[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic
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THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF
GARDENING
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME
By MISS CONWAY and SIR MARTIN CONWAY
THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF ART
By ELIZABETH W. GRIERSON
THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF CELTIC STORIES
By ELIZABETH W. GRIERSON
CHILDREN’S TALES FROM SCOTTISH BALLADS
By ELIZABETH W. GRIERSON
THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF EDINBURGH
By ELIZABETH W. GRIERSON
CHILDREN’S TALES OF ENGLISH MINSTERS
By G. E. MITTON
THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF LONDON
By G. E. MITTON
THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF STARS
By G. E. MITTON
THE BOOK OF THE RAILWAY
A. AND C. BLACK · SOHO SQUARE · LONDON, W.
AGENTS
=America= THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, NEW YORK
=Australasia= OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
205 Flinders Lane, MELBOURNE
=Canada= THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD.
27 Richmond Street West, TORONTO
=India= MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD.
Macmillan Building, BOMBAY
309 Bow Bazaar Street, CALCUTTA
[Illustration: A HERBACEOUS BORDER.]
THE
CHILDREN’S BOOK
OF
GARDENING
BY
MRS. ALFRED SIDGWICK
AND
MRS. PAYNTER
WITH
TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR FROM
DRAWINGS BY MRS. CAYLEY-ROBINSON
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1909
‘It is the Spirit of Paradise
That prompts such work, a Spirit strong,
That gives to all the self-same bent
Where life is wise and innocent.’
WORDSWORTH.
DEDICATED
TO
BETTY, BARBARA, AND CYRIL
PREFACE
THIS book was suggested by the questions of a boy of twelve who
lived in Germany and sent for an English book that would teach him
the elements of gardening. One of the authors asked the editor of a
well-known gardening journal to recommend her a suitable book, and
found that he knew of none written from a child’s point of view, and
supplying the instruction a child could understand and use. Yet in
these days, when so many children have a garden, such a book must be
needed. The aim in this one has been to tell the juvenile reader how to
make his garden grow, and the authors have not allowed themselves to
wander in the pleasant byways of description, reflection, or amusement.
They wished to help the budding gardener rather than to entertain the
child, and they have tried to keep within the limits of what a child
can do.
But as children vary in age and strength as well as in circumstances,
they will not all be able to follow the whole of the advice here given.
Cyril, for instance, could dig his own little plot of ground, but
Betty could not for many a year to come; and though Cyril may not have
the patience to sow his sweet peas in the best of all possible ways,
Betty will read in this book how it should be done, and then get one
of her father’s gardeners to do it for her. As for Barbara, she is a
traveller, and can have no garden of her own; but she sets daffodils in
her friends’ gardens, and is content to see them, with her inward eye,
dancing in the breeze for their delight. So all children, according to
their strength and means, may love a garden, whether it is contained in
a few flower-pots on a city window-sill, or encouraged to expand and
grow in the wide spaces of the country.
Gardening, like other bents, will find a way; but it will run more
smoothly if it has a little help at the beginning.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE SITUATION AND SOIL 1
II. ANNUALS 16
III. HARDY PERENNIALS 43
IV. BULBS, CORMS, AND TUBERS 70
V. BIENNIALS 91
VI. BEDDING PLANTS 107
VII. ROSES 116
VIII. CARNATIONS AND PINKS 131
IX. LILIES 142
X. ROCK AND WALL GARDENS 152
XI. DIFFICULT AND SHADY GARDENS 166
XII. SOME HARDY CLIMBERS 172
XIII. FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 181
XIV. WINDOW, ROOM, AND JAPANESE GARDENS 194
XV. A CALENDAR OF WORK 212
INDEX 233
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
BY MRS. CAYLEY-ROBINSON
A HERBACEOUS BORDER _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
THE TIDY GARDENER 8
JANUARY 17
POPPIES 32
LARKSPURS AND PINKS 65
DAFFODILS 80
IRISES 97
A CORNISH COTTAGE 112
LILIES AND ROSES 145
‘THE ROAD TO ROME’ 160
A WINDOW GARDEN 193
A ROOM GARDEN IN SPRING 208
THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF GARDENING
CHAPTER I
THE SITUATION AND SOIL
THE first thing to decide is that you really want a garden of your own,
and mean to work in it and keep it clean and tidy. The next thing is
to learn a little about situation and soil, because you cannot choose
which plants to grow until you know what conditions you can give them.
You must not think that you can ram any plants into any patch of ground
with success. There are a few that are obliging and will live almost
anywhere, but even these will generally show you by their size and
health whether they like their home or not. Many will just exist, but
not do well without the food or place that suits them, while others
will die unless they have what they want.
If you can possibly avoid it, do not have your garden under trees or
large shrubs, or close to an evergreen hedge. The drip from trees is
bad for nearly all plants, and the big roots made by trees and shrubs
exhaust the soil. Besides, on account of the roots, you cannot dig
the ground properly and feed it with manure. However, if your choice
is between a shady garden and none, you should certainly take it, and
learn what can be done with it. Later on in the book we will tell you
which plants will do well in such a spot, and how you should treat
them. The best situation for a garden is one that gets the morning sun,
and is either right out in the open or sheltered on the north. It is
best for the plants and best for you, because in a warm, sunny corner
you can often work on days when it would not be safe in the chilly
parts of the garden.
Do not have a large plot if you mean to look after it without help:
twelve feet long by seven feet wide would be enough, and even a smaller
piece could be made into a pretty garden. If you have more than you
can keep tidy, the grown-ups will be sorry they let you have a garden
at all, and some day they will say that the gardener wants your bit
of sunny border for his winter lettuces, and that you had better take
yourself and your weeds and your mess away to that no-man’s-land in the
shrubbery, where nothing much will grow, and where it is always sad and
chilly. So we will imagine that your garden is twelve feet long and
seven feet wide, and that the sun shines on it whenever it is fine.
Whether your plot is a bed by itself or part of a wide border, it will
not be easy and pleasant to manage unless you make a path through the
centre—a dry, hard, narrow path, on which you can stand or kneel when
you are at work amongst your plants. Across the breadth would be the
most convenient position. To do this you should get a penny piece
of tape, because it is easier to see and keep straight than string.
Measure the length of your garden with it, having tied one end of the
tape to a stick and put the stick firmly into one corner of the ground.
Tie a knot in the tape when you reach the other corner. Then carry the
knot back to the stick, and the doubled tape will mark the centre of
the whole length. Put a stick into the ground there. Then you get two
other sticks, and put them nine inches on either side of the centre
one, so as to get your eighteen-inch path exactly measured at the top
of your garden. The other side of the garden may be measured in the
same way, and the centre sticks removed at either end. Then you bring
your tape right along both sides of your path, tying it to your sticks
at each end, so that you have two straight lines to guide you. If you
are going to make your path yourself, you must now take your spade and
dig out all the earth to the depth of ten inches. This will be hard
work, and take you several days, but if you want your path to be dry
and firm it must be done. The earth you throw out should be divided
as evenly as possible between your two beds, and be neatly spread on
them when you have finished. The deep trench you make by digging must
be filled with broken stones or pieces of brick well stamped down,
and afterwards covered with gravel or fine stones. Now you will have
two borders, each seven feet long and five feet three inches wide. If
you choose you can make one side a flower garden and the other side a
kitchen garden, and in your kitchen garden you can grow some flowers
as well as vegetables. In any case, you will be glad of your path, and
if your plot is smaller than the one we recommend, you should make it
on one side instead of in the middle. As far as possible, you should do
all your gardening from it, so that the soil around the plants does not
get trodden down too hard. Most plants like to have a firm hold with
their roots, but not to have a caked surface that keeps out the air and
rain.
Before you put in any plants you must pay some attention to the state
of your soil. Even grown-ups often seem to think that earth is earth,
and that any flowers will nourish in any ground. But, as a matter of
fact, plants are even more various and dainty about their food than
human beings; they answer as well to clever treatment, and they look
as starved as slum children when they are not properly fed. Gardeners
usually tell you that nearly everything will nourish in a good loam,
and that it may be either natural or the result of cultivation. Soil of
this kind is a mixture of clay, sand, and humus, and is easily worked.
In or near London you generally get abominable soil in your garden,
because the builders have dug out the good stuff and replaced it
with any kind of rubbish. Everyone knows the London mixture of black,
sticky clay, broken bricks and bottles, and the roots of grimy trees
and shrubs. Many things will no more thrive in such a medium than a
baby would on lobster salad. If you have to begin your gardening career
with a builder’s rubbish-heap, you must be content to grow some of the
strongest things, such as Starworts, Foxgloves, Nasturtiums, and some
bulbs, and to renew them every year.
Roughly speaking, soils may be divided into heavy and light—those that
hold wet and those that do not. The heavy kinds are mostly clay, though
pure peat retains a great deal of moisture. The light soils are gravel,
limestone, and sand. If you are used to a heavy clay soil, you will
envy the people who have a light sandy one; and then some day when you
come to work a hungry, sandy garden, you will wish for some of the
sticky soil that is not easy to handle, but which many plants love. In
either case you must try to improve matters, and to do this you must
first find out what your soil is. In a limestone country you need not
add lime, but it would be good for clay. In Holland pure sand has been
made fertile by the addition of cow manure.
It is often said that the gardener’s year begins in November, because
that is when you would make a new bed, or feed and alter an old one.
If you make a bed well one autumn and grow things that like to be left
alone, you would obviously not make it all over again the next. You
would ‘mulch’ any part of it that required food or protection—_i.e._,
you would supply a top dressing, a winter blanket of manure that would
both keep things warm, and, with the help of the air and rain, send
them food. When the spring comes, these top dressings look untidy,
and they are either lightly and carefully forked in or taken away.
By that time they are chiefly straw. When you are making a new bed,
or reorganizing an old one completely, you cover the soil three
inches thick with manure, make trenches, and take care that it is all
buried at least ten inches deep, because very few plants like to come
into contact with it when it is first put into the ground. It is an
operation that you cannot manage at all for yourself if you are a girl.
You must get a gardener or an elder brother to do it for you. If you
tried digging in manure, your nurse would say to you what the nurse
in Leech’s old picture said to the child who stirred her tea with the
snuffers: ‘Miss Mary, you are not to stir your tea with the snuffers.
It is not at all ladylike, and I am sure your papa would not approve of
it.’
[Illustration: THE TIDY GARDENER.]
The manure used should not be quite fresh, or it will make the earth
‘sick,’ as gardeners say, and kill your delicate plants and seedlings.
After it has been dug in, the winter frosts and rains do a great deal
to ripen it, and in the spring, when you plant, your flowers will be
vigorous and plentiful, because they will find the food they need ready
for them. But if you live in a town you may not be able to get farm
manure easily, and then you would find a chemical one useful. Clay’s
Fertilizer is a well-known manure, and so is Shefa, but many people
have killed their plants by using too much of them. A tablespoonful to
the square yard is enough, and it should be scattered evenly over the
surface before it is dug in. There are many other chemical manures,
but it is not necessary for you to know much about them yet. If your
grown-ups understand them, they will provide you with what your
soil needs; and if they do not, you can get on very well with the
manures described here. Do not use chemical manures if you have a
damp, heavy soil. In any garden it is a good plan to collect all the
rubbish you can—old rags and toys, for instance, dry dead leaves, and
small dry sticks—for a bonfire. The ashes left provide a food that all
plants like, and they should never be wasted, but dug into the soil.
In the country soot is good for your soil, and most useful in keeping
off slugs. In a town you would not use it at all except as a defence
against slugs. Leaf-mould is good for all soils, but it is not a rich
food. Sand should be mixed with clay land that is heavy and sticky.
Lime is valuable where soil is ‘sour,’ dark, and mossy, and some plants
need it, as a child needs milk; but you had better not try to apply it
by yourself. It has to be ‘slaked’ by the air or with water before it
is used, and makes a white powdery dust that would not be liked on your
clothes. Mortar from buildings contains lime, and is easier to manage.
If you cannot enlist a gardener, and are going to make your own garden,
you must learn to dig it over properly, and for this you will want
a strong spade suited to your height. You begin by digging a trench
ten inches deep from one end of your garden to the other. The earth
you take out should be put in a wheelbarrow or on the farther side of
the border. When the first trench is finished you put some manure all
along it; then you start a second one, close to the first, and this
time you put the earth you take out into the manured trench ready for
it. In this way the manure and the soil that was on the top get buried
beneath soil that has been hidden till now from the light and air. You
go on making these trenches side by side until you reach the edge of
the border, and you fill the last one with the soil you first removed,
which is waiting for you in the wheelbarrow. In digging you should
put your spade straight down into the ground, and help it with your
foot to go in deep; then lean back on it, lift it out full of soil,
and tilt it sharply into the empty trench. But you should not try to
dig with a full-sized spade, as even with a small one you will find
it hard work. The operation is a most important one, because when the
buried soil is brought to the top the weather comes and gardens for you
there, as well as deeper down, where the manure now lies covered. The
winter frosts, the summer rains, the air and the sunlight, all affect
it strongly, sweeten it, break it, and make it ready for your flowers.
In the winter the surface of your beds should be left as rough as
possible, because then the frost can get in easily and do its work. We
will tell you later several ways of protecting some of your plants from
frost, for the degree of cold that improves your soil will kill your
favourite plants if you do not take care of them. But if you become a
really keen gardener, you will find that you often look at the weather
from the gardener’s point of view. The rainy day that is disappointing
other people will be settling in the newly-planted things, or helping
your seeds to germinate, or persuading your bulbs to put out roots.
When warm weather comes, you know that everything will take a start,
and get on quickly; but the frosty days that skaters love will make
you anxious, especially while you are a beginner. When you have had a
garden for a year or two, you will have seen many a plant hang its head
for a time and after all recover.
The tools used by your elders will be too large and heavy for you,
but on no account have a ‘Child’s Garden Set,’ as they are never
strong. Buy each implement separately, of good quality, and the size
to suit you. You will want a spade, a hoe, a rake, a broad flat
trowel, and a small hand-fork. If possible, you should also have a
two-quart watering-can, a sieve, and a little galvanized iron or wooden
wheelbarrow for rubbish. Always knock the earth off your tools when
you have done gardening, scrape them clean, and put them away in a
dry shed. They should never be left out in the wet. The watering-can
should be emptied and turned upside down to dry. If you cannot have a
wheelbarrow of your own, you must use an old pail or basket for weeds
and rubbish. These should be carefully collected as you work, and then
either thrown away or saved in a neat heap for your bonfire. Weeds are
sometimes burnt, sometimes buried deep under the soil to make ‘humus,’
and sometimes left on a rubbish-heap until they have decayed and are
ready to make soil again. ‘Humus’ is the dark earthy substance that
you get from decayed vegetation, and it is useful to plants; but in
your little plot you will not have a large quantity of weeds, and when
you have planted it you will not want to dig holes to bury them. You
will see many operations going on in the large garden that you cannot
imitate and need not understand until you have learned to cultivate
your own. When that time comes, and you know all that we can teach
you, there are many larger, fuller books that will tell you a great
deal we must leave untold. We shall only discuss things that you can
grow without much skill, or strength, or expense. A little sense and
patience, and a little of your pocket-money, will enable you to carry
out our instructions.
But we do not mean that you can grow all the plants we talk about in
one summer. We have chosen a few from thousands, and from those few
you must choose again, according to your taste and your conditions.
All the beautiful annuals and perennials we speak of will grow in any
country garden that has sun part of the day, and we will tell you which
do best in towns. But it is most important not to grow more things
than you have room for or time to tend. There is no pleasure in a
crowded, badly-grown annual, for instance, that is mean and stunted,
because twenty plants are struggling for life where one would just
flourish comfortably. You must consider well what you want to grow and
what you can grow, both in your flower and your vegetable garden. You
must find out what size the plants will be, what colour, and when they
will flower. It is no use to say to yourself that a scarlet autumn
Gladiolus would look well next to a white Foxglove; you must remember
that the Foxglove flowers in June and the Gladiolus in August. You must
be careful not to put orange and magenta next to each other; but, on
the whole, we should advise you not to trouble much about colour yet.
Out-of-doors flowers harmonize in unexpected ways. You should consider
the height of your plants, and put the tall ones at the back of your
border. There are some exceptions to this rule, but we will leave you
to study those in any well-kept gardens you are lucky enough to see. As
long as your garden is a child’s garden you had better put your dwarf
plants in front and your tall ones behind. But you must find out which
plants will like your climate and your soil, and which you have room
for comfortably. If you have a tiny plot, do not choose anything that
will make a big bush. Some lovely plants are quite small, so that you
could grow a good many in a garden two feet square.
We have not said anything yet about the edging of your garden, because
you are quite likely to find that ready-made. Tiles have the merit
of keeping clean and tidy; a Box edging is pretty, but it has to be
clipped neatly, and it affords shelter to snails and slugs. Turf
requires much attention, and wears bare easily. The best edging is one
of rough stones laid well into the soil, and with soil worked into the
spaces between them. In case you have not seen these edgings, and yet
can get some stones, we had better explain that each stone should be
wedged as firmly as possible into the ground, but not covered; then in
the pockets of earth between the stones you plant all kinds of tiny
creeping plants, and these soon make a charming border. We will give
you the names and habits of some in the chapter on rockeries. Do not,
at any rate, have an absurd border of little pebbles, as they get out
of place at once, and look untidy.