BALCONY-GARDENING
“Visions of blue Violet plots,
White Daisies and Forget-me-nots.”
Some of us have a balcony as well as a window-box. Here is a field
indeed; we have more space, more opportunity for display. Rescued from
the hands of the florist, balcony-gardening becomes one of the most
interesting of occupations. Here we may aspire to creepers and climbers
in a good aspect, even to Roses. Imagine it in London!
“Rose-trees, either side the doorway
Growing lithe and growing tall,
Each one set, a summer Warder
For the keeping of the hall.”
Climbers in pots that make thick summer growth are easiest to manage;
these we can get fresh every season, and they greatly brighten up the
old friends that have lived with us from year to year through the
adversities of frost and fog. Major Convolvulus and the perennial
“Morning Glories” do well, also Canariensis; but all these must have
sun.
[Illustration: A HANGING BASKET]
For a town wall-plant nothing can surpass the Winter Jasmine, whose
yellow blossoms cheer the dullest months, and in summer we welcome its
long green trails, which we must not forget to cut back every autumn,
or it will get too straggly. It is always the year’s young shoots
that are wanted for beauty. Forsythia, with its golden flowers of
February and March, delight us sometimes on the fronts of London houses
in very early spring, but the foliage is not so decorative afterwards,
and for the balcony we must have summer beauty. The Virginia Creeper,
that we have brought from the generous West (along with other pretty
things and people), is now so familiar that we forget that it is really
a new-comer. It was in 1841, at the back of a house in Rutland Gate,
that the Virginia Creeper made its first appearance in London. Since
then how much it has done to beautify our towns, both the common kind
and the small-leaved Ampelopsis Veitchii, whose habit of self-clinging
renders it so invaluable. Some critics think we use this Creeper too
freely, but I do not agree with them. Either on grey stone or brick,
or trellis-work or rails, its light festoons of green, or red, or
crimson--as the sun has dyed them--give summer grace and autumn colour.
Of the Ivy there is no occasion to speak, except to remind that there
are more kinds than one. Good balcony shrubs for backgrounds are easily
found, and in many contrasting tints of green and gold. With respect to
pot plants, Mrs. Earle gives a suggestion that is worth following up:--
“One day outside a dining-room window of a London house I noticed some
large, heavy, oblong Japanese flower-pots planted with single plants.
They looked very well, as one was able to see the growth of the plants.
The pots were glazed, and much thicker than the ordinary flower-pot.
This lessens evaporation, and their weight prevents them from being
blown over.”
Ordinary flower-pots are not suitable in our climate for outer windows
and balconies.
I am convinced that for furnishing the balcony there is a great future
for strong, well-made, handsome pots. It is wonderful what can be grown
in them. No one understands this better than the flower-lover who has
ever lived in any of the West Indian Islands, where there is no soil,
and everything has to be grown in pots and tubs. Tubs are charming, so
cheap, so easy to manage, and so decorative when tastefully painted.
Plants always take kindly to tubs, and both tubs and pots can be
arranged and moved about with ease--a great convenience when ladies
undertake the work.
But tubs and pots are not the only receptacles that are useful for
balconies, verandahs, leads, and window-doorways. Italian oil-jars
answer very well, either whole or sawn in half to make two. Seakale
pots serve the same purpose. For painting them in colour, nothing is
better than a low-toned green, which harmonizes with all else. There is
a certain dull red that pleases some tastes; but red is a colour that
tires.
The quality of the material of which the receptacles are made must
be considered, as it has a great deal to do with the amount of water
the plants will require. Ordinary flower-pot ware is very porous, and
plants grown in large flower-pots require more frequent watering than
when grown in anything else. The evaporation through plain wood is not
nearly so great as through unglazed earthenware, and when the wood
is painted it is still less. Glazing an ordinary flower-pot makes it
more protective. Old petroleum barrels (when the oil has been turned
out) and butter-tubs are excellent plant-holders, but of course must
have ample provision made for drainage, and several good-sized holes
must be pierced at the bottom. If the tub or pot has not much depth of
room underneath, it should be set on bricks, or raised in some other
way. This assists drainage, and keeps the holes from being blocked
by worms or otherwise. Re-potting is very seldom required if in the
first instance good compost is freely given. The best way of feeding
our tub plants and shrubs is very clearly explained in a paper on
“Tub Gardening,” by Mr. Alger Petts in _The Garden_ of September 21,
1891. It is well worth study by those who mean to take seriously to
tub-gardening; but most likely the tub-gardeners of the London balcony
do not expect their plants to live long. They would do so, however,
if properly looked after and given a fair chance. One great advantage
about flowering pot and tub plants is that they bear more blossoms
grown in this way than if they were in the open border; the strength of
them goes to blossom instead of root, as everybody knows.
London in June! How beautiful it is, especially at the West End, the
best End! and who can doubt it owes much of its beauty to plants
and flowers? There they are, in shops and dairies, even among the
delicate confections of the modiste, pots of green Ferns, even fragrant
blossoms. On a summer’s day in Bond Street I have sometimes stopped
involuntarily to feast my eyes on the artistic arrangement of a
shop-front, where blocks of ice and silvery white-bait, the scarlet
lobster and the subtle pinks of salmon mingle with trails of grass and
seaweed green. This is delightful, but we should like more of it. Why
should not our streets be even gayer than they are now, and sweeter?
Over the shop-fronts and on leads, as well as in the window-box or on
the balcony, we would see something fresh and growing. Cut flowers are
all very well, but they make only for beauty. The growing plant is a
health-helper, as well as pleasing to the eye, for the carbonic fumes
that kill us are positively good for plants; they live on and enjoy
them. Trees and all green things are good; but trees, unless a street
is very wide indeed, take up too much room, robbing us of light and
preventing the air from circulating.
Balcony-gardening need never do this; we can keep to low-growing things
and creepers. Many a town house has balconies large enough to lounge
in. On a July evening, under the delicate thin curve of a new moon, or
in starlight, how sweet the summer dusk, even in London, and flowers
are just as fragrant here as in the country. Where so welcome as in
cities are “pointed blossoms rising delicate, with the perfume strong
we love”?
I was once a frequent visitor at a London house which was always kept
full of growing plants, and could never enjoy one of them. Why? Because
I knew each one was dying every moment. They were treated exactly like
furniture. A dark corner would be “lighted up” by the splendour of a
Scarlet Geranium in full bloom; (it did not remain scarlet long); a
Daphne showed its fragrant stars on a davenport close to the fireplace,
and a long way off the window. No one ever picked off a dead leaf or
gave the plants so much as a cupful of cold water. Every few days the
florist’s man came round, took away the invalids--for such they had
become--and arranged a fresh lot. Poor plants, they had my sympathy! I
do not think this treatment of flowers shows the least real love for
them; better were it to grow the humblest blooms out in the open air,
upon the balcony.
In a lady’s paper the other day I chanced to see some practical hints
on how to convert a London balcony into a miniature garden, and thought
them worth transcribing.
“One of the first things to be considered is what flowers will flourish
in the smoky atmosphere. I have noticed that the ivy-leaf Geranium
does well, and this makes a brave show, and grows rapidly. Close to
the front of the balcony have some narrow boxes made of wood, painted
green, and fill these with plenty of plants, which can be trained to
the rails of the ironwork, and thus make quite a screen. A striped
awning should be fixed to the wall of the house just above the
drawing-room windows, and this can be made removable by driving iron
staples into the wall and sewing rings on to the canvas awning. In the
front three iron uprights must be fixed to the balcony, one at each
end, and one in the middle. The top of each upright can be bent over to
form a ring, and the awning can be tied on to these with strong tapes.
Two large hanging baskets of ferns should be suspended from a thin rod,
which is passed from end to end of the iron uprights, and if two more
baskets are hung from the lowest rail of the balcony in front, the
bower will be complete. With some matting on the floor and two lounge
wicker chairs, this will make a charming retreat on a hot day and a
cool lounge on a sultry evening.”
I can exactly picture such a balcony as this, and would edge the box
with plants of musk, the smell of which would be delicious in the
drawing-room, especially on a summer’s afternoon, just after it had
been watered.