[Illustration: Fig. 1.--The Mantelpiece Garden.]
THE
PARLOR GARDENER:
A TREATISE
ON THE
HOUSE CULTURE OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, AND ADAPTED
TO AMERICAN USE,
BY CORNELIA J. RANDOLPH,
OF VIRGINIA.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY J. E. TILTON & COMPANY,
161 WASHINGTON STREET.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861,
BY J. E. TILTON & CO.,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District
of Massachusetts.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
Who in our days does not love flowers, and who does not like to do
a little gardening? Assuredly, not you nor I, dear reader, nor any
of our acquaintance. But the love of flowers, the taste which of all
others affords the greatest amount of elegant and harmless pleasure,
is by many deemed to be an unfortunate one, seeing that it is out of
their power to indulge it. In your case, sir, for instance, the burden
of business, oftentimes a terribly heavy one, which it is not in your
power to shake off, absolutely forbids a residence in the country. And,
in yours, my dear lady, the duty of watching over your young family
obliges you to remain in the city. Others of your friends, who share
your taste for flowers, are condemned to a sedentary existence, for the
want of that most precious of all possessions--health. Time was when
a few favored individuals possessed what was called a garden in the
interior of the city; but, at best, those gardens had, as a celebrated
wit expressed it, “the shut-up smell.” But nowadays nothing of the kind
is to be found; the opening of a street, the laying out of a square,
has dispossessed them of the pent-up treasure, or else the ground has
become of such value for building purposes, that it is sold at so much
the square foot--a price sufficient almost to cover it with gold. Nor
is this the case with the capital alone; other cities less crowded,
all towns, in fine, of sufficient consequence to grow, will soon be
without a single garden, large or small, within their limits; the
flower, vanquished, retreats before the building stone. Happily it is
not indispensable to possess a garden, either large or small, in order
to have flowers, and to enjoy the tranquil delight afforded by the
attentions one bestows upon them, and which one experiences in watching
the various phases of their development.
Suppose yourself, for instance, after a severe illness, confined to
your room by a long convalescence, which it is not in the power of any
one to abridge. Even if you were the owner of a garden, you would then
only admire its flowers at a distance, through your window panes.
Then it is that you would feel all the value of a chamber-garden, the
flowers of which could be renewed at small cost every few weeks; taking
care to admit into it those only which, from the delicacy of their
perfume, or their absence of smell, would be sure not to be injurious
to your health.
Suppose this enforced seclusion to have begun in the month of May, a
season at which a garden possesses the greatest attractions; suppose
your circumstances such as to forbid your indulging in the luxury,
little expensive as it is, of a flower-stand; in that case, here is a
receipt for gardening without earth, without water, without so much as
a flower pot even; in a word, without any expenditure beyond a mere
trifle.
Procure from a gardener a fresh bunch of a thick-leaved plant, named
_rhodiola rosea_, in English the _houseleek_, that will cost you
at most a few cents. At the beginning of June the stalks of the
rhodiola are garnished along their whole length with fleshy leaves,
and terminated by a bunch of buds, as yet but little developed, and
disposed in a corymb. Drive into a wall two hooks, about half a yard
apart in a horizontal line; and upon this support lay the stalk of
rhodiola, without tying it in any part. This is all that is requisite
for a curious experiment in parlor gardening, which cannot fail to
awaken your interest and afford you amusement. Nature having endowed
the rhodiola with the faculty of living, drawing its nourishment from
the air alone, which it decomposes by means of its leaves, you will see
it day by day, hour by hour, lengthen, turning upwards at the end where
the flower buds are, and dropping its leaves at the lower part of the
stalk, where they will dry up and fall off, one by one, while those of
the upper part will preserve their freshness and become more numerous.
Finally, it will bloom and present you with a bunch of rose-colored
flowers as perfectly developed as if the plant had grown in good earth
constantly watered.
When these flowers have faded, cut them off; and cut off also the lower
part of the stalk. After this preparation, plant it in a pot filled
with ordinary garden earth, which you must take care not to water too
often. In this situation your stalk of rhodiola will take root, and
will, before autumn, form a tuft of young shoots which will all bloom
the following year, and supply you amply with the means to repeat the
experiment just described.
The rhodiola is called by the French St. John’s herb. You will wish
to know, perhaps, my dear lady, the reason for this name. We will
cheerfully satisfy your curiosity. In many parts of France the
rhodiola grows abundantly on the outskirts of the woods, and there the
experiment of its flowering without earth and without water is repeated
every year in almost every peasant’s cottage. If it blooms _before_ the
feast of St. John the Baptist, (the 24th of June,) they draw from this
circumstance a favorable augury with regard to the success of a project
or the accomplishment of a wish. In the contrary case, the presage is
regarded as unfavorable. I must not omit to add, that this, which, in
the middle ages, had truly all the reality and power of superstition,
is now no longer any thing more than an amusement of young girls, in
whom the oracle of St. John’s herb inspires no more confidence than
that of the white daisy.
Should it so happen that you wish to do a little gardening in your
room, without being able to afford even the very small expense that the
purchase of a bunch of rhodiola requires,--a thing which may happen to
any one,--spend nothing at all. Ask some kind acquaintance to procure
for you a tuft of the yellow _sedum_, (stone-crop.) It is a very pretty
wild plant, which bears, in place of leaves, little green excrescences
elegantly set into one another. Each stalk forms part of a tuft
composed of a great number of stems coming out from a common centre,
and each bears on its top some star-shaped flowers of a beautiful
golden yellow. Fix a strong pin into the wall paper of your chamber,
and hang a tuft of stone-crop to it by a thread, which you must take
care not to tie too tight. In a few days the stalks will curve upwards
and stand upright, and the flower buds will all open exactly as if the
plant had not been taken from the place where it first grew.
You see now that there are flowers for every body without exception;
and of this you will become more fully convinced if you will only
peruse, with a little indulgent attention, my PARLOR GARDENING.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
THE GARDEN IN THE APARTMENT.
CHAPTER I.
DIVISIONS OF THE WORK, 11
CHAPTER II.
THE MANTEL-PIECE GARDEN, 20
CHAPTER III.
THE ÉTAGÈRE GARDEN, 31
CHAPTER IV.
THE FLOWER-STAND GARDEN, 44
CHAPTER V.
THE PORTABLE GREENHOUSE, 55
CHAPTER VI.
SLIPS IN THE PORTABLE GREENHOUSE--COLD OR
HOT, 65
CHAPTER VII.
GRAFTS IN THE PORTABLE GREENHOUSE, 76
CHAPTER VIII.
THE HOUSE AQUARIUM, 86
PART II.
THE GARDEN AT THE WINDOW.
CHAPTER IX.
THE GARDEN UPON THE BALCONY, 96
CHAPTER X.
THE GARDEN UPON THE LARGE BALCONY, 110
CHAPTER XI.
THE GARDEN UPON THE TERRACE, 120
CHAPTER XII.
FRUITS UPON THE TERRACE, 129
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DOUBLE WINDOW, 143
CONCLUSION, 150
THE
PARLOR GARDENER.
PART I.
THE GARDEN IN THE APARTMENT.
CHAPTER I.
Divisions of the Work.--Part I. The Garden in the Room.--Part II.
The Garden at the Window.--Watering.--Temperature of the Water
for Watering.--Effect of Cold Water upon Plants cultivated in
a Room.--Warmth.--Advantages of the Heat being equal Night and
Day.--Light.--Ventilation.--Cleaning of Broad-leaved Plants.--Same of
Narrow-leaved.
Divisions of the Work.
It is not always easy to cultivate ornamental plants in an inhabited
room; but, far from complaining of this difficulty, we should, on the
contrary, congratulate ourselves on it, for it is a great pleasure to
do a difficult thing and succeed in it. To be successful in parlor
gardening, nothing is requisite but care and patience: much of these
is necessary, and so much the better--this sort of gardening belonging
peculiarly to those who have a great deal of leisure. The extent to
which parlor gardening can be carried on, the kinds and variety of
plants that it may embrace, the times of the year in which we can
occupy ourselves in it with the most pleasure and success,--all this
varies according to the space we have, and the fitness of the situation
for our experiments. We shall take into consideration all these things,
as they present themselves in the natural course of ordinary life. That
we may arrange our hints in some order, we will examine separately the
_garden in the room_ and _the garden at the window_--these being the
two natural divisions of this treatise.
In Part I. separate chapters are devoted to the garden on the
mantel-piece, the garden on the _étagère_, that on the flower-stand,
and that in the portable greenhouse. The different methods of
propagation--by seeds, by slips, and by grafts--are the subjects of
so many separate chapters. They are the most delicate and the most
amusing of the operations of parlor gardening. This Part will terminate
by details on the parlor aquarium.
In Part II. gardening is considered under all the aspects that it can
present--on the veranda, between the double windows, (which will be
converted into a miniature conservatory,) and on the terrace, (which,
even when it is not very large, can be made into a real garden,) where
we can have flowers all the year round, in less number, doubtless, but
as beautiful and as various as in a well-kept parterre.
GENERAL DIRECTIONS.
Watering.
In order to cultivate ornamental plants with success in a room, we
must reflect that they have their wants and their enemies; and we must
satisfy the one and protect them from the other. Plants confined within
our dwellings have need of earth suited to their temperaments; and it
is easy to procure it. They require also watering; some rarely and
sparingly, others often and profusely, but always with water of the
same temperature as that of the earth in which they are placed--this
being a very important point, upon which most people who have flowers
in pots in their chambers are perfectly ignorant. You ladies like a
comfortable degree of warmth; so also do your plants; and nothing
is more agreeable, and at the same time more healthy, than a good
temperature within doors when the cold reigns without. Yet, mark
what frequently happens: Some beautiful camellia is your delight. To
judge by the profusion of buds with which it is loaded, it promises
a splendid bloom in January. You have been enjoined not to fail to
water it evening and morning, and this injunction you punctually
fulfil. But in what way? You go to the dining room sideboard for the
water pitcher--you find it empty--you have it replenished from the
filter--the temperature of this water is almost icy--you pour it upon
the roots of your camellia. Suppose some one was to pour icy water
upon your feet--the shock would make you cry out. Your camellia says
nothing, but it does not suffer less. Its sap, that was in full
activity, slackens--stops; and, that it may begin to flow again, all
the buds drop, one after another--not a single one can bloom. You
are astonished at this, and say, “It is not my fault.” In Sir Walter
Scott’s “Pirate,” the gardener of the Shetland Isles is surprised that
his apple trees have frozen. He says, as you would say, “It is not my
fault; I watered them all the winter--with warm water.” It is the same
error reversed. Remember, then, that in watering any plant whatever,
cultivated in a pot in a room, the first requisite is, that the water
you use be of the same temperature with the earth in which the plant
grows.
If you have occasion to visit a greenhouse, and it should happen that
you pay a little attention to the manner in which it is managed, you
will remark that it always contains a reservoir of water intended to
water the plants with. This water, from the circumstance alone of
its remaining in the greenhouse, takes the same temperature with it
before it is used. This is an example that must be followed. In the
evening, place in the chamber a vessel containing the quantity of water
necessary to water the plants next morning; this water and the earth
of the pots will be of the same temperature.
Warming.
As to heat, that is not what is most important for the health of your
plants; the greater number of those which you can have in cold weather
will always be warm enough in your house, provided it does not freeze
there. The essential point is, that they should not pass by sudden
alternations from heat to cold, and that there should be as little
difference as possible between the temperature of night and day. In
this respect it is not difficult to give them satisfaction, while at
the same time you are making yourself comfortable.
Light.
But there is another element of which they all have as much need as of
heat; that is light. Do not be afraid of inconveniencing yourself a
little, of spoiling the symmetrical arrangement of your furniture, in
order that your flower-stand may receive as much light as possible, and
be placed as near to where it comes in as the gardeners by profession
say ought to be done, and as they do in their greenhouses. If you
travel in Belgium, in Holland, in the north of Germany, a country where
parlor gardening is very much in repute, you will see that all who have
flowers in their rooms (and every body has) place them conspicuously
upon _étagères_ painted green, which gives to entire streets the
appearance of a floral exhibition. There is a street in Brussels,
where, if you wish to see a continual display of gardening and botany,
you have nothing to do but to walk along and look at the windows on
each side. And you might, in your walk, get some useful hints with
regard to the kinds of ornamental plants you wish to cultivate in your
parlor.
Ventilation.
After water, heat, and light, the continual renewal of air for your
plants is most necessary. If your room is warmed by a good open
fireplace, which draws well and gives you a clear fire without smoke,
so much the better; the draught of the chimney renews sufficiently the
air of the apartment: both your own health and that of the plants
must be the better for this. Do not put your plants in a room in which
the chimney smokes; or in a place warmed by a stove or furnace; they
will have too little air in this latter case. You will say, that,
in the greenhouses and conservatories it is by various systems of
warming-pipes that a proper temperature is kept up; and that the plants
do well. This is true; but alongside of the heat pipes are pipes for
ventilation, bringing continually into the greenhouse the air from
without, which is warmed by its contact with the heat pipes before it
mixes with the interior air; and the freshness of this interior air is
thereby maintained. Not so in a chamber warmed by a stove.
Cleaning.
Plants in a room have really but one enemy--the dust necessarily
raised by sweeping. Those plants, as the camellias, kalmias, and
rhododendrons, which have leaves both large and thick enough for the
process, ought to be wiped at least twice a week with a moistened
sponge. As to those whose leaves are too small to admit of this sort
of cleaning, as the _ericas_ (heaths) and the _epacris_,[1] you must
proceed in the following manner: Fill a watering pot, the rose of which
has very fine holes, with water of a proper temperature; incline each
pot containing a plant to be cleaned separately over the sink, and then
with the watering pot, turning the plant round all the time in every
direction, pour a fine shower, which will have all the effect of a real
rain. By this means you avoid wetting the earth of the pots to excess,
and the plants will be perfectly freed from dust.
These general attentions are applicable to all plants that can be
cultivated in doors.