, unless they are sown with mignonette, or something of that kind. The shrubberies, I have already stated, should, I think, consist chiefly of the finer kinds of hardy evergreens; at least that should which is opposite the windows of your sitting-room. The other shrubbery, which is intended to unite the garden scenery with that of the park, may be planted with rhododendrons, acacias, and kalmias; the rhododendrons being farthest from the walk, and carried a little out into the park, so as to make a broken line, projecting in some places and receding in others, and here and there mixed with bushes of phillyrea, alaternus, holly of various kinds, and cratægus, so as gradually to mingle with the clumps of trees in the park. On the side next your room, if there are to be beds under the windows, there should be spaces left in them which should be gravelled so that you may throw the window open, and not only walk out on gravel, but walk round the garden on gravel also. This you will find a great convenience if the weather should be wet, though you must not mind going upon the grass, if you are to be a real gardener, and to attend to the flowers in the regular beds. With regard to the beds near the house, I would have a Lonícera flexuòsa trained over each window, on account of its delightful fragrance in summer; for a similar reason I would have Chimonánthus fràgrans against the walls between the windows, and mignonette and violets in the beds.

I think nothing can be more delightful than to throw open your window, and to inhale a refreshing odour from growing flowers when they are swept over by a balmy breeze, particularly after a slight shower; and, for this purpose, I would strongly recommend you to plant flowers near your windows which have a refreshing, but not a heavy, scent. The flowers of the evergreen magnolia, and those of the orange, have an oppressive fragrance, as have those of the heliotrope and the tuberose; but those of the mignonette, the lemon-scented verbena, the rose, the violet, and Lonícera flexuòsa are refreshing, at the same time that they yield a delicious perfume.