DIFFICULT AND SHADY GARDENS
AS we told you in our first chapter, the worst piece of ground you can
have for a garden is one already occupied by the roots of trees and
coarse-growing shrubs or hedges. All around London Privet hedges and
grimy Laurels are to be seen everywhere, and wherever people try to
grow flowers near their thievish roots the flowers languish. You may
put a few Crocuses in front of a group of Laurels, but you will not
get much else to flourish. Even that hardiest of Saxifrages, London
Pride, leads a starved life, and you cannot know how beautiful it is
until you have seen it sending up masses of its foamy pink flowers
in good air and from good soil. If you not only have an impoverished
and shady garden, but one under the drip of trees, you will not be
able to do much with it. Still, we can tell you about a few things
we persuaded to live in a situation of this kind not far from London.
You must understand that the two authors of this book have had very
different gardening experiences. One is the mistress of a large and
very beautiful garden running down to the sea in the West of England,
while the other has been a wanderer on the face of the earth, and
has worked in many gardens of varying sizes. It is usually her fate
to find a wilderness, delve like Adam in it till it is a garden, and
then go her ways to the next wilderness. The one you are to hear of
now was not a pleasant country wilderness, where even the Briars and
Nettles are growing in good clean soil and in fresh air. It was one of
those disheartening builders’ gardens, where the earth looks a sort
of unwholesome lumpy drab, and is full of old bricks and ginger-beer
bottles. One side of it was bounded by a Privet hedge, and the soil
was starved, but as it was sunny, we got the strong herbaceous things
and pinks to do well in it. The other side, which was under great
Horse-Chestnuts and Laburnums, got no sun at all, looked very bare,
and was evidently wretched soil. We had it well dug and dressed, and
planted clumps of Michaelmas Daisy, of Iris Germanica, and of the
common Evening Primrose a little way back. The Michaelmas Daisies soon
made big bushes, and did very well. The Evening Primroses flowered, but
ran up rather tall and spindly. The Iris did not flower well, but it
increased, and made a clump of handsome leaves. In front we found that
the Perennial Candytuft (Iberis Sempervirens) did well, and increased
quickly. You can hardly have a more satisfactory plant for the front
of a border of this kind. Crocuses came up year after year, too, but
we never persuaded our Daffodils to flower more than once in this
garden. Annuals we advise you strongly not to try. They are a source of
disappointment in such circumstances. The pretty little yellow-flowered
shrub St. John’s Wort should do well under trees, and so will some
hardy Ferns.
If your garden is in the country, and is only partly shaded by trees,
you can grow many beautiful things in it. Perhaps you will be able to
have a background of large stones, and plant Ferns amongst them. The
hardiest Ferns are Male Fern, Osmunda, Hart’s Tongue, Spleen Wort,
Lady Fern, and Shield Fern, and these all like shade. Amongst the Ferns
you should have Solomon’s Seal, Columbines, and Foxgloves. As far as
you can, in a garden of this kind plant big patches of one flower, and
not a muddle of single specimens. Have a bed of Lilies of the Valley in
some part of it, and under the trees a bed of Wild Hyacinths. Snowdrops
do well amongst the roots of shrubs and trees, so well that in some
gardens they spread and increase like a wild flower. They are fond of
peat. Primroses do well in shady places, and so does the Wood Anemone
(Anemone Nemorosa). Periwinkle will flower in shade, though it likes
sun part of the day. Many Saxifrages and Sempervivums (Rockfoils and
Stonecrops) will do well in shady places. For instance, if you have a
stone edging to your border, you will be able to have clumps of the
mossy Saxifrages and of various Stonecrops. Between them the little
dwarf Campanulas would do well, and give you colour all through the
summer months. The splendid tall Campanula Pyramidalis might do farther
back near your Ferns, if you can give it good soil; so would Campanula
Persicifolia, which grows wild in Yorkshire woods. Many Lilies like
partial shade and to be near shrubs, but they should never be planted
close to the roots of trees.
It is not as generally known as it should be that nearly all the
Cyclamens are hardy. The Persian Cyclamen, that we know so well as a
pot plant and in greenhouses, is not hardy, and you must not try that
in your garden. Get some of the other species which you will find
offered in any good bulb catalogue, and in winter give them a covering
of moss or dry leaves. They like a dry, porous soil, mixed with a
little peat or leaf-mould and some lime or old mortar. The corms are
often half out of the ground, or at any rate level with it; but some
gardeners, who have paid great attention to their culture, prefer to
bury them just under the soil, because the roots of some species come
from the top of the corm. The one thing Cyclamens will not stand is
stagnant moisture. You must give them well-drained, sandy soil, mixed
with a little lime. We repeat this because it is so important, and
because Cyclamens are so beautiful that they are worth any trouble you
can take for them. Some flower in spring and some in autumn, and they
must be planted when they are at rest: the spring ones in October or
November, and the autumn ones in June. If they flourish with you their
seedlings will appear naturally; otherwise you had better buy new corms
when you want them. Gardeners raise them from seed, but this requires a
frame or gentle heat.
In a mild climate you can grow Hydrangeas and the shrubby Veronicas in
shady places, but they will not live through prolonged hard frosts.