Planning and Planting the Flower Beds
God the first garden made.--_Cowley._
WHILE the snow is on the ground, you can be deciding on the best place
for your garden, and finding out the kind of flowers and vegetables best
suited to your soil and locality.
Write to your Representative at Washington, requesting the seeds he may
have to give away. Write to two or three prominent seed firms for
catalogues, and look over the garden books at your Public Library. Then
if you do not quickly find yourself suffering from a violent attack of
Garden Fever, you might as well give up, and not attempt to have a
garden, for you will be lacking the real love and enthusiasm that count
for success.
Did you ever realize that gardens differ as much as people? "No two
gardens, no two human faces, were ever quite alike," says one writer,
and you want to make yours expressive of yourself. So before taking
another step, study your grounds, large and small,--for if you can have
only part of a tiny plot, you still have many possibilities of
expressing your own ideas and taste.
The garden is for the personal pleasure of the family, so DON'T put it
out in front, for the careless passerby. Choose a more secluded spot
where, if you wish, you can train a vine to shade your seat when you
want to sit down and enjoy the birds, butterflies and flowers.
EASY RULES FOR ARTISTIC PLANTING
Right here is the place to stop and draw a map of your proposed garden,
and mark off the spaces for your chosen plants. You might draw half a
dozen plans, and then choose the most suitable. Only never forget the
simple rules of a famous landscape gardener:--
1. Plant in masses, not isolated.
2. Avoid straight lines.
3. Preserve open lawn centers.
When you have decided on the location of your garden, coax some one
stronger than yourself to dig up the ground thoroughly, and spade in
some fertilizer,--preferably farmyard manure. Plants live on the tonic
salts they draw out of the soil through their roots, as much as they do
on the carbonic acid gas which they take out of the air through their
leaves. So have the ground nourishing, and also nicely pulverized and
free from sticks and stone, that the little rootlets can easily work
their way through and find their needed nutriment.
Never forget that third rule before mentioned,--"Preserve open lawn
centers." A beautiful lawn is as satisfying to the eye as flowers, so
never spoil one by cutting it up with beds. They can be put along the
sides, used for bordering walks, and nestled close to the house.
PLAN FOR SMALL BACK YARD
One of the loveliest gardens I know is at the back end of a city lot,
not more than thirty feet square, with a plot of velvety grass in the
center. The irregular border surrounding this bit of lawn is a mass of
flowers from earliest spring until black frost,--from March until
December,--and delights the whole neighborhood. The secret lies in the
fact that the owner knows how to plant for succession of bloom. The
ground is laid out this way.
[Illustration: PLAN FOR A SMALL BACK YARD]
If you can have only a single flower bed, however, try to get it in a
sunny, protected spot, preferably facing south, where the cold winds of
early spring and late fall will do the least damage. Make a list of the
flowers that like such conditions,--and most of them do,--and then pick
out those you prefer, writing after each name the time that it blooms.
Be sure to select some of each of the early spring, late spring, summer,
early fall, and late fall, so that you will have flowers to enjoy the
whole season through.
SUCCESSION OF BLOOM
For example, you can choose first from the crocus, snowdrop, scilla, the
hardy candytuft that rivals the snow for whiteness, and the tiny
creeping phlox that will carpet your bed with pink; next, from the
daffodil, narcissus and jonquil groups, with the tulips,--all of which
must be set out in the fall for bloom in April and May: then the iris in
May and June. Sweet alyssum, nasturtiums, corn flowers, Shirley poppies
and cosmos (all annuals), you can count on blooming around New York from
July to black frost; dahlias from August to black frost, and monthly
roses the entire summer,--with a tidal wave in June. (I know, for I have
seen them all, over and over again.)
Many of the annuals can be started indoors, or in a glass-covered box
outside. Then when the early flowering bulbs have faded, you can turn
their green tops under the ground, first to allow the sap to run back
into the bulb (the storehouse for next year), and next to decay and
fertilize the soil. The annual seedlings can then be placed right on
top! You thus avoid bare, ugly spots, and keep your garden lovely.
Dahlias planted out about the first of June will bloom from early fall
until cold weather sets in; and certain roses, like the Mrs. John Laing
and all of the hybrid teas, will flower nearly as late. In fact, in the
famous rose garden of Jackson Park, Chicago, as well as in private
grounds around New York, I have seen roses blooming in December.
You hardly need be afraid of crowding, either, if you will be particular
to keep out the weeds, and occasionally work into the soil some
bone-meal for fertilizer. Water in dry weather. This does not mean top
sprinkling, for that is decidedly injurious. When the ground is dry,
soak it thoroughly.
A CITY GARDEN
[Illustration: AN ARTISTIC ARRANGEMENT OF A NARROW CITY LOT]
[Illustration: FIRST WORK IN THE SPRING]
If you live in a city, you may be interested in a garden I have seen,
which ran along the side and rear end of a long, narrow lot. The tallest
flowers,--dahlias and hollyhocks,--were at the back of the bed, at the
extreme end, and although late in flowering, formed a beautiful green
background for the rest all summer. The first irregular section was
given up to the blues, and--planted with both annual and perennial
larkspur, and cornflowers,--kept the dining-table supplied with blossoms
to match the old blue china until the frost came.
Frost, by the way, you will find of two kinds,--hoar frost, which the
Psalmist so vividly described when he said, "He scattereth the hoarfrost
like ashes," and which injures only the tenderest flowers; and black
frost, which is of intense enough cold to freeze the sap within the
plant cells, so that when the sun's heat melts this frozen sap the
plant--leaf and stalk--wilts down and turns black. Therefore, both in
the early spring and the late fall, you must watch out for Jack,
whichever garb he dons, and give your tender plants some nighty
covering.
A LITTLE BED FOR A LITTLE GIRL
If you can have only one small bed, however, you can get a lot of
pleasure out of it most of the season if you will carefully choose your
plants. Pansies set along the outer edge will blossom until mid-summer
if you keep them picked and watered every day; and verbenas, which have
the same harmonizing shades, you can count on blooming until late in
the fall. They would be attractive in either of the following simple
designs:
[Illustration: FLOWERS THAT WILL BLOOM FROM EARLY SUMMER UNTIL FROST]
Candytuft for a border, with petunias in the center, is another
combination that should blossom from June until frost. Poppies and
cornflowers would also last all summer if you would keep out part of the
seed and sow a couple of times at intervals of several weeks. The
combinations of red and blue is very pretty, too. Sweet alyssum, with
red or pink geraniums, would be lovely all season. For an all yellow
bed, plant California poppies to bloom early in the border, and African
marigolds, or Tom Thumb nasturtiums to bloom in the center from July on
late into the fall. With any of the combinations suggested you could
gather flowers almost any time you pleased, for they are all profuse
bloomers.
WINDOW BOXES
If you are a little city child, and can have only a flower box in a
window or along a porch-rail, cheer up! There is still a chance for you
to have posies all the long hot days. After having your box filled with
good, rich soil on top of a layer of broken crockery or stones,--for
drainage, you know,--you can plant running nasturtiums along the edge
for a hanging vine. Inside of that plant a row of the blue lobelia, or
set in a few pansies already in bloom. Then you would have room for
still another row of taller plants,--say pink and white geraniums, with
a fern or two. Another pretty box could be made by putting Wandering Jew
or "inch plant" along the edge for the drooping vine, then blue ageratum
for your edging, with next a row of lovely pink begonias. As it takes a
number of weeks for any seeds to grow and come to flower, you might
better save your candy pennies and buy a few blooming plants from the
spring pedlar. They will gladden your heart while waiting.
All kinds of green add to these little boxes, and all the white flowers
soften and help to blend the bright colors. China asters, in white,
pink, and lavender, are lovely in a window box, and if started in
shallow trays or old pots early in the spring, can be transplanted
later. Then when your early flowers have seen their best days, you can
remove them, put in your asters, and have beauties all fall.