THE SEED-BED
The possessor of a garden, large or small, should have a seed-bed,
where seeds of perennials and some of the annuals can be sown and
grown until large enough to be permanently placed. Not only will this
bed give great pleasure in enabling one to watch the plants from the
time the first tiny leaf appears, but also when laden with blossoms in
fullest beauty. The knowledge that you have raised them gives a thrill
of pride in the result which no bought plants, however beautiful, can
impart. It is not necessary to prepare the seed-bed over a foot in
depth, but the soil must be very light and fine, as well as rich. It
is best, if possible, to have a portion of the bed somewhat shaded
from the sun for a part of the day. If this combination cannot be had
in one bed, there should be a second for plants that want less sun.
Biennials must, of course, be sown every year, as they bloom but once,
then die.
Every year some perennials will disappear, killed by severe winters, by
pests of one kind or another, or dying without apparent cause. To keep
up the supply, therefore, some of each variety should be raised every
year.
Foxgloves and Sweet Williams, if allowed to go to seed, will sow
themselves and increase rapidly. The same with Hollyhocks, but, except
on the edges of shrubberies and in wild borders, it is better to cut
the stalk just before the seed is ready to fall, and save it to sow in
the seed-bed.
[Illustration: Foxgloves--seedlings ready for final transplanting
September twenty-ninth]
In my garden, some seventy miles from New York, and where the spring
opens ten days later, I sow my seeds,--the perennials about the tenth
of April and the annuals from April twentieth to May first. Buy the
seeds, if the garden is large, by the ounce or half-ounce; if small, in
the seedsman's packets. I always have the seeds of perennials soaked
for twenty-four hours before planting, and find that by so doing they
are very sure to germinate. Care must be taken, when soaking a number
of different kinds at the same time, to place the name of each variety
of seed under the glass or bowl containing the same. When ready for
planting, pour off the water and mix the wet seeds carefully with very
dry earth, in a cigar-box, which is of the right size and easy to
handle. Then sow, not too deeply, in rows about a foot apart in the
bed, covering very lightly, according to size. One-half inch is enough
for the large seeds. The very fine varieties should simply have the
earth sprinkled on them. If planted too deep they will never come up.
Seeds of annuals do not require soaking.
Pat the earth down firmly with the back of the trowel, sprinkle with a
fine sprinkler late every afternoon, and it is not your fault if you do
not have hundreds and thousands of young plants to make your own place
beautiful and to give to your friends. It is a keen delight, when a
friend says that she has not raised such and such plants this year, to
run and get your trowel and dig a bunch of this and that from the rows
of sturdy little plants. It is a pleasure to know that a bit of your
garden has gone to help make another's beautiful.
One of the greatest pleasures of a garden is in giving flowers and
plants to your friends. Every October, when arranging the borders and
separating plants, I send away great boxes of them, some to fortunate
friends with lovely gardens, but without the same varieties; some to
humble cottage gardens, and others to friends who have never grown
a flower, but would like to try. This year, having made a large new
garden, I was able to give away to friends and neighbors only about
seven hundred plants, not seedlings but large plants and roots.
Generally I can send away far more. Think what a delight this is!
A request for some plants came to me last autumn from the
baggage-master of a railroad station some twenty miles from us, who,
by the boxes of shrubs and plants that came to me, inferred that I
might have some to spare. I learned that all this man's spare time was
spent in his little garden plot, so great was his love of flowers. I
know, too, a village expressman (another whom nature intended for a
gardener), whose little plot of ground is always a mass of beauty. He
has a surprising variety of plants, and every one is a fine specimen of
its kind. His _Anemone Japonica alba_ are the finest I have ever seen,
each one sending up perhaps a dozen slender stalks of the beautiful
flowers. I have had great difficulty with this plant and have lost
dozens of them. I always drive very slowly by the expressman's garden,
burning with envy and wondering how he does it. In fact, it was only
last year that I had my first success with these obdurate plants. They
must grow under trees whose branches are sufficiently high to admit
the sun half the day. As they bloom in September and October, the tree
protects them from the frost, and in winter they should be well covered
with stable litter. They are among the few plants to be set out in the
spring, for if not well established they are always winter-killed.
It is well not to empty the perennial seed-bed entirely in the autumn,
but to leave a few plants of each variety to transplant in the spring,
to take the place of those which have not survived the winter. When the
bed is empty, in the spring, have a good coating of manure spaded in
and proceed again with the sowing.
Biennials, and also most perennials, must be raised every year to keep
up the supply.
[Illustration: Long grass walk, with _Narcissus Poeticus_ blooming in
the border
April twenty-sixth]
PLANTING
[Illustration: Long grass walk, with Peonies in the border
June sixth]