The book of town & wndow gardening

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VOLXDL HANDBOOKS
PRACTICAL GARDENING

THE BOOK OF

TOWN&WINDOW

GARDENING

BARDSWELL

HANDBOOKS OF PRACTICAL GARDENING— XIX
EDITED BY HARRY ROBERTS

THE BOOK OF TOWN AND WINDOW
GARDENING

A WINDOW BOX IN JUNE

THE BOOK OF

TOWN&WINDOW

GARDENING

MRS F. A. BARDSWELL

JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD
LONDON AND NEW YORK. MCMIII

MsitT
sric-

WH-LIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES,

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

TOWN-GARDENING

PAGE)

London in summer-time — Bought flowers versus growing
plants — Plants that do well in towns — Gardens of the
suburbs — Some of their joys , . . , . . i

CHAPTER II

THE EARLY WINDOW-BOX

Spring gardening in the window-box — Bulbs : gold, white,
and blue — Moss carpets, dainty beds — Flowers that grow
well together — Some combinations — Encouragements . 8

CHAPTER III

"THE SEASON" WINDOW-BOX

Not to start summer flowers too soon — Not to buy plants
that have been forced — Not to be like everybody else —
Asparagus Sprengeri — A kitchen window-box — Herbs —
The watched pot — Prize window-boxes at Exeter — The
nursery window-box — Seed Song 14

CHAPTER IV

BALCONY- GARDENING

Pot-plants — Climbers — Tubs — London in June — The pleasant

balcony — Practical hints 20

268712

vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER V

ROOF AND BACK-YARD GARDENS IN THE CITY

PAGE

St. Andrew's Rectoiy garden, Doctor's Commons — " Struggles
in Smoke " — Roof-jungle at the Home for Working Boys,
at Bishopsgate Street, E.C. — Amateur gardening among
the slates and chimney-pots — City gardens — Tempting
the sea-gull, land-bird, and butterfly . . . .26

CHAPTER VI

PLANTS FOR THE CITY POOR

Window-box Society, St. Cuthbert's Lodge, Millwall — Mr.
Cadburyand his operatives — Town board schools — Garden-
ing at Crook's Place Board School, Norwich — Country
board schools in England and in Germany — Helping the
poor — Miss Jekyll and the factory lad . . . .31

CHAPTER VII

THE BEGINNER

Choosing the window-box — Making it — Placing it — Filling
it — The hanging basket — Cleansing — Watering — The
Fern window-box — Virginia Stock 36

CHAPTER VIII

FOLIAGE PLANTS FOR TOWNS

The window-box and the man in the street — The advantages

and merits of the foliage-plants— Which to order . . 44

CHAPTER IX

FOG, FLOWERS, AND FOLIAGE

Air — Fog — What urban fog is made of — Darkness — Poison —
An analysis from Kew — Can we counteract effects of fog ?
— Mr. Toope at Stepney — Fog-filters — What plants suffer
least ? — Professor Oliver's report on ferns in fogs — Bulbous
plants — Precautions — Coal-smoke Abatement Society —
Resolutions ......... 48

CONTENTS vii

CHAPTER X

THE LADY DECORATOR AND THE FLOWER-GIRL

PAGE

Arranging flowers — Balls, dinner-parties, weddings — Fashions
in flowers — Dyed flowers — Flowers as symbols — Primrose
Day — Floral trophies — The early and mid-Victorian
bouquet — Street-selling flower-girls — Buttonhole-making
— A skeleton parasol in France . . . . -55

CHAPTER XI

THE SMALL SUBURBAN GARDEN

A good word for it — The motor-car — Corner houses — Making
the most of a small garden — Turf — Trees — Back and
front gardens — Individuality — Good taste . . . 62

CHAPTER XII

"NEXT DOOR" — A PARENTHETICAL CHAPTER

Garden etiquette in Suburbia — Codes and customs — Barriers —

Brides — Music — Children — Bonfires — The family wash . 71

CHAPTER XIII

GRASS, GROUND, OR GRAVEL

The new suburban garden — The restful garden — Country Life
on English and Continental suburban gardens — The lawn
and flower-beds — Grass walks 75

CHAPTER XIV

FERNS AND WILD FLOWERS

The hardy fernery — How we made our own — Wild flowers for
the fernery — The fernery all the year round — Amusing
May— The Pale Osmunda — The neglected fernery of
London and the suburbs — Roadside Ferns and hedge-
haunters . g0

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER XV

CREEPERS AND CLIMBERS

The Vine and Fig-tree— Ampelopsis /^YokV— Trellis-work—
Wire netting— Supports— Roses, Jasmine and Magnolia—
The Passion-flower— Hops and Honeysuckle— Morning
Glories— "Ivy Lane" . . . . . . gg

CHAPTER XVI

EASY ROCK AND WALL GARDENING

How to get "rock" and place it— Alpine and English rock-
plants—Mr. Barr's nursery ground— Encrusted Saxifrages
—The double wall— Thrift, Wallflower, and Red Valerian
—One pleasing Thought 95

INDEX .

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A WINDOW-BOX IN JUNE Frontispiece

Photo by Mrs, Bardswell

TO FACE PAGE

DOUBLE AND SINGLE PYRETHRUMS .... 2

By courtesy of Messrs. Barr

MICHAELMAS DAISIES ... ... 6

By courtesy of Messrs. Barr

OVERLOOKING THE TOWN . . . . . .16

Photo by T. W. Scott

A HANGING BASKET ....... 20

Photo by Mrs. Bardswell

A BOAT-SHELTER WITH CERASTIUM ON ROOF . . 26
Photo by D. T. Fish

A ROOF GARDEN ....... 30

Photo by D. T. Fish

POOR MAN'S WINDOW-BOX AT MILLWALL . . .32
By courtesy of Mrs. Richard Frere

POOR MAN'S HOUSE-FRONT, WITH INSIDE PARLOUR

GROUP, AT MILLWALL ..'.... 34
By courtesy of Mrs. Richard Frere

SPRING IN THE CROOK'S PLACE BOARD SCHOOL GARDEN,

NORWICH ........ 36

By courtesy of Mr, Edward Peake

ix

x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TO FACE PAGE

PANSY BED IN CROOK'S PLACE BOARD SCHOOL GARDEN,
NORWICH . . . . . . . .38

By courtesy of Mr. Edward Peake

PART OF ROCK-GARDEN, CROOK'S PLACE BOARD SCHOOL,

NORWICH ........ 42

By courtesy of Mr. Edward Peake

A WATER GARDEN ....... 50

By courtesy of Messrs. Barr

LILIES IN LORD ILCHESTER'S JAPANESE GARDEN, AT

HOLLAND HOUSE, KENSINGTON .... 54

By courtesy of ' ' Country Life "

BULRUSHES AND BOG BEANS IN SMALL TANK IN GARDEN 58
Photo by T. W. Scott

IN A SMALL SUBURBAN GARDEN ..... 62
Photo by John Scott

LATE SUMMER ...... 68

Photo by T. W. Scott

EARLY AUTUMN 74

Photo by T. W. Scott

A TOWN FERNERY . . . . . . . 80

Photo by Mrs. Bardswell

THE OSMUNDA IN MAY ...... 84

Photo by Mrs. Bardswell

VIRGINIAN CREEPER OVER PORCH .... 88

Photo by Mrs. Bardswell

A ROCKERY ........ 96

Photo by John Scott

A ROCKERY IN EARLY SUMMER ..... 100
Photo by John Scott

Acknowledgment is due to the Editors
of "The Garden? "The Gardeners"
Magazine,"' "The Lady" and the
"Pall Mall Gazette'"' for their courtesy
in permitting the reproduction in this
book of certain chapters which appeared
as articles in their respective journals.

CHAPTER I

TOWN-GARDENING

" I'll take the showers as they fall,

I will not vex my bosom ;
Enough if at the end of all
A little garden blossom."

COURAGE is wanted to write a book about Town-garden-
ing. Is there such a thing ? Some would say " No ;
cats, fogs, and smuts forbid." Yet how inseparable from
London is the thought of flowers ! Can we picture the
West End on a summer's day without them ? The dust-
laid, freshly sprinkled squares and streets, where behind
half-drawn blinds there is the fragrance of many blossoms ;
the bright harness of horses jangling as they champ the
bit, a knot of flowers at every bridle ; flower-sellers with
baskets at all convenient corners, and along the roadway
carts of Palms and growing plants bending and waving in
the wind ; every man one meets has got his button-hole,
and every maiden wears her posy ; even the butcher-boy
holds a bud between his thumb and finger, twirling it and
smelling at it as he goes.

The love of flowers and an almost passionate delight
in cultivating them has ever been a feature of English
life, and of late years the old taste has been renewed and
strengthened : no mere whim of fashion's fancy is it, but
the outcome of a nation's feeling, deep and true ; and what
the English people love and long for, that they will have,
despite all difficulties. Thus it comes about that London's

B x

m .AND WINDOW GARDENING

heart is gay with flowers. They strew our parks and open
spaces, they fill the cheerful window-box and seed-sown
area, and make the cold grey balcony to blossom as the
rose ; even where London's traffic roars the loudest, one
lights upon the pathetic back-yard garden, hemmed in by
church and factory walls, the high-hung garden of the
roof and parapet, the little beau-pot of the window-sill,
the poetic window-plant, that shares its owner's only
living-room, — everywhere flowers, flowers, for rich and
poor, especially for the rich.

" There's never a delicate nursling of the year,
But our huge London hails it, and delights
To wear it on her heart or at her ear,

Her days to colour and make sweet her nights."

Buying flowers is easy enough, it is the growing of
them in big towns that is so difficult ; but the struggle is
not a hopeless one, there is much that may encourage.
When we hear of what others have done, still more, when
we have seen their successes for ourselves, despair gives
way to animation and activity.

No one will deny for a moment that there is more
real joy to be felt over one plant that we have grown for
ourselves than over ninety and nine bought ones ; and this
is not only because attending to its needs has made us
love the flower as we love children and other pets and
dear dependents — there is another reason. In shop-
flowers the method of growth (one of a plant's greatest
beauties) is a charm left out. Sweet Peas, for instance ;
we buy them squeezed up in tight bunches, all pink ones
massed together, or all white or purple. Where is the
grace of the clinging tendril, the tender poising of the
dainty blooms ?

I have seen these beauties where Sweet Peas were
blowing and growing in the depths of a London area
along with white Pinks, Candytuft, and the gold-flowered

TOWN-GARDENING' '•''•$'

Canary Creeper, but never have I beheld them in the
shop : bunches of Cornflowers and even Roses, will be
laid against a trail of Smilax, or something else that does
not belong to either of them, such as the ever-present
" French Fern " or New Zealand grass. Flower-artists
of Japan, who willingly spend hours in coaxing each
separate twig and flower to show its natural grace and
habit, would not much care to arrange the cut flowers we
buy in towns, that have been divorced completely from
the stems and branches where they grow ; and to say
this is not to grumble at the florists, who cannot do im-
possibilities, but to accentuate the fact that cut flowers
cannot take the place of growing ones.

Happily for the town gardener, many plants and
flowers do well among the chimney-pots. Annuals less
so than some, perhaps, but many of these flower satis-
factorily if thinly sowed. Nasturtiums, Virginia Stock,
Coreopsis, Marigold, Scabious, Sunflower, Lupin, Love-
in-a-mist, Candytuft and Larkspur never fail us, nor
Sweet Pea, if we can keep the sparrows from eating the
seeds. Some town-folk tell me they think Carnations
really like smoke, so well they thrive in it. Pyrethrums,
both single and double, are among our best town flowers,
and will grow almost anywhere and in any ordinary
garden soil. The one drawback to their well-being is
slugs, who find the young growths too enticing ; but we
can circumvent this enemy if in autumn we sprinkle
ashes, soot, or lime around the crowns. In London it is
never difficult to get soot, though, oddly enough, every
chimney-sweeper considers our own home-made soot his
perquisite, and makes us pay for it. The really best way
to get rid of slugs is to catch them in orange-peel traps,
made of empty half-oranges, under which they crawl,
and can then be killed. Sliced potatoe is another good
bait, or beet-root. The drawback of using traps is the
danger of attracting the enemy. On the other hand,

4 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

ashes, soot, and lime are unsightly, and may spoil our
plants if allowed to touch them. A pail of salt and water
we find the least unpleasing medium when culprits must
be executed.

In a town garden where there is room for them, no
plants do better than the Star-worts or Michaelmas
Daisies. They are so easy of cultivation and so comforting
late in the season, when the " bedders " of every public
and private garden have succumbed to cold and wet. Later
there are Chrysanthemums.

Lilies and all bulbous plants show unexpected hardiness.
Our parks both east and west familiarize us with Snow-
drop, Crocus, Jonquil, Narcissus, and Daffodil ; and to see
how happy Valley-lilies can make themselves within ear-
shot of the bustling Strand, we need only turn our foot-
steps towards the dim green gardens of the Temple, where
banks and parterres of them unfold their verdant cloaks
beneath every April sky. Farther west, if eyes could
pierce the trees and shrubs that guard the gardens of the
King and Queen at Buckingham Palace, or those round
Maryborough House, they would see Lilacs, Laburnums,
Pinks, and Roses ; and from the knife-board of a Bays-
water omnibus, if our field of vision were a little broader,
we should catch glimpses of Lord Ilchester's fair gardens
about Holland House, where languorous Lilies of Japan
luxuriate in all their native splendour, and much of their
native wildness ; and this but a stone's throw from the
Great Western Railway Station and the World's Fair of
William Whiteley.

Among the gardens of the suburbs most of our town
difficulties disappear ; the many nursery, and market, and
Rose, and Rock, and Daffodil gardens that flourish in
London's outskirts abundantly prove this. Once away
from fog and smoke, there are few limitations except
those that come of want of space ; but land is dear,
and there is little ground to spare, except for public

TOWN-GARDENING 5

and general gardens, where again individual joys are
lost.

The suburban garden, in spite of all the hard things
that have been said of it, is really not so much to be
despised, and so large a part does it play in the social life
of the twentieth century, that it is worth a moment's
thought.

Suburban gardens are of many kinds ; there are all
manner of notes in the scale. The squalid ones — alas !
some are squalid — we see in London's shabbiest border-
lands. They often belong to houses filled with many
different families, and are a kind of no man's land. Hardly
can we call them gardens ; little enough is grown in them,
though sometimes among the straggling Runner-beans
and rubbish-heaps there will be a tree, a beautiful spread-
ing tree, like a green-winged angel. Then there are the
tidy patches of the fairly well-to-do workman ; some
made hideous by mounds of shells and grottoes, others
filled with useful and pretty plants. So we go upwards,
step by step, to the good-sized strip or more ambitious
villa garden. Wonders are done in these. Many a busy
City man, whose garden is not far from the Marble Arch,
knows all about Roses, and might give lessons on Grape-
growing and Orchid-forcing to his relations in the real
country.

Suburban gardens naturally have not the same good
chances as are enjoyed by country gardens, but they do
know some joys that may be envied. One is the birds.
It is not that there are more of them, but those there are,
are such a pleasure. When a new bird of a rarer kind
than ordinary is coaxed into the precincts of one's own
domain, how great the interest, and how many friendly
traps are laid for him in the way of food, water, and
material for building. And wild flowers ; when un-
familiar seedlings appear, one knows not whence, here is
another joy. Few people in country gardens know every

6 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

leaf and blade by heart as do the owners of the small
suburban garden, so carefully watched, so tenderly made
the most of.

There is many a quaint touch about these gardens of
the suburbs. They are often, like blouses and children's
frocks after sale-time, made of remnants. Some large old
holding is cut into blocks. Block A gets bits of orchard ;
Block B, a piece of garden-ground with Roses and
blossoming trees, Block C may have nothing but Briars
and Blackberries. Or in another place a stately avenue
has been cut down for building, and some magnificent
Elm or Oak or Cedar has been spared, and is stranded,
a forlorn-looking prisoner, in the back garden of some
modern villa. Well, he is a blessing to somebody ; little
children may still play about beneath his sheltering arms,
where the rooks yet cling to their old haunts, croaking
cheerfully as ever.

Nor is it altogether unpleasing to have a garden near
the busy haunts of men ; the roar and rattle of the streets,
that sound like the humming of innumerable bees, the
strange glow of lights in the distance, the pealing of bells
and the striking of many clocks, the thunder and whistle
of the trains that link us with friends far off, the stir and
throb of human life, that chimes in, not inharmoniously
with the calmer life of Nature — all these things combine in
making up the unexpressed enjoyments of the dwellers in
gardens that lie close to the heart of towns.

" Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.
News from the humming city comes to it,
In sound of funeral or marriage bells."

My own belief is, that ever such a small garden is
better than none, and that life without its flowers is not
worth living. Should this little book be found a help or
encouragement to any town-dwellers who love plants and

TOWN-GARDENING 7

flowers well enough to wish to see them as they live and
grow, as well as to enjoy their beauty and sweetness when
they are cut, the pleasant time of writing it will not have
been ill spent. In every case, where possible, the fruits of
practical experiences have been given, and imagination and
exaggeration have been excluded.

CHAPTER II

THE EARLY WINDOW-BOX

" Yet sun and wind, what can ye do
But make the leaves more brightly show ? "

SINCE Londoners have learned that life without scent
and colour is not worth living, England's capital has
become a City of Flowers. It is not only Covent
Garden and the great floral shops of the West End that
blaze with blossoms ; the same idea has spread into
every little outlying suburb, wherein no self-respecting
greengrocer, however small his frontage, would fail to fill
a shelf or two with fresh-cut flowers several times a week.
Here every careful housewife holds her Saturday market-
ing incomplete till she has bought the bunch of sweetness
that is destined to adorn the Sunday sitting-room or
grace the midday meal. Cold winds of wintry spring
may blow, but, wrapped in folds of pale green tissue
(which sets them off amazingly), bright yellow Daffodils,
purple Violets, white Narcissus, or branches of the
almond-sweet Mimosa, are carried through the streets
by thousands.

All this is delightful ; but cut flowers, lovely and
decorative as they are, can never satisfy the deeper
necessities of the soul. We admire them, we enjoy
them, but it can hardly be said we love them ; they are
too strange to us, like new friends that we have not had
time to cultivate, but must let go ere we know them.

THE EARLY WINDOW-BOX 9

As we agreed just now, really to enjoy a flower we must
have grown it.

In London and all large towns gardening has its trials.
Many will not attempt the task, and rely wholly on the
cut flowers of the florist or the daintily filled pots and
baskets he sells us, the blossoms in which last hardly
longer than those we buy by handfuls. What are the
inhabitants of flats and tall town tenements to do when
they long for the joys of a little gardening — real garden-
ing— and have not so much as a bit of a back-yard to call
their own ? Well, even in towns and cities, where
there is a will there is a way. One or two alternatives
are open to us ; one is the Window-box, another is the
Roof-garden, and there is the Balcony.

The window-box is both the easiest and the most
general, but, common as are these town adornments, it
is a matter of fact that very little " gardening " is done
in them. For the most part the man in the street gets
as much aesthetic enjoyment out of a window-box as its
owner, and often, except in the matter of payment, has
about as much to do with it. The lordly mansions, in
front of which are displayed the most beautiful colour-
schemes during the fashionable season, are often closed at
other periods of the year, while their owners are away
enjoying flowers in distant places. It is of the window-
gardening of that far larger class that lives in London all
the year round we would say a word or two. Window-
gardening might become ten times more interesting than
it is now if people only woke up to a sense of its
possibilities.

Too frequently the window-boxes of the million
follow the fashions that are set them by the " ton," and
come out radiant only with the dawn of summer. True,
in some cases, the baldness of winter and early spring is
mitigated by the planting of a few small shrubs, green or
variegated ; but not infrequently so little interest is taken

io TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

in them that the poor things are allowed to wither on
their stems, either parched with thirst or frozen with
cold. One would almost prefer the sight of the clean,
quite empty flower-box, which does, at any rate, give
a sense of rest.

Can nothing better than this be done ? Why should
not everybody who owns a window-box make and enjoy
a spring garden in it ? Nothing is easier, and it may be
done in an endless variety of ways. To begin with, a
whole chapter could be written about Bulbs for the
window-box. These friendly little plantlets, if we invite
them, will keep us bright for the first three months or
any year.

Gold, white, and blue, — these are the colours we will
choose, and we will start with a very cheap and simple
scheme. Nothing is better for planting at the same time
(quite early in the autumn) than Winter Aconites,
Snowdrops, and blue Scillas. These give us brilliant
colours in quick succession, and, what is more, they
overlap each other, and the grass that belongs to each
plant helps to make a background for the rest. In
planting Snowdrops I would counsel everybody to put
in two kinds, not one double and one single (to my mind
a Snowdrop doubled is a Snowdrop spoiled). What we
like is to place a long-stalked and a short-stalked flowerlet
side by side, so as to give the same appearance of lightness
we aim at in the arrangement of cut flowers in the house.
For a long-stalked Snowdrop, Mr. Barr's Galanthus
Whittalli could not be improved upon. It never looks
prettier than when rising from a bed of its lowlier sisters,
just the little common kind we are so familiar with in
London shops and baskets, where, for some inscrutable
reason, they are generally bound up stiffly with twigs or
box, which do their best to overpower the fresh sweet
scent that properly belongs to every Snowdrop.

If our window-box is in a sunny position, these little

THE EARLY WINDOW-BOX n

flowers of early spring will peep up at us even during the
frosts of January. The golden Aconite cares nothing for
the cold of a London winter ; he is used to Himalayan
snows, and shows his schoolboy shining face and frilled
green collar so early that he invariably takes us by sur-
prise, though we have been looking for him. Next come
the flake-white Snowdrops, "offering their frail cup of
three leaves to the cold sun ; " lastly the Scillas, brightly,
beautifully blue.

To set these flowers off to the best advantage one must
have given them a dainty bed on which to lie. When
the Bulbs are planted some tufts of hardy, free-growing,
flowering Moss should be put in at the same time. The
common Iceland Moss does very well ; it stands any
amount of cold, and spreads out thickly as the days grow
light. Every scrap of soil is hidden, and the flower-
spikes look doubly pretty pushing through the green. If
Ivy-trails are wanted, this is easily managed, but great
care has to be taken with Ivy. Once started, it grows so
strongly, and may injure other things. Crocuses of every
hue blend well with any of the flowers just mentioned,
and bloom about the same time. Another window-
scheme is charming, but will be at its best a little later,
through the months of April and of May. Instead of
Moss (or as well as Moss, if we like both) we can make
our carpet this time of Forget-me-not, through which
white Cottage Tulips grow delightfully, and so do white
or pale pink Hyacinths. Thus grown the Hyacinth
loses the look of stiffness, which is its only fault. White
Arabis is another grounding flower, which sets off scarlet
Tulips (Van Thol's we choose by preference) to perfection.
The double Arabis is even prettier than the single, and
very nearly as hardy. Either with or without the
addition of bulbs, a very inexpensive yet pleasing com-
bination for the window-box, that will be a joy through
the most inclement May, is London Pride and Forget-

12 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

me-not growing side by side. The tender pinks and
blues blend charmingly, and when gathered last a long
time in water. Miss Jekyll says one of her favourite
combinations is London Pride and St. Bruno's Lilies.
We have not tried this for boxes, but can well believe
it ; London Pride is such a sympathetic little flower, and
sets off everything it accompanies.

We have sometimes let the delicious Poet's Narcissus
(Pheasant's-eye) spring up amid these charming flowers
of later spring ; tall, fair, and gracious, they give an
added charm. If a tone of pink is wanted, not a better
spring flower can be chosen than Silene, sometimes better
known as the Campion or Catchfly. It can be bought
in clumps at any flower-market.

If we like, it is quite possible to grow the very early
bulbs along with all these flowers : they do not interfere
with each other in the least. Every one takes his turn
to u show off" like the ballet-dancers of grand opera, and
does his part to keep a window-box bright with blossoms
right on from January to the end of May.

For the encouragement of those who have to grow their
spring flowers in window-boxes instead of in the open, I
may quote some wise words written by one who knows.

" The window-gardener," he says, " equally with the
possessor of extensive flower-borders, may enjoy the
early spring flowers, and in almost as great variety as his
more fortunate neighbours. Bulbous plants will grow
equally well in well-drained boxes, filled with soil that
is fairly good, as in the open border. They may, indeed,
grow better, for window-boxes are invariably sheltered to
a great extent, and bulbs in the border have sometimes
much to contend with — insufficient drainage, insect
enemies, inclement weather, to which they are fully
exposed, etc."

Every one can vary his flower-scheme as he likes, season
by season. Anemones, some Irises, Jonquils, and Daffodils,

THE EARLY WINDOW-BOX 13

must never be forgotten, nor yet the simple Prim-
rose, which looks so fair near beds of heavenly blue
(Grape-hyacinth, Forget-me-not, and Bluebell, are contem-
poraries), and we should start our window-garden as soon
as we come back from seaside holidays, say in the quiet
days of late September.

Through the long winter nothing gives a more delight-
ful sense of restful expectation than a box or border we
have filled with bulbs and covered comfortably with some
simple greenery. It secures for us a taste of the real
pleasures of gardening. Our part is done ; Nature, even
in towns, will do the rest.

" The bulbs lie close
In the earth's warm keeping ;
But when Spring wakes,
That now is sleeping,
Crocus and daffodil,
Hyacinth and jonquil,
Their dreams unfold
In blue and gold,
For lovers reaping.1'

CHAPTER III

" THE SEASON " WINDOW-BOX

" The summer approaching with richness —
And the infinite separate houses."

THE spring months over, and our early blossom faded,
how joyfully one hails the crowd of summer flowers, that
appear as if by magic, begging us to buy them. Market-
carts and barrows filled with " bedders " meet us at every
turn, and their wafted sweetness in square and street is
intoxicating. We must clutch these old joys and hold
them. How now about the window-box ?

To be practical, two -courses are open to us. Bulbs
are not at all fond of being moved ; they like to rest in
peace while their grass grows long arid straggly, to feed
the bulblets underground ; but this does not look pretty,
so if we have any place where we can store the spring
flower-box, we may remove it bodily, and leave the rest
to Nature. If not, we had much better clear it all out
ruthlessly, and start afresh.

One mistake that should be guarded against is that of
filling the summer window-box too soon. People are in
such a hurry ; they want to smarten up their houses with
growing summer flowers, even before the end of May.
To put it on the lowest ground, this is waste of money ;
but worse, it is cruelty. We might as well stand our
darling occupants of the warm nursery outside their
open windows, with nothing on but pinafores ! All
14

"THE SEASON" WINDOW-BOX 15

these summer flowers have been grown in a hot place.
At all times it is well to know the previous history of
each plant we buy, and something of its pedigree. Plants
have their pasts as well as people, and they should be
considered. We want those that have been brought up
hardily, not forced.

In early summer the multitude of floral beauties before
us to choose from is bewildering, yet nearly every one fixes
his affections on the same flowers year by year, and no
doubt will continue to do so, for they never fail to please.
London would not be itself without its windows framed
with clusters of white Marguerites and bright Geraniums
(generally pink), with a neat edging of Lobelia. There
will be slight variations in the kind and colour of the
flowers, and sometimes trailing Ivy-leafed Geraniums will
add a note of grace. For a lovely pink nothing surpasses
the Geraniums " Christine Nielson " or " Olive Carr."
But variety is the spice of life. Why cannot some of
us, for a change, choose white Geraniums — " Queen of
Whites," for instance — and fill the spaces in between
with Petunias, single and double ? Petunias are now
brought to the greatest perfection, and may be had in
splendid colours, shading from palest pink to the deepest
crimson, and the fringed blossoms are exquisite. The
freedom of their growth is a welcome set-off to the
stately deportment of Geranium "Queens." And we
might have yellow Marguerites, with Marigolds and
Nasturtiums deepening to brown and orange, Fuchsias
with Heliotrope (only we must keep the Heliotrope out
of a draught), or gold and spotted Calceolarias mingled
with white Daisies. But is it of any use to advise
Calceolarias ? They are so unpopular nowadays, though
some of them are not so bad, even if they do remind a
little of the gaping, wide-mouthed toad. One would
gladly see more Musk used ; it is delicious billowing
over pots of dark red Roses. Some say Carnations do

1 6 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

well in window-boxes. We have never tried them.
They are capricious always and anywhere.

Walking or driving about the streets and squares of
the West End of London on a June day, when all the
window-boxes are at their gayest, it is amusing to notice
how some localities favour certain flowers. At Queen's
Gate for several seasons past there has been what shop-
keepers call " a great feeling " for white Marguerites
and Genista. Here, again, I use shopkeeper language.
"Genista" is London shop for the almond-scented, yellow-
flowered Citisus which, though really a conservatory
plant, deigns to brighten the window-boxes of London
facades, reminding delightfully of the golden gorse-
blossoms that have the same sweet smell, and are blooming
at the same moment about the heaths and waste-lands of
the country. Genista must have the sunny side of the
street ; we should bear that in mind. Some Clubs, too,
adopt certain flowers and colours, remaining very constant
to their specialities. It would be interesting to reckon
up the number of Daisies that bud and blow in town
during the "season." Never need Londoners quit the
region of bricks and mortar to count the " daisies of the
dappled field ; " there are nearly as many of them to be
seen in town. The Daisy is such a human flower.
Nettles, they say, are never met with but near the haunts
of man, and we are really very much obliged to them,
for boiled Nettle is nearly as good as Spinach, and Daisies
are just as friendly. I have seen them on the golf-links of
Norfolk in chill December, their fringed and yellow eyes
gazing benevolently at the golfers. Wordsworth knew
all about the Daisy.

" Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity
Given to no other flower I see
The forest through.""

One very charming scheme that has been adopted with

OVERLOOKING THE TOWN

"THE SEASON" WINDOW-BOX 17

great success for the sunny side of the street is to have
the whole house painted white, and to fill every box and
balcony with the lovely tendrils of Asparagus Sprengeri,
and nothing else. This ripples over most luxuriantly ;
to look at it makes one feel cool on the hottest day.
After two hours' eye-strain • at the Royal Academy no
sight could be more refreshing. The Sprengeri is
often used for pendant baskets, which it furnishes to
perfection.

However handsome may be the receptacle for our
flowers, no arrangement is really so pretty as that which
gives them trailing blossoms and greenery to hang and
cluster over the hard edge. Campanulas are always
ready to do this gracious task, and can be had either in
pink or white to suit every requirement.

If we live in a flat that has a good many windows and
aspects, we may enjoy a great number of different growing
plants. Before the kitchen-window I should have a box
for parsley and a herb or two. They make for grace as
well as use. Some herbs grow very prettily, and their
aromatic, refreshing scent (so unaccustomed in a town
drawing-room) will please more than that of the costliest
exotic. I have sometimes amused myself by making a
nosegay out of nothing but herbs. In a sick-room it is
priceless. Wormwood — the herb that in France is used
for making absinthe — is a very graceful grower, of pale
grey green not unlike Southernwood or Old-Man, but
finer, and it has a more delicate and subtle scent. Another
herb, Sweet Cicely, is often mistaken for a fern, though
it is softer and bears flowers. Mint, Balm, Sage, and
Rue make a pleasing bunch, and these herbs will grow
anywhere ; they are not afraid of London smoke. Parsley
is more difficult to manage, but is just as tricky in the
garden as in the box. It is perhaps as well to buy this
with our cabbages and cauliflowers. Some of the other
herbs are really not procurable in towns, however gladly

1 8 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

we would pay their price, so it is worth while trying to
grow them for ourselves, and it can be done.

All town gardeners must make up their mind to contend
with difficulties. The worst of them are smoke and
smuts. Smoke, however, is not nearly so bad in summer
as in winter, nor are there then so many flying children of
the soot. We must wash and sponge and syringe, and we
must use soft water. Oh, the magic of soft water in the
plant-world ! but how often the dry and panting flowers
sigh for it in vain. We forget or omit to store the
water heaven sends us, though nothing is simpler to arrange
than a pipe leading from the gutter on the roof down to
the ground. Instead of feeding our plants with rain-
water we turn the nearest tap, and torment them with
hard water from the main. This is what Londoners do,
anyway ; I hope it is not the same in other towns. On the
whole, growing plants give very little trouble, and make
slight demands upon our time, but, like children, they are
ruined by alternations of petting and neglect ; the little
care we give them must be constant, and, as usual, experi-
ence is the best teacher. " The watched pot never boils,"
they say, and picnic experiences have taught us to believe
the proverb ; but it does not apply to plants and flowers,
which always do better for being noticed. It has come
to be a family fiction, in which we more than half believe,
that flowers will not thrive unless they are watched.
Looking at them seems to make them grow, which of
course is only another way of saying that they pay for
close attention, and the stitch in time that saves.

At Exeter, already one of the most beautifully kept of
English towns, the window-box bids fair to become a
striking feature. An enthusiast in horticulture, anxious
to improve its southern entrance, is offering prizes for the
best window-sill gardening in that locality. Three
months are allowed for exhibition, and consolation prizes
give a chance to all. The idea is a good one, and almost

"THE SEASON" WINDOW-BOX 19

sure to be imitated in other places. I have often wished
that every nursery-window in London might have its
window-box for simple flowers. A child's delight in the
first shoot above the ground is a pretty thing to see, and
after that there is the miracle of the bud and bloom.
How much more meaning has the pretty " Seed Song " to
a town child who has himself with his own hands sowed
the little seedlets and watched the wonder of their birth
in his very own window-box ! I borrow two half verses
of it, for the benefit of those to whom it is unfamiliar.

" Little brown seed, oh ! little brown brother,

Are you awake in the dark ?
Here we lie cosily, close to each other : —
Hark to the song of the lark !

" Little brown seed, oh ! little brown brother,

What kind of flower will you be ?
I'll be a Poppy — all white like my mother.
Do be a Poppy like me."

CHAPTER IV

BALCONY-GARDENING

" Visions of blue Violet plots,
White Daisies and Forget-me-nots."

SOME of us have a balcony as well as a window-box.
Here is a field indeed ; we have more space, more oppor-
tunity for display. Rescued from the hands of the florist,
balcony-gardening becomes one of the most interesting
of occupations. Here we may aspire to creepers and
climbers in a good aspect, even to Roses. Imagine it in
London !

" Rose-trees, either side the doorway
Growing lithe and growing tall,
Each one set, a summer Warder
For the keeping of the hall."

Climbers in pots that make thick summer growth are
easiest to manage ; these we can get fresh every season,
and they greatly brighten up the old friends that have
lived with us from year to year through the adversities
of frost and fog. Major Convolvulus and the perennial
"Morning Glories" do well, also Canariensis ; but all
these must have sun.

For a town wall-plant nothing can surpass the
Winter Jasmine, whose yellow blossoms cheer the dullest
months, and in summer we welcome its long green trails,
which we must not forget to cut back every autumn, or
it will get too straggly. It is always the year's young

A HANGING BASKET

BALCONY-GARDENING 2 1

shoots that are wanted for beauty. Forsythia, with its
golden flowers of February and March, delight us some-
times on the fronts of London houses in very early
spring, but the foliage is not so decorative afterwards, and
for the balcony we must have summer beauty. The
Virginia Creeper, that we have brought from the generous
West (along with other pretty things and people), is now
so familiar that we forget that it is really a new-comer.
It was in 1841, at the back of a house in Rutland Gate,
that the Virginia Creeper made its first appearance in
London. Since then how much it has done to beautify
our towns, both the common kind and the small-leaved
Ampelopsis Veitchii, whose habit of self-clinging renders
it so invaluable. Some critics think we use this Creeper
too freely, but I do not agree with them. Either on
grey stone or brick, or trellis-work or rails, its light
festoons of green, or red, or crimson — as the sun has dyed
them — give summer grace and autumn colour. Of the Ivy
there is no occasion to speak, except to remind that there
are more kinds than one. Good balcony shrubs for back-
grounds are easily found, and in many contrasting tints of
green and gold. With respect to pot plants, Mrs. Earle
gives a suggestion that is worth following up : —

" One day outside a dining-room window of a London
house I noticed some large, heavy, oblong Japanese flower-
pots planted with single plants. They looked very well,
as one was able to see the growth of the plants. The
pots were glazed, and much thicker than the ordinary
flower-pot. This lessens evaporation, and their weight
prevents them from being blown over."

Ordinary flower-pots are not suitable in our climate
for outer windows and balconies.

I am convinced that for furnishing the balcony there
is a great future for strong, well-made, handsome pots. It
is wonderful what can be grown in them. No one
understands this better than the flower-lover who has

22 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

ever lived in any of the West Indian Islands, where there
is no soil, and everything has to be grown in pots and
tubs. Tubs are charming, so cheap, so easy to manage,
and so decorative when tastefully painted. Plants always
take kindly to tubs, and both tubs and pots can be
arranged and moved about with ease — a great convenience
when ladies undertake the work.

But tubs and pots are not the only receptacles that are
useful for balconies, verandahs, leads, and window-door-
ways. Italian oil-jars answer very well, either whole or
sawn in half to make two. Seakale pots serve the same
purpose. For painting them in colour, nothing is better
than a low-toned green, which harmonizes with all else.
There is a certain dull red that pleases some tastes ; but
red is a colour that tires.

The quality of the material of which the receptacles
are made must be considered, as it has a great deal to do
with the amount of water the plants will require.
Ordinary flower-pot ware is very porous, and plants
grown in large flower-pots require more frequent water-
ing than when grown in anything else. The evapora-
tion through plain wood is not nearly so great as through
unglazed earthenware, and when the wood is painted it
is still less. Glazing an ordinary flower-pot makes it
more protective. Old petroleum barrels (when the oil
has been turned out) and butter-tubs are excellent plant-
holders, but of course must have ample provision made
for drainage, and several good-sized holes must be pierced
at the bottom. If the tub or pot has not much depth of
room underneath, it should be set on bricks, or raised in
some other way. This assists drainage, and keeps the
holes from being blocked by worms or otherwise. Re-
potting is very seldom required if in the first instance
good compost is freely given. The best way of feeding
our tub plants and shrubs is very clearly explained in a
paper on " Tub Gardening," by Mr. Alger Petts in The

BALCONY-GARDENING 23

Garden of September 21, 1891. It is well worth study
by those who mean to take seriously to tub-gardening ;
but most likely the tub-gardeners of the London balcony
do not expect their plants to live long. They would do
so, however, if properly looked after and given a fair
chance. One great advantage about flowering pot and
tub plants is that they bear more blossoms grown in this
way than if they were in the open border ; the strength
of them goes to blossom instead of root, as everybody
knows.

London in June ! How beautiful it is, especially at
the West End, the best End ! and who can doubt it owes
much of its beauty to plants and flowers ? There they
are, in shops and dairies, even among the delicate con-
fections of the modiste, pots of green Ferns, even fragrant
blossoms. On a summer's day in Bond Street I have
sometimes stopped involuntarily to feast my eyes on the
artistic arrangement of a shop-front, where blocks of ice
and silvery white-bait, the scarlet lobster and the subtle
pinks of salmon mingle with trails of grass and seaweed
green. This is delightful, but we should like more of it.
Why should not our streets be even gayer than they are
now, and sweeter ? Over the shop-fronts and on leads,
as well as in the window-box or on the balcony, we
would see something fresh and growing. Cut flowers
are all very well, but they make only for beauty. The
growing plant is a health-helper, as well as pleasing to
the eye, for the carbonic fumes that kill us are positively
good for plants ; they live on and enjoy them. Trees
and all green things are good ; but trees, unless a street
is very wide indeed, take up too much room, robbing us
of light and preventing the air from circulating.

Balcony-gardening need never do this ; we can keep
to low-growing things and creepers. Many a town
house has balconies large enough to lounge in. On a
July evening, under the delicate thin curve of a new

24 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

moon, or in starlight, how sweet the summer dusk, even
in London, and flowers are just as fragrant here as in the
country. Where so welcome as in cities are " pointed
blossoms rising delicate, with the perfume strong we
love " ?

I was once a frequent visitor at a London house which
was always kept full of growing plants, and could never
enjoy one of them. Why ? Because I knew each one
was dying every moment. They were treated exactly
like furniture. A dark corner would be " lighted up "
by the splendour of a Scarlet Geranium in full bloom ;
(it did not remain scarlet long) ; a Daphne showed its
fragrant stars on a davenport close to the fireplace, and a
long way off the window. No one ever picked off a
dead leaf or gave the plants so much as a cupful of cold
water. Every few days the florist's man came round,
took away the invalids — for such they had become — and
arranged a fresh lot. Poor plants, they had my sym-
pathy ! I do not think this treatment of flowers shows
the least real love for them ; better were it to grow the
humblest blooms out in the open air, upon the balcony.

In a lady's paper the other day I chanced to see some
practical hints on how to convert a London balcony
into a miniature garden, and thought them worth
transcribing.

" One of the first things to be considered is what
flowers will flourish in the smoky atmosphere. I have
noticed that the ivy-leaf Geranium does well, and this
makes a brave show, and grows rapidly. Close to the
front of the balcony have some narrow boxes made or
wood, painted green, and fill these with plenty of plants,
which can be trained to the rails of the ironwork, and
thus make quite a screen. A striped awning should be
fixed to the wall of the house just above the drawing-
room windows, and this can be made removable by
driving iron staples into the wall and sewing rings on

BALCONY-GARDENING 2 5

to the canvas awning. In the front three iron uprights
must be fixed to the balcony, one at each end, and one
in the middle. The top of each upright can be bent
over to form a ring, and the awning can be tied on to
these with strong tapes. Two large hanging baskets of
ferns should be suspended from a thin rod, which is
passed from end to end of the iron uprights, and if two
more baskets are hung from the lowest rail of the balcony
in front, the bower will be complete. With some mat-
ting on the floor and two lounge wicker chairs, this will
make a charming retreat on a hot day and a cool lounge
on a sultry evening."

I can exactly picture such a balcony as this, and would
edge the box with plants of musk, the smell of which
would be delicious in the drawing-room, especially on
a summer's afternoon, just after it had been watered.

CHAPTER V

ROOF AND BACK-YARD GARDENS IN THE CITY

" High over roaring Temple Bar
And set in Heaven's third story."

" O, green is the colour of faith and truth."

WHEN one comes to write of roof and back-yard gardens the
pen must run less glibly ; such oases in the dust and drouth
of towns are few and rare. The roofs of English houses
are not shaped well for gardening, and if there happen to
be a back-yard, it is often more like a well than a garden ;
not a dripping well lined with fern and soft with moss,
but a well walled round with smoke-black bricks, and
not much of a sky above it. Yet garden-lovers do make
their little plots somehow, even in London's heart, and
live there happily tending their flowers. In the broad
City thoroughfare that leads from Blackfriar's Bridge to
St. Paul's Cathedral stands a church among the shops
and marts — an old church built by Sir Christopher
Wren. Behind this building, up a narrow street — little
more than a passage — is a Rectory-house hemmed in at
back and sides with factories ; yet, hidden away in this
strange corner may be found a bower of greenery. Mrs.
Clementi-Smith, the Rector's wife, shall tell the story of
her City garden in her own words. We must imagine
it to be in the month of March.

" The foreground of our garden consists of a bank of
rock work, interpersed by hundreds of the very finest
26

ROOF AND BACK-YARD GARDENS 27

Crocuses which one could find anywhere, mostly purple,
bright mauve, pure white, and a few yellow. These were
put in last autumn, and have certainly done splendidly,
in spite of smuts and smoke. The only grievous thing
about them is that, when the flowers are over, the bulbs
will have to be pulled up and thrown away, as we have
found that one season is quite enough for them ; they
would not flower again if left in for another year."

In gardens such as this bulbs do better than anything
else ; they give back the treasure that was stored up by
them when living in the air and sunshine. A little green-
house between the wall and rock garden is full of ferns.
Geraniums will not grow, but Cyclamen and Palms are
well content, and Azaleas manage to bloom for one year
— not more, as there is not enough sun to ripen the new
wood. One fair-sized tree stands in the middle of the
plot, a Lime ; not a good town tree, because its foliage
fades and falls so soon. This one is to come down and
make room for an apple-tree.

The annals of another City garden are worth record-
ing because so instructive. They were confided to the
sympathetic ears of the editor of The Garden under
the title of "Struggles in Smoke." Every reader sym-
pathized. This garden, too, lay in the shadow of a
cathedral, but in the north of England.

" Everything we touched was black, and how strong it
all smelt of smoke and the mingled fumes of fried fish and
burnt shoe-leather from the small shops that backed on to
it ! The garden was at the very edge of a wind-swept
hill, the ground falling away so suddenly below it that
the tops of the chimneys of the City beneath were just
at the proper level to pour their smoke right into it.
When the wind blew from the south, the thick clouds
from the foundry and factory chimneys made it impossible
to see across the garden. Then we had to set to work."

Nothing teaches so well as an object-lesson. Let us

28 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

hear what flowers were persuaded to grow in this garden
of difficulties, where cats and sparrows, we learn, were
nearly as troublesome as the smoke.

"Tiger Lilies seemed to love us best. These grew
and spread and triumphed, till at times the garden glowed
with an orange glory. Their cousins, the White Lilies,
would have nothing to do with us. Naturally, bulbs
were the most satisfactory things, and Crocus, Narcissus
and Tulip were joyful, but soot-coloured Snowdrops were
not inspiring. We felt rich when the Lilies of the
Valley were in bloom — there were always enough to
give away. We revelled in the carpets of Woodruffe and
white Periwinkle, from which sprang great clumps of the
yellow Trollius and the silvery stars of Astrantia. Auri-
culas, Double Daisies, Violas and Pansies did their best to
make up to us for the lack of Violets and Mignonette."
A good list, and there is more to follow. "Christmas
Roses did well, but very few bedding plants answered.
Various Irises, Campanulas, Monkshood, Canterbury
Bells, Lychnis and masses of Epilobium-Angustifolium
made things bright. The old pink Cabbage Rose and
Gloire-de-Dijon flowered well. Cornflowers and Lark-
spurs were happy, and one small Pear-tree yielded fruit."
What love and toil must have gone to give such rich
results, and how great the joy, can only be guessed by
those who have had a like experience.

Roof-gardens are even rarer than yard-gardens. One
that is full of interest may be seen in Bishopsgate Street,
E.G., at the Home for Working Boys. Trees of quite
a respectable size are grown in it ; Sycamore trees twenty
feet high, Limes from eight to ten feet, with Nut and
Cedar, Chestnut, Holly, Fir, and Plane. Cats are, or
course, a hindrance, but the wire netting which keeps
them out is hidden in summer by Virginia Creeper, and
on the parapets and in tubs and boxes are Evergreens and
Orange plants, and bushes of Rose and Lilac. Eight or

ROOF AND BACK-YARD GARDENS 29

ten sorts of flowers bloom freely, Petunias doing best of
all. Gardening operations, as carried on by the boys and
Superintendent, are an unfailing source of amusement to
the children of the surrounding poor. A pond and
fountain with spray rising sixteen feet high are crowning
glories of this shady jungle, where, but a few years since
there was nothing to be seen but a bare zinc roof, some
twelve yards square. The place has now been pet-named
« Pelham Park."

A private roof-garden at the back of a London house,
four stories from the ground, is graphically described by
an amateur gardener, who says he " fights for failure,"
but he does so cheerfully. There are some points, he
says, on which the many-acred owner of a country
garden might envy his rival on the roof. One is his
personal intimacy with his garden kingdom and its
subjects.

" Up among the chimney pots he has watched each
plant through all difficulties struggling up into timid
blossoms ; he has washed away daily smuts and combated
incessant sparrows with cotton entanglements, and now
knows every flower, nay, every petal, with a personal
love. He will tell you which day of the week the Pansy
lost its second bud through the sparrows, just when it
looked certain to be quite as good as the flower he got
last year ; or he will show you how the Canariensis,
baffled by the same marauders last Friday week, has tried
again with a second shoot which will be out before
Wednesday ; those Pansies were specially bought at
Covent Garden ; as for the Sweet Peas, they came as
seedlings, not a tenth their present size, and they will be
even better in a fortnight. The Solanum is a special
prize, and comes from a country garden ; but dearer than
that is the Geranium, grown from one of his own cuttings,
a real scion of the family."

A Geranium among the slates and chimney stacks !

30 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

This was a triumph indeed ; enough to make the
Clementi-Smiths at St. Andrew's Rectory envious.

In these roof-gardens there are joys undreamed of by
the stranger. A real honey-bee buzzing and working
over the flowerbeds, even a spider — a real garden spider,
with a shining web, a country-looking weed, a stinging
nettle, — a lively one that knows how to sting, and on one
bright still evening, when the sunshine lingered on the
gas-work's chimneys, a humming-bird hawk-moth flutter-
ing well-pleased among the flowers.

After these flights among the tiles and chimney-stacks
it is tame work, talking of the City gardens of the level
ground ; but, after all, they are the commonest and most
generally useful. The dreary churchyards now made into
play-grounds, where a few simple flowers bloom, and
there is a shrub or two ; we may see such any day at
St. John's in the Waterloo Road. And there are the old,
old gardens about the Temple and the Law Courts ; how
many generations of lawyers they have cheered (not one
space can be spared) ; and who has not felt a thrill of
joy when nearing St. Paul's Cathedral, to see the fresh
green of the trees and the indescribable beauty of the
rustling, swaying boughs, so strangely sweet in such a spot.

Not the least good done by our City gardens is the
welcome given by them to bird and butterfly ; even the
seagulls did not come to London till after we had planted
trees on the Embankment and laid down turf. The
more gardens we make, the more country visitors will
come to them, gladdening the Londoner with rural
sounds.

" A cuckoo cried at Lincoln's Inn
Last April, somewhere else one heard
The missel-thrush with throat of glee ;
And nightingales at Battersea."

CHAPTER VI

PLANTS FOR THE CITY POOR

" Along the dense-packed cities all, and the teeming wharves and
ways — every leaf a miracle."

A KINDLY K.C. of my acquaintance is always telling us
we ought to provide pianos for the poor. " So elevating "
— this is his argument. Mine is, that pianos want too
much practising — poor people have no time for it ; much
better give them window-boxes and a spade. A taste
for gardening raises the most uneducated, and the mixed
elements of chance and skill secure perennial freshness,
giving a zest to the pursuit that makes it like the best
kind of game.

Mrs. Free, of St. Cuthbert's Lodge, Millwall, is doing
an excellent work in encouraging a love of flowers among
her poor. About four years ago, through her efforts, a
Window-box Society was started. Members (there are
now about seventy) pay twopence annually, and in return
receive gifts in kind of bulbs and plants. Prizes are
awarded for the best display of flowers. Few families,
alas ! possess the smallest bit of garden ground, and many
have no space for a window-box, but must make the best
of a few plants indoors, on a table as near the light as
possible. This arrangement, often as I see it, never fails
to give a double pang. The first is for the owners, and the
second for the plants, that, although taking up more room
than ought to be allowed them, are themselves starving
for want of air and light.

31

32 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

Last summer, travelling by railway in the heart of
London, a poorish-looking, but respectable man entered
our carriage, carrying a basket of really beautiful flowers.
He had grown them all himself, in a narrow little plot of
ground where every single flower was a personal acquaint-
ance. His Lilies were as fragrant as if from a cottage
garden in the country. The Madonna-Lily always does
grow well for poor people, as we have noticed in many a
country garden.

Many good-hearted people have tried to bring the
pleasure of plants and gardens to the City poor. Many of
the schemes set out are quite Utopian. We cannot build
cities after a plan, they grow, but individual enterprise
may do much. I had enjoyed Mr. Cadbury's well-made
chocolate for many a year, before I found out a very good,
and to me quite new reason for liking it. For forty years
the good man had watched the class of people who worked
for him in Birmingham, and came to the conclusion that
the only practical way of raising them up from the degra-
dation of their surroundings was to bring the factory-
worker out on to the land, and give him a piece of garden,
in which he could enjoy that most delightful of all recrea-
tions— the coming in touch with Nature on the soil. So
he withdrew his great cocoa manufactory from the town,
and established it in the pretty village of Bournville.
The move was a great success.

Town board schools in some places are doing what
they can to give their scholars practical instruction in
Nature knowledge. In cities this is very difficult. Seeds
do not germinate well in pots indoors. A school garden,
however small, is worth anything ; results are so much
more satisfactory. The boys' garden at Crook's Place
Board School, Norwich, is an example of what may be
done in a town. The enclosure measures 50 yards by
20, and was formerly an ugly and uninviting corner of
the Chapel Field. Builders' rubbish has been cleared

A POOR MAN'S WINDOW-BOX AT MILLWALL

PLANTS FOR THE CITY POOR 33

away, and replaced by good soil. Friends have sent
seeds and bulbs and plants ; stones have been gathered
for a rock-garden, the boys work with enthusiasm, and
the Norwich school-garden in summer is as bright a spot
as one could see.

The young gardeners are instructed for an hour a day
three times a week, and show great aptitude in learning.
What a pleasant change from books and slates, and how
educating in the best sense of the word ! No occupation
brings to light the better qualities of the mind so much
as gardening, even if it is on ever so small a scale.
Patience, forethought, sympathy, and tenderness all belong
to the gardener — they must do so or his work will be a
failure.

It has often struck me that country board schools are
not doing the good they might, in the way of influencing
their scholars to love the land and take an interest in it.
Children are very happy in their board schools. They
hurry away as early in the morning as possible, from
comfortless stuffy cottages to the well-warmed, well-aired
school-room, where they find the joys of emulation and
intelligent companionship. In the afternoon it is the
same, with intervals for football or games. What time
is left to help with work in their own little garden-
patches? These lie neglected, while vegetables and
garden-produce are purchased by mother from the travel-
ling market-cart, dearer and less fresh than if home-
grown. When the boys come home they pore over a
borrowed book, or practice sums and easy drawing.
Every one of them " means to go to London," and live
by his brains, not at all by his hands ; and he is no more at
home with a spade or a. pitchfork than if he came out of
a London slum. There must be something wrong about
this, and the something could very easily be remedied.

At the risk of being digressive, I cannot help saying
that I am afraid that Germany is ahead of us in the matter

D

34 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

of school-gardens. The clever educationists of the
Fatherland have found out that book-work, valuable as
it is and dear to the heart of a schoolmaster, is barren
and unproductive while divorced from the labour of the
hands. Garden-schools are established up and down the
country, with courses of instruction ; elementary village-
schools are provided with educational garden-ground, and
even town schools have their garden-plots. As usual,
these good and useful efforts are most successful where
personal practical influence is brought to bear on them.

With regard to supplying the very poor of London and
other towns with plants for their little yards and gardens
and window-boxes, I have often thought how easily this
could be done if owners of large or even moderate-sized
gardens did not mind the little trouble of giving to them
of their abundance. We all know how hardy things come
up of themselves, and are thrown away as weeds by the
gardener unless we prevent it. Forget-me-nots among the
Cabbages, Violets under the Gooseberry bushes, Creeping-
Jenny, Foxgloves and Evening-Primroses wherever they
can find a footing. Why not at every change of season
send off hampers and baskets to those who would find
priceless treasure in our rubbish ? Better with them than
on the burn-heap.

Londoners are surprisingly clever in cultivating flowers.
A poor woman in the City had a small plant given her,
and was not very sure what it was, but put it in a sunny
place on a parapet outside her garret window. It grew
six feet high, and turned out to be a Sunflower ! Even-
tually the best blossom was presented as a contribution
to the harvest decorations at a neighbouring church.

Miss Jekyll, in Home and Garden, tells the prettiest
story I know of plants given to the poor. A factory lad
in one of the great northern manufacturing towns had
advertised in a mechanical paper that he wanted a tiny
garden in a window-box ; he knew nothing — would

A POOK MAN'S HOUSK FRONT IN MIl.l.WAI.L

PLANTS FOR THE CITY POOR 35

somebody help him with advice ? That some one was
Gertrude Jekyll. Little plants of mossy and silvery
Saxifrages and a few small bulbs were sent him, also
some stones, for this was to be a rock-garden. It had
two hills of different heights, with rocky tops, and a
longish valley, with a sunny and a shady side, all in a
box that measured three feet by ten inches !

Imagine the delight of the factory child when he saw
the milk-white of the modest Snowdrop and the brilliant
blue of the early Squill as they came up, jewel bright, in
the grey, soot-laden atmosphere of the smoky town !
The boy's happy letters showed that, in his childish way,
he shared the rapture of the poet.

"The simplest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

CHAPTER VII

THE BEGINNER

" When spring unlocks the flowers.1'

Now and again we meet with beginners who really seem
hardly to know one end of a plant from another. Always
buying their flowers in bunches, they have no idea how
they look when growing, and seeing flowers placed side
by side that have been sent from the widest different
zones and climates, they are not even very sure which of
them may be claimed as English grown. Shiploads of
flowers from warmer latitudes keep London and other
large towns far in advance of the seasons as seen in
country districts, and it is misleading. At last some
enterprising spirit begins to long for the pleasure of the
growing plant. It is a trial to be always buying and
bringing home fresh flowering plants only to see them
die off in their new quarters (for this is what they
generally do), so a balcony or window-box is started.

We will suppose its owner to be living quite in town ;
country, and, as I think, even suburban folk with gardens
have little need of window-boxes, which are make-shifts,
after all, though not to be despised on that account.

The enterpriser must now choose his window-box, and
is lucky if his house is built handily for it, and if his
aspects are favourable. But what is one plant's good is
another plant's poison. No aspect is without some
advantages, if only it has light and air ; even shady
places can do with Ferns.
36

THE BEGINNER 37

The style and material for our window-box must
depend on circumstances — size, for instance, and the
style of the house. It may be rustic, severe, or plain,
and made either of wood, or tiles, or cork. All are good
in their way. Some modern builders arrange the stone-
work of the window-sills purposely to facilitate window-
gardening, and it is to be hoped this good fashion will be
continued and improved upon ; it is a great assistance.
There will often be an amateur carpenter who is quite
capable of building his window-box for himself. It is
nothing but a strong wooden case, in which holes must
be bored at the bottom ; the box once made, it is easy to
tack on pieces of virgin cork. This can be bought,
seven pounds for a shilling, and nothing looks neater.
Last spring I noticed all the window-boxes in a row of
small semi-detached suburban villas. The prettiest were
made of cork, and were filled with blood-red Tulips and
Wallflowers almost exactly the same shade, and lovely
they all looked among the Wallflower green. The next-
door boxes were made of upright lengths of bamboo, and
had a very stiff appearance ; they were filled with Tulips
only, packed very close together, and mostly yellow ; the
effect was anything but good. By good luck we chanced
to see the identical row of pretty small houses again in
early June, when our old admiration was furnished afresh
with summer flowers. The photograph we begged for,
and were kindly allowed to take, has become our frontis-
piece.

Having settled about our box, the next point to be
considered is the mould to fill it. This we can buy
either by the load or sack. Good leaf mould can be had
for six shillings a load, or some get it by the sack, and
give two shillings for that. Under the box should be a
plate of zinc to prevent drips making the house damp.
I have known enthusiasts to bring mould from the
country to town places in boxes like ordinary luggage.

38 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

Except in extreme cases, when a particular soil is wanted
for particular plants, I do not recommend this plan,
especially now that the railway authorities are so strict
about the weight of luggage; and besides this, plants
often enjoy a change of soil ; it does them good.

It is a good plan personally to superintend the first
filling of the box. To cast the mould into it and shake
it down, as if we were filling a pudding-basin, would
never do. Drainage is necessary, so we must fill the
bottom of the box with crocks. Old flower-pots broken
up do excellently, but must be perfectly clean, and a few
lumps of charcoal are useful to keep all sweet. Then we
can lay the mould in with a clear conscience.

To those who would like to economize by using the
mould from their own little back-yards, if they have any,
I would emphatically say " Don't ! " It is sure to be poor
stuff, and full of soot and other undesirable things. Soot,
by the way, is a capital stimulant ; if kept some time till
it has lost its first crudeness, and mixed with water till the
liquid is about the colour of beer, here is an excellent
tonic which will invigorate many weakly plants. But
no plants like to live on physic, any more than we do.

Now for the flowers, or, if winter is coming on, the
shrubs. Small Conifers do very well in winter-boxes, or
Golden Privet, or Acuba, or tiny Box-trees. There is the
widest range. Suppose we choose a set of the prettiest
shrubs we can get, and plant between them and in front
of them hardy bulbs, with a sprinkling of small-leafed
Ivy to hang over the edge of the box. This will give us
something pretty to look at throughout the winter and
the early spring. We must water carefully, as required,
and keep all foliage quite clean. There are hundreds or
other schemes. The difficulty is to choose between them.
It is a capital plan to take in a gardening paper. Many
excellent journals can be had for one penny weekly, and
any of their editors, when written to, are ready to give

THE BEGINNER 39

advice. They will tell us what are suitable plants for
special situations, and ease our path by smoothing diffi-
culties as they arise.

In April the time approaches for a quick change. We
find shrubs no longer satisfy, and the early bulbs are over.
We now want spring flowers, and can buy small ones
ready to be planted at Covent Garden, or from any good
florist near at hand. We can propagnte them ourselves
if we have ever so small a garden to fall back upon — if
not, why, then we must buy from the shops and market-
gardens. Aubrietia, Wall-flowers, Anemones, Narcissus,
Myosotis, Tulips, and Iris will all be coming on now,
and their flowers are charming. At this season a little
fresh mould may be advisable, and a good clean up.

In May we can make up hanging baskets for the
balcony. Large ones do better than small, as a good
body of soil can be kept in a more equable state of
moisture. Fuchsias are lovely for the basket, and so are
all kinds of trailing geraniums. Moss is of course indis-
pensable, and small pieces will soon spread. Daisies, both
white and yellow, are always ready and welcome. Alpine
Strawberries hanging or trailing over a basket look very
pretty.

June is here before we know where we are, and the
long sweet summer days. Even our miniature gardens
will keep us busy. Watering, staking, thinning out, and
weeding — all these things will have to be done, as well as
cutting off dead leaves. If a plant looks sickly, do not
let that make us too sad. We had better take it out
from among its fellows and nurse it up elsewhere. In
Paris, there is a hospital for invalid plants, where they are
taken care of and restored to health. I am afraid no one
has yet started a Flower Hospital for London.

Petunias come on later, and are splendid plants for
town people ; they are brilliant, and do not put them-
selves out because of smoke and smuts. They climb

40 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

about, and fling themselves all over the place, so it is a
good plan to associate them with sturdy plants for a
contrast, and the filling up of gaps.

Insects must be destroyed as they appear, but soap and
water will keep them from appearing at all. A daily
wash is the best thing in the world for town plants, and
if we cannot give it every day, we must give it as often
as we can.

Watering is always a difficult matter with beginners.
No exact rules can be laid down. It is not like clock-
winding or anything mechanical. Plants must be
watered just when they want it, and if we give it
them when they don't, it makes them sick. Still, they
must never be forgotten j if once allowed to get dust-dry,
it is an injury from which they will not recover. We
must watch them carefully, and shall thus soon learn
their needs. Weather has a great deal to do with it.
Wind and sun are wonderfully drying. During the heat
of summer it is a good plan to water in the evening, so
that the plants enjoy the moisture through the night.
One axiom is drummed into the heads of all beginners,
" Never water in the sunshine." But sometimes one
must do it to avoid casualties, and no harm need come
of it if we water the ground thoroughly without touch-
ing the leaves or flowers. Let it be a good soak. To
give water in driblets is fatal. After a little water, the
upper surface of the soil may cake and dry and harden,
and the plant be worse off than ever, or the water may
run through some dry channel in the mould and never
reach the roots at all. It is best to water pot-plants by
standing them in a pail or tub, the water coming quite
over the rim ; the leaves can be washed separately, and
should not be left too wet, which rots them ; efforts must
be made to get soft water. If we really are compelled
to use hard, some good may be done by standing it for
a time in shallow pans, or even in the water-pots we are

THE BEGINNER 41

going to use. This improves its temperature ; it will be
far better for the plants than cold hard water from the
tap. Baby's bath-water, when he has done with it, is
excellent to water with.

Sometimes one sees the beginner put his pot-plants out
in the rain, thinking it to be ever so generous to them.
See that the leaves do not get all the wet, leaving none
for the soil ; this often happens, and the poor plants suffer
thirst in the midst of plenty. We want to keep the
leaves washed clean, so that the skin of the leaves can
breathe (they are full of pores), but it is through their
roots that plants drink in the water. Our interest in
tending plants is enhanced tenfold by the study of their
nature. Then common sense comes in to help us ; any-
thing like good gardening without this is nearly as im-
possible as it would be for doctors to cure their patients
without having first been through a course of training in
physiology and physics.

Plants in pots set out on the balcony do well if we
stand them on a layer of coke ashes, or, indeed, any ashes
that are going. Of course, we must hide them in some
cunning way. Little pots of Campanulas, pink or white,
drooping about are a help, and always decorative. So is
Musk — delicious, delightful, shade-loving Musk ! What
a treat when the time for the Musk comes round ! But
Musk wants a great deal of watering, and we must never
water its flowers, only its leaves ; and no plant scorches
up so easily in a hot sun. It just wants care, and to be
in a sheltered, yet not altogether sunless place.

For the autumn many people like Asters. I am not very
fond of Asters personally; but they are gay, and will pass in
a crowd. Small Myrtles are helpful, but our Geraniums
and Petunias, Ferns and Daisies may be relied on to keep
us going till flower-time is over and we begin to be thank-
ful for the small mercies of the evergreen old Ivy, and
enjoy the colours of the Virginia Creeper, more beautiful

42 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

than ever when reddened by the fiery fingers of the
frost.

It is hardly fair to end without a word or two about the
open-air Fern-box. For beginners, and in fact for every-
body, nothing requires so little trouble to cultivate as
Ferns. Let us suppose a young lady's room in a north-
east aspect, or north-west with only afternoon sunshine.
Here is the very place for a Fern window-box. All
Ferns and nothing else. Nothing but the common
Harts-tongue looks lovely ; so do Male Ferns and Lady
Ferns growing together. Ferns want more drainage
and more water than flowers, and that is all they do
want. When in the autumn they die down, the old
fronds must not be cut off. Let them be, and give a very
little water now and again to prevent an utter dryness.
In the spring they will come up again as good as ever,
and would be glad of a sprinkling of fresh leaf-mould
over the top just as an encouragement for the fresh growth.

When the new fronds appear we shall find them
folded at the base very tight and cosy. Then, and then
only, must last year's dead leaves be removed. They
have protected and even nourished.

It is better not to arrange the Fern-box for a very con-
spicuous room ; people get impatient during the resting-
time of the plants, and want to turn them out, which is
too bad. Nothing and nobody can be always at its best,
not even human beings. The only remedy is a second
box, and to put the Fern-box away to go through its
dormant stage unseen. The danger of this is that it may
be forgotten, like canaries are sometimes ; but the Fern-
box is worth trying for. In summer it is a treat, and its
fresh green never looks prettier than in a case of pale
blue tiles ; I like this better for Ferns than the more
conventional box of rustic-work.

Seeds are fascinating, but I cannot cordially recom-
mend them for window-box use ; there are too many

THE BEGINNER 43

chances of failure. But if there are any who wish to
make the experiment Nasturtiums are the hardiest, and
Californian Nemophila is pretty and easy to grow ; but
my favourite of all, and the most unfailingly good-
tempered, is Virginia Stock, which does equally well in
all aspects. Give it good ground and sufficient water,
and its pretty, simple, many-coloured flowers will not
fail to please. They always remind me of the sugar
hundreds-and-thousands of our youth, one colour blend-
ing with another.

A modern poetess has written about these flowers very
prettily, and the good character she gives them is the
outcome of no poetical license ; it is simple truth.

" The Lily's ignorant white is glad of cheer,
But these are high of courage ; glad are these,
Against all changes of the changing year,
Untempered sun or overshadowing trees."

" Lilac and lavender and hoar-frost white,
My border waves its colour to the sun.
Virginia Stocks grow low, but every one
Gives all her colour to the questing light."

CHAPTER VIII

FOLIAGE PLANTS FOR TOWNS

11 Oh, give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall."
" Sweet leaves to the air."

WE have said a good deal about Flowering Plants for
town decoration ; there are also non-flowering sets of
plants to choose from, which are just as lovely and far
more uncommon ; I mean the grand array of foliage
plants.

Some years ago it was my good fortune to be present
at one of the prettiest weddings of the season. Not one
of the bridesmaids wore a flower. Every bouquet was
made of leaves, shaded, striped and coloured ; they were
as bright as they were graceful, the effect was indescribably
fresh and charming, and was a lesson for ever on what
can be done with leaves.

Furnishing the box or balcony with foliage-plants
may be more costly than flowers in the first place, and they
require more consideration in arrangement ; but they have
useful qualities which render them invaluable. They
are much more durable than flowering plants, and less
affected by accidents of weather.

About their beauty there is no question, and their
variety, even if we exclude Palms and Ferns, is endless.
Luckily for their admirers, it is found that many of those
we have been taught to consider hot-house nurslings do
just as well in the open air. Nor is there any difficulty

44

FOLIAGE PLANTS FOR TOWNS 45

in marketing for them. Growers are quite alive to the
situation, and those who can afford the luxury have nothing
to do but make their choice.

Covent Garden market, that fairyland of flowers, is, I
suppose, at the head and front of the forward movement
in the sale of plants. Twenty years ago only about
thirty growers attended and sold plants there. Now there
are over three hundred ; and it is no exaggeration to
count the plants and flowers yearly sold by them in
millions.

With cordial sympathy we note the small green painted
window-box on the garret window-sill of the artisan.
It generally consists of a neat row of palings with a realistic
stile or gateway in the middle, and bubbles over with
Creeping- Jenny and Nasturtiums ; the man in the
street who passes the costly window-gardens of the rich,
how he must sympathize with them, and revel in the
sights we give him ! This is the best of window-garden-
ing, it is such an unselfish pleasure. Every passer-by is
made happier by it. In the love of Nature and of
flowers we all join hands, meeting on common ground.
" Oh, the joy of the vast elemental sympathy which only
the human soul is capable of generating!" Few things
call it forth more pleasantly than the mutual enjoyment
of earth's fair treasures, plants and trees and flowers.

Nowadays we have learned to expect great things from
the wealthy people who live in the many-windowed
mansions of our Capital. When spring comes back again
with sunshine, like an old smile, we look for the flowers out-
side the houses as well as those that grow in the Parks, and
we are not disappointed. But there are one or two districts
that still want waking up. Some people are content to
spend their money and display their taste only now and
then at great entertainments or on special occasions, when
enough is lavished in one night to furnish the whole
roadway for a season !

46 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

If we could read the annals of some of our great floral
firms, we should be startled to see what immense sums
are paid for one month's decorations only by one family.
Several thousand pounds are soon dispensed, when the
flowers for a single entertainment have cost five hundred.
Orchids and Roses cannot be had in huge quantities for
nothing, and it is all good for trade, so nobody need
pretend to be shocked or call out about extravagance.
We all love the best when we see it, and why not secure
the same — those who can ? but I do not think that
people who have made their ball-rooms into bowers of
beauty, and transformed their houses into paradises for
one night, have done their duty till they have contributed
their quota to the street.

Yet it never looks well when outside decoration is
overdone. All should be in keeping, and never an obtru-
sive glare. Here our foliage-plants come in well. They
look so good and so refined. A list of plants to choose
from may be useful. I will cull one from a paper on
" Plants for House Decoration," read by Mr. John Wills,
F.R.H.S., at a meeting of the Horticultural Society on
March 8th, 1892, and published January, 1903. Even
if one cannot remember the Latin names very well, it is
easy to make a copied catalogue to show our florist when
giving orders. He always does his best for those who
show an intelligent interest and appear to know what
they are talking about.

Among Palms, Corypha australis, Latania borbomca^
and Cocos WeddeUiana are recommended, especially this
last ; it is so graceful and enduring, and has been known
to last for more than two years in a draughty room.
Kentia Belmoreana is another good plant of the same habit.

Any of the following are also available for room or
flower-box decoration : Areca Baueri, and A. lutescens^
Cocos flexuosa^ Geonoma gracilis, Phcenix redinata^ P. tenuis
and Thrinax elegans.

FOLIAGE PLANTS FOR TOWNS 47

So much for the Palms. Now for the coloured and
ornamental foliage plants. The following may be relied
upon as being very useful and satisfactory, as well as
possessing the quality of endurance : Ananassa satina,
Asparagus plumosa, and A. procumbent. These last are
the most graceful, feathery, branching things in the
world, delighting everybody. Many handsome Crotons
mix in well, and may be used with impunity, out-of-
doors. The following Dracaenas are also pretty, and
hardy enough to brave an English summer. Dracaena
australisy D.fragrans^ D. linita^ D. Goldiana^ and many
other varieties. Bromeliads may be freely planted, and
will retain their beauty for a long time. Tillandsias,
Aspidistra lurlda and its variegated form, are most useful
and never-failing plants. Several of the Fittonias are
also pretty. The never-dying Ophiopogon, any number
of Ferns, and various other decorative foliage-plants too
numerous to mention, are available for either house,
balcony, or window-box purposes. We might add
Kentias of different kinds, Nidularium fulgensy and Bam-
boos. Every plant mentioned will keep in good looks
from June to the end of October.

Anybody who wants more sorts than these, had better
consult his florist. I do not think I could resist adding
some old-fashioned scented-leaf Geraniums for the sake
of their delicious fragrance; both the Oak-leafed, the
Peppermint, and the Musk, all of which are more valu-
able for their foliage than their flowers. So " out of
fashion " these are now, that it is quite difficult to get
them from the Nurseryman ; we must invade the floral
sanctums of our friends, where a pot or two may often be
found hidden away in a Melon bed, or in a corner of the
Peach house, or keeping company with the sweet leaves
of the Grape-vine.

CHAPTER IX

FOG, FLOWERS, AND FOLIAGE

" Air, air, fresh life-blood, thin and searching air,
The clear, dear breath of God that loveth us."

AIR is invisible, and earth a very tangible thing indeed,
which makes us forget sometimes how much air does for
us, to feed and nourish. We do not only live in it, v/e
live of it ; and by we I mean all breathing creatures,
whether men or lower animals or plants. What brings
the truth most home to us is having to do without air —
in a London fog, for instance.

We have been talking a great deal about the flowers
and plants of London. Alas ! very few of them are grown
there ; most of them have to be imported. During the
winter months fog is too terrible an enemy, so insidious
is it, playing havoc even with our indoor and conservatory
plants.

It is interesting to learn from the researches of the
savants, that the evil effect of urban fog on flowers and
foliage is twofold. The injuries are produced in two
quite separate ways : one is the presence of poison in the
atmosphere ; the other, the reduction of light, which is
the invariable result of the fog of cities and manufactur-
ing towns.

Darkness and poison ! Does not this sound worse than
a plague of Egypt ? Yet we town-folk suffer it without
much grumbling, and scientists spend as much time in
48 .

FOG, FLOWERS, AND FOLIAGE 49

learning what the poison consists of, and in tracing exactly
how the injuries come about, as would suffice, one would
imagine, to discover a cure. Oddly enough, more
poisons are found in fog than even coal-burning altogether
accounts for ; the exact nature of some of the substances
which are present in the atmosphere of foggy weather
is a matter about which scientists themselves confess to
ignorance.

Still, there is one thing on which all agree, and that is
the perfect harmlessness of clean mist. Neither mountain
nor country mists do any wrong to plant life, and from
the coasts of Kent and Sussex, Essex and Norfolk, come
assurances of the innocuous character of sea-fogs.

Of the known impurities of town-fog the following list
gives most of those suspected of being inimical to plants.
" Suspected " is the scientific way of putting it. Our
scientists are wary ; they must be, for they know how
everybody weighs their words ; and besides that, they can
never be sure what fresh discoveries will be made to-
morrow ; the latest are oftentimes upsetting.

The amount of miscellaneous ingredients that enrich
a London fog is startling. Our list is taken from an
analysis of the deposits left on the glass roofs of plant-
houses at Chelsea and Kew during the severe fogs of
February, 1891 : —

Carbon, hydrocarbons, organic bases, sulphuric acid,
hydrochloric acid, ammonia, metallic iron, and magnetic
oxide, with other mineral matter, chiefly silica and ferric-
oxide. Sulphuric acid, it seems, is the principal cause of
injury to trees and shrubs, and sulphurous acid to her-
baceous and soft- wooded plants.

The effects of fog are seen sometimes in the breaking-
down of the plant, sometimes in its discoloration ; leaves
gradually turn yellow, progressing from below upwards,
and they drop off in the order in which they showed the
change of colour. Thus two things have happened :

50 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

destruction of the green colouring matter, and structural
injury at the point where leaf meets stalk. Where is the
London flower-grower who has not watched these pro-
cesses with sad eyes ? When an ill wind blows soot-
laden fog towards Kew or Chelsea — places where so
many of our choicest plants and trees and flowers are
cherished — loud are the lamentations because of damage
done.

Mr. Watson, assistant curator of the Royal Kew
Gardens, says he gathers up bushels of leaves in the palm-
houses every morning while a bad fog lasts, and after a
long spell of it many hard-wooded as well as the more
delicate plants are reduced to an unsightly condition of
almost bare stems, blotched and discoloured leaves, and
fallen foliage. Among certain groups even the soft stems
disarticulate at the nodes.

Mr. W. Thiselton-Dye, Director of Kew Gardens,
describes the substance deposited on his glass-houses as a
solid brown paint, weighing about twenty-two pounds to
the acre, or six tons to the square mile. This makes our
fog enemy appear a very real thing indeed ; no wonder it
breaks plants down, and is the ruin of many fruit and
floral industries in the south of London.

Are there any means by which town cultivators may
counteract these malign influences ? Only by very ex-
pensive appliances. The grower wants an air-tight green-
house, with definite openings where the admitted air can
be filtered. Filtering foggy air may counteract or even
keep out poison, but even then one has to make up for the
darkness. This can only be done by a generous installa-
tion of electric light.

Horticulture thus carried on is extremely interesting
from a scientific point of view, but is not commercially
desirable, nor could the ordinary flower-grower afford it.
Fog-annihilators, and the use of chemicals in conservatories
have also been trjed, the latter with very scant success.

FOG, FLOWERS, AND FOLIAGE 51

Charcoal seems to be by far the best filtering medium.
There is a Mr. Toope, who, in a small conservatory at his
offices at Stepney, is endeavouring to cultivate a collection
of orchids and other stove plants in safety by the use of
charcoal filters and warmed air.

The method he uses is ingenious. Boxes containing
open-work trays, upon which sticks of charcoal are loosely
placed, are set upon the floor under the staging. These
communicate with the exterior by means of apertures
which can be opened or closed at will. The air (fog
and all) is led from outside through these trays, passes
the charcoal, impinges upon the hot-water pipes, and is
then allowed to reach the plants. Draught is regulated by
valves. Results so far are considered very encouraging,
but not convincing. Mr. Toope has other things to
occupy his attention, and sometimes has to trust his pets
to others ; if it were not for this, he thinks he would
ensure a greater measure of success.

It seems curious to think of plants taking to respirators,
just as human beings have discarded them ; but the use
of charcoal does sound common-sensible. We are all
familiar with the extraordinary power charcoal has of
absorbing and oxidizing the products of decomposition of
organic matter, and of rendering harmless the greater
number of easily alterable gases and vapours. A few
years since, after some nursing lectures at the Royal
Hospital for children and women at the Waterloo Road,
the following examination question was put to the
students : " How would you ventilate a room of a small-
pox patient on the night of a dense fog ? " The question
puzzled us all. We were told the right answer after-
wards. " Open the window at the top, and hang up a
blanket." This appeared to me to be a stifling arrange-
ment ; as at present advised, I would treat patients as
Mr. Toope treats his plants, and give them charcoal filters
instead of the blanket. The chemist Stenhouse has

52 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

devised a respirator for human beings on the charcoal
principle, for use in districts smitten with cholera or
yellow fever.

What Plants suffer least from Fog ?

This is such an important question for town people
that I have given it a separate heading. Here is the
answer : Ferns and bulbous plants. The latter have
but a short reign ere they die off, so that we must put
down Ferns as the Londoners' greatest stand-by. Con-
sidering the tender and delicate nature of their foliage,
this is one of the things we should deem a miracle if we
were not used to it, but the frailty of the Fern is only in
appearance.

Professor Oliver, in a Report to the Scientific Com-
mittee of the Royal Horticultural Society, says, " At Kew
Gardens I have examined the various Fern-houses after
spells of severe fog, when the collections of stove plants
in adjacent houses were completely disfigured from this
cause, without remarking any damage to the Ferns to
speak of."

How is this ? Ferns are shade-loving plants, so that
darkness, such a terrible foe to most plants, is to them
comparatively harmless. Other things being equal, the
more greedy a plant is of sunlight, the more will it suffer
when its illumination is reduced. There is another point
that tells in favour of the Fern. During the sunless months
of autumn and early winter the vitality of most flowering
plants is lowered, which renders them unfit to bear a
strain — they are " run down," and, like ourselves in the
same circumstances, liable to " catch " anything, and go
under. Ferns, on the other hand, meet the enemy and
battle with it in good condition ; no doubt their excellent
constitutions are largely inherited from early forefathers
who lived in an age that was far too rough for flowers ;
they were giants in those days.

FOG, FLOWERS, AND FOLIAGE 53

Bulbous plants stand fog well for a different reason.
They rely on the stores collected, each one for himself, in
his own compact small body. No squirrel nor dormouse
is more thrifty, nor better understands the art of making
hay while the sun shines. This is how it is that
Londoners are so successful in growing bulbs. Look at
the parks in the spring-time, with their sheets of Cro-
cuses, Snowdrops, and Tulips. Allium, too, and Narcis-
sus and Hyacinth, are just as happy close to, and even in
the midst of towns, showing very little injury after being
exposed to fog. Flowers and flower-buds are the first
parts of any plant to evince suffering ; six or seven hours
of a bad fog will suffice to leave a scar, but the flower that
shows the blemish is pretty sure to be growing on a plant
that has no useful bulb set at its base.

London fog is often the signal for much burning of
gas. The usual hardiness of the Fern deserts it here ; no
plants have a greater dislike to fumes of gas ; they resent
them as much as any other of God's creatures who were
meant to live and breathe in the sweet air which is
heaven's best gift.

What precautions can be used in foggy weather ?
Experience shows that a low temperature and a moist
atmosphere are most conducive to the well-being of
plants indoors. It is not very easy to secure these con-
ditions ; glass roofs are a source of dryness in cold weather.
The temperature of a roof is lowered by the external air,
in consequence of which, the moisture of the hot-house
air is precipitated upon the inside of the glass, whence it
runs down in the form of " drip." Drip and dryness, what
plants can put up with these ? We must guard against them.

The more one reads about and learns the ways of fogs,
the more one longs to scotch the snake itself, instead of
endeavouring to cure its bites. Why does not the Coal-
smoke Abatement Society wake up and try a little harder
to do something ?

54 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

At a meeting of this society at Grosvenor House,
presided over by Sir W. B. Richmond, there was a good
deal of talk that was well worth listening to. Principal
Lodge moved that, " The injury and waste caused by the
escape of coal-smoke in cities demand the strict enforce-
ment of the laws existing for its elimination, and the
adoption of such further remedies as it is within the
present power of science to devise." Very good, all that,
but he went on to say that he thought the continuance of
the evil was largely due to the apathy of the public. This
resolution was seconded, and carried unanimously. The
Apathy of the Public — that means you and me, reader.
What can we do to express our feelings ?

Sir W. B. Richmond moved another resolution, which
was also agreed to. He said the clause of the Public
Health Act, 1891, which related to the smoke nuisance,
was practically set aside by many authorities entrusted
with its execution. "Three strong obstructions to the
purity and cleanliness of London air were — apathy,
vested interests, and insufficient fines for breaking the
law." An account of this meeting was published in The
Garden of December I4th, 1901, where I read it with
mingled feelings of anger and amusement, but my con-
science did not accuse me of apathy.

CHAPTER X

THE LADY DECORATOR AND THE FLOWER-GIRL

" Pink, primrose, valley-lily, clove-carnation ;
Red rose and white rose, wall-flower, mignonette,
The daisies all — these be her recreation,
Her gaudies these."

DURING the rush of the London season many hostesses,
much as they love to have their houses made sweet and
beautiful with flowers, find it impossible to attend to the
work of decoration themselves ; they must entrust the
task to others. To meet the want of chatelaines such
as these, there is the lady decorator, with her train of
flower-fairies, ready to fill the breach.

And they will not only bring us flowers ; lights, too,
they can adjust at will, not fire-flies but electric, which,
after all, are most to be depended on.

Arranging flowers is one of those things that every
woman in the world thinks nobody can do but herself ;
she is as much addicted to self-esteem in this direction
as a man is over mending the fire ; and who does not
enjoy the pleasing excitement of setting out the flowers
for a ball or dinner-party ? The very smell of the wet
moss, the cool feel of the stalks, the bunches of pliant fern,
the baskets ready to be unpacked, every circumstance is in
itself a pleasure, but it is not so nice if you are hurried
and interrupted. Better by far is it for very busy people
to think out the scheme of decoration with one of the
above-named fairies, who will appear exactly at the right

SS

56 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

moment, while you are resting, and scatter your board
with beauty.

One of the most experienced among these lady-
workers has told me that, of all colour-schemes, the best
for lighting up well at night is pink and silver. Pink
Roses in silver bowls are lovely, but invisible receptacles,
meandering about a table, are pretty too. Sometimes, at
the last moment, the particular flower desired will not
be procurable — the market has been cleared — and pink
Sweet Peas or Pelargoniums must take the place of Roses,
purple Stock do duty for Pansies, or Scarlet Geranium for
fallen Poppies. It is anxious work.

The lady decorator is wonderfully quick. She has to
be. James the First — all the Jameses, indeed — plushed,
powdered, silk-stockinged, and calmly insistent, say,
" You cannot have the table till such-and-such an hour."
Very well ; then all the flowers must be prepared before
they are packed to bring — every single leaf and every
blossom, all must be wired. This makes them go much
further, besides keeping them in their places, and it does
give the effect of lightness ; but it is a thing to which
I am never able to reconcile myself. You take a Lily-
of-the-Valley from its vase, attracted irresistibly by its
scent, and find it fast set in a corsetihe of steel — each leaf
and stalk, almost each separate blossom, wired. This
gives you a horrid feeling ; you idly untwist the cruel
bonds, and then the poor flower droops or falls to pieces.

In the ballroom dreadful things are suffered by the
Roses. Fancy a curtain all made of these lovely flowers,
wired together in long trails to match the festoons that
wave softly overhead !

The lady decorator is pleasant to work with ; she
will use your own flowers if you like, so that one's
country-houses can send their quota, and one always enjoys
the things from home. She is equally ready to fill your
window-box or balcony, to furnish your dwelling-rooms

THE LADY DECORATOR 57

with flowers both cut and growing, to smarten up your
concert-platforms or theatrical scenes, to dress your
bazaar-stalls for you, to make your Court bouquets, or
sprays for hair and dress ; she will even help you to
decorate your churches ; and, after once experiencing the
delight of skilled assistance, few ladies in the world of
fashion take these graceful duties entirely on themselves.
A lady flower-decorator is almost as much wanted as a
lady type-writer, and has a far pleasanter time of it. But,
like all trades, this one has to be learned. I believe an
apprenticeship of two years is considered necessary.

It is at a wedding, perhaps, the flower-lady is at her
best. The entire dwelling of the bride is made whitely
beautiful, and the church becomes a green and scented
sanctuary. Palms and Ferns are lent. I hope I am
right in saying that the lady decorator never dyes her
flowers. I am certain she would not do so except to
order ; but the present year, which promises to be one of
Eastern magnificence and gorgeous colouring, has begun
badly in the matter of flower-dyeing ; even the simple
spring flowers have not escaped the ban. Early in
March, when pacing Regent Street, and pausing, as one
cannot help doing, to admire the display of flowers in
certain shops, it was with a shock of horror one beheld
dyed daffodils ! They formed the upstanding group of
blossoms in crosses and garlands, the groundwork of which
consisted entirely of Wall-flower ; and the dye that
reddened the Daffodils, leaving some of the petals their
natural colour, matched the red-brown of the Wall-
flowers exactly. For one moment it was a puzzle — only
one. Shade of Herrick ! who could mistake a Daffodil ?
A dyed Daffodil is several degrees more agonizing than a
green Carnation, and nearly as bad as a blue Rose.

The fashion for certain flowers and colours at different
seasons is quite harmless, though one may smile at it ;
but Sometimes there is a reason behind the mode. For

58 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

instance, one could understand the use of national colours
in Coronation year, and yearly is London brightened by
St. Patrick's Day, St. George's Day, and the unforgettable
day of the Primrose.

It is human nature, and ever has been, to use flowers
as symbols ; they express our feelings better than anything,
and more pleasantly. Happily, the "wearin' o' the
green " is a privilege no longer denied to any of our
Irish soldiers. It is a smaller thing, but still worth
noticing, as a proof of the part flowers play in daily life,
and the way they illustrate feeling, that at the Eton and
Harrow cricket-matches it is a flower that is worn for
party-colour — a Corn-flower or a Parma Violet — and in
a less degree, two shades of blue in flowers stand for
Oxford and Cambridge colours on boat-race day. Herein
we do but follow the fashion of our forefathers and of
days still older, when crowns of Olive, Myrtle, Bay, and
Violet were worn symbolically. Time was when rival
Roses, red and white, grew wild, and soldiers gathered
them for badges, where now the Temple Gardens stand ;
and every nation has its patriot flower — for France the
Lily, for Germany the Linden, and for us the Rose. It
is unfortunate that St. George's festival of Roses comes
so early in the year. April Roses are plentiful enough in
florists' shops, but not elsewhere ; few of them have been
grown in England. Primroses come more seasonably ;
of them we need only wear true home-grown blossoms,
nor need a scarcity be feared while country hedgerows
continue to provide such yellow millions. Primrose
Day in London, independently of its meaning, is always
enjoyable ;

"That subtle smell the spring unbinds —
The faint sweet scent of Primroses "

is everywhere, and Primroses, like Violets, want no
arranging, but look their best in simplest bunch or basket.

BULRUSHES AND BOG BEANS IN SMALL TANK IN GARDEN

THE LADY DECORATOR 59

An Irish poetess sings a song about it, which I give, as it
is always a pleasure to see London through a poet's eyes.

" Make me a song for Primrose Day.
Along the streets of London town
A Primrose snowstorm settles down,
And makes each street an amber way.
Here are tall baskets that o'erbrim
With posies bound for one day's whim.
Here are shrill voices that would drown
All singing, crying their gold wares ;
And many buy, if no one cares
How lonesome are the country places
Deserted by these Primrose faces."

Thus it has been for more than twenty years on April
the I Qth, and whether the pretty flower was really loved
best by its hero as a salad or as an ornament does not
matter. The Primrose, so plentiful, so popular, as a
memory-flower is perfect, none the less so because Shake-
speare has pervaded it with a touch of sadness.

Floral trophies are, in my opinion, little to be admired ;
dreadful things are done in their name. Flower hearts
and harps and crowns, and cushions with cords and
tassels, made by stripping Violets from their stalks and
stringing them on lengths of wire like beads — how terrible
are all these ! And so it is to see in Christmas churches
chains of Holly-berries hung about like rosaries, though
of the two one would rather stab a berry than a Violet.

Ballroom bouquets are less fashionable now than in
early and mid-Victorian days, when a pretty girl would
have as many as a dozen sent her on one evening by
different admirers. What changes, too, in the method
of arrangement ! Instead of the trailing posy or picturesque
bunch, every flower individualized, one had then stiff
circles of blossoms tightly packed. Violets and white
Camelias thus arranged were very popular, and one
Camelia, with a glossy leaf or two, would be worn upon

60 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

a smooth and shining head of hair, dressed in bandeaux
(bandolined — that is, gummed down if necessary), long,
loose ringlets (the Alexandra curl), or rolled back a
rimperatrice. The prettiest nosegay of that period was
the ample bunch of pink Moss-rose buds ; nothing
modern could be lovelier than that, nor sweeter.

I have often wished that London's bevy of street-selling
flower-girls were more picturesque. Why cannot the
Society for beautifying London do something in this
direction ? The snowy caps of the grisette, or the
Italian kerchief — anything would be better than the
feathered hat and grimy jacket, and I would like neat
shoes instead of boots. W. E. Henley, another poet
who finds inspiration in London streets, has sketched her
with vivid pen —

" Forth from Druiy Lane,
Trapesing in any of her whirl of weathers
The flower-girl foots it, honest and hoarse and vain,
All boot and little shawl and wilted feathers,
Of populous corners right advantage taking
And, where they squat, endlessly posy-making.1'

If we watch the working-up of the button-holes — a
thing I have often done — what a joyless, monotonous
task it looks ! Two ivy-leaves picked from the stalk with
as little joy as if they were oakum, wired together, and
flung into a basket like malefactors' heads. Two more,
and then two more, ad infinitum. When the basket is
quite full, to each pair of leaves a little cluster of Violets
is added, or a Rose-bud, or a few Pinks, or a Primrose or
two, according to the season. Later on, it will be sprigs
of Maiden-hair. Oh dear, that Maiden-hair ! When
will it cease to remind of Harry and Harriet ? Neither
of these good folk feels fully dressed without the spray of
Maiden-hair ; yet it soon dies, and its latest breaths are
bitter — we know exactly the smell of it, in its death-
throes, mingled with that of cheap tobacco-smoke.

THE LADY DECORATOR 61

But the love of flowers is such a good thing that one
must, one should not, begrudge any one of its manifesta-
tions ; there is something beautiful even in the worst of
them. The bunch of Violets is a natural and graceful
gift, the birthday posy an offering the most fastidious will
not refuse, the basket of flowers the sweetest present to
the debutante or the diva. In a French town I once saw
a skeleton parasol, trimmed with flowers, opened and
handed to a lady-singer on the stage. I did not admire
that, but the general applause was deafening, and it was
impossible to repress a smile as the encore song was
gravely given beneath its shelter.

There is room in our towns for both the lady
decorator and the flower-girl ; to both we cry a
welcome !

CHAPTER XI

THE SMALL SUBURBAN GARDEN

" The size of a garden has very little to do with its merit, — it is
the size of the heart and brain and the goodwill of the owner that
will make his garden either delightful or dull." — G. JEKYLL.

THE small Suburban Garden — it is time some one said a
good word for it. What other place has been so much
abused, maligned ? It may, it does, in fact, go on im-
proving with the march of time and the general up-
waking of the gardening world ; but the ill name sticks,
and will most likely continue to do so till the cult of the
motor-car drives everybody out of the towns to live in
the suburbs. Yet, if the truth were known, for the last
thirty years at least the little garden spaces that skirt our
towns have, for the room they occupy, given more
pleasure and done more good than the like area in any
other part of the King's dominions.

The suburbs of London are certainly looking up.
Thanks partly to the motor-car, they are no longer the
terra-incognita they used to be, for it is impossible for
people to drive out in any direction without making
acquaintance with them. Travelling by road in this
way, one gets a much better idea of the capacities of the
suburban garden than is possible from the windows of the
railway-carriage. These, especially as we are just leaving
London, show us only the pathetic garden of the flower-
less kind, belonging mostly to the very poor ; some with
62

IN A SMALL SUBURBAN GARDEN

THE SMALL SUBURBAN GARDEN 63

a stunted cabbage or two, other with a rabbit-hutch or a
handful of dilapidated fowls, another with clothes hanging
out to dry. Sometimes there will be a summer-house,
but very seldom anybody sitting in it, nor does one often
catch sight of children playing happily about ; they
prefer the more exciting street or the playground of their
school.

But travelling by road, what do we see ? Whether we
steam along the great high-road to Acton and Ealing, or
towards the hills of Highgate and Hampstead, or rattle
through Richmond to Wimbledon, or vid Kingston's
quaint old town to Surbiton and its precincts, it is always
the same ; hundreds and thousands of villas and small
houses are met with, each of which is a castle to some
Englishman. Interspersed with them are large gardens
of older houses ; but these, as a rule, are hidden from view
by high walls and trees. They have a different story,
are sometimes of great beauty, and do not belong at all
to the class we are now considering.

Before every one of the small suburban houses, certainly
before all that are detached, there is a little plot of ground
with trees and shrubs. These plots are typically suburban,
and are often very severely censured by careless critics
for their monotony and gracelessness. Unjustly so, I
think ; it appears to me that, in most cases, pains have
been taken to make the most of opportunities, and con-
sidering that in a whole row of small gardens every one
has a different owner, and a different mind behind it, it is
wonderful things are not more patchy than they are.

Let us look at some of these suburban highways on a
smiling day of very early summer ; it is a cheerful pros-
pect. There will be flowering and foliage trees, neat
gravel paths, and carefully kept shrubs. Lilacs, Syringas
(properly called Mock-orange), Laburnums dropping fires,
Rowan-trees that by-and-by will be brilliant with berries,
bronze-brown Copper-beech trees, Guelder-roses tossing

64 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

up their creamy balls, the White May and the rose-pink
Double Thorn — all these are as common along the road as
are the nursery-maids and perambulators upon the side-
walks and pavements. If our survey had been taken
either earlier or a good deal later in the year, so far as the
season would allow, the outlook would have been just as
pleasing. We should have seen the Fire-thorn's splendid
red, the Cotoneaster's softer crimson, the gold flowers
of the Winter Jasmine, the bare-branched Almond trees
kindled with rosy fire, or brick walls blazoned with yellow
blooms of February's Forsythia, above borders brimming
with the gallant Crocus. The people who live in the
houses behind these fore-courts (if we may not call them
gardens) are not very rich perhaps, but may be educated
folk of taste and culture, doing their best to make beauti-
ful their surroundings, though often but birds of passage
who look forward to a time not far away, when the little
home will be left for larger borders. Many are presided
over by the wives of barristers and other men of business
or of law, who prefer renting a small house away from
town to living in the whirl -and dust of London ; or
sometimes by the widows and daughters of country
clergymen, who do not possess too much of this world's
goods, but cannot exist without some of their former
favourites growing around them in their new suburban
homes.

We are so much accustomed to the scenes I have
described that we do not take much heed of them ; they
are a matter of course, but they do surprise the stranger
that is within our gates. People I have met abroad, both
in Germany and Switzerland, have told me that one of
the things that struck them most in England was the
beauty of London's outskirts, owing largely to the little
gardens before each private house. We must hope the
fashionable flat will not rob us wholly of this charm.

Whenever I see a pretty front suburban garden, a wild

THE SMALL SUBURBAN GARDEN 65

curiosity as to the back premises arises within me. Here-
in are opportunities for the most dreadful mistakes and
the most wonderful successes ; all depends on the pre-
siding genius.

Corner houses are the luckiest ; they get more room, and
the gardens are of quainter shapes. But we will begin
by considering the ordinary strip. It may be long, it is
almost sure to be narrow — anyhow, no expansion is pos-
sible 5 we must make the best of what we have. A general
consensus of opinion has decided on having a border for
flowers all round the edge against the outer wall or paling,
fronting this a gravel path ; and the centre is turfed over
and called the "lawn." In very small gardens it is diffi-
cult to improve on this plan, though other suggestions
are made — such as gravelling the garden entirely, and
having a large bed for flowers in the middle, and a
bank at the end. In practice, this does not make a
garden so comfortable to sit and to walk about in. One
does want pathways, and to be able to get at the flowers
easily.

If the garden is long enough, it is a very good plan to
turf quite up to the wall or paling, on the shady side, and
have a bank raised across the middle of the garden about
halfway down it. A path may then be carried all round
the remainder of the plot where we can walk on firm,
dry ground. Behind the bank we can revel in Currant
and Gooseberry bushes and fruit trees, and grow Violets
and Crocusses underneath them, and Parsley and all
manner of herbs that love the partial shelter of the bush.
Near where the bank comes, a Willow tree may be
planted. The common Weeping-willow grows faster
than anything, and will soon give enough shelter for enjoy-
ment. I much prefer the loose growth of the common
Willow to the tight little tents made by some Willow
trees that are considered more choice. Under the shadow
of a simple tree like this, father, mother, and little ones

F

66 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

may sit and enjoy the beauty of the sun-flecked turf and
leaf-entangled sunbeams, as well as if they were in the
grandest gardens that could be imagined.

It is often objected that turf does not do well in subur-
ban gardens. Turf does not do well anywhere, unless
it is looked after, and put down carefully in the first place.
People seem to think grass has no roots. I have seen the
jobbing gardener, as well as the amateur, lay his squares of
new turf on anything that came first ! This is to court
disaster. Turf wants feeding as much as anything else.
It is, of course, useless to expect it to do well right under
the shadow of a house, or under most trees ; but I love
grass so much that I consider it indispensable even in the
smallest garden, and would not begrudge the trifling
expense of laying down fresh turves, where wanted, every
season. We should not hesitate to spend the same sum
on a book or a theatre- ticket ; why refuse it to the garden
which we shall very likely be looking at and living in the
summer through ?

If one ever has a chance of viewing a roadful of back
suburban gardens when their owners are not there to
distract attention, nothing could be more entertaining.
Through the medium of a friendly railway-track, I once
enjoyed this treat. Houses looked pretty much alike,
but the gardens were strikingly dissimilar. In some
cases the minds of the owners were pleasingly reflected
in their gardens ; in others one saw nothing but the tracks
of the jobbing gardener ; in none, except the empty and
ownerless, did one see neglect — so much must be said for
all of them.

One or two things that were noticed were worthy of
remark. It was abundantly clear that the best results
came about where owners themselves had personally
shared in the gardening work ; it is quite easy to pick out
those cases where mere neatness ended, and mind came
in, and taste.

THE SMALL SUBURBAN GARDEN 67

One garden (by no means among the largest) was
particularly attractive. Nothing much was attempted
in it, but the little that was attempted was so well done.
The turf was of the finest, like dark green velvet, soft to
the foot. Only a few kinds of flowers, but all of the very
best. Choice Roses clustered against the west wall — not
nailed to the wall, but trained carefully on wood against
it ; in front of these grew dwarf standard Rose trees, and
before them again stretched a long border of Carnations,
ready to bloom when their turn came. The grey-green
spears were beautiful already, and a pleasure to see, even
before a bud among them was unfolded, because so well
kept and so healthy. Massed richly in one corner near
the house the still bright foliage of the Lily of the
Valley showed what a wealth of these flowers must have
made the garden sweet in June. A tree or two at the
far end (I was peeping through them) gave the shelter
and comfort no garden should be without. This
little strip, small as it was, deserved the lovely name of
"garden."

One could not help observing with amusement that
in some cases back and front gardens did not match ;
like goods in a shop-window front, the best had been
put out for the public. The public is very much obliged
for the show, but how about the family, if there is one ?
No pretty flowers for them, no comfortable nooks,
no pleasant sward, no borders of white Pinks nor
clumps of Mignonette. Next door, perhaps would be
seen the other extreme — too much fussing, too much
detail, too many rustic shelters, even the flowers too
much crowded together ; but to gardens that err in this
way much may be forgiven, for much they have been
loved.

There is nothing like individuality for making a small
garden attractive. Few gardens are too small for the
careful cultivation of one particular flower or series of

68 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

flowers. A sunny little patch entirely given up to rock
and wall plants would be an interest and education to
one's neighbours as well as to one's self ; or a system of
tubs and tubes might result in a pond-garden for many
kinds of water-flowers ; or one might have a Carnation
garden, or a garden where all the Starworts had a chance
— there are now so many varieties that well repay for
cultivation ; or there could be a collection of the best Violas,
Sweet-peas or Columbines ; — any of these would afford
the sort of hobby that occupies and makes content the
man of leisure as much as it refreshes him who has to
work.

Miniature rock and water gardens are among the latest
and most pleasing developments (it would be unfair to call
them fashions) of the gardening world, though for obvious
reasons they are not well represented at our flower-shows.
To begin with, it is impossible to cart about the kind of
plants that belong to them, and they are never suitable
for exhibition ; unlike the placid Roses and smart Orchids,
who are used to being stared at, and appear to like it.
But we can enjoy the " Rockies " and the Water-plants at
home. One gentleman of my acquaintance — by profession
a man of law, by taste a gardener and engineer — has so
arranged his small suburban plot with rills and fountains
that in it Pond-weeds and Water-lilies are waving and
lolling. No Joseph Paxton ruling the length and breadth
of the Crystal Palace grounds could be more content than
he is with his small domain.

It is strange how the owners of small suburban gardens,
where every inch is of importance, idealize the gardens or
their country cousins. Did they but know it, these are
often nothing but disappointments. What opportunities
are lost for want of enterprise ! Instead of all that might
and could be done in them, nothing is done. Bushes and
trees and shrubberies are allowed to overgrow ; poultry are
considered of more importance than Peonies, or any other

THE SMALL SUBURBAN GARDEN 69

flowers, and are allowed to get through hedges and scrape
about among the borders. The troublesome things are
hustled away, after a fashion, but are under no real control,
and two or three eggs are supposed to atone for the severest
damage. The old herbaceous plants that have been
growing and spreading for years attain to any age and size,
which does not improve their shapes or blossoms. The
country garden is lovely sometimes of its own sweet way-
ward will, but its owner might frequently do worse than
take a lesson in up-to-date gardening from the proprietor
of the small suburban patch.

A writer who always says the things I wanted to say
first, has just confided to the public the particulars of the
arrangement of his own small garden near a town, and
seems astonished at himself to find how fond he gets of
it. It would not astonish me. We all get more fond of
small gardens than we do of large ones — great lawns and
shrubberies are for the crowd — the brilliant crowd ; we
crave a niche in which to work and live, a little corner
of our very own, to plan, to perfect, and to stamp with
our own impress, So if we happen to have " grounds "
instead of gardens, why, then, to put things right, we
make a garden within a garden, and it is in this small
spot we feel at home ; it is familiar, and it fits us, like
the old friend or the long-worn glove, and in our eyes
it is beautiful as Corisande's own garden when she
picked the Rose. As to beauty, either real or fancied, it
is lucky that size is not everything. Here are a few
words I found the other day in a book called " Art out
of Doors." It was not meant for the suburban garden,
but well applies to it :

" Two trees and six shrubs, a scrap of lawn, and a
dozen flowering plants, may form either a beautiful little
picture, or a huddled disarray of forms and colours."

On our own taste it depends whether the little garden
is to be the " picture " or the " disarray." Perhaps if it

yo TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

is the latter we shall not be aware of it, for love is blind ;
anyhow, even bad players may enjoy the game, and,
happily, like chess, the gardening game is one that can be
played, and played well too, with little pieces on a tiny
board.

CHAPTER XII

" NEXT DOOR " — A PARENTHETICAL CHAPTER
"United, yet divided."

ONE matter of the deepest import confronts the owner
of the small suburban garden, from which his prototype
in the country is generally free ; it is the question of
" next door." Inevitable, critical, all-important, almost
uncontrollable as it is, " next door " has to be faced and
made the best of.

Sometimes the best is very good indeed ; sometimes
there is no best, but a thorn. In the suburbs a kind of
etiquette exists which helps to smooth the way. People
must not stare at each other, children must not throw
things over the wall. Nobody should play games on
Sunday, or make much noise if one or other of the
neighbours has a garden-party. (Suburbia revels in garden-
parties.) Snails must never be dropped over the fence,
nor stones, and boughs that hang over are not to be
robbed of fruit ; rules as to fallen fruit vary, but are
not so strict as some others. These codes prevent
much friction. The discordant apple is as tempting in
the suburban garden as ever it was in Eden. I have
known a generous apple-tree owner present the rights of
an overhanging branch in perpetuo to a family where
there were schoolboys, thereby securing their lifelong
friendship. Such acts of grace as this make next-door
neighbourdom a pleasant thing.

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72 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

And there are customs. It is allowable to borrow
garden-rollers, but not brooms, nor spades, nor lawn-
mowing machines ; this is considered encroachment,
and " going too far." Neither is it considered ladylike or
gentlemanly to pass unsolicited remarks about the next-
door garden, even in praise ; nor is it good form to scrape
acquaintance across the fence — proper introductions in
the drawing-room must be waited for ; windows must
not be looked out of obtrusively ; and lost balls must be
searched for by going round to the front gate and ringing
the bell — no short cuts.

Putting up barriers to shut out u next door " is liable
to offend. Manoeuvring is here advisable, and wire
netting comes in useful. It is insidious. At the outset
barely visible, as creepers clamber over and cover it, the
screen becomes impervious imperceptibly ; there is no
grievance.

It is not thought good manners to work too hard on
Sundays ; — not like a navvy, and the shirt-sleeve would
annoy. Anything like serious work should be done
before breakfast. Pruning and light gardening, however
(in the Sunday coat), may go on at any time, and one may
see friends and give them tea ; but decorum must prevail,
and loud laughter is avoided by the well-behaved.

Yet great happiness has resulted from, and many a
friendship been cemented by, handshakes across the
garden-wall ; children have thus found playmates, and
older people kindred souls.

To the little houses of Suburbia come many brides.
What an interest the new bride takes in the one-year-
longer-married matron of the next-door garden as she
paces round it with the nurse-maid and the brand-new
baby. By-and-by what comparisons and friendly talks,
what advisings and what exchanging of plants and
flowers, what sage remarks from the old inhabitants to
the new, what pleasant evenings in the summer dusk,

"NEXT DOOR" 73

when husbands appear upon the scene in restful undress
with tobacco-smoke, the spark of cigarette, and the latest
riews from town.

There are no unwritten laws about music and practising
in Suburbia. Every one plays as loudly and as much as
he can or likes. This is a pity, but it is difficult to see
how it can be prevented.

" Sound loves to revel in a summer night," says the
poet ; indeed he would have said so if ever he had
sojourned in the suburbs ; but many of the sounds are
pleasing. There is the indescribable hum of the distant
City, which seems to match the red glow on the sky-line
of its countless fires ; there is the chime of clocks, the
ringing of church bells, the thrum of the banjo from
a holiday group, the trumpet call and drum of the
Salvationist.

But it is not for sentimental or ethical reasons alone
that " next door " exercises so great, so extraordinary an
influence ; horticultural affairs of the deepest moment
are also implicated. Imagine somebody, a yard or so
removed from your most cherished border, planting a row
of Poplar trees close on to the very boundary fence.
Nothing can stop it — the hungry roots may burrow as
they choose. They are not liable to the law of trespass ;
there is no redress. Or for years you have been enjoying
some comfortable nook under the shelter of your next-
door neighbour's Elm or Oak tree. One fine morning
you get up to find it has disappeared in the night, and
with it your cosy corner ; but this you must take in good
part. It was your neighbour's tree, not yours. Or upon
the next-door frowning house-wall you have (on the sly)
been planting Ivy. What a trial to see this carelessly or
ruthlessly cut down, or injudiciously lopped ; again you
have to suffer in silence.

It is extraordinary how most children idealize " next
door," particularly if it so happen that the inhabitants

74 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

thereof are personally unknown. Everything beyond
their own wall is pervaded by a sense of mystery. They
see a halo round every flower, which blooms more
brightly than any in the home patch ; the lawns are
greener, and the trees and bushes give a pleasanter shade.
Things half seen and only guessed at are fraught with
breathless interest, and stray glimpses from the top of a
dust-bin are heaven itself. The barriers of reserve
once down, more than half of the excitement and all the
glamour have departed.

Then there is the question of bonfires. Some people
enjoy bonfires — I do myself — but the smoke of burn-
ing weeds in an adverse wind is liable to be too choky
for choice. I have known the bonfire to rankle. As
regards the hanging out of clothes to dry (smoke reminds
me of them), I am informed that in the lease of many a
suburban house a clause is inserted to forbid the family
wash. I am quite sure, were such a thing attempted, the
breach of good manners would not be tolerated for one
moment in polite suburban circles. In one suburban house
I knew, the coachman's wife was allowed — once a week
— to dry her linen for two hours of the very early morn-
ing, before the world was up. She was quite alive to the
fearful necessity for punctuality, and this is really all I
know about "next door," except that, oddly enough,
it is possible to live for thirty years without making any
acquaintance with a neighbour of the next-door garden,
and this simply for accidental reasons. In the thirty-first
year the neighbours may meet abroad and find them-
selves dear friends ! Such are the fruits of the whimsical
juxtaposition of small suburban gardens — " United, yet
divided."

CHAPTER XIII

GRASS, GROUND, OR GRAVEL

*{ Where a green, grassy turf is all I crave."

" A turf of dull, down-trodden grass
Brings summer to my heart."

WHEN people first take possession of the new suburban
garden, be it ever so small or empty, three things are
sure to be found in it ; even the builder bestows as much
as that upon them, though it may not be much to boast
of either in quantity or quality. The three things are
grass, ground, and gravel ; grass for the tiny lawn,
ground for the flower-beds, and gravel for the paths.
Now, how are these to be apportioned ? Some people
crave for nothing but flowers and vegetables, so they are
keenest about soil and ground ; others desire to have a
dry place always ready to walk about or sit in, cheap to
keep up, and handy for their dog-kennels and other
fancies. They are gravel ites. Another set of folk
are only to be made happy by grass, and I am of that
number.

One of the most extraordinary things in the world is
that so many garden-lovers who are kind enough to give
advice about suburban plots seldom have a good word for
grass. I always think it must be because they have never
had to do without it themselves. The love of green turf
is, I think, one of the most deeply rooted feelings of
human nature ; maybe it is a heritage from the days

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76 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

when pasture-land meant more to us than it does now,
and the coming or withholding of the green blade spelled
life or death. "The king himself is served by the field."

The restful charm of the grassy garden appeals to me so
much, that with a tree or two, the simplest of flowers,
and a rose-bush here and there, I could content myself with
nothing else, so I (for once) cannot see eye to eye with
Mrs. Earle when she says, " I am all for reducing lawns
and turf except for paths in small gardens ; " and elsewhere
we are advised to have red gravel or a bricked or tiled
square to sit on while we admire a wide border of flowers
all round the edge. I should not like such a garden as
this at all, and could never feel at home in it. Fancy no
kindly turf to throw one's self down upon in the noonday
heat, with a book in hand and a tree overhead, or if not
a tree, a parasol. If we had no lawn to be cut and trimmed,
where would be the sounds that most do " rout the
brood of care, the sigh of scythe in morning dew," or
the less poetical but still soothing monotone of the
mowing-machine ? And what a loss never to smell the
fresh scent of the new-cut blades of grass as they are
collected in box or barrow, and used to mulch the wilting
flowers ; nor to note the deliciously neat appearance of
the well-rolled, carefully swept grass-plot, looking so much
like a good child that has just been washed and dressed,
and repays so fully for the sweet trouble it has given.

A writer on the subject of very diminutive gardens
has described one that belonged to a small suburban villa.
It captivated my fancy. Narrow was this tiny plot and
very old, but it was grassed all over, and at one end a
child's swing had been left standing, which was covered
with a thick growth of Ivy. How quaint and cool and
pleasant on a summer's day, and what a setting for a
touch of white or scarlet ! Any flower would look its best
in such a garden.

Not long ago a contributor to Country Life wrote an

GRASS, GROUND, OR GRAVEL 77

article on English and Continental suburban gardens
that interested me very much, but I am sorry to say
there was no mention whatever in it of turf. Certainly
there was not much room for grass in the plots that were
described, and in some of them the gradients were too
steep for grass-growing. The garden I liked best out of
those mentioned was a mere strip about thirty yards long
by about ten or eleven yards wide. In this small space
(little more than a courtyard) was a border with vines
and fruit trees and flowers, a broad brick path, and then
a pleached alley of small Lime trees, the outer row close
against the boundary wall. This is another of the small
gardens I have read of that live in my memory and are
a pleasure to think of.

Under the circumstances, it is difficult to see how its
arrangement could have been improved upon. I am sure
the owners, being people of taste, would have had turf
also if possible, and I am still wondering what was done
under the Lime avenue. The trees must have been sweet
when in flower, but alas ! Lime foliage falters and falls
down with the first touch of frost, and then what a litter
it makes. But no trees are more delightful in summer ;
the wind stirs so gently in the boughs, with eloquent soft
speech of leaves.

It is now a good many years since it fell to my lot to
plan and lay out a new suburban garden, fortunately not
one of the smallest, and happily placed, inasmuch as the
ground ran down to a railway cutting, at that period almost
sylvan in its wildness, with scattered Birch and Fir trees
and banks of Primroses. How many of this garden's
inhabitants have been grateful since for the good broad
stretch of turf that then was carefully put down and has
gone on improving and mellowing with time and age.
Blackbirds and thrushes have hopped about all over it,
finding many a meal, and so have round-eyed robins,
though not at the same moment ; croquet and tennis

78 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

have been played upon it, — first croquet, then tennis,
then croquet again in the cycle of the mode ; dainty
tea-cups' cheerful chink has softly sounded over it, and oft
has it been dinted by childish feet. In the morning it
has been dim with early dew, at noon a carpet all alive
with shadows flung from leaves, and in the evening warm
and smooth and barred by sunshine. The lawn has been
as good as a sun-dial for telling the hours ; the trees are
the pointers, here a Willow and there an Oak, and the
dial-plate is the grass itself. Whether in shade or sunshine,
the lawn is always soft to the foot and pleasant to the
eye.

In this garden grass was made the keynote. Turf is
the favourite bordering for the shrubbery — a good wide
border, that makes a handsome edge and is pretty for
flowers to tumble over ; grass again where there is room
for another little lawn, that can be given up to flower-
beds.

How much is said now about the dreadful practice of
cutting up a lawn to stick flower-beds in it, " shrieking
spots of colour set down here and there with little
thought." An authority I revere says " a lawn is a place
for grass ; to spot bright beds all over it is to ruin it."
I quite admit that to " spot," if there is only room for
one lawn, is gross Vandalism, but I am quite as firmly
convinced that no garden is complete without some
flower-beds set in turf. What else shows the colours to
so much advantage ? Flower-beds in gravel, with a stiff
edging of Box, do not please me at all ; they are formal,
and the effect is hard. Even these can be improved by a
broad edging of grass to every bed. Herbaceous borders
are delightful ; we cannot live without them, but we do
want beds too, they are so brilliant, so useful, and so well-
behaved. " Bedders " are the good children of the garden,
herbaceous plants the wayward. To manage them is
like playing a game of croquet with Wonderland Alice's

GRASS, GROUND, OR GRAVEL 79

live flamingoes for hoops and mallets ; the plants have the
same habit of taking their way, not ours, and this puts us
more than ever in conceit with our little plots of green
enamel, set with coloured flowers like jewels.

A grass walk, where there is room for it, is another
charming feature. In dry weather, when well kept,
nothing is so pleasant to walk on. But no small suburban
garden can hope for this luxury ; it is only to be attained
in large gardens, that have other walks for everyday
wear and tear.

One of the gardens haunted by me as a child had a
very long grass walk. There was a flower border on
each side of it, and behind the borders there were trees.
How we all delighted in this part of the garden-ground ;
how many were the friendships sworn along that silent
scented pathway. It was said, moreover, that every
engagement in the family dated from it.

Perhaps it is going too far to praise turf because it is
healthy, and poetry is no argument ; but Fuller, about
1620, said that "to smell to a turf of fresh earth is
wholesome to the body." Ruskin in his best prose speaks
lovingly of its " soft and countless peaceful spears," and
Shakespeare simply revels in grass. The Bible, too,
generally the first poem a child loves and is influenced
by, may be responsible for some of the fascination of the
green herb : " Like rain upon the mown grass ; " " Thou
shalt lead me in the green pastures ; " " He maketh the
grass to grow upon the mountains." No wonder one
loves and even idealizes grass.

CHAPTER XIV

FERNS AND WILD FLOWERS

" Wood-sorrel and wild violet
Ease my soul's fret."

" How I do envy you your bank of Ferns " is the remark
made to me almost daily during the summer months
when the green background of our outdoor fernery
looks so pretty as it throws up the colours of the flower-
beds on the little lawn that flanks it. This is the
brightest bit of the whole garden, and its beauty is very
largely due to the Ferns. Then we get talking about
Ferns, and everybody says, " What a pity Ferns are out
of fashion." This is what I think. There was a Fern-
craze about five and thirty years ago, when crinolines
were worn, and long riding-habits, and every drawing-
room had its tank of sea-flowers ; but times have
changed, and the day of the outdoor fernery is over.
One reason given for its disappearance is what people say
is its untidiness. "We cannot have Ferns near the
house, because they look ragged in autumn and winter."
This is what I am told so constantly, but do not agree
with at all. In the first place, to my way of thinking,
Ferns are picturesque all the year round, not less so when
they are brown and yellow than at the time of their
greenest luxuriance, and hardy Ferns are the very best
things in the world for Londoners to cultivate, because
their foliage is so tolerant of smoke-poison, even in the
80

FERNS AND WILD FLOWERS 81

most aggravated form of it known as " urban fog." No
town nor suburban garden, however unfavourably placed,
need be without its Ferns.

It was against a blank wall facing east, in a brand-new
garden of the suburbs, that our own fernery was started,
and turned despair into delight. This part of the garden
had looked so hopeless. What were we to do with it ?
We knew that flowers would not bloom there, and yet
we wanted something cheerful to look at, because the
door-windows of our favourite sitting-rooms " gave on to
it," as the French say, and it would always be in sight.
Then some one suggested ferns, and it was felt at once the
right note had been struck. Between the house and the
wall there was chaos for about sixty-five feet ; then the
bare wall. Behind that in the next-door garden were an
Oak and one or two Apple trees, that gave some shelter.
Beside the house we made a terrace, high and dry, and
planted a Magnolia against the wall, and Rose trees.
Then came a gravel path, and beyond the path we laid
a little lawn 5 this left room for a four or five-foot border
by the wall. Here was to be the fernery.

Good drainage was secured by digging down and filling
up with crocks and broken tiles and cinders. Then we
got together a goodly store of stones, tree-stumps, and
gnarled roots, choosing Oak when possible, because of all
woods it is the least liable to decay. Oak will even
resist damp, though damp is a thing a fernery should
never be. That is the mistake most people make. Ferns
want a great deal of water, but never to be water-logged
— always dewy, fresh, and sprinkled. Now it was time
to think about the soil. We got in leaf-mould, loam, and
a little peat, which in those days was easier to get than it
is now. The building up of all these good materials was
a pleasant task. It is so nice to work with one's gardeners.
We cannot expect them to have the same cultivated
tastes as some of ourselves, who have travelled, and read,

G

82 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

and thought, and got out of old grooves; but they can do the
hard work, and are quick to take ideas. Our Fern-bank
was not allowed to be grotto-y. Not a scrap of clinker,
nor a flint, nor a shell — least of all a fossil — was permitted
to come near it. We waved the border up and down in
quite irregular fashion with hills and dales and comfort-
able crannies to hold the plants when they should come.
A month or two had to pass before we could plant, and
this was fortunate in a way, as things could settle down.
We had made the fernery in the spring, and in the
autumn we furnished it — a good time for doing so, for in
the autumn holidays one finds so many treasures to bring
home in box or basket. This was what we did ; and
besides that, had ordered a good many beautiful and hardy
Ferns from some growers in the south of England.

I do think this is such a good plan. The more
frequented country places have been so depleted by the
careless Fern-hunter and the over-zealous field-class, that
really there are now few wild Ferns to spare. Whenever
I come across any, growing in all their beauty, my impulse
is to leave them, not to take them away, especially delicate
Ferns like Tricomanes, or the Sea or Bladder Spleenwort ;
nor would I ever rifle a lake-side of the Royal Osmunda,
unless in Ireland, where it might be growing like a weed.
Quite common things we may take a portion of, with
care — not the whole root — the Male and Lady-Fern for
instance, the Blecknums, the HartVtongues from the
well-side, and the Polypodies of the wood and hedgerow.
Ferns can be moved and planted with safety either in
spring or autumn. In the garden for dividing and
replanting, we find February the best month.

In making a Fern-bank, it must never be forgotten
that, though the hardy kinds stand cold well, they do hate
draught. We carried our border round a little at both
ends, and planted shrubs so as to make it quite a cosy
corner. The wall itself had been stocked with climbers- -

FERNS AND WILD FLOWERS 83

Ivy, Virginian Creeper, and some Briar Roses and Honey-
suckle— the latter not with the hope of flowers, but for a
change of foliage. In October the brown and yellowing
fronds, with green and gold and red and crimson leaves
behind them, are splendid. Our ugly patch is now the
best part of the garden — the flower-beds on the turf a
little formal, perhaps, but always bright either with spring
or summer flowers. Both grass and blossoms are in clover
here ; they get a sideways benefit from the constant
spraying of the bank, and the close-cut turf grows very
fine and soft, keeping its greenness through the hottest
weather.

Has any one noticed the beauty of the growth of fresh
young * pale-green Fern-fronds, among the old dark
foliage ? Sometimes we secure this by leaving the Fern-
bank for a dry hot day or two without much water, then
we give it a deluge over-night. Next day new growth
begins to show, and the fernery, so far from being cross at
so much teasing, puts on its fairest smiles, and looks
prettier than ever.

But one of the greatest delights of a fernery in London
or suburban gardens is the opportunity it gives of growing
wild flowers. There are so many of these one longs to
have, but there is no room for them. In the herbaceous
border they would be pulled up as weeds, and on the
rockery they would overgrow the other things. What
the dear weeds want is a place where they can rest harm-
less and unmolested. The outdoor fernery is their
Promised Land ; there they are good and happy. Many
a wilding has a home in ours.

Sometimes we wonder how they get there, for gene-
rally they are not of our own planting. Some, of course,
are " stowaways " — vagrants that have travelled with
Fern-roots sent from far ; others may be wind or bird-
sown — there is no lack of bird-life in suburban gardens.
Any way, the weeds are welcome. Amongst the strangers

84 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

are Wind-flowers, wild Hyacinth, Wood-violets, and
Celandine. Enchanter's Night-shade is a visitor that is
inclined to be too pushful, but we like a little left, to study-
its life-history as related so delightfully by Grant Allen.
Under the Osmundas there is a carpet of Oak and Beech
Fern, but below the hardy common Ferns we let the
Alpine Strawberry run about — how bright its scarlet
berries in the cool green leaves! — and Wood-sorrel, that
most engaging weed, claimed by many as the true Sham-
rock of St. Patrick. There is no wild flower more in-
teresting ; its triune leaflets are so sensitive, closing if
startled, or if the wind be chill, and on hot summer after-
noons it is amusing to listen for the cracking of its tiny
artillery as the seed-pods burst, to fling their harmless
contents all around.

In very early spring Blue-bells and the constant Prim-
rose find warm corners on our Fern-bank, and show bright
faces sooner than elsewhere. It is here the "spotted
Orchis takes his annual step across the earth " — why is
this plant so walkative ? Wood-sanicle is another weed
we allow no one to pull up ; it is to us a living lyric of
copse and woodland. Such simple plants are doubly
sweet when growing in the small surburban garden, houses
to right of us, houses to left of us, and houses over the
way.

And now a word or two to those who fear to make a
fernery too near the house. Here is an extract from my
garden log-book, written in December 1901: "The
Fern-bank against the Ivied wall is looking almost as well
as in August. The plants are simply revelling in the
moist still air. The undergrowth of Oak, Beech, Lime-
stone and Bladder Fern is gone, and some of the Lady
Fern is yellowing, but the Hart's-tongues are greener than
ever ; their bosses show up well, and the Male Fern and
hardy Polystichums and Polypodies are still flourishing,
many of them growing from a centre like gigantic

THE OSMUNUA IN MAY

FERNS AND WILD FLOWERS 85

shuttlecocks. The Osmunda is a little withered, but in
its golden yellow stage is very lovely." The present
prevailing fashion of a lingering autumn and mild
December leaves the Fern-bank beautiful through October,
November, and the months that follow, till the very hard
frosts come, which nowadays is generally not till the days
have begun to lengthen. In sheltered corners many plants
are green the whole year round. So things go on till
January, when some few heads are lying low, but even
then the bank is quaintly pretty. February is, I admit,
the least attractive month for the Ferns themselves, but
by that time the little lowly flowers that grow among
them are coming up, and a careful look will show how
fast the fronds are spreading and thickening amid the
Wood-violets' gentle blue and the pale stars of the
Primrose. May is here the most amusing month ; in
their growing-up stage Ferns are funnier than schoolboys,
and more uncouth. How tall and lanky is this pale
Osmunda ; he has shot up too quickly, and there is
nothing but a little bullet head at the top of every
attenuated stalk. He bends this backwards, the colour
changes, and lo ! the round ball opens into the splendour
of branching leaves. Warm rain of a day or two will
do this and many another miracle will it work ; the rolled -
up, wriggling snakes and viperlings that hid away in white
and woolly fleeces, and seemed so frightened of coming
out too soon, one by one now show themselves to be the
Scolopendrimus, Aspleniums, Polypodiums and Poly-
stichums that were so beautiful last July — it would really
be mean to remind them in summer-time of how they
looked while yet unfledged.

The great charm of a fernery, well kept and long-
established, is now forgotten by most, for it is seldom
seen. What we do see in many a London and suburban
garden is the extinct or neglected fernery, an arid spot,
most likely under a tree or trees, which have drained

86 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

every drop of moisture from the soil. People have such
odd notions about Ferns ; they do not discriminate. All
kinds are lumped together, and expected to look after them-
selves and do all right, if they are given a few stones or
a clinker or two to play with. I do not think under
trees the very best place for Ferns, for the trees get all
the moisture. When we know that one fair-sized Oak
tree will draw up as much as a hundred and twenty-three
tons of water in a season, we cannot wonder that there
is not much left to nourish the plants beneath ; and then
the rain, the kindly rain that drops from heaven upon the
earth beneath, how are the poor overshadowed Ferns to
get that ? Speaking generally, all Ferns like shade and
moisture, but different members of the Fern family show
as many individual tastes and likes and dislikes as we
should find in any school or nursery. Some are for the
cool depths of the woodland, some for the breezy heath
or open moor ; others sun themselves like chameleons on a
dry and stony wall, where they live on nothing but lime
and light ; and there are the lake-lovers, who, poet-like,
would sit with their feet in the brook, and gaze at the
blue of the sky ; and the mountain-climbers who hide under
the slates of Skiddaw ; and the roadside Ferns that grow
beneath, and sometimes upon, the bossy branches of Elms
and Oaks. These hardy hedge-haunters were for a long
time the only Ferns that would not grow for us ; at last
we discovered the reason why. They will not drink
anything but soft water, sooner would they die.

All the other Ferns I have mentioned live as happily in
a suburban garden as they did in their native haunts, and
attain to an even greater size and luxuriance. They give
no trouble, most of them do not mind hard water, but this
is much better if sprayed or sprinkled than if hosed.
Sprinklers can be bought for a shilling or two at any
ironmonger's shop, and are most useful. Even the Holly
fern, and the Hay-scented, and the pretty Polystichum-

FERNS AND WILD FLOWERS 87

proliferum that most people consider a greenhouse plant,
come up every year, punctual as the morning sunshine,
and want nothing but water, and some fresh leaf-mould
to grow into, now and then. Sometimes in the autumn
we scatter them with dead leaves, and always leave the
fronds to wither as they will ; no tidying up is allowed.
Here Nature holds her sway, and the touch of wildness in
an otherwise well-ordered garden is refreshing.

CHAPTER XV

CREEPERS AND CLIMBERS

" Our tallest rose
Peeped in at the chamber window."

No cottage, villa, hut, nor any other human dwelling,
however small and gardenless, need be without some
leaves and flowers, for it must have walls, and up them
may the Ivy wander and the Jasmine cling. Quaintly
enough, both Vine and Fig tree are tolerant of town air,
and, suggestive as they are of sylvan and patriarchal life,
might flourish in Seven-Dials if there were room enough
for them to grow. The Vine, in fact, is one of the best
climbers it is possible to find for London and the suburbs ;
one regrets that it is not oftener made use of, for, to say
nothing of its fruits, the foliage is so exquisitely decora-
tive : in summer of a pure green, and in autumn rich in
yellows, reds, and browns. The Fig tree is another
handsome plant, well worth growing if only for the sake
of its comfortable triple leaves that in Eden were found
so useful. There is no occasion to mention Virginian
Creepers ; everybody already knows and appreciates them.
The large-leafed, loosely flowing, common kind is pre-
ferred by some, but is not so neat and compact as the
small-foliaged Ampelopsis Veitchii^ which clings wherever
it can place a finger with extraordinary tenacity, and
never needs a nail. Naturally, this clinging habit makes
the Veitchii very popular where gardeners are scarce.
In planting creepers and climbers we find it the best

CREEPERS AND CLIMBERS 89

of methods always to put in two or three at a time ;
winter and summer ones grow happily side by side ; after
one has had his turn, another takes the floor, and things
are always lively. Even in drear November there are
berries, whose shining colours are cotemporary with the
bright yellows of the Winter Jasmine, and these together
provide a feast of colour from October to the end of
January.

On taking possession of a house near town, or in any
of the suburbs, we must consider well its different aspects
before we choose our creepers, and after that must settle
on the best means of training them. Some people like
to have a trellis-work of wood against the walls, and
upon grey, or white, old-fashioned houses this looks very
well. Others will stretch wire-netting against the walls,
a method convenient in one way, because a width or two
can always be added as it is wanted, and it is cheap ; but
wire is not a very genial support to live on. Many
plants do not like it, and I am not at all fond of it
myself ; but it comes in useful sometimes if a very ugly,
bare side wall has to be hidden by degrees. Virginian
Creepers do not disdain to use it when they want to
climb ; but others turn from it most amusingly. The
other alternative is the ordinary garden-nail and shred,
and a very good one, too, it is. Every gardener should
be generously supplied with nails of different sizes and
strong, clean shreds of cloth. In stormy weather they
save many a wreck. Sometimes stout string will be
required, and stakes, and something in the nature of a
pad to soften the rub of the support against the stem.
Cloth shreds must be looked to now and then, and
renewed when necessary, for the ravages of moth and
rust are only to be expected. It is wise to use tarred
string, which is very wholesome and durable. Many
plants that find a place on walls can neither climb nor
creep ; these must be strongly held in place. Of such

90 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

are the Cape and Winter Jasmines, many Roses, For-
sythia, the Fire-thorn (Pyracanthus), and Cotoncaster,
whose soft berries, with a crimson bloom upon them, are
a pleasant change from the Firethorn's brilliant red and
the scarlet of the Holly.

Roses certainly do better against wood than when
growing flush against the brick of any wall, especially if
it happens to be an old one : they keep more free from
insects. How different from Ivy, whose feelings are
deeply hurt and injured if it is torn from its dear walls,
where it so gladly feeds on lime and air, and makes a
clustered home for twilight moths.

Jasmines and other plants that have the same habit of
growth must not be allowed to run too much to riot.
They should be well cut in every autumn, as soon as
frost is threatening ; the new growths of each recurring
season amply suffice to provide the graceful trails that
hang about with great luxuriance, and will be full of
flowers. Two years running a pair of spotted fly-catchers
built their nests in the Jasmine-withes close to our
windows ; by June the new growths were already thick
enough to hold their tiny homes.

A delightful plant to cover a house-wall, and one that
is quite content to live in London and its suburbs, is the
evergreen Magnolia grandiflora. Our own was planted,
in the first instance, against a south wall, where after-
wards we put a Passion-flower, and have now two kinds
of Jasmine. In this aspect the Magnolia did not thrive
at all. Then we moved it to the west, where it started
growth at once, and rose with wonderful rapidity house-
high and thickly branched. It is a lovely place for
blackbirds ; they never fail to build in it, so we get music
as well as scent ; but the birds have flown before the
flowers come. These bloom from August to October,
sweetening every dwelling-room that is near them, and
every one loves to watch the big white buds as they

CREEPERS AND CLIMBERS 91

unfold so slowly to show their satin linings and the big
gold jewel that lies inside each cup.

Both on our north and south and west walls we plant
Gloire-de-Dijon Roses along with purple Clematis, not
for a succession of flowers, but so that they may bloom
together. Few things in nature are more truly satis-
factory than the way these two plants have of blossoming
at the same time ; the colours contrast so perfectly.

Passion-flowers and Clematis Montana are two creepers
that, as a rule, do well on warm south walls. For a long
time we revelled in these upon the house ; but both are
delicate. Even so far south as Surrey we found a very
cold, damp winter would kill them, and it is dreadful to
see an empty wall which once was full of leaves and
blossoms, so we now grow these creepers in some
sheltered corner ; arch of door and window-mullion
must have stronger plants.

No creepers are hardier than the Virginians, nor could
any look prettier as they wreath above a porch. More
than once the shelter of ours has been chosen for a rare
bird's nesting, and the author of a gardening dictionary
was so taken with it that he begged for its photo-
graph, as an illustration of that particular creeper, in his
book. I have never known anything to kill this plant
except drought or sunstroke. Do give it a little water in
dry, hot weather. Our south wall has been the scene of
many adventures in the plant world. There is a family
legend about the Passion-flower that for years grew high
enough to look in (along with the roses) at our chamber
windows. It did not survive the foot-treads of Mr.
Peace, the thief and murderer, who, one fine day at the
luncheon hour, climbed up by it over a portico and into
a bedroom, whence he made off with all the jewellery
he could find ; die the Passion-flower certainly did, and
that before the following winter's frost.

Another creeper of great value to the suburban gardener

92 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

is Honeysuckle ; the Dutch variety for its sweetness, the
Japanese for its leaves of yellow, green, and gold. Not
for the house, but for pergolas, or as a blind to hide " next
door," or for a rustic arbour, what is more cheerful than
the Hop, which climbs to the height of many yards in
one season, and drops its pretty blooms, that have so queer
and pleasant a smell, as merrily in a sunny corner of any
town garden as if it were clambering up the hop-poles
of Kent or Sussex ? Hop-bines might be used a great
deal more freely than they are to hide unsightly out-
houses and barren places, but even Hops want a little
care ; they must have some good stuff to grow into, and
they do like sunshine. Gourds are magnificent for all
these purposes. I know one gentleman who so much
admires the leaves and flowers of the common domestic
Vegetable Marrow that he cultivates it as an ornament
and not for eating, much as the King of Siam grows
carrots, with whose charming foliage he fell in love when
sojourning in England.

Of all creepers we are familiar with, Clematis Montana
is least tolerant of the knife. If we happen to meet with
a very old one, that has been allowed to wander unchecked
all over the place, and is untidy at the bottom, it is quite
useless to attempt to cut and prune it into shape. Such
treatment would be certain to destroy ; it is better to take
it away bodily and put in a new one. The yearly prun-
ing already spoken of may be pursued in safety. Honey-
suckles behave much in the same way as to their dislike
of too much cutting, otherwise they give no trouble at
all, and thrive in any garden soil that is fairly good. Some-
times one has to deal with old house-walls whereon neg-
lected creepers show unsightly stems, and yet we cannot
part with them, because of the value of the upper growth.
The best thing to be done — so we find — is to plant some
gay perennial climber that will hide defects. One of the
best is the Morning Glory (Ipomcea.) If given a sunny

CREEPERS AND CLIMBERS 93

place, this creeper will throw up long free garlands every
summer. The leaves are prettily shaped, and each new
morning brings new buds, wonderful, twisted, spiral buds,
that open into cup-shaped flowers, pink, or white, or blue,
or streaked, or crimson.

Ivy deserves a chapter all to itself ; it is the kindest and
most beneficent climber in all the world, never shabby,
never tired, blooming in November and December, when
flowers are scarcest ; and it owns such an endless variety
of leaf-forms and colours that one might make an in-
teresting garden by filling it with nothing but different
kinds of Ivy. And the same Ivy behaves so differently
at different periods of its life, that sometimes one can
hardly believe one is not being cheated by a changeling.
See the Ivy that is busy climbing up a tree or wall, how
tightly it catches hold, and how industriously it wins its
way to the very summit. No leisure now for play or
flowering, it is a steady onward march — eyes right, no
looking round ; but once the top is reached there comes a
change. Like a successful man of business, whose work
is done, it has time now for life's graces ; the Ivy settles
down and clusters, and bears flowers and berries. It loves
pretty shapes and pictures — in short, takes kindly to the
Arts.

For the borders of shrubberies no edgings are prettier
than Gold and Silver Ivies trailed over stones or rock-work,
and Irish Ivy is invaluable to fill bare patches under trees
on lawns, where nothing else will grow, or for covering
up old tree-stumps or unsightly barns or sheds. Ivy at
first grows slowly. Any one who is impatient for imme-
diate effect had better buy well-rooted plants of it in pots ;
by this means a good length can be secured at once. If
a small piece is planted, a little lime-rubbish in the ground
helps very much, and so does watering for a week or two
till well-established, after which any Ivy can be trusted to
look after itself. Ivy in London is no new favourite.

94 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

Close to St. Paul's Cathedral is a thoroughfare where
once the Prebendaries of St. Paul lived peaceful lives in
quaint old-fashioned houses, whose walls were smothered
in it ; houses and Ivy have disappeared, but the old name
lingers — it is " Ivy Lane."

CHAPTER XVI

EASY ROCK AND WALL GARDENING

" The stems are faithful to the root

That worketh out of view,
And to the rock the root adheres
In every fibre true."

A ROCK-GARDEN, even in a simple way, is a great joy, and
there is no reason why we should not try to possess one
even in a town or in the suburbs. Writers in the best
horticultural papersare sometimes a little discouraging ; they
tell us that the rock-garden near a house is out of place,
and that it should never be made near trees, nor buildings,
nor any other objects, but stand apart in stony isolation ;
they also tell us by no means to make a rockery ourselves,
any more than we should try to mend a broken limb
without the doctor : we are to call in an experienced
garden-artist blessed with good taste, a knowledge of rocks,
and the requirements of Alpine plants.

No doubt, the owners of large grounds and long purses
will do well to take this advice, but people must cut their
coats according to their cloth, and no one who does not
mind taking a little trouble need despair. It is not so
very difficult a matter to build a home for, and to get
together, a pretty collection of Alpine and other rock-
plants. One's pains are well repaid, for no class of
growing things is more interesting ; besides this, we shall
be in the fashion.

In our own garden, which I have said before is not a

95

96 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

large one (close to other people's houses, and much too
full of trees), we have contrived to make two rock-
gardens, one in shade and one in sunshine. Neither of
them is far from our own house, and one is much too
near some Fir trees ; but the plants do not seem to mind
either of these things in the very least.

The first thing we have to consider in establishing a
rockery (after settling where to place it) is the rock, and
" rock," as we all know, is geology for every kind of
earth and stone. Limestone is about the best rock we
can choose ; there are so many plants that love to live in
it, and it is easier to procure than granite. Need it be
said that we must not dream of using clinker ? Stone is a
little difficult to get, and dear to buy and cart about, but
we lighted upon a cunning plan in getting ours. We
looked up a neighbouring builder, and for a trifle and the
cartage he let us have a number of disused steps and
sinks and stones that came out of old houses, and to him
were so much lumber ; they were just the thing for us,
and were already nicely weathered.

I think we knew the right way to build a rockery, for
we had read many papers on the subject in The Garden,
and also possessed Miss Jekyll's delightful book on " Wall
and Water Gardens," the pictures in which are very
helpful ; and though we could not do all the best things
that might be done, for want of room, we succeeded
fairly well, but we had to superintend and do all except
the heavy work ourselves. No gardener of the ordinary
jobbing or suburban type can be trusted to make a
rockery.

The natural soil of our garden made drainage requisite,
so we began with that ; then we laid in a store of loam, a
little leaf-mould, and a great deal of coarse sand. Rock-
plants look as if they grew on the surface, lying on it like
water-flies upon a stream. This appearance is deceitful ;
they have particularly long roots, which strike down any

A ROCKERY

EASY ROCK AND WALL GARDENING 97

distance in search of food. No one, therefore, need expect
to have a successful rockery who first dumps his stones
down in a heap, and then piles the earth on the top of
them. Each stone or piece of rock must be planted
firmly, ends pointing downwards, as in building a flint
wall, so that roots can run down easily through the
soil between them ; and it is best to work after a plan,
arranging the " rock " in a sort of orderly disorder like a
stratification, with here and there a " fault." So anxious
were we to make our rockery look natural, that we
referred to one of Mr. Geikie's geology books, and chose
our style of stratification from that.

It was a long time before we managed to place the
stones exactly to our minds, but we did succeed at last,
after one or two trials and a few alterations. Then
came a period of waiting till things had settled down.
We gave temporary lodgings among the rocks to tufts of
London Pride, the pretty pink Saxifrage, that so well
deserves its name and is so invaluable a plant in any
difficult garden, as it will grow anywhere and remains in
bloom so many months. Creeping Jenny was another
stop-gap, quite as hardy as London Pride, and flowering
almost directly after you plant it, if it is given a little
water and some sunshine ; Lung-wort and common
Campanulas we put in too, with odds and ends of all the
weedy things that inhabit every garden and consider
themselves, as it were, joint owners of it. We robbed
the Herb-border, too, of bits of gold and silver Thyme,
that so much loves growing on a bank and is so fragrant ;
these latter were allowed to stay, and we would have had
Balm too, had space permitted.

Later on came a visit to Mr. Barr's nursery-ground,
from whence we drove home the richer by a number of
little sandy pots, in each pot a treasure. Whenever I
visit this flowery region in search of Daffodils, I never
can find time to admire the Daffodils because of being so

H

98 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

taken up with rock plants. They are grown so beauti-
fully here ; with nothing but flat fields to work upon, a
stretch of rocks has been imported into them so skilfully
as to wear a very natural look, and one cannot walk
among them without taking an object-lesson on the
beauty of bold effects. After falling in love with wide
expanses of trailing, creeping, rooting, and clinging Alpine
and native rock-plants, one can visit the open frames
where small pieces of them are growing in pots. Nothing
could be more convenient or pleasanter than the choosing
of these and the bearing of them away in safety to indi-
vidual hearts and homes. Grown in pots, the most
delicate things can be moved in safety.

The great danger among so much that attracts is that
of being tempted to buy more sorts and kinds of plants
than can have justice done them in a small garden ;
much wiser is it to choose but a few of the best, and let
those have space to grow and spread. A cranny can
always be found for any rarity, but no "scrappy"
rockery, any more than a "scrappy" garden, will ever
make for beauty.

In a gardening paper the other day there was a piece
of advice that amused us by its naivete. It was, " never
to buy plants, but always to get them given you by
friends, because that way you get much bigger pieces."
Certainly friends who have a well-established rockery can
assist greatly, and a hamper sent us one October was a
treasure-trove indeed, not only for the plants we saw and
handled, but also for its waifs and strays. Like the magic
ferry-boat, that hamper had brought more travellers than
eye could see. Next summer they appeared. One was
a vigorous plant of bright pink Yarrow, another a fairy
Flax (oh, what a delicious blue !), and one day a weird-
looking stranger popped up suddenly. He had a beauti-
ful cream-coloured suit, and peacock's eyes, which the
gardener said quite frightened him. His name we

EASY ROCK AND WALL GARDENING 99

discovered afterwards was Calochortus, a Lily from Cali-
fornia, which is supposed to require a good deal of warmth
and some care, so we were very proud of his appearance
in our rockery.

We contrived to find room for many pretty things :
Campanula Bavarlca^ in falls of azure blue ; the white
Iberis and Arabis, double and single ; yellow Alysum ;
Aubrietia, pink and mauve ; as well as one or two Rock
Pinks and some crimson Thrift. The Bird's-eye Prim-
rose, and Rock Primulas, and Alpine Poppies (these are
lovely), we could not run to for want of space.

Saxifrages are a blessing in the shady rockery. Here,
as well as the sunshiny one, mossy and encrusted Saxi-
frages do very well. Some of the mossy Saxifrages are
early bloomers, opening in February with large white
flowers, in striking contrast to their tufted dark-green
leaves. The encrusted Saxifrages are the most wonderful
of rock-plants ; any one unfamiliar with their shining
silver edges might fancy the foliage were frosted ; but
the edging is really an incrustation of lime. In some
form or other lime is a food these plants must have, or
they cannot thrive ; it is pretty to see them using their
food-stuff to adorn themselves as well as in support of
life. Some small Saxifrages we liked are S. sancta, with
yellow flowers, S. oppositifolia^ with red-purple blooms,
and the double-flowered native S. granulata. Perhaps
the handsomest of all is S. longifolia, which grows in huge
rosettes, throwing from the centre of each a panicle of
creamy white flower nearly two feet long.

Wall-planting is easier to manage in the small garden
than the rockery because it so economizes space. Many,
in fact most, rock-plants do well in walls if made with
mould enough to give root-room. A double wall is a
delightful thing. On the broad top of it Roses can be
planted, and soft-stemmed Roses look even prettier when
falling down than when climbing up. Pink blossoms are

ioo TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING

lovely on grey stone. Cerastium's grey foliage should
always rove about among the green things ; grey leaves are
so pretty, and there are many plants of this colour. The
Cotton plant, often called French Lavender, is a good one.
Anemone apennlna is a wall and rock plant that ought to be
mentioned first instead of last ; Anemone slyvestris and
hepatica also love the stones, and so do the homely House-
leeks that remind us of cottage roofs, and the grey-green
Cobweb-leeks that are smothered in downy thread.

It would be quite easy to make a beautiful rock or wall
garden without going away from our own country to
people it ; many of our common native stone-loving plants
are so good. Snap-dragons are grand, and we could have
Foxgloves, the great Mulleins and the delicate Stitchwort,
the shining Crane's-bell — so scarlet of leaf as summer
wanes — the Wall-Pennywort, and the pink-flowered tiny
Toad-flax. Some Ferns, too, could find a place in it,
Cetrach and Wall-Rue in the sun, and Polypody and the
black-stemmed Adiantum nlgrum anywhere. Polypodies
run freely about the joints of walls, and will keep green
all the winter.

The three commonest of our English wall-plants are
those we love most dearly ; they are Thrift, Wallflower,
and Red Valerian. Our own Valerian was brought from
the top of a castle-wall in the Isle of Wight, close to the
sea, wind-swept and bathed in sunshine. There were
masses of it, in patches of deep crimson ; we took some
while it was in full flower, in spite of the risk. No easy
matter was it to get a root, so deeply had every one gone
down between the stones, but we managed to secure one or
two with fibre on them, and these have grown and spread.
Wallflowers are never so happy as on stone-work with
air and light all round them, and they are all the better
for the slight protection given by a wall. Ivy-leaved
Toad-flax was growing merrily near the Valerian, and
was not half so difficult to get out. All of these are now

EASY ROCK AND WAI^ .GARDENING ;ioi

quite content in the suburban garden to which they were
brought, and in which they thrive and bloom, the red
Valerian a special joy to every pussy-cat.

One pleasing thought may cheer the most disheartened
while going through the troubles of making a rockery ;
it will be a delicious salve to one's conscience when
running away with roots of dainty little plants from wall,
or moor, or mountain, either in England or abroad, to
know that at home a comfortable shelter is awaiting them
where not even the Edelweis need feel the pangs of
Heimweh. Flowers we bring home that live and grow
are about the pleasantest log-books it is possible to possess.

" Oh, to what uses shall we put
The wild weed-flower that simply blows ? "

This is what Tennyson says, and the question is easily
answered by another : Could it have a better use than to
bring happiness to those who dearly love the country and
its flowers, but are obliged by stress of circumstance to
live their lives in towns ?

INDEX

AMPELOPSIS VEITCHII, 21, 88.
Analysis of fog at Kew and Chelsea

in 1891,49.

Apathy of the public about fog, 54.
Arabis, double and single, n.
Area garden, 2.
" Art out of Doors," 69.
Asparagus Plumosa, 47.
Asparagus Sprengeri, 17.

BACK and front gardens, 64, 67.
Balcony-fitting, 25.
Barr's, Messrs., rock-garden, 97.
Birds and butterflies in London, 30.
Bourn ville, workman's village, 32.
Bonfires, 74.

Bulbs for the window-box, 10.
Bulbs after flowering, 14.
Bulbous plants in smoke, 28.
Bulbous plants for parks in town, 4.
Bulbous plants in fog, 53.
Button - hole bouquet - making in
London streets, 60.

CAMPANULAS, 4, 17, 41, 97.
Campanula Bavarica, 99.
Candy-tuft (Iberis), 99.
Charcoal filters for fog, 51.
Children's window-boxes, 19.
Children's ideas of " Next-door,'

73-

Choosing the window-box, 37.
Cleansing foliage, 38, 41 .
Clean mist, 49.
Clematis Montana, 91.
Clementi-Smith's, Mrs., rectory

garden in the City, 26, 30.

Climbers, 89.

Climbers in pots, 20.

Country Life on suburban gardens,
76.

Country board schools, 33.

Co vent Garden Market, 45 .

Coal-smoke Abatement Society, 54

Crocus, n, 64, 65.

Crook's Place Board School, Nor-
wich, 32.

Creepers, 89.

Cut flowers from the florist, 3

DAISIES, field, 16.
Daisies, Michaelmas, 4.
Double-wall gardening, 99.
Dracaenas, 47.

Drainage for window-box, 33.
Drainage for fernery, 81.
Drainage for rockery, 96.
Dyed flowers, 57.

EARLY and mid-Victorian bouquets,

59-

Encrusted Saxifrages, 99.
Establishing a rockery, 96.
Etiquette in suburban gardens, 71.
Exeter prize window-boxes, 18.

FACTORY - LAD'S window-box

Miss Jekyll, 35.
Ferns for window-box, 42.
Ferns at Kew after fog, 52.
Ferns all the year round, 80.
Ferns and gas, 53.
Ferns under trees, 85.

103

and

IO4

INDEX

Flower Hospital, 39.

Flower-girls of London, 60

Flowers as symbols, 58.

Flower-beds in turf, 78.

Flower-pots, 21, 22.

Floral trophies, 59.

Foreign opinions on English subur-
ban gardens, 64.

Fog filters and annihilators, 50.

Foliage plants, 44.

Free's, Mrs. Richard, Window-box
Society at Millwall, 31.

Front and back gardens, 64, 67.

Furnishing the fernery, 82.

GARDEN-SCHOOLS in Germany, 33
Gardens we grow fond of, 69.
Genesta, 16.
Giant Snowdrop, Galanthus Whlt-

talli, 10.

Giving away our surplus plants, 34.
Grassy gardens, 76.
Grass walks, 79.

HANGING baskets, 39.
Herbs in the window-box, 17.
Honeysuckle, 92.
Hops, 92.

Home for Working Boys, roof-
garden at, 28.

IMPURITIES of town fog, 49.
Individuality in gardens, 67.
Injuries from fog, 49.
Iberis, candy-tuft, 99.
Insects, 40.

Ipomcea (Morning Glory), 92.
Ivy, 11,93.

JASMINES, 90.

KITCHEN window-boxes, 17.
Kew Gardens, fog at, 50, 52.
Kew and Chelsea, fog at, 49.

LADY decorators, 85.

Lawn, the, 65, 76, 78.

Lilies, Japanese, at Holland House, 4.

Lilies in poor man's garden, 32.

Limestone for rockeries, 96.

London in June, 23.

London flower-girls, 60.

London Pride, n, 97.

Love of small gardens, 69.

MAIDEN-HAIR sprigs, 60.
Making a balcony-garden, 25.
Making a rockery, 96.
Magnolia Grandijftora, 90.
Michaelmas Daisies, 4.
Miniature rock and water gardens,

68.

Moss, n, 39.
Musk, 15, 25,41.

NARCISSUS, 12, 39.
Nasturtiums, 3, 43, 45.

OPEN-AIR fern-box, 42.
Ornamental foliage plants, 47.
Osmunda Regalis in May, 85.
Osmunda Regalis in autumn, 85.

PASSION-FLOWERS on south wall, 91.

Palms, 46.

Petunias, 15, 29, 39.

Pelham Park (Home for working

boys), 29.

Plants for house-decoration, 46.
Poplar trees next door, 73.
Pots for balconies, 21.
Pot-plants, watering, 41.
Precautions in foggy weather, 53.
Primrose Day, 58.
Pruning creepers, 92.
Public Health Act, 54.
Pyrethrums as town flowers, 3.

QUEEN'S GATE window-boxes, 16.

INDEX

105

RAIN-WATER, 18, 86.
Rock-gardening, 95.
Rock-plants, hardy English, 100.
Roof-garden in Bishopsgate St., 28.
Roof-garden on London leads, 29.
Roses, 4, 20, 56, 58, 67, 90.

SAXIFRAGES in rockery, 99.

Seeds for window-box, 42.

Seed Song, 18.

Shop-front in Bond Street, 23.

Shrubs for window-box, 38.

Silene (Campion or Catchfly), 12.

Slugs, 3.

Snowdrops, 10.

Smoke-poison, 48.

Soil for window-box, 37.

Soot, 3, 38.

Study of plants, 41.

Stone for rockery, 96.

Suburban gardens, 4, 62.

Suburban highways, 63.

Sunflower, a city, 34.

Summer flowers for window-box, 14.

TIGER LILIES, 28.
Town board schools, 32.

Tubs for verandahs and balconies,

22.

Turf for small gardens, 66.
Turf, love of green, 75.
Turf, flower-beds in, 78.
Turf for games, 77.
Turf for bordering shrubberies, 78.

URBAN fog, 48.

VALERIAN, 100.

Villa window-box in March and

June, 37.

Virginia Creeper for bird's nests, 91.
Virginia Stock, 43.

WASHING leaves, 41.

Watering, 40, 81, 83.

Weeping Willows, 65.

Weeds that are welcome, 30, 83.

Winter Jasmine (nudijiorum), 64,

90.

Winter Aconite, n.
Wild flowers in the garden, 83.
Window-box in spring, 10.
Wire netting, 89.
Wired flowers, 56.
Wormwood, 17.

Handbooks of Practical Gardening

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FlTZHERBERT.

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This book will be of great assistance to the beginner as showing the practical side of
bee-keeping. The handbook contains numerous illustrations which will be of interest to
experienced bee-keepers as well as to the novice.

Vol. XV. — The Book of Shrubs. By GEORGE GORDON,
V.M.H., Editor of The Gardeners Magazine.

A special feature of this book lies in the distinction which it makes between shrubs
and trees peculiarly suited to garden cultivation, and those appropriate to the park and
woodland. The author desires to encourage the culture of shrubs in gardens, and
indicates those most suitable for various purposes and situations.

Vol. XVI.— The Book of the Daffodil. By the Rev. s.
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The author supplies valuable information on the cultivation of daffodils gained by the
results of his own personal experience. " It is to be hoped," he says in his introduction
" that the information may help the lover of Daffodils, not only to grow good flowers'
but also to maintain his collection at a high standard, and generally to hold his own with
other Daffodil people."

Vol. XVII. — The Book of the Lily. By W. COLORING.

A description of, and a practical guide to, the cultivation of all the lilies usually found
in British gardens.

Vol. XVIII.— The Book of Topiary. By CHARLES H.
CURTIS and W. GIBSON, Head Gardener at Levens Hall.

A textbook of the topiary art, together with some account and famous examples of
the application of that art.

Vol. XIX. — The Book of Town and Window Garden-
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A handbook for those lovers of flowers who are compelled to live in a town. The
book should be helpful even to those who are quite ignorant in the art of growing plants,
and advice is given as to the most suitable plants to grow under the various adverse
conditions which town gardens afford.

Vol. XX. — The Book of Rarer Vegetables. By GEORGE
WYTHES, V.M.H., Head Gardener to the Duke of Northumber-
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This work deals with a number of vegetables possessing choice flavour, that are little
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Vol. XXIL— The Book of Garden Furniture. By
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which necessity or taste may suggest as additions to our garden ornaments.

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Vol. I. — The Book of Asparagus. With Sections on Celery,
Salsify, Scorzonera, and Seakale ; and a chapter on their cooking
and preparation for the table. By CHARLES ILOTT, F.R.H.S.,
Lecturer on Horticulture to the Cornwall County Council

The Speaker.—" The work of a specialist. Mr. Ilott gives us— for a matter of half a
crown — the ripe experience of a life-time."

Vol. II.— The Book of the Greenhouse. By J. C. TALLACK,
F.R.H.S., Head Gardener at Shipley HalL

The Outlook.— " A serviceable handbook for the practical gardener, written with
exceptional knowledge of horticultural work. A special chapter deals with the little
town greenhouse."

Vol. III. — The Book of the Grape. Together with a chapter
on the History and Decorative Value of the Vines. By H. W. WARD,
F. R. H.S. , for twenty-five years Head Gardener at Longford Castle.

The St. James's Gazette. — " A mine of useful information."

Vol. IV.— The Book of Old-Fashioned Flowers. By

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Vol. V. — The Book of Bulbs. By S. ARNOTT, F.R.H.S.. of

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The Scotsman.—" Skilled and instructive. It notably enriches the series in which it
appears."

Vol. VI. — The Book of the Apple. By H. H. THOMAS,
Assistant Editor of The Garden, late of the Royal Gardens,
Windsor. Together with chapters by the Editor on the History
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The Spectator.— " This is a most useful volume, which every grower, whether for his
own use or for the market, should consult,"

Vol. VII. — The Book of Vegetables. By GEORGE WYTHES,
V.M.H., Head Gardener to the Duke of Northumberland.
Together with chapters on the History and Cookery by the Editor.

The Morning Post —" Thoroughly practical. The book can be highly recommended,"

Vol. VIII.— The Book of Orchids. By w. H. WHITE,
F.R.H.S., Orchid Grower to Sir Trevor Lawrence, President of
the Royal Horticultural Society.

The Scotsman.—" There are few writers so wefl qualified to write with authority upon
these flowers."

Vol. IX. — The Book of the Strawberry. With chapters on

the Raspberry, Blackberry, Loganberry, Japanese Wineberry, and
Allied Fruits. By EDWIN BECKETT, F.R.H.S., Head Gardener
at Aldenham Park.

The Morning Post.—" Mr. Beckett deals with his subject in a thorough practical
manner, . . . and fully maintains the general excellence shown in the previous volumes
of this series."

Vol. X.— The Book of Climbing Plants. By S. ARNOTT,
F.R.H.S., Author of " The Book of Bulbs."

The Scotsman.—" This is a concise, practical, and well-informed exposition of skilled
knowledge as to the training of creepers, &c."

Vol. XI. — The Book of Pears and Plums. By the Rev.
E. BARTRUM, D.D.

The Scotsman.—" The writer knew as much about the growing of Pears and Plums as
Dean Hole knows about the cultivation of Roses."

Vol. XII. — The Books of Herbs. By LADY ROSALIND

NORTHCOTE.

Vol. XIII.— The Book of the Wild Garden. By s. w.

FlTZHERBERT.

The Scotsman says—" Mr. Fitzherbert indicates very clearly how the most satisfactory
results may be brought about, and how the most charming effects may be produced.
The volume has a number of very beautiful illustrations."

Vol. XIV. — The Book of the Honey-Bee. By CHARLES
HARRISON.

This book will be of great assistance to the beginner as showing the practical side of
bee-keeping. The handbook contains numerous illustrations which will be of interest to
experienced bee-keepers as well as to the novice.

Vol. XV. — The Book of Shrubs. By GEORGE GORDON,

V.M.H., Editor of The Gardeners Magazine.

A special feature of this book lies in the distinction which it makes between shrubs
and trees peculiarly suited to garden cultivation, and those appropriate to the park and
woodland. The author desires to encourage the culture of shrubs in gardens, and
indicates those most suitable for various purposes and situations.

Vol. XVL— The Book of the Daffodil. By the Rev. s.
EUGENE BOURNE.

The author supplies valuable information on the cultivation of daffodils gained by the
results of his own personal experience. " It is to be hoped," he says in his introduction
" that the information may help the lover of Daffodils, not only to grow ?ood flowers
but also to maintain his collection at a high standard, and generally to hold his own with
other Daffodil people."

Vol. XVII. — The Book of the Lily. By W. COLORING.

A description of, and a practical guide to, the cultivation of all the lilies usually found
in British gardens.

Vol. XVIII. — The Book of Topiary. By CHARLES H.
CURTIS and W. GIBSON, Head Gardener at Levens Hall.

A textbook of the topiary art, together with some account and famous examples of
the application of that art.

Vol. XIX.— The Book of Town and Window Garden-
ing. By Mrs. F. A. BARDS WELL.

A handbook for those lovers of flowers who are compelled to live in a town. The
book should be helpful even to those who are quite ignorant in the art of growing plants,
and advice is given as to the most suitable plants to grow under the various adverse
conditions which town gardens afford.

Vol. XX. — The Book of Rarer Vegetables. By GEORGE
WYTHES, V.M.H., Head Gardener to the Duke of Northumber-
land, and HARRY ROBERTS.

This work deals with a number of vegetables possessing choice flavour, that are little
grown in modern gardens. Not only does the book explain the best methods of culti-
vation, but also describes the ways in which the several vegetables should be cooked
and dressed for the table.

Vol. XXL—The Book of the Iris.

A practical guide to the cultivation of the Iris, and also a description of and key to all
the garden species and varieties. The book will interest equally the botanical student,
the practical gardener, and the lover of beautiful flowers.

Vol. XXIL— The Book of Garden Furniture. By

CHARLES THONGER.

A practical handbook to the selection, construction, and arrangement of the various
buildings, trellises, pergolas, arches, seats, sundials, fountains, and other structures
which necessity or taste may suggest as additions to our garden ornaments.

TOtJTVr T A MT7 P LONDON : VIGO STREET, W.

JUJrliN -L/i-Nii, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK : 67, FIFTH AVENUE.

The Country Handbooks

An Illustrated Series of Practical Handbooks dealing 'with
Country Life. Suitable for the Pocket or Knapsack

EDITED BY HARRY ROBERTS

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ROBERTS. With over fifty Illustrations by WALTER
PASCOE.

A volume written in defence of vagabondage, containing much
valuable advice to the amateur gipsy, traveller, or cyclist, as to
camping-out, cooking, etc.

Vol. II. — The Motor Book. By R. T.

MECREDY. With numerous Illustrations.

An invaluable handbook that should find a place in the library
of every motorist, or even in the car itself.

Vol. III. The Tree Book. By MARY ROWLES

JARVIS.

Containing varied and useful information relating to forests,
together with a special chapter on Practical Forestry.

Vol. IV. The Still Room. By Mrs. CHARLES

ROUNDELL.

A book of information upon all subjects pertaining to preserving,
pickling, bottling, distilling, &c., with many useful hints upon the
dairy.

Vol. V.— The Bird Book. By A. j. R.

ROBERTS.

A guide to the study of bird life, with hints as to recognising
various species by their flight or their note.

Vol. VI.— The Woman Out of Doors. BY

MENIE MURIEL DOWIE.

A book of practical value and interest to every sportswoman,
lady gardener, and out-of-door woman of every kind.

Vol. VII.— The Stable Handbook.

Vol. VIII. — The Fisherman's Handbook.

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JOHN LANE, LONDON AND NEW YORK

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"One £ All" Condiment, a pure spice for cattle, horses, etc.

"ONE & ALL" COMPLETE FERTILISERS FOR FARM AND GARDEN, properly
proportioned for different crops and varying soils.

"ONE & ALL" SEEDS FOR FARM AND GARDEN of the highest excellence
and purity.

Catalogues Post Free on Application.

PUBLICATIONS OF THE AGRICULTURAL AND

HORTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION, LTD.

THE "AGRICULTURAL ECONOMIST. "—-An Illustrated Art Magazine of Agri-
culture, Horticulture, and Co-operation. Published monthly. Price 6d., or 5$.
per annum, post free. Specimen Copy free on application.

" ' ONE & ALL ' GARDENING.' — A popular Annual for Amateurs, Allotment
Holders, and Working Gardeners. About 200 pages, profusely illustrated.
Price 2<£, all booksellers.

"VEGETABLE AND FLOWER SEEDS."— Free by post on application.
" FARM SEEDS." — Free by post on application.
"ARTIFICIAL FERTILISERS."— Free by post on application.
" FEEDING STUFFS." — Free by post on application.

Tht Book Department of the Association supplies all Works on

Farming and Gardening.

All details respecting the Association and its operations sent post free
on application 10

Managing Director.

CENTRAL OFFICES & WHOLESALE SEED WAREHOUSES:
92 LONG ACRE, LONDON, W.C.

OILCAKE MILL & MANURE WORKS :

'ONE & ALL" WHARF. GREEK ROAD, DEPTFORD,
LONDON, S.E.

14 DAY USE

RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED

LOAN DEI

This book is due on the last date stamped below,
or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only:

Tel. No. 642-3405

Renewals may be made 4 days prior to date due.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.

REC'DLD .IM5 '73-9 HM9 8

LD2lA-40m-8,'72
(Q1173SlO)476-A-32

General Library

University of California

Berkeley

YB 48531'

0 u

268712

'3

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY