CALENDAR OF WORK
JANUARY.
UNLESS you live in a warm corner of these islands and have a sunny
garden, you will not be able to do much this month. If you have any
empty ground it should be dressed with manure, dug on a mild day, and
left with a rough surface. The frosts then help to break it up, and
when spring comes it will be powdery and friable.
Fruit-trees should be dusted after a slight rain with slaked lime or
fresh soot, as this kills moss, lichen, and the insect pests that lodge
in the rough places of the bark.
Iris Stylosa should be flowering now in the South of England, and even
in colder climates under a south wall. Slugs are fond of these plants,
and eat them up when they are in bud. If you notice that this is
happening, you must dust with wood-ashes or soot. Gather the flowers
with a sharp upward jerk when in tight bud, and put them in a room in
tepid water to expand.
Snowdrops, Winter Aconites, Crocuses, Squills, early Daffodils, and
Grape Hyacinths will all begin to push towards the light this month.
When they are growing in heavy soil that cakes badly, you help them by
carefully loosening it a little with a hand-fork. You must not do this
in frosty weather.
All delicate plants will need protection now. A piece of rough matting
supported by sticks at the comers is enough for many things. It is
not a bad plan first to stretch a piece of wire-netting across the
sticks and fasten it securely. By day it lets in light and air, and
at night the mat or sacking is easily thrown over it. If ever you are
on the Riviera you will see the gardeners put their plants to bed
every evening as carefully as if they were children, while in this
country, where much cold is expected, you see numbers of plants in
any well-tended garden protected the whole winter with coverings of
bracken or matting. When the plant you want to protect is below ground
(a delicate bulb or tuber, for instance, or one that quite dies down
in winter), you need only pile on manure or ashes or dead leaves to
act as a blanket. We know someone who grew tuberoses successfully out
of doors in a Cornish garden, and in the winter he protected them with
little heaps of ashes, which he did not remove till the May frosts were
over. In most parts of England manure is used as a protection for Roses
and slightly delicate climbers; but a skilful gardener will shelter
many of his delicate plants with little tents that he makes of twigs
and bracken. We have seen them all shapes and sizes in a North Country
garden where many rare things are grown. Some enclosed the plant
altogether, and some gave it shelter, but let in sun and air on the
south side.
This is the month when seed lists arrive, and remind you that spring
is coming. Remember that it is easier to buy seeds than to grow them
well, and do not order more than you have room for, or any requiring
conditions you cannot give them.
FEBRUARY.
All weeds should be destroyed this month, both in the path and the
edging, as well as in the border. If you have Dandelions or Hemlock,
cut their heads off, and cover the remains with common salt. Plantains
and most other weeds may be killed in time in this way.
Perhaps you remember that line in Tennyson about Geraint glancing
at Enid ‘as careful robins eye the delver’s toil.’ You are sure to
think of it this month when you begin to fork over your garden, for
wherever you turn the soil there you will see a robin with its red
breast and bright eyes looking for food. Never drive one away, for they
eat wood-lice, grubs, and worms, but do no harm to plants. A nice big
toad—not a frog, but a rough, grey toad—is a most desirable friend,
too, as he will eat ants, wood-lice, and flies. Ants are sometimes most
mischievous in a garden. They do not eat plants, but they eat certain
aphides they find on the roots. Anyhow, they will kill your pet plant
if they are so inclined. You see it turn yellow and die, and when you
take it up you find its roots gnawed away. We do not pretend that
this is a scientific description of what happens, but only one we can
relate out of our own sad experience. We once built a wall with great
care, meaning to grow many beautiful rock plants on it. We could not
understand why they flourished for a time, and then died. Then we found
the ants and tried to kill them in various horrid ways that made us
feel like inquisitors. We won’t harrow you with them, because they were
not only cruel, but useless. At last we asked one of the best gardeners
we knew what he did when one of his plants was attacked by ants, and he
said he only knew of one thing to do, and that was to remove the plant.
Lady-birds, as well as birds and toads, are friends in your garden, as
they eat aphides—what the little girl in one of Anstey’s stories calls
‘those horrid little green atheists.’ Sparrows you must keep away this
month with black cotton amongst your Crocuses if you want to see the
flowers whole and upright. When you find their yellow petals strewn on
the ground, you will know that the mischievous birds have been at them.
In mild springs some of the herbaceous plants begin to push up young
leaves this month. The Phloxes are amongst the earliest. Look out for
slugs, or they will devour the early shoots of many plants, often so
greedily that the plant cannot recover.
Japanese Lilies are now arriving, and should be planted in peat and
sand. The sand keeps off slugs and attracts moisture. They should have
a thick dressing of manure on the top to keep out frost.
Sweet-peas may be sown this month without harm, but it is too early
for your other seeds, as long as you depend on an outdoor garden. The
impatient, inexperienced gardener reaps nothing but failure when he
sows too early. If you are lucky enough to have a frame, you will find
it most useful, even though the elaborate, costly hot-beds described
in gardening books are beyond your reach. A simple hot-bed can be made
with some manure, which must be put in the frame and turned over two
or three times with a garden fork. It is then spread out flat, and
covered with good garden soil. You can either sow your seeds in this
soil or put your seed-boxes on it a few days after it is made. If a
hot-bed cannot be made you can fill your frame with cinders, and place
your seed-boxes on them. The boxes must be lifted in some way, so as
to be near the glass, or the seedlings would grow spindly. On warm
days you must open your frame and let in air, or the soil will turn
sour and mossy. In showery weather let in rain, and in a drought water
judiciously. The four elementary things to remember about seeds grown
in a frame are: they must be raised in some way, so as to be near the
glass; they must have air to keep the soil healthy; they must be shaded
from strong sunshine; and they must be moist, but not too moist. You do
not want them either to be withered by drought or smothered by moss.
MARCH.
This is a busy month in the garden. When it ‘comes in like a lion’ you
have to sit idle; but directly there are mild, dry days you should be
at work. Wherever you mean to sow seeds the ground should be well dug,
and then raked smooth and fine. If you just rake the top, and leave the
soil beneath in a hard cake, your seeds will be like those sown in the
parable that fell on stony ground and had no depth of earth. They will
spring up, but they will have no roots, and when the sun comes they
will wither away. In a cold climate Sweet-peas and Mignonette should
not be sown till the middle or end of this month, and most other seeds
will do better if sown in April. March is too early for Nasturtiums or
Convolvuluses, two flowers most children wish to grow.
Towards the end of the month you can divide those herbaceous plants
that are not spring-flowering, if you wish to increase them. You must
not disturb plants that are just going to flower, but all the strong
kinds will stand division and transplanting when they have only sent
up young leaves. For instance, you could take up a Phlox, a Michaelmas
Daisy, or even a Pyrethrum, on a showery day, pull it to pieces, and
find that every bit made a strong plant by the autumn. In the rock
garden the mossy Saxifrages that have bald places in the middle should
be taken up, divided, and firmly replanted. This is the way to treat
many little rock plants that grow themselves shabby in a year or two.
Any new hardy perennials you want may be planted in favourable March
weather, and so may the autumn-flowering Gladioli.
APRIL.
Most of the hardy annuals may still be sown this month. Those sown in
March will be coming up, and you must remember what we told you about
the importance of thinning out. In some gardens nearly all annuals
are raised in boxes, and pricked out in the borders where they are
to bloom. We tell you this because you may belong to a garden where
you can get all the annuals you need given this month in the shape of
little ready-made seedlings. You must plant them several inches apart
on a showery day, and shade them from the sun at first; a tent made of
four sticks and a newspaper will serve when there is no wind. As soon
as they have taken root, and look well established, it is a good plan
to pinch off their tips with your thumb and finger, because then they
will make spreading side shoots, and give you more flowers. You can
pinch most of your annual and herbaceous plants in this way when they
are young, but you must not do it to any plant growing from a bulb or
a corm, such as a Lily or a Gladiolus. Some tuberous plants, such as
Dahlias, may be pinched with advantage.
Roses are pruned in March or April, but the different varieties need
different treatment. You must get some good advice about your special
kinds, or be content to cut away the dead-looking wood. The green fly
begins this month, and you should keep your Roses free from it, either
with an aphis brush or by spraying with quassia chips and water as
recommended on p. 126.
Weed hard this month, as you do not want any weeds to seed themselves,
and they will do so if you neglect them.
MAY.
The leaves of your early-flowering bulbs will now begin to look shabby,
but you must put up with that if you do not mean to throw away your
bulbs or to lift them carefully to the wild garden. Daffodil leaves may
be tied up with string or raffia if they are sprawling over seedlings,
or over plants you want seen. Weeds grow fast this month, and should
be diligently removed. Gardeners weed with a Dutch hoe, but it is an
implement that does more harm than good if unskilfully used. You will
find when you first try to use one how easy it is to damage the young
shoots of your treasures with a hoe, and that in a crowded corner it is
far safer to weed with a knife or a small hand-fork.
The middle or the end of May is an exciting time in gardens, because
we then bring out our half-hardy plants. Dahlias, delicate annuals,
and bedders are all put into the borders when the early May frosts are
over. If possible, this should be done in showery weather. Two or three
dull, damp, warm days save a gardener a deal of trouble in shading and
watering at this time of year. In case the weather is fine and dry,
however, remember that a great deal can be done by planting each plant
in a little puddle of water and shading it with a flower-pot or a box,
or any little tent you can invent. When the nights are warm these
coverings can be removed at sunset and replaced in the early morning.
You will have to judge in each case how many days of such care a plant
requires. When its roots are well established, it will look after
itself by day as well as by night.
You know, of course, that plants must never be watered when the sun is
on them. Nevertheless, if ever you see a plant flagging badly in the
sun, and plainly dying for a drink, you may give it one carefully at
its roots. Do not let the water touch its leaves, and, if possible,
shade it for the rest of the day.
A great many biennial and perennial seeds are sown in May, for a
gardener must work for the years to come as well as for the present
one. It is a good plan to try to grow one biennial and one perennial
every year, as two boxes of seedlings do not give you too much work. Be
sure to get your seed at one of the best places, for nothing is more
disappointing than to take great pains with inferior seed.
Look carefully at your Rose-trees every day this month, and remove any
leaves that are curled and stuck together. Each one contains a grub,
that will become a caterpillar and devour the foliage of the tree later
on. Leaves that are merely curled by cold, and not stuck together, must
not be picked off.
Convolvulus seed may be sown in the open this month.
JUNE.
Many plants will now require staking. We have told you how this should
be done at the end of the chapter on ‘Hardy Perennials.’ Towards the
end of the month you will find the leaves of Crocuses and Snowdrops
quite dead, so that you can remove them without injuring the bulbs.
At the beginning of the month you can still put out bedding plants,
half-hardy annuals, and biennials. A plant may be put into the
open ground out of a pot at almost any time of the year. It is the
safest way of transplanting in hot weather, but you must distinguish
between plants that have been honestly grown in pots and those that a
nurseryman has potted from boxes a day or two ago. When the soil falls
away and leaves the root and stem quite bare, your plant will want care
and shade as much as if you had just pulled it out of a box yourself.
Your Primroses and Auriculas should be taken up and divided this month
if you wish to increase them. Let them spend the summer in a moist,
shady corner of the garden. You will probably lose them all if you
plant them where it is hot or dry.
JULY.
During this month and the next, when the soil is heated by the summer
sun, you take cuttings and pipings, and make layers of the plants you
wish to strike. Pinks are increased when they have done flowering, but
the young shoots of the Carnation are often layered while the older
shoots are still in flower.
Daffodil leaves should now come away with a touch, and without injury
to the bulbs. Every day this month you should visit your garden with
a pair of scissors, and cut off all dead flowers and all annuals that
are going to seed. Not one Sweet-pea must be allowed to make a pod, and
your Mignonette will have a longer flowering season if you can cut off
the green seed-vessels directly they appear. Perhaps you will like some
of your Love-in-a-mist to form its handsome seed-pods and sow itself
for next year. One pink Canterbury Bell, too, would give you seed
enough to fill a big garden; but its seedlings will probably not be
pink if you have allowed blue and white ones to grow near it.
When your Lupins, Pyrethrums, and Delphiniums go out of flower, you can
either cut off the flowering stems and leave the rest of the plant, or
you can cut down the whole plant close to the ground. When you cut down
severely you should give a little extra food in the shape of manure,
bone-meal, or Clay’s Fertilizer. We did not include Pyrethrums in our
short list of perennials, because they are rather capricious: easily
managed in some gardens, and bad-tempered in others. Slugs devour
them. If they are given to you, and you want to cut them down, do it
rather gingerly, and in damp, dull weather. We are not speaking by any
orthodox tradition, but out of our own experience, as we have lost many
a fine clump through being told that they could be cut down sharply
after flowering. In dry weather the operation kills them.
AUGUST.
The chief things to do this month are to enjoy your garden, to cut your
flowers, and to keep things tidy. Pinks, Pansies, and Carnations may
be increased in the ways we have explained. If you have Rose-trees of
your own, or are allowed to take a few cuttings from other people’s,
you should try to grow some on their own roots. We have told you how
to take the cutting and how to plant it in the chapter on ‘Roses.’ The
bulb lists arrive this month, and you must decide what bulbs you want
for autumn planting.
SEPTEMBER.
Your spring-flowering bulbs should be planted this month. In some cases
it cannot be done, because their places are not vacant yet, or because
you mean to dig over your whole garden later in the autumn. But where
complete reorganization is unnecessary, try to find room for your bulbs
as soon as possible.
If you have any biennial or perennial plants grown from seed sown in
May, they should now be strong and big enough to transplant to their
flowering quarters. This is an operation you can carry out either in
autumn or spring, but not in winter. Frost soon kills plants that have
not had time to take a firm hold of the soil.
Autumn brings much labour in the garden in the shape of tidying,
weeding, and preparing for next year. Annuals that have become shabby
may be pulled up and thrown away. They will leave a bare place that
you must dig over well. Before you replant it you must consider
whether what you are going to plant would like a little manure beneath
its roots, or as a blanket on the top. A greedy annual has probably
impoverished the soil.
Herbaceous plants that flower in spring may all be divided and reset
now.
OCTOBER.
In October great operations are carried out in herbaceous borders. New
plants come in from nurserymen or friends; old ones are cut down, fed,
and in some cases divided; seedlings are put in groups where they are
to flower. These things are done all through the autumn, according to
convenience. In a mild district you may go on till Christmas planting
out and reorganizing your borders. In a cold one get it done at the end
of summer, before the frosts come. Any bulbs you have not planted in
September should go into the ground now.
NOVEMBER.
There is still plenty to do in the garden on a fine day. In a wild
garden or shrubbery some people leave all the dead leaves lying. We
think that this is advisable in a big country garden, but not in a
small, compact town one, that should look trim and well-tended. Your
flower border you should keep as neat as your bedroom. All weeds, dead
leaves, and rubbish must be removed now, and if you have plants that
need protection you will give them tidy heaps of manure, ashes, or
dead leaves. See that the labels and sticks marking plants and bulbs
are firmly in the ground. Cut down herbaceous plants that have done
flowering. Throw away the annuals that have become shabby. Lift your
Dahlias on a dry day, cut their stems to within three inches of the
crown of the roots, and put them, stem downwards, in an airy place to
dry. During the winter they must be kept from frost, but not altogether
from air. They are often stored in a shed, or on the floor of a cool
greenhouse.
Remember that this is the chief month in the year for planting Roses,
and do it at the beginning rather than the end.
Any part of your garden that is empty may be dug over and manured now.
The surface should then be left in a rough state, so that the winter
frosts can work the soil well, and prepare it to receive seeds and
young plants in the spring.
DECEMBER.
November and December are two most important months in the gardening
year. All the digging and the alterations you have planned during the
summer are taken in hand now. In a cold climate you would be careful
to finish your planting early in November, but in the South and West
of England you might still be busy with a new rockery or a new flower
border. Even in the South you must now expect winter weather, and
should complete your preparations for protecting delicate plants. One
of the enchanting discoveries you make when you become a gardener is
that there is no ‘dead’ season in these islands. In the milder corners
you may have Roses, Violets, and Primroses all through the winter,
while the early spring bulbs push their spikes through the soil before
you have gathered your last Chrysanthemum. But even in a cold climate,
when all your plants seem to be asleep beneath the snow, you can be
busy indoors for your garden. It is a good plan to make plenty of
large wooden labels, as the little ones you buy are easily lost. If
you have the use of a shed or an attic, you may wish to repaint your
watering-can and wheelbarrow; and out of doors you can sort all your
stakes, and point those used for Sweet-peas with a sharp, strong knife.
Besides, you will probably have some bulbs and foliage plants indoors
that require your care.
If you have any Christmas Roses (Hellebores) in your garden, it is well
worth while to make a roof over them with strong stakes and sacking.
Then the air can get in at the sides, but the roof prevents the rough
winter rains from splashing their faces with soil. When Christmas is
over you have January, the worst of the winter months, before you,
and after that you will say to yourself every day that ‘spring is
coming.’ Even during a cold February the lengthening afternoon lights
say this to you a little clearer every week, and during the spell of
mild weather that nearly every February brings you will find many
other promises of spring in your garden. So the year goes round for
us, a tangled tale of work and pleasure, success and failure, hope and
disappointment. The great gardener must be wise and humble, or he
would not be great; so he knows to the end of his days that he has much
to learn. The child who first plants his little plot should also teach
himself this lesson. Then, if he observes his plants attentively and
patiently, he will in the course of years become a gardener.
‘Who loves a garden
Still his Eden keeps,
Perennial pleasures plants,
And wholesome harvests reaps.’
INDEX
Aconite, Winter, 85
Alonsoas, 40
Alstrœmerias, 85
Alyssum Saxatile, 157
Anthericum Liliastrum (St. Bruno’s Lily), 157
Antirrhinums (Snapdragons), 157
Arabis, 158
Arenaria Balearica, 158
Aspidistra, 198
Aubrietias, 158
Auriculas, 224
Bedding plants, 107
Begonias, 86
Biennials, 91
Calceolarias, 110
Campanula Isophylla, 206
Medium, 98
Persicifolia, 170
Pyramidalis, 169
Campanulas, 98, 158, 169, 170, 206
Candytuft, 168
Canterbury Bells, 98
Carnations, 131
Ceanothus Veitchii, 176
Christmas Roses, 231
Chrysanthemums (Summer), 62
Clarkia, 33
Clematis, 176
Climbing Roses, 119
Columbine, 57
Convolvulus Major, 178
Crocuses, 73
Cyclamens, 170
Daffodils, 75
Dahlias, 88
Daisies, Marguerite, 110
Day Lilies, 148
Delphinium, 50
Dividing, 219, 224
Edging, 15
Eschscholtzia, 40
Evening Primrose, 60, 100
Everlasting Peas, 178
Forget-Me-Not, 104
Foxgloves, 104
Fruit, 190
Geraniums, 110
Gladioli, 82
Godetias, 34
Grape Hyacinth, 81
Gypsophila Paniculata, 61
Helianthemums, 158
Heliotropes, 110
Herbaceous plants, 219
Hop, 177
House-leeks, 160
Hyacinths, 80, 202
Hybrid Perpetuals, 116
Iberis Sempervirens, 159
Iris Pumila, 159
Stylosa, 159, 212
Irises, 53, 84, 159, 212
Japanese Anemones, 56
Japanese gardens, 208
Jasmine, 177
Labels, 231
Larkspurs, 34
Lavender, Sweet, 61
Lettuce, 184
Lilies, Day, 148
Orange, 144
Sacred, 205
Tiger, 146
Lilies of the Valley, 148
Lilium Auratum, 146
Candidum, 142
Speciosum, 145
Lime, 9
Lithospermum Prostratum, 159
Lupins, 55
Malope, 33
Manure, 8
Marguerite Daisies, 110
Martagon, 145
Michaelmas Daisies, 66
Mignonette, 31
Mint, 188
Mixtures for growing bulbs, 203
Montbretias, 84
Musk, 207
Mustard and Cress, 183
Narcissus, 75
Nasturtiums, 36
Nigella, 35
Onions, Spring, 187
Orange Lilies, 144
Oriental Poppies, 52
Palms, 199
Pansies, 95
Parsley, 189
Paths, 3
Peas, Everlasting, 178
Peas, Sweet, 24
Peonies, 58
Perennial Candytuft, 168
Phlox Setacea, 160
Pinks, 139
Polyanthus Narcissus, 203
Poppies, Shirley, 38
Pricking out, 21
Primroses, 47, 224
Pyrethrums, 225
Radishes, 186
Roman Hyacinths, 202
Roses, Christmas, 231
Climbing, 119
Sacred Lilies, 205
Saxifrages, 160
Sedums, 160
Seed, 18
Sempervivums, 160
Shirley Poppies, 38
Siberian Squills, 74
Situation of gardens, 1
Snapdragons, 101
Snowdrops, 72
Soil, 1
Speedwell, 160
Spiræa, 207
Spring Onions, 187
Squills, Siberian, 74
Staking, 68
Stocks, 105
Summer-flowering Chrysanthemums, 62
Sunflowers, 37
Sweet Lavender, 61
Peas, 24
William, 98
Tea Roses and Hybrid Teas, 117
Tiger Lilies, 146
Tools, 11
Trenches, 10
Tropæolum, Speciosum, 174
Tufted Pansies, 95
Tulips, 81
Vallota Purpurea, 207
Violets, 64
Wallflowers, 93
Water, 202
Winter Aconite, 85
Wistaria, 173
THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 138, “too” changed to “to” (is heir to)
Page 141, “answer” changed to “answers” (this way answers if)
Page 201, “pots in plants” changed to “plants in pots” (Many plants in
pots die)
Page 233, Index, under Campanula, “Persicæfolia” changed to
“Persicifolia” to match usage in text.
Page 233, Index, “Escholtzia” changed to “Eschscholtzia” to reflect
usage in text.