GARDEN AND GARDENING 



3424 



GARDEN AND GARDENING 



garden is the coupling area be- 

 tween cultivated garden and wood- 

 land or park. Its aim is to furnish a 

 connecting link between nature 

 and culture, and it is seldom a 

 success. The wild garden had its 

 vogue at the end of the 19th cen- 

 tury, and although it still exists in 

 many country seats of considerable 

 dimensions, and is very beautiful 

 if properly arranged, it too often 

 serves as an excuse for idleness and 

 untidiness. 



THE KITCHEN GARDEN. This is 

 that portion of the garden devoted 

 to the culture of fruit and vege- 

 tables. It should, if possible, have 

 a S. or W. aspect, but where this is 

 not possible protection from N. 

 winds should be furnished by a 

 wall or fence. Excellent fruit has 

 been grown in unfavourable situa- 

 tions by the erection of a wall 

 fashioned in the shape of a horse- 

 shoe, with its convex directed N.E. 

 Area Required 



To make the kitchen garden a 

 commercial proposition it should 

 be apportioned at the rate of one 

 acre of ground for every four 

 persons, taking the cost of labour 

 as normal. A kitchen garden should 

 always be walled or fenced. The 

 dividing hedge between the kitchen 

 garden and the flower garden has 

 no justification except from a 

 picturesque point of view. It robs 

 the soil of much nourishment, and, 

 at the same time, displaces a wall 

 or fence which would afford shelter 

 to a considerable number of fruit 

 trees. In kitchen gardens fruit 

 trees, when established either as 

 standards, bushes, or espaliers, are 

 left undisturbed, but vegetable 

 crops on each particular plot of 

 land should be varied year by year. 



Before planting any part of a 

 garden, it is necessary that the 

 combination of colour and the 

 variations of height which will 

 result from the plants established 

 should be considered from every 

 point of view. It is wise to map 

 out on paper a scheme of colour 

 beforehand. In any case results 

 must not be expected until at 

 least six months have passed, ex- 

 cept in the case of annuals. 



DRIVES AND PATHS. In all 

 gardens of considerable dimensions 

 a carriage drive of generous width 

 is necessary. Apart from this, 

 superfluous paths and drives are a 

 mistake. Before definitely laying 

 out a garden it is wise to study a 

 surveyor's plan of it, and draw 

 pencil lines between those points 

 which it is thought desirable to 

 connect. A straight path is always 

 the best path, and though, owing to 

 inequalities in the ground, and for 

 other reasons, some deviations will 

 be found necessary in most cases, 



serpentine paths for ornamental 

 purposes only are not merely old- 

 fashioned, but also waste a con- 

 siderable area which might be 

 devoted to cultivation. The best 

 material of which to construct 

 drives and paths is gravel, well 

 rolled and weeded. 



Asphalt is unsightly and un- 

 necessary in private gardens, 

 though the heavy traffic in public 

 parks sometimes necessitates its 

 use. Much of the labour formerly 

 expended in weeding gravel paths 

 can be obviated by the judicious 

 use of a chemical weed-killer. 

 Grass walks, which are really the 

 natural setting for flower beds, are 

 excellent in fine weather, but, unless 

 perfectly drained, possess disad- 

 vantages during and after rains, 

 particularly in heavy soils. Walks 

 composed of sandstone, broken 

 into irregular pieces, and arranged 

 horizontally upon the ground, 

 with mosses and creeping plants 

 between the crevices, are charming 

 and attractive when established. 

 The material, however, is not 

 always easily procurable. 



TREES AND SHRUBS. In large 

 gardens trees and shrubs may be 

 planted freely, as specimens, or in 

 small groups. In many villa and 

 suburban gardens, however, tree 

 planting is carried to excess, owing 

 to want of thought. A man who 

 plants a tree never lives to witness 

 the full result of his handiwork, 

 and, where a sapling may fit into 

 the garden scheme, or landscape, 

 with propriety, the full-grown tree 

 of half a century later will quite 

 possibly be an eyesore or even a 

 positive danger. 



Tree Planting 



A healthy tree takes much 

 nourishment from the soil, with the 

 result either that such nourishment 

 has to be replaced by manures and 

 fertilisers, at considerable expense, 

 or that the other inhabitants of the 

 garden are starved. Moreover, 

 large trees in small gardens divert 

 much sun, air, and moisture which 

 would otherwise be showered upon 

 the other plants alike ; while a 

 large tree close to a house is often 

 a positive danger and a menace to 

 health. All tree planting in 

 gardens should, therefore, be 

 carried out with the utmost dis- 

 crimination, and with an eye to 

 future generations. The same 

 remarks apply, to a lesser extent, 

 to shrubs. The difficulty is more 

 easily removable in this case, as 

 shrubs do not attain to a menacing 

 height, establish themselves far 

 more quickly, and, when planted in 

 groups or masses, can be thinned 

 as soon as they begin to threaten 

 the welfare of their neighbours. 



GARDENING UNDER GLASS. Glass- 

 houses are of three different shapes. 

 The lean-to, the simplest form, 

 merely leans against a high wall, 

 and, as a consequence, its inhabi- 

 tants can only enjoy the advan- 

 tages of the full rays of the sun for a 

 portion of the day, no matter in 

 what aspect it may be situated. 

 Commercially it is the cheapest- 

 form of glasshouse, and, for this 

 reason, is the most common. The 

 three-quarter span house depends 

 upon a wall for one of its sides, but 

 has a short, sloping span project- 

 ing some distance from it, and 

 affording the benefits of sunshine to 

 the plants within for a longer 

 period of the day than the lean-to. 

 The most useful but the most 

 costly form of glasshouse is the 

 span, which stands in the open 

 ground without the aid or protec- 

 tion of any wall. A span-roofed 

 glasshouse placed with its ridge 

 pointing N. and S. will enjoy the 

 sun's rays for the whole of the day. 

 Cleanliness and Pests 



Strict cleanliness is necessary in 

 glasshouses, especially where the 

 plants are grown in pots, and not 

 in beds or borders within the house 

 itself. These pots should be 

 periodically scrubbed and the 

 shelves washed over once a fort- 

 night, particular attention being 

 paid to cracks and crevices likely 

 to harbour insect pests. These 

 pests can be eradicated by means 

 of various insecticides (q.v.), but it 

 is far better to prevent them from 

 obtaining a footing in a glass- 

 house. With the same end in view, 

 the interior of a house should be 

 painted annually with white paint, 

 preferably during June or July, 

 when the 'usefulness of the structure 

 is at its minimum. 



THE HERB GARDEN. Until the 

 outbreak of the Great War few 

 herbs were grown, except mint and 

 parsley, in Great Britain, the sup- 

 ply coming chiefly from abroad. 

 It is necessary to grow herbs in 

 quantity, on a market-gardening 

 scale, in order to secure a pro- 

 fitable crop, but a writer in The 

 Daily Mail enumerates the follow- 

 ing varieties, the majority of which 

 can be grown easily : Some medi- 

 cinal herbs are wanted entire, 

 others only yield medicine in their 

 leaves, roots, or flowers. Among 

 the stalked plants we put the 

 sweet and aromatic herbs, garden 

 mint, balm and marjoram, tansy, 

 agrimony, sweet woodruff, clea- 

 vers, meadow-sweet, yarrow, pink 

 centaury, and feverfew ; also the 

 leaves of foxglove, elder, raspberry, 

 comfrey, and buckbean. The petals 

 of red roses and garden marigolds, 

 and the flowers of lime, yellow 

 mullein, marshrhallow, and camo- 



