There is no flower more truly and universally popular than the lily of
the valley. What can be more delicious and refreshing than the scent
of its fragrant flowers? What other plant can equal in spring the
attractiveness of its pillars of pure white bells half hidden in their
beautiful foliage? There are few gardens without a bed of lily of the
valley, but too often the place chosen for it is some dark corner
where nothing else would be expected to grow, but it is supposed as a
matter of course that "it will do for a lily bed." The consequence is
that although these lilies are very easy things to cultivate, as
indeed they ought to be, seeing that they grow wild in the woods of
this and other countries, yet one hears so often from those who take
only a slight interest in practical gardening, "I have a lily bed, but
I scarcely ever get any lilies." Wild lilies are hardly worth the
trouble of gathering, they are so thin and poor; it is interesting to
find a plant so beautiful and precious in the garden growing wild in
the woods, but beyond that the flowers themselves are worth but very
little. This at once tells us an evident fact about the lily of the
valley, viz., that it does require cultivation. It is not a thing to
be left alone in a dark and dreary corner to take care of itself
anyhow year after year. People who treat it so deserve to be
disappointed when in May they go to the lily bed and find plenty of
leaves, but no flowers, or, if any, a few poor, weak attempts at
producing blossoms, which ought to be so beautiful and fragrant.
One great advantage of this lovely spring flower is that it can be so
readily and easily forced. Gardeners in large places usually spend
several pounds in the purchase of crowns and clumps of the lily of the
valley, which they either import direct from foreign nurserymen or
else procure from their own dealer in such things, who imports his
lilies in large quantities from abroad. But we may well ask, Have
foreign gardeners found out some great secret in the cultivation of
this plant? Or is their climate more suitable for it? Or their soil
adapted to growing it and getting it into splendid condition for
forcing? It is impossible that the conditions for growing large and
fine heads of this lily can be in any way better in Berlin or
elsewhere than they are in our own land, unless greater heat in summer
than we experience in England is necessary for ripening the growths in
autumn.
There is another question certainly as to varieties; one variety may
be superior to another, but surely if so it is only on the principle
of the survival of the fittest, that is to say, by carefully working
on the finest forms only and propagating from them, a strong and
vigorous stock may be the result, and this stock may be dignified with
a special name. For my own part what I want is to have a great
abundance of lily of the valley from February till the out-door season
is over. To do this with imported clumps would, of course, be most
costly, and far beyond what any person ought to spend on mere flowers.
Though it must be remembered that it is an immense advantage to the
parish priest to be able to take bright and sweet flowers to the
bedside of the sick, or to gratify the weary spirit of a confirmed
invalid, confined through all the lovely spring time to the narrow
limits of a dull room, with the fragrant flowers of the lily of the
valley. I determined, therefore, that I would have an abundance of
early lilies, and that they should not be costly, but simply produced
at about the same expense as any other flowers, and I have been very
successful in accomplishing this by very simple means. First of all,
it is necessary to have the means of forcing, that is to say the
required heat, which in my case is obtained from an early vinery. I
have seen lilies forced by pushing the clumps in under the material
for making a hot bed for early cucumbers, the clumps being drawn out,
of course, as soon as the flowers had made a good start. They have
then to be carefully and very gradually exposed to full light, but
often, although fine heads of bloom may be produced in this way, the
leaves will be few and poor.
My method is simply this: In the kitchen garden there is the old
original bed of lilies of the valley in a corner certainly, but not a
dark corner. This is the reservoir, as were, from whence the regular
supply of heads for special cultivation is taken. This large bed is
not neglected and left alone to take care of itself, but carefully
manured with leaf mould and peat moss manure from the stable every
year. Especially the vacant places made by taking out the heads for
cultivation are thus filled up.
Then under the east wall another piece of ground is laid out and
divided into four plots. When I first began to prepare for forcing I
waited four years, and had one plot planted with divided heads each
year. Clumps are taken up from the reserve bed and then shaken out and
the heads separated, each with its little bunch of fibrous roots. They
are then carefully planted in one of the plots about 4 in. or 5 in.
apart, the ground having previously been made as light and rich as
possible with plenty of leaf mould. I think the best time for doing
this is in autumn, after the leaves have turned yellow and have rotted
away; but frequently the operation has been delayed till spring,
without much difference in the result.
Asparagus is usually transplanted in spring, and there is a wonderful
affinity between the two plants, which, of course, belong to the same
order. It was a long time to wait--four years--but I felt there was no
use in being in too great a hurry, and every year the plants
manifestly improved, and the buds swelled up nicely and looked more
plump each winter when the leaves were gone. It must be remembered
also that a nice crop of flowers could be gathered each year. When the
fourth year came, the first plot was divided up into squares about 2
ft. each way, and taken up before any hard frost or snow had made
their appearance, and put away on the floor of an unused stable. From
the stable they are removed as required in the squares to the vinery,
where they grow beautifully, not sending up merely fine heads of bloom
without a vestige of leaf, but growing as they would in spring out of
doors with a mass of foliage, among which one has to search for the
spikes of flower, so precious for all sorts of purposes at that early
season of the year.
The spikes produced in this way do not equal in thickness and
substance of petal the flowers which come from more carefully prepared
clumps imported from Berlin, but they are fine and strong, and above
all most abundant. I can not only supply the house and small vases for
the church, but also send away boxes of the flowers to friends at a
distance, besides the many gifts which can be made to those who are
ill or invalids. Few gifts at such a time are more acceptable than a
fragrant nosegay of lily of the valley. In order to keep the supply of
prepared roots ready year after year, a plot of ground has only to be
planted each autumn, so that in the rotation of years it may be ready
for forcing when its turn shall come.
As the season advances, as every one knows who has attempted to force
the lily of the valley, much less time is taken in bringing the
flowers to perfection under precisely the same circumstances as those
in which the first sods are forced. In February or earlier the buds
are more unwilling to start; there seems to be a natural repugnance
against being so soon forced out of the winter's sleep and rest. But
when the flowers do come, they are nearly as fine and their leaves are
quite as abundant in this way of forcing as from the pieces introduced
much later into heat. It would be easy to preserve the squares after
all the flowers are gathered, but I found that they would not, like
strawberries, kindly furnish forth another crop later on in the year,
and, therefore, mine are flung away; and I have often pitied the
tender leaves in the frost and snow after their short sojourn in the
hot climate of the vinery. But the reserve bed will always supply an
ample quantity of fresh heads, and it is best to take the new plants
for preparation in the kitchen garden from this reserve bed.
This very simple method of forcing lilies of the valley is within the
reach of any one who has even a small garden and a warm house, and
these two things are becoming more and more common among us every
day.--_A Gloucestershire Parson, in The Garden_.
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[Continued from SUPPLEMENT, No. 802, page 12820.]