Floriculture is an employment appropriate to all classes, ages, and
conditions. No yard connected with a dwelling is complete without a
flower-bed. The cultivation of flowers is eminently promotive of health,
refinement of manners, and good taste. Constant familiarity with the
most exquisite beauties of nature must refine the feelings and produce
gentleness of spirit. Association with flowers should be a part of every
child's education. Their cultivation is suitable for children and young
ladies in all the walks of life.
House-plants, and bouquets in sick-rooms, are injurious; their influence
on the atmosphere of the rooms is unhealthy. But the cultivation of
flowers in the garden or yard is in every way beneficial. We earnestly
recommend increased attention to flowers by the whole American people.
The necessary limits of our article will allow us to do but little more
than to call attention to the subject. Those who become interested will
seek information from some of the numerous works devoted exclusively to
ornamental flowers.
Flowers should be planted on rather level land, that the rains may not
wash off the seeds and fine mould. Choose a southern or eastern exposure
whenever practicable. Avoid, as much as possible, planting in the shade.
_Soil_--Should be a deep, rich mould, neither too wet nor too dry, and
should be enriched with a little compost, every year.
_Sowing the Seeds_ is a most important matter in cultivating flowers.
Many fail to come up, solely on account of improper planting. The seeds
of most flowers are very fine and delicate. Planted in coarse earth,
they will not vegetate; planted near the surface in a dry time, they
usually perish. It is best to cover all small flower-seeds, by sifting
fine mould upon them; and if the weather does not do it, use artificial
means to keep the soil suitably moist until the seeds are fairly up.
Stir the soil gently often, and keep out all weeds. It is always best to
plant the seeds in rows or hills, with small stakes to indicate their
location; you can then stir the ground freely without destroying them.
Flowers usually need more watering than most other plants. The usual
application of water to the leaves by using a sprinkler is injurious; it
may be better than no watering at all, but is the worst way to apply
water. Make a basin in the soil near the plants, and fill it with water.
The selection of suitable varieties for a small flower-garden is quite
important. We shall only mention a brief list. Those who would make this
more of a study, are recommended to study "_Breck's Book of Flowers_,"
which is quite as complete for American cultivators as anything we have.
The principal divisions are, bulbous flowering roots, flowering shrubs,
and flowering herbs--annual, biennial, and perennial--the first
blossoming and dying the year they are sown; the second blossoming and
dying the second year, without having blossomed the first; the last
blossoming, and the top dying down and coming up the next spring, for a
series of years.
_Bulbous Flowering Roots._--These need considerable sand in their soil.
They should be taken up after the foliage is all dead, and if they are
hardy, put the soil in good condition, and dry the bulbs and reset them,
and let them remain through the winter. They may need slight protection,
by spreading coarse straw, manure, or forest-leaves over them late in
the fall; but all the more tender bulbs do better kept in sand until
early spring. The best list with which we are acquainted, for a small
garden, is the following: the well-known lilies, the tulips, gladiolas,
hyacinths, Feraria tigrida, crocus, narcissus, and jonquils.
_Flowering Shrubs._--The following is a select small list: Roses, as
large a variety as you please, out of the hundreds known; flowering
almond, Indigo shrub, wahoo or fire-shrub, the mountain-ash, althea,
snowball, lilac, fringe-tree, snow-drop, double-flowering peach,
Siberian crab, the smoke-tree, or French tree, or Venitian sumach,
honeysuckle, double-flowering cherry.
The list of beautiful herbaceous flowers is very lengthy. We give only a
few of those most easily raised, and most showy; the list is designed
only to aid the inquiries of those who are unacquainted with them:
superb amaranth, tri-colored amaranth, China and German astors--the
latter are very beautiful--Canterbury bell, carnation pinks (great
variety), chrysanthemum (many varieties and splendid until very late in
autumn), morning glory or convolvulus, japonicas, Cupid's car, dahlias,
dwarf bush, morning bride or fading beauty, fox-glove, golden coreopsis
(we have raised a variety that proved biennial, which was superb all the
season), ice-plant, larkspur, passion-flower, peony, sweet pea, pinks,
sweet-williams, annual China pink, polyanthus (a great beauty), hyacinth
bean, scarlet-runner bean, poppy, portalucca, nasturtium, marigolds
(especially the large double French, and the velvet variegated),
martineau, cypress vine.