The beds have a much more brilliant effect if two flowers of the same colour are put together, in pairs; some plant each kind thus, double, throughout the bed. The chief thing in arranging flower-beds is to manage that all the flowers should be out in full flower at the same time. It is a very difficult art, but the Haarlem bulb growers are able to accomplish it. Every bulb has its own particular habit of growth, one will flower early and another late, there may be the difference of a whole month between them.
A DUTCH GARDEN IN SPRING
People come miles to see these gardens, which are in bloom all April and part of May. Single hyacinths begin flowering towards the end of March, and last in flower for about twenty days, if the season be favourable. Single hyacinth beds are usually placed alternately with double, and the effect is more brilliant. Single hyacinths grow more thickly, there are sometimes fifty blossoms on one stalk, and very often several stalks on each plant. The red-single are a more brilliant red than are the red-double, and single blues have much the most delicate shade of colour.
About the 20th of April the hyacinths begin to be at their best, the 25th and 26th are ordinarily the days when they are in perfection and in their full glory. By the 4th or 5th of May they are going over, and the later sorts are beginning.
In Haarlem they are too carefully attended to to suffer much from the weather, their cultivators being very industrious, and watch over them, arranging for the protection even of the most ordinary kinds, for none are neglected.
When a new piece of land is taken for cultivation, they begin by trenching it six feet deep, and if they come across a bed or layer of derry, they do not fail to take it away. In gardens which have been a long time under cultivation peat or derry is not found, for it is injurious to vegetation. Pure sand is usually found to some depth, but they try to dig down below the sand to the earth and dig up about a foot of it to mix with the soil. The sand corrects the effect of the cow-manure which is put in, a layer of seven or eight inches deep (without straw), over the entire surface of the ground, which is then worked in with a spade. They mix up the manure as much as possible, so that when well worked in it is to be found to a depth of one foot below the surface.
It is not a good thing to plant hyacinths the first year in the newly manured soil; they usually leave an interval of one year before they put in hyacinths again, and in the intermediate years they cultivate tulips, jonquils, narcissi, lilies, crocuses, fritillaries, crown imperials, martagon or mountain lilies, irises, and other tuberous plants or bulbs which they keep in quantities; they take care to work the ground well every year, this brings the earth which was below, at the roots of the last year’s plants, to the surface.
The earth dug, trenched, and enriched (for it must be borne in mind it is nearly entirely sand) remains for five or six years without need of manure. After this space of time it has to be worked all over again, dug as deeply as before and manured, if possible adding more pure sand, which is found by digging a very deep way down. In winter the beds are covered with tan or manure in proportion to the strength of the cold. Growers like the frost to penetrate as far as within an inch of the bulbs. If it goes farther, it freezes the cluster of buds; and if it reaches the roots, the bulb is lost beyond redemption. But such a misfortune seldom occurs, for growers know how to protect them by increasing the thickness of manure or tan covering. Some heap up the fallen snow over the beds, believing it is good for bulbs, as it is for nearly all other plants, especially for corn and oats; while others take away the snow rather than add to it. Each has good reasons, and much depends on the time of year, for if it is late snow and the hyacinths are beginning to put out leaves, a quantity of snow may be hurtful and cause a fermentation of the sap, which may cause the bulb to decay.
After the cold weather is over the hyacinth buds begin to pierce through the manure, and then it can be taken off, and there is nothing more to be done after that but just to pull up any weeds that make their appearance. Growers either leave the flowers to fade or else cut them off, they believe it makes no difference which they do. Some, when the stalks are left uncut, strip off the blossoms with their ripening seed-vessels, thinking it preserves the sap within the bulb; others cut the leaves half-way down, for they grow very long and lengthy when the flower is dead. Both these methods are clean contrary to the principles of the art of cultivation. Still, stripping the blossoms does little harm in comparison with the harm done by cutting the leaves, which have a most important function to perform, for they now take on themselves the work of the dried-up roots and feed the bulb, and they breathe in through their leaves the particles of air most suited for the plant’s nourishment. The leaves are then entirely maintaining the plant and keeping the sap in circulation. When the fans or long leaves begin to fade and dry, the bulb is then pulled up out of the earth—with the hand, as much as possible, for fear the spade or fork should injure the young offshoots. The leaves are then cut off altogether, and the bulb is replaced in the earth on its side, being covered up again with an inch or two of very light soil, such as we described—the bulbs are left about a month or two in this state. When the time comes for them to be finally taken up, a fine dry day is chosen. The bulbs are then left out in the open air for a few hours. (If the sun is too hot, it will make them “boil,” as the gardeners say, and the sun can kill them as surely as the frost.) They are then placed on sieves, where they are lightly shaken to separate from them the earth which sticks to them, the roots are carefully removed—carefully, for the sake of the young bulbs (or offshoots)—and put away on the bulb-house shelves.