IRISH GARDENING 



35 



Notes from a Small Garden. 



By R. Lloyd Peaeger, B.A. 



Saponarias. 

 For the rock gardener who has an eye for quiet, 

 pleasing colouring, the dwarf Soapworts deserve 

 more attention than they usually receive. They 

 are little clumpy plants, a couple of inches to a 

 foot high, soft yellow or red in flower, and by 

 hybridising, Siindermann has succeeded in mix- 

 ing these colours in a pleasing manner. Among 

 the yellows, bellidifolia and lutea are to be com- 

 mended, while the red or reddish species include 

 caespitosa, cypria, pulvinaris and libanotica, 

 which are all worth growing. By the crossing 

 some of these, Boissieri, Siindermann, Wienman- 

 niana, and Willkommiana have been produced, 

 and all of them are most pleasing. They are 

 plants not very easy to obtain, but I notice that 

 in spite of war difficulties, Siindermann still holds 

 a fine stock of them. All that I have tried, I 

 have found to be long-lived when given good 

 drainage and plenty of sun. 



Plants I have Killed. 



It is fortunate that time softens the sense of loss, 

 for, unless one is a very timid gardener, and 

 sticks to Arabis and Montbretia and Doronicum, 

 failures are inevitable, and, if one has any enter- 

 prise at all, numerous. I can think of whole 

 cemeteries full of beloved corpses, and if I allowed 

 the thing to get on my mind, might awake at 

 night, exclaiming, like Richard III., " Me- 

 thought the souls of all that I had murdered came 

 to my tent." Yet the only way to get to know a 

 plant is to grow it, or to try to grow it. In my 

 enthusiastic days I wanted to have and to know 

 every rock plant. I bought from catalogues at 

 sight. And so, among crowds of rubbishy things 

 appearing under alluring names, Eritrichiums 

 and alpine Androsaces, Lewisias, Spigelias, and 

 Regelia Irises passed in sad procession through 

 my hands, and, like the cloud-capt towers, left 

 not a rack behind. But in many cases success was 

 achieved through failure, and, for the benefit 

 of other adventurers, I give a few hints, though 

 there is nothing new in them. First, I am a firm 

 believer in the unsightly zinc ring. Even with- 

 out its picturesque refinement of an encircling 

 copper wire, to give the slugs a foreta!;te of the 

 sensations of electrocution, it is quite effective in 

 keeping pests away; and pests, particularly slugs, 

 are wonderfully enterprising about sampling a 

 new or weak plant. Furthermore, it guards 

 against scratching birds and trampling dogs and 

 cats. It also tends to keep the plant cool in hot 

 weather and warm in cold weather, and if rain 

 or sun or frost is excessive a scrap of glass laid 

 across it often saves a plant's life. So every small 

 plant that goes into the open gets its zinc ring 

 until it has found its feet, and the death-rate has 

 been very much diminished thereby. I have of 

 late years tried, with much success, dibbling in 

 single cuttings of such things as Pinks and Ero- 

 diums and Saxifrages wherever they are wanted, 

 in early spring or when tlie August rains have 

 come (as they always do, bless 'em !), each with 

 a zinc ring, and find I get a good plant quicker, 

 and with less trouble, than by using boxes and 

 subsequently planting out. 

 Second point : If a plant will not grow by being 



fed, try starving it. Many choice rock garden 

 thnigs, such as the dwarf shrubs and sub-shrubs 

 of the Mediterranean region, and the woolly 

 things from semi-deserts, live naturally in a very 

 poor soil, and this is what they need. As cases in 

 point, I have Cytisus .4 rJornJ— usually found 

 troublesome, I understand— forming a mat a yard 

 square; VelJa pseiuJo-cytisus, four feet high and 

 eighteen feet round; Vella spinosa, a foot high and 

 six feet round, with a butt over a foot in cir- 

 cumference; and on a gravel path— nowhere else— 

 Hypericum fragile forms mounds a foot high and 

 nine feet round, and sows itself in abundance. 

 These are, I am informed, about the best plants 

 of these species to be seen in Ireland, and they 

 all grow in poor soil, and have never been fed. 



Again, we lose more things in this country from 

 winter damp than from any extreme of heat or 

 cold. A little care to guard against this is amply 

 repaid, and, as is well known, the plants to be 

 protected are especially those with hairy or 

 woolly leaves — Androsaces, Marrubiums, Asperula 

 Athoa, and so on. No elaborate apparatus is neces- 

 sary. I use broken pieces of glass. Take a triangular 

 or squarish piece and in autumn push it firmly 

 into the ground as close to the plant as is safe, at 

 an angle of about 45 degrees, so that it leans over 

 the plant. This keeps off the weight of winter 

 rain while leaving free circulation of air, and the 

 difference in appearance of a plant so treated and 

 one left wholly exposed to the weather is often 

 most striking. 



Lastly — for I mu.st bring this sermon to a close — 

 do not be daunted by a first failure. Try a plant 

 at least three times, in a different place each 

 time. Some of the things which you have diffi- 

 culty in establishing you will end by weeding out 

 in handfuls. I quite agree with Mr. Scaife that if 

 a species won't grow with you, have done with it; 

 there are plenty of good things that iriU grow. 

 But, if it is a good thing, do not give it up with- 

 out a fair trial. Glorious failure is better than 

 mean success. 'Tis better to have loved and lost 

 than nevei' to have loved at all. 



Some Flowering Plants of a Woodland 

 Garden. 



Flowers for a woodland or wild garden need 

 some care in selecting for, apart from the fact 

 that they have to put up with a certain amount 

 of shade and drip, it is by no means all plants 

 that look well in association with natviral sur- 

 roundings. To give an example, what are known 

 as " coloured " Primroses and Polyanthuses 

 always, to my eye, look out of place in grass or 

 creeping ivy, though they may do quite well. 

 Then, among Narcissus, though I know not why. 

 few are so pleasing as the little native Daffodil, 

 the Trumpet set and some of the stars of lesser 

 magnitude, but tlie Bunch-Flowered, the Doubles, 

 and a good many more of the more decorative 

 sorts are very liable to offend. 



Then a suitable woodland plant must, to a great 

 extent, be able to take care of itself. It has to 

 face some competition with native herbage, 

 though a little help may always be given where 

 desirable. But regular manuring, staking, water- 

 ing, .spraying, and the general round of attention 

 usually ciemanded by border subjects, must be 

 reduced to a minimum, or your wild garden loses 

 half its significance and charm. 



Heathers being such first-rate plants for any lime- 



