Amateur Gardencraft Part 14

Not knowing, at the start, the kind of plants our collection will contain, as it grows, we can have no definite plan to work to.

Consequently there will be a certain unavoidable lack of system in the arrangement of the wild garden. But this may possibly be one of the chief charms of it, after a little. A garden formed on this plan--or lack of plan--will seem to have evolved itself, and the utter absence of all formality will make it a more cunning imitation of Nature's methods than it would ever be if we began it with the intention of imitating her.

Among our early-flowering native plants worthy a place in any garden will be found the Dogwoods, the Plums, the Crab-apple, and the wild Rose. Smaller plants, like the Trillium, the Houstonia, the Bloodroot, the Claytonia and the Hepatica, will work in charmingly in the foreground. Between them can be used many varieties of Fern, if the location is shaded somewhat, as it should be to suit the flowering plants I have named.

Among the summer-flowering sorts we have Aquilegia, Daisy, Coreopsis, Cranesbill, Eupatorium, Meadow Sweet, Lily, Helianthus, Enothera, Rudbeckia, Vervain, Veronia, Lobelia and many others that grow here and there, but are not found in all parts of the country, as those I have named are, for the most part.

Among the shrubs are Elder, Spirea, Clethra, Sumach, Dogwood, and others equally as desirable.

Among the late bloomers are the Solidagos (Golden Rod), Asters, Helenium, Ironweed, and others which continue to bloom until cold weather is at hand.

Among the desirable vines are the Ampelopsis, which vies with the Sumach in richness of color in fall, the Bittersweet, with its profusion of fruitage as brilliant as flowers, and the Clematis, beautiful in bloom, and quite as attractive later, when its seeds take on their peculiar feathery appendages that make the plant look as if a gray plume had been torn apart and scattered over the plant, portions of it adhering to every branch in the most airy, graceful manner imaginable.

Though I have named only our most familiar wild plants, it will be observed that the list is quite a long one. No one need be afraid of not being able to obtain plants enough to stock a good-sized garden. The trouble will be, in most instances, to find room for all the plants you would like to have represented in your collection, after you become thoroughly interested in the delightful work of making it. The attraction of it will increase as the collection increases, and as you discover what a wealth of material for garden-making we have at our very doors, without ever having dreamed of its existence, you will be tempted to exceed the limitations of the place because of the embarra.s.sment of riches which makes a decision between desirable plants difficult. You can have but few of them, but you would like all.

THE WINTER GARDEN

Most persons who are the owners of gardens seem to be under the impression that we must close the summer volume of Nature's book at the end of the season, and that it must remain closed until the spring of another year invites us to a re-perusal of its attractive pages. In other words, that we are not expected to derive much pleasure from the garden for six months of the year.

There is no good reason why the home-grounds should not be attractive the year round if we plant for winter as well as summer effect.

True, we cannot have flowers in winter, but we can secure color-effects with but little trouble that will make good, to a considerable extent, the lack of floral color. Without these the winter landscape is cold, though beautiful, and to most persons it will seem dreary and monotonous in its chill whiteness. But to those who have "the seeing eye," there are always elements of wonderful beauty in it, and there is ample material at hand with which to give it the touches of brightness that can make it almost as attractive as it is in June.

If the reader will carefully study the two ill.u.s.trations accompanying this chapter, he will have to admit that the winter garden has many attractive features that the summer garden cannot boast of. These ill.u.s.trations are summer and winter views of the same spot, taken from one of our public parks. The summer view shows a wealth of foliage and bloom, and is one of Nature's beauty-spots that we never tire of. But the winter view has in it a suggestion of breadth and distance that adds wonderfully to the charm of the scene, brought out as it is by the naked branches against the sky, and glimpses of delightful vistas farther on, which are entirely hidden by the foliage that interferes with the outlook in the summer picture. Note how the evergreens stand out sharply against the background, and how clearly every shrub--every branch--is outlined by the snow. It is one of Nature's etchings. Whatever color there is in the landscape is heightened and emphasized by strong, vivid contrast. There are little touches of exquisite beauty in this picture that cannot be found in the other.

Most of us plant a few evergreens about our homes. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to locate them where they will prove effective. Oftener we put them where they have no chance to display their charms to good effect. They do not belong near the house--least of all in the "front yard." They must be admired at a distance which will soften their coa.r.s.eness of habit. You must be far enough away from them to be able to take in their charms of form and color at a glance, to observe the graceful sweep of their branches against the snow, and to fully bring out the strength and richness of color, none of which things can be done at close range. Looked at from a proper and respectful distance, every good specimen of evergreen will afford a great deal of pleasure. But it might be made to afford a great deal more if we were to set about it in the right way. Why not make our evergreens serve as backgrounds against which to bring out colors that rival, to some extent, the flowers of summer?

Have you never taken a tramp along the edge of the woodland in winter, and come suddenly upon a group of Alders? What brightness seemed to radiate from their spikes of scarlet berries! The effect is something like that of a flame, so intense is it. It seems to radiate through the winter air with a thrill of positive warmth. So strong an impression do they make upon the eye that you see them long after you have pa.s.sed them. They photograph themselves there. Why should we not transplant this bit of woodland glory to the garden, and heighten the effect of it by giving it an evergreen as a background? Its scarlet fire, seen against the dark greenery of Spruce or Arbor Vitae, would make the winter garden fairly glow with color.

I have seen the red-branched Willow planted near an evergreen, and the contrast of color brought out every branch so keenly that it seemed chiselled from coral. The effect was exquisite.

Train Celastrus _scandens_, better known as Bittersweet, where its pendant cl.u.s.ters of red and orange can show against evergreens, and you produce an effect that can be equalled by few flowers.

The Berberry is an exceedingly useful shrub with which to work up vivid color-effects in winter. It shows attractively among other shrubs, is charming when seen against a drift of snow, but is never quite so effective as when its richness of coloring is emphasized by contrast by the sombre green of a Spruce or Balsam.

Our native Cranberry--Viburnum _opulus_--is one of our best berry-bearing shrubs. It holds its crimson fruit well in winter. Planted among--not against--evergreens, it is wonderfully effective because of its tall and stately habit.

Bayberry (Myrica _cerifera_) is another showy-fruited shrub. Its grayish-white berries are thickly studded along its brown branches, and are retained through the winter. If this is planted side by side with the Alder, the effect will be found very pleasing.

The s...o...b..rry (Symphoricarpus _racemosus_) has been cultivated for nearly a hundred years in our gardens, and probably stands at the head of the list of white-fruited shrubs. If this is planted in front of evergreens the purity of its color is brought out charmingly. Group it with the red-barked Willow, the Alder, or the Berberry, and you secure a contrast that makes the effect strikingly delightful--a symphony in green, scarlet, and white. If to this combination you add the blue of a winter sky or the glow of a winter sunset, who can say there is not plenty of color in a winter landscape?

The value of the Mountain Ash in winter decoration is just beginning to be understood. If it retained its fruit throughout the entire season it would be one of our most valuable plants, but the birds claim its crimson fruit as their especial property, and it is generally without a berry by Christmas in localities where robins and other berry-eating birds linger late in the season. Up to that time it is exceedingly attractive, especially if it is planted where it can have the benefit of strong contrast to bring out the rich color of its great cl.u.s.ters.

Because of its tall and stately habit it will be found very effective when planted between evergreens, with other bright-colored shrubs in the foreground.

There are many shrubs whose berries are blue, and purple, and black.

While these are not as showy as those of scarlet and white, they are very attractive, and can be made extremely useful in the winter garden.

They should not be neglected, because they widen the range of color to such an extent that the charge of monotony of tone in the winter landscape is ineffective.

The Ramanas Rose (R. _lucida_) has very brilliant cl.u.s.ters of crimson fruit which retains its beauty long after the holidays. This shrub is really more attractive in winter than in summer.

It will be understood, from what I said at the beginning of this chapter, that I put high value on the decorative effect of leafless shrubs. Their branches, whether traced against a background of sky or snow, make an embroidery that has about it a charm that summer cannot equal in delicacy. A Bittersweet, clambering over bush or tree, and displaying its many cl.u.s.ters of red and orange against a background of leafless branches, with the intense blue of winter sky showing through them, makes a picture that is brilliant in the extreme, when you consider the relative values of the colors composing it. Then you will discover that the charm is not confined to the color of the fruit, but to the delicate tracery of branch and twig, as well.

WINDOW AND VERANDA BOXES

Somebody had a bright thought when the window-box came into existence.

The only wonder is that persons who were obliged to forego the pleasure of a garden did not think it out long ago. It is one of the "inst.i.tutions" that have come to stay. We see more of them every year.

Those who have gardens--or could have them, if they wanted them--seem to have a decided preference for the window-box subst.i.tute.

There is a good reason for this: The window-box brings the garden to one's room, while the garden obliges one to make it a visit in order to enjoy the beauty in it. With the window-box the upstair room can be made as pleasant as those below, and the woman in the kitchen can enjoy the companions.h.i.+p of flowers while she busies herself with her housewifely duties, if she does not care to make herself a back-yard garden such as I have spoken of in a preceding chapter. And the humble home that has no room for flowers outside its walls, the homes in the congested city, away up, up, up above the soil in which a few flowers might possibly be coaxed to grow, if man thought less of gain and more of beauty, can be made more like what home ought to be, with but little trouble and expense, by giving these boxes a chance to do their good work at their windows. Blessed be the window-box!

Many persons, however, fail to attain success in the cultivation of plants in boxes at the window-sill, and their failures have given rise to the impression in the minds of those who have watched their undertaking, that success with them is very problematical. "It _looks_ easy," said a woman to me last season, "when you see somebody else's box just running over with vines, but when you come to make the attempt for yourself you wake up to the fact that there's a knack to it that most of us fail to discover. I've tried my best, for the last three years, to have such boxes as my neighbor has, and I haven't found out what's wrong yet. I invest in the plants that are told me to be best adapted to window-box culture. I plant them, and then I coax them and coddle them.

I fertilize them and I shower them, but they stubbornly refuse to do well. They _start off_ all right, but by the time they ought to be doing great things they begin to look rusty, and it isn't long before they look so sickly and forlorn that I feel like putting them out of their misery by dumping them in the ash-heap."

Now this woman's experience is the experience of many other women. She thinks,--and they think,--that they lack the "gift" that enables some persons to grow flowers successfully while others fail utterly with them. They haven't "the knack." Now, as I have said elsewhere in this book, there's no such thing as "a knack" in flower-growing. Instead of "a knack" it's a "know-how." Ninety-nine times out of a hundred failure with window-boxes is due to just one thing: They let their plants die simply because they do not give them water enough.

Liberal watering is the "know-how" that a person must have to make a success of growing; good plants in window and veranda boxes. Simply that, and nothing more.

The average woman isn't given to "studying into things" as much as the average man is, so she often fails to get at the whys and wherefores of many happenings. She sees the plants in her boxes dying slowly, but she fails to take note of the fact that evaporation from these boxes is very rapid. It could not be otherwise because of their exposure to wind and air on all sides. She applies water in quant.i.ties only sufficient to wet the surface of the soil, and because that looks moist she concludes there must be sufficient moisture below and lets it go at that.

Examination would show her that an inch below the surface the soil in the box is very, very dry,--so dry, in fact, that no roots could find sustenance in it. This explains why plants "start off" well. While young and small their roots are close to the surface, and as long as they remain in that condition they grow well enough, but as soon as they attempt to send their roots down--as all plants do, after the earlier stages of growth--they find no moisture, and in a short time they die.

If, instead of applying a basinful of water, a pailful were used, daily, all the soil in a box of ordinary size would be made moist all through, and so long as a supply of water is kept up there is no reason why just as fine plants cannot be grown in boxes as in pots, or the garden beds.

There is no danger of overwatering, for all surplus water will run off through the holes in the box, provided for drainage. Therefore make it a rule to apply to your window-box, every day, throughout the season, enough water to thoroughly saturate all the soil in it. If this is done, you will come to the conclusion that at last you have discovered the "knack" upon which success depends.

I am often asked what kind of boxes I consider best. To which I reply: "The kind that comes handiest." It isn't the box that your plants grow in that counts for much. It's the care you give. Of course the soil ought to be fairly rich, though a soil of ordinary fertility can be made to answer all purposes if a good dose of plant food is given occasionally. Care should be taken, however, not to make too frequent use of it, as it is an easy matter to force a growth that will be weak because of its rapidity, and from which there may be a disastrous reaction after a little. The result to aim at is a healthy growth, and when you secure that, be satisfied with it.

The idea prevails to a considerable extent that one must make use of plants specially adapted to window-box culture. Now the fact is--almost any kind of plant can be grown in these boxes, there being no "special adaption" to this purpose, except as to profusion of bloom and habit of growth. Drooping plants are desirable to trail over the sides of the box, and add that touch of grace which is characteristic of all vines. Plants that bloom freely throughout the season should be chosen in preference to shy and short-season bloomers. Geraniums, Petunias, Verbenas, Fuchsias, Salvias, Heliotropes, Paris Daisies--all these are excellent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORCH BOX]

If one cares to depend on foliage for color, most pleasing results can be secured by making use of the plants of which mention has been made in the chapter on Carpet-Bedding.

Vines that will give satisfaction are Glechoma, green, with yellow variegation--Vinca _Harrisonii_, also green and yellow, Moneywort, German Ivy, Tradescantia, Thunbergia, and Othonna. A combination of plants with richly-colored foliage is especially desirable for boxes on the porch or veranda, where showiness seems to be considered as more important than delicacy of tint or refinement of quality. In these boxes larger plants can be used than one would care to give place to at the window. Here is where Cannas and Caladiums will be found very effective.

Ferns, like the Boston and Pierson varieties, are excellent for not too sunny window-boxes because of their graceful drooping and spreading habit. They combine well with pink-and-white Fuchsias, rose-colored Ivy Geraniums, and the white Paris Daisy. Petunias--the single sorts only--are very satisfactory, because they bloom so freely and constantly, and have enough of the droop in them to make them as useful in covering the sides of the box as they are in spreading over its surface. If pink and white varieties are used to the exclusion of the mottled and variegated kinds the effect will be found vastly more pleasing than where there is an indiscriminate jumbling of colors.

A foot in width, a foot in depth, and the length of the window frame to which it is to be attached is a good size for the average window-box.

Great care must be taken to see that it is securely fastened to the frame, and that it is given a strong support, for the amount of earth it will contain will be of considerable weight when well saturated with water.

Veranda boxes, in which larger plants are to be used, should be considerably deeper and wider than the ordinary window-box. Any box of the size desired that is substantial enough to hold a sufficient amount of soil will answer all purposes, therefore it is not necessary to invest in expensive goods unless you have so much money that economy is no object to you. If your plants grow as they ought to no one can tell, by midsummer, whether your box cost ten dollars or ten cents. If it is of wood, give it a coat of some neutral-colored paint before you fill it.