90 FAMILY RECEIPTS. 



notices vi'crc v>Tittcn for the guidance of English gar- 

 deners, tliey are equally applicable to the arrangement 

 of flower-gardens in this country, by a slight alteration 

 Avitli regard to the time, as the spring is much earlier 

 in England, and consequently the ground there can be 

 Vforked, and seed sown a month or two before we can 

 commence gardening operations. 



The cultivation of the Flowcr-Garden\% simple compar- 

 ed with that of the kitchen-garden, both from its limited 

 extent and the general sameness of its products; but to 

 manage it to perfection requires a degree of nicety and 

 constant attention beyond any other open-air depart- 

 ment of gardening. As the stalks of flowering plants 

 shoot up, they generally require thinning, and props for 

 support; and the blossom, both of plants and shrubs, no 

 sooner expands than it begins to wither, and must be cut 

 off, unless, as in some of the ornamental shrubs, they 

 are left for the sake of the beauty of their fruit. Weed- 

 ing, watering, stirring the soil, cutting off stems which 

 have done flowering, attending to grass and gravel, 

 must go hand and hand in these operations. 



With respect to xhe general culture and manuring the 

 soil^ it should be subjected, as far as practicable, to the 

 same process of trenching to diifcrent depths as that 

 of the kitchen-garden. In the shrubbery this cannot 

 be done, but it, and also the earth compartments of the 

 flowder-garden, should be turned over a spit in depth, 

 and some vegetable mould, or very rotten cow-dung, 

 added occasionally. Every two or three j'ears the plants 

 in the flower-garden should be taken up and reduced in 

 size, and the beds or borders trenched, say one time at 

 two spits deep, another at three, and so on, adding en- 

 riching compost or manure completely rotted, accord- 

 ing to circumstances. If, instead of trenching, the old 

 earth were entirely removed, and replaced by good loam 

 from a dry upland parterre, the improvement would be 

 still greater. Most herbaceous plants flower well in 

 such loam, and for tlie more cultivated sorts, as border 

 pinks, polyantliuses, &c. that require a xich soil, a por- 

 tion of enricliing matter could be added to each plant 

 as planted, and a corresponding attention paid to such 



