DECEMBER 



IRISH GARDENING. 



189 



Flower Garden and Pleasure Grounds. 



By E. Knowldin, F.R.H.S. 



"Gaunt, grey, .and grim, with lagging limb, 

 December crawls along, 

 A haggard dame, with skinny frame, 



She drones a dismal song ; 

 On, on she goes through falling snows, 



With sighs, and sobs, and tears. 

 Until herfalt'ring footsteps reach 

 The graveyard of the years." 



DRAWN BLANK. -As far as the formal flower- 

 garden is concerned we should like to shunt 

 December out of the calendar. That is, where 

 the spring-bedding has been carried out decently and 

 in order, for, to our mind, it now resembles the prepara- 

 tion for some pyrotechnic display, where the coming 

 glories are bottled up in barren-looking framework 

 awaiting the touch of the operator in the form of the 

 caressing hand of spring to transform the whole into 

 life and colour ; or like the belle who has given up 

 herself to somnolent curl-papers and rests in the chry- 

 salis state ere putting on the whole armour of frills and 

 furbelows for the ball. 



Contingencies. — We may not forget, nevertheless, 

 that the protecting hand is necessary, that nothing goes 

 aglee to mar the devoutly wished for consummation of 

 ove's labours, for all this buried wealth is at the mercy 

 of marauders in the way of mice, slugs, and birds ; and 

 respecting the latter and their love for tulips and cro- 

 cuses, we quite agree with the poet apostrophising them 

 with " Birds ! Birds ! Ye are beautiful things, with your 

 earth-treading feet and your cloud-cleaving wings," 



if -if you'll let our bulbs alone ; otherwise "bad cess 



to yez." We once lost ;^6o worth of bulbs from a 

 flower garden which our feathered friends found a week 

 after they were planted, and " whipped" the lot. 



Rats ! — The rat has been getting a pretty bad name 

 of late, and in our experience he richly deserves 

 it all. Even single-handed he is quite able to live up to 

 his worst reputation in the garden. We have had him 

 shelling peas in summer, stripping Brussels sprouts 

 in winter, not to mention gnawing the vine-stems 

 through which he had travelled a couple of months 

 before to sample the grapes, whilst no bulbs are safe 



from his attentions, and and he is an unmitigated 



scoundrel to whom we v/ould show no more mercy than 

 in Hamelin City, where, "Go, cried the Mayor, and get 

 long poles ; poke out their nests and block up their 

 holes," the up-to-date version of which is run to 

 George's Street and get Watson's Virus. 



A Quietus. — There is pretty conclusive evidence that 

 having it out with the rascally rat leaves one gardening 

 worry the less, but what we want to come at is now 

 is the time for negotiations— the fight to a finish. Well 

 do we recollect a rat invasion in Kildare, when they 

 trooped in on us from the woods, "Grave old plodders 

 gay young friskers, cockingtailsand pricking whiskers," 

 nor how with the assistance of " Mister Hackett " we 

 prepared a Barmecide feast for the rodents whilst a 

 hard frost prevailed, which was availed of to the extent 

 that for twelve months, at least, the rat was as rare as 

 the dodo. As history is repeating itself, and the time 

 is opportune, need we apologise for the digression ? 



Small Game. — Still, relative to our subject, the season 

 is with us when we are apt to don a very comfortable 

 cloak spun from the yarn of imagination — that the same 

 frost which has our garden in its grip has our despic- 

 able enemy, the slug, by the throat, and is very nicely 

 settling accounts without our interference. Miss 

 Ormerod, however, in her indefatigable entomological 

 researches, blew the bottom clean out of that belief, and 

 demonstrated by indisputable fact that our old enemy 

 can not only endure being frozen stiff and solid in the 

 soil, but is protected in it from birds, and when he 

 thaws out it is with a smile and an appetite which bodes 

 ill for our pets and is not flattering to our credulity. 



Out of Evil.— We may, nevertheless, give a season- 

 able and reasonable snap of frost the credit for some 

 benevolence, if it is only that of preventing the preco- 

 cious primrose from rushing into print, and for which 

 "The divine Williams," as a French friend dubbed the 

 Bard of Avon, seemed to have a soft spot in his heart 

 when speaking of '' pale primroses which die unmarried." 

 Serve 'em right, we say. We are looking forward to more 

 seasonable things as Christmas approaches in Chimon- 

 anthus fragrans, which on a warm wall with every blink 

 of sunshine ''breathing sweets ditTuse." We have 

 already had the first snowdrop in Galanthus oclobrensis, 

 whose only excuse for coming at all seems merely to be 

 talked about. 



Winter Flowers. — Most valuable and generally 

 appreciated, however, are the Christmas roses, especially 

 if one: has that good type glorified with the name 01 

 Helleborus niger maximus. The cool, moist year seems 

 to have suited it, for we see strong tufts in which the 

 stiff-necked buds are looped in close cushions awaiting 

 the call of kindness to give us Christmas roses, all ot 

 which, of course, is very easily managed by lifting the 

 clumps, binding the roots up in moss with iron wire and 

 putting them in the greenhouse. And that's the way to 

 kill 'em, some will say. Well, and in spite of the plant's 

 aversion to disturbance, we used to do this without kill- 

 ing by using two batches in alternate years, and for 

 some years without deterioration. 



Winter Foliage. — How cheery now is gold among the 

 green ! Surely the golden privet is one of the finest 

 evergreens or ever-yellows which ever came to gladden 

 up our gardens, and it came so quietly, how, when, or 

 from where we don't know, and it increases in favour, 

 whilst its capabilities have room for amplification when 

 planters can be induced to let themselves ^o and drop 

 their dotting and dribbling. We say garden advisedly— 

 yea ! and the flower-garden at that— for we see not a few 

 over-bedded places where the monopolising of a few of 



