EFFECTIVE FLOWER GARDENING.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2201, 16 March 1881, Page 3

EFFECTIVE FLOWER GARDENING.

(From the “ Field.”) Vases and rustic baskets, when well placed in a flower garden and planted with subjects in a tasteful manner, are very pleasing objects. The fine old Humea olegans is a graceful subject for service in this way, making an admirable centre plant with pelargoniums, fuchsias, Phlox Drummondii, petunias, Nierembergia gracilis, and others about it, with some trailing and climbing plants growing over the sides. The old Lophospermum scandens, Maurandia barclayana, Tropic ilum canariensis, and such like make durable and effective edging plants. Vases and rustic baskets look best when filled as full as possible, and there are many things that come in handy for the purpose. When the baskets and vases are planted a good watering can be given, and the surface mulched with cocoanut fibre to the depth of an inch or so. It must be remembered that vase* in particular are subject to the drying influences of sun and wind, and must be freely watered in consequence in drying weather. A cheek from drought will materially and injuriously affect the effectiveness of these garden ornaments. If a mulching of short dung and leaves or of cocoanut fibre be given the soil will bo kept cool and moist, and much labor in the way of watering dispensed with. In small gardens whore there are but a few beds, it is very difficult to make anything like an arrangement as a whole, nor is it desirable. The beds should bo filled with those things that are most acceptable to the gardener, avoiding, as a matter of course, anything in the way of incongruity. The first use of a flower garden should be that of presenting to the eye something pleasing, and which can constantly bo made a source of enjoyment to the gardener. The next should be to furnish flowers for the many uses to which they can be put. This necessitates the cultivation of suitable things, of which there are many. The pretty blue ageratum, the useful old cupped platyoentra, fuchsias, the fragrant heliotropes, annual and perennial lobelias, myosotis, marigold, Nierembergia gracilis, pansies, penstemons, double rackets, Aloysia citriodoro, stocks, asters, tropic d lums, verbenas, and others, are all plants that can be used with charming effect when judiciously mixed, and they afford much cut flower in the summer. After the plants are placed in the beds or borders, should any not grow so freely as may be wished, a little stimulus should be given—say weak manure water, or some of the many fertilisers that are now so useful to amateur gardeners. Sometimes amateurs buy new plants, but have little knowledge of their character. It is best to place them out by themselves until this is displayed, and it is seen what service they are likely to afford, rather than to risk a flaw, even in a simple arrangement, by having inharmonious subjects via-a-via, Sometimes plants die from unavoidable and unforseen causes and for this reason there should always be a few subjects in reserve to fill vacant places. By spreading out, supporting, tying into shape, or pegging down some plants that need a little attention of this kind, the effective display of particular subjects is furthered. Such trailing plants as tropmolums, phlox drummondii, verbenas,, thunbergias, &e., are greatly helped in this way. Pegging down is frequently resorted to, and the common fern or brake, where it abounds, is a convenient plant to out these from. Where fern is not to be found, wood that is cut off fruit trees, &c., can bo employed, cutting them into five or six inch lengths, and pushing the two ends into the soil, securing the shoot between them.

In the mixed border all herbaceous plants and hardy perennials that need it should be kept neatly tied up ; but it is a great mistake to gainer the shoots up into one untidy bundle; this practice is too commonly followed, but is offensive to good taste. Heat deal stakes can now be purchased at a comparative small coat; and if these are employed, one for each main shoot, and tying the smaller side shoots to these, the individual character of each plant is maintained. In dry weather a small Dutch hoe uied on the surface of the borders will be found of great benefit to the plants. The looser the soil is on the surface in hot, dry weather, the less do the plants suffer from the drought. Frequent stirring tends to keep down weeds. After heavy rains the surface will dry hard, and bake in the sun. Again the hoe comes into requisition, loosening the surface, and making it pervious to the air. The dahlia will bo a popular garden flower for many years to come, and the many bedding and pompone varieties are now much used in gardens, both for effectiveness and for cutting from in late summer. The plants should be put in rich soil, and a stake should bo put to each plant at the time. If delayed, injury is often done to the extending roots by the act of thrusting it into the ground. The dwarf-growing forms of double zinnias, dwarf marigolds, double and single pyrethrums, antirrhinums, and especially the pretty striped varieties, petunias, and heliohrysums may bo taken as representing many fine old-fashioned things of great beauty and fitness in the flower garden in summer. Many can grow these who have no convenience for cultivating the tenderest sorts of bedding plants, such as coleus, alternanthera &o. Lit no garden be without its patch of fragrant mignonette ; but let it be grown as it deserves to bo, and not starved as it too frequently is. A fine strain, like that of Farson’s Giant White, deserves the very best culture that can bo given it ; ard if the large spikes of flower be removed as they decay, lateral growths will be put forth, that will furnish flowers till the storms of autumn break up and bring to an end the sequence of effectiveness a well-managed garden always furnishes.