SOILS AND CULTIVATION IN THE FLOWER GARDEN. 385 



CULTIVATION AND WATER. Many think that heavy watering is 

 necessary in seasons of drought, and it may be worth while showing 

 how such heavy labour may be avoided. There are soils which are 

 so thirsty, like the hot sandy soils of Surrey, that watering 

 is essential, and some chalky soils, too, are almost hopeless with- 

 out heavy watering, while water is often extremely difficult to get 

 enough of on dry hills. But under general conditions there is not 

 much trouble in getting rid of this labour and its attendant ugliness. 

 The essential thing is to make the beds deep enough. Even with the 

 best intentions, many people fail to do this, and workmen in forming 

 gardens are sometimes misled as to the depth of soil in beds, made 

 when gardens are being laid out, the soil when it settles being really 

 much less than it seems in the making. The best way for those who 

 care for their flowers is to dig the beds right out to a depth of 30 

 inches below the surface before any of the good soil is put in. Then, 

 if for general garden use such beds are rilled in with good, rich, loamy 

 soil and are gently raised, as all beds should be in wet countries, 4 

 inches or 6 inches above the surface, they will rarely be found to 

 fail in any drought. Much depends on the size of the bed ; the little, 

 angular, frivolous beds which have too often been the rule in gardens 

 cannot resist drought so long as broad simple beds. With these pre- 

 cautions, and also autumn and winter planting, we ought, in the British 

 Isles, to free ourselves from much of the heavy labour and cost of 

 watering, and it would be better to have half the space we give to 

 flowers well prepared, than always be at work with the water barrel. 



To be busy planting in autumn and early winter is a great gain 

 too, because the plants get rooted before the hot time comes, and the 

 kind of plants we grow is important as regards the water question. 

 If it is merely the mass of bedding plants with which many places 

 are adorned in summer, these being all put out in early June, in the 

 event of a hot summer there is nothing else to do but water all the 

 time, or we lose them, as of course the roots are all at the surface 

 in June. But where we have deep beds of Roses, Lilies, Carnations, 

 Irises, Delphiniums, and all the noble flowers that can be planted in 

 autumn or winter, we may save ourselves the labour of watering often. 

 Well prepared beds of choice evergreen or other flowering shrubs, with 

 Lilies and the choicest hardy flowers among them, also resist drought 

 well. Thus it will be seen how much we gain in this way alone by the 

 use of right open-air gardening. 



What is here said, although true of the south of England and dry 

 soils generally, is not so as to soil on cool hills, and in the west country 

 where the rainfall is heavier. In such cases it is not nearly so import- 

 ant to have the soil so deep, and a good fertile soil half the depth, 

 with copious rain, may do. But, taking the country generally, there 



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