CHAPTER IX 



Sweet Peas in Suburban Gardens 



IF your garden is in the suburbs, and has less than its fair share 

 of light and sunshine and good soil, this is scarcely a good reason 

 why you should not attempt the cultivation of Sweet Peas. I am 

 inclined to think that the tremendous stir which Sweet Peas have 

 made during the last few years has tended somewhat to create an 

 impression that these flowers are difficult of cultivation. Perhaps 

 it is that the standard of well-grown Sweet Peas has been raised, and 

 that even small growers have come to expect more from their own 

 efforts. The Sweet Pea is one of the easiest of flowers to grow, and 

 needs only the most elementary cultivation to give most satisfactory 

 results. Yet is not this the reason so many achieve results which 

 can only be described as mediocre ? For I think it will most 

 generally be found that failures, not only with Sweet Peas, but with 

 all kinds of flowers, are attributable to the neglect of elementary 

 details. 



And the chief of these is digging, for even the free application 

 of manure cannot make up for neglect of digging. In fact heavy 

 applications of manure to undug soil are liable to render the latter 

 sour and altogether uncongenial to the roots of plants. A mesure 

 (as the French gardeners would say) as the conditions of soil and 

 atmosphere decrease in suitability, so the value of digging is en- 

 hanced. Therefore, in the suburban garden it may be said to have 

 reached the maximum of usefulness. So the very best advice I can 

 give to any suburban gardener who wishes to grow Sweet Peas 

 really well (and they can be grown well in the suburbs) is to dig, dig, 

 dig. Dig the border where the seeds are to be sown, not one foot 

 deep, but two or even three feet deep. The deeper in reason the 

 soil is dug, the higher will the Sweet Peas grow. For instance, 

 Sweet Peas in tubs 'which contain only about twelve inches of soil 

 grow, say, six feet high ; in ground dug two feet deep they reach 

 eight feet ; while Mr. T. Jones and other famous exhibitors trench the 

 ground three feet deep and grow Peas ten and twelve feet high. 



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