JUNE 



IRISH GARDENING. 



85 



picturesque in large grounds, are not very suitable for 

 small gardens, as when they flourish they impoverish 

 the soil for the plants growing near them, and except 

 as boundaries they cut up the garden too severely and 

 formally. For the latter reason, and also to avoid the 

 necessity for much wearjitig labour, flower beds are 

 best made of a good size and of simple outline. It is 

 an easier task to lay out beds which are circular, 

 elliptical or oblong than those of intricate pattern or 

 elaborate design, and such beds are more easily kept in 

 a neat and tidy condition. A little experience of beds 

 of wonderful shape will quickly prove that it is the edges 

 which are troublesome 

 to maintain, as so 

 soon as the plants in 

 the centre are estab- 

 lished there is no 

 difficulty in hoeing the 

 soil and destroying 

 the weeds as they 

 appear, while the 

 edges remain a con- 

 stant and increasingl}- 

 difficult problem. But 

 beds are too formal 

 and too stiff" for small 

 gardens, and bedding 

 out is on too stereo- 

 typed a plan to be 

 worth imitating under 

 such conditions. 

 There should instead 

 be a freedom and an 

 individuality about 

 the home garden 

 which large gardens 

 can seldom provide. 

 The ideal is perhaps 

 an impossible one. 

 but there is a need 

 for an " impression- 

 ist" school of gar- 

 deners who will plan 

 gardens which will 

 suggest and not de- 

 fine, leaving room for 

 imagination to clothe our plant 

 than a varietal name and a 

 classification. 



The best natural type of soil for gardening purposes 

 is a loam. But what is a loam ? asks the amateur. 

 Let us try to explain. There are two extreme types 

 of soil, the sandy soil and the clay. An equal 

 mixture of these form the loam. A light loam has a 

 higher percentage of sand, a strong loam a higher 

 percentage of clay. If one carefully observes the 

 characteristics of the two extreme cases in the field, 

 particularly in relation to the character of their 

 natural vegetation, a good deal of suggestive informa- 

 tion may be found that can, with much advantage, 

 be afterwards applied to gardening. 



.^ Sand, it will be ob- 



■'- r^CV served, is made up of 



> ^"^ ?^-K small but yet easily 



"~ " ' seen grains of flinty 



^ ^|N,~ <s^ material, often inter- 

 'T;;;::;;^ /?- r? ^ mixed with glistening 

 ^ ■J, i; flakes of transparent 



'^1 ' ' 



The Soil ix Relation to the Root. 



This diagram is intended to show how the feeding tips of a root occupy 

 the soil. Each soil particle has a surface film of moisture from which the 

 root hairs absorb all the water required by the plant. The spaces between 

 the particles are filled with damp air which the living roots require for 

 breathing purposes. The best texture of soil for cultivated plants is when 

 these pores are neither too narrow nor too wide. It is part of the art of 

 potting plants to secure just that degree of texture that is 

 the p.-irticular plant you wish to grow. 



1 with something more 

 place in a scheme of 



The Soil. 



j^N intelligent knowledge of soil is the foundation 

 ^"^ of g'ood gardening. Beginners have, as a rule, 

 very vague notions as to either what a soil is or 

 what is required of it. The first thing to recognise is 

 that a soil must provide a medium solid enough to 

 afford a firm root hold, loose enough to allow of the 

 entrance of air to the breathing roots, and so finely 

 granular as will enable it to hold a fair stock of moisture. 

 The second thing to remember is that the soil must be 

 of such a character as will enable it to furnish enough 

 soluble salts of the right sort as will supply all the re- 

 quirements of the crop. 



mica. After rain it 

 quickly dries, as water 

 passes rapidly down 

 through its relatively 

 wide pores. There is 

 plenty of air in such 

 soils, as unless the 

 water is held up by 

 an impervious under 

 layer, it never gets 

 water-logged. It gets 

 hotter during a sum- 

 mer's day and colder 

 during a summer's 

 night than other soils. 

 A farmer would call 

 it not only a poor soil 

 but a hungry one. It 

 has very little plant- 

 food in it, and if ma- 

 nure is added to such 

 a soil it rapidly disap- 

 pears. The particles 

 of sand themselves 

 can offer n o t h i n g 

 in the wa}' of food 

 to the roots of vege- 

 tation. They are as insoluble as splinter of glass. 

 So long as they are damp they can supply water and 

 whatever happens to be dissolved in the water, but that 

 is all. The vegetation that naturally grows in such 

 soils have usually very long and very finely-branched 

 roots that .seek for water in the lower depths. They 

 are plants the roots of which by long inheritance de- 

 mand good drainage, which means an abundance of air 

 among the soil particles. The foliage of such plants, 

 too, have usually acquired special devices, whereby 

 they secure reduced transpiration, and thus husband 

 their often scanty supplies of water. 



Let us now turn our attention to clay. Find real, 

 pure clay. It has characters the very opposite of sand. 

 The particles of clay are so very fine that it is im- 

 possible to see a single grain of it without the aid of a 

 rather strong magnifying glass. If one shakes up a 

 little lump of it in water so as to separate the particles 



ited for 



