Читать книгу The Flower-Patch Garden Book - Flora Klickmann - Страница 5

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It is New Year’s Day. I have been round the Flower-Patch gathering a basketful of brightness to carry indoors. The winter having been mild, as usual, there is quite a goodly number of summer-blossoming plants still doing their best to be gay.

There would have been many more, but for the annual necessity of clearing the borders when autumn arrives, in order to make all ship-shape against the coming of spring—a sad process, against which my soul rebels, for I hate to see plants which are still showing flowers, torn up and dumped on the bonfire! But I don’t know how to avoid it. If the place is to be kept in reasonable order, it is useless to wait till frost sets in, or the spring arrives! The work would never be finished before the garden was bursting with new life and energy.

But I do stipulate that some must be left; this enables me to gather flowers of one sort or another out of doors most weeks in the year.

Already primroses are peeping from their tufts of crinkled leaves; but they keep their stems short at this season, apparently aware that gales must still be faced, and at this height—for the Flower-Patch is high up on a steep hillside—the closer they keep to the ground till the Atlantic wild winds become tame again, the safer they will be.

The polyanthus doesn’t seem so nervous; many of these are holding up sturdy bunches of bloom. The garden cowslips have been in bloom for a month and more.

Blue stars of the periwinkle are dotted about among its glossy evergreen leaves. Festoons of canary creeper are bright with flowers round a sheltered window. Roses, sweet alyssum and mignonette can still be gathered.

Winter jasmine and Christmas roses are what one expects to find at this time of year. Also the scarlet anemone is very accommodating and is in bloom now.

But the flower that deserves as much praise as any, at the moment, is the corn marigold, the sunniest of gems, which is still blooming bravely. I often wonder why this isn’t more grown than it is, for it is one of the most obliging and uncomplaining of annuals.

It belongs to the Daisy family; the flower is like the moon daisy of the meadows, but it is the clear, clean yellow of the winter jasmine. It is sometimes called the yellow ox-eye. This particular shade of yellow has a charm all its own. It has no trace of orange in it; neither is it pale like a wild primrose. It can be guaranteed to bring glory into the dullest day.

Its foliage, too, is very pretty, a delightful shade of green with the faintest hint of blue in it; and well-cut leaves.

Beginning life as an unobtrusive annual hidden away in distinguished and aristocratic seed-catalogues among “Annual Summer Chrysanthemums,” at the fag-end of an imposing list you may find segetum grandiflorum, which is my beloved friend the corn marigold.

I give the Latin name, not because I like it. I don’t! I prefer the homely names of our English countryside. But the Latin name is safest when you are ordering some seed—which I hope you will do. For a few pence, you can procure enough to stock half an acre.

I have heard it said that in the past this plant was a perfect pest to farmers, it was so rampant in the corn-fields. But our locality is not suitable for much corn-growing. Hence, whatever may be its fortune elsewhere, it hears no harsh words here! On the contrary, visitors say “What a wonderful show of yellow marguerites! I had no idea they would grow like that out of doors!”

Sow the seeds sparingly, as for ordinary annuals; thin out when a couple of inches high, as this plant grows to a height from two to three feet, and branches in all directions if it be given space; every spray bearing blossoms. These appear about the end of June; then it blooms and blooms, till a severe frost cuts it down. It won’t stand a hard winter, any more than other annuals; but though our nasturtiums were turned to jelly a couple of months ago by ground frost, the corn marigolds are still smothered with yellow; and, like their first cousins, the pot marigolds, they will last on till next summer, if no severe frost reaches them, and the gardener doesn’t clear them out! By that time, a host of descendants will be springing up, all about the borders and paths, where they have seeded themselves. We are never without them.

Of course they become straggly, overgrown and untidy-looking eventually, and have to be cleared from orderly beds. In any case, newly raised annuals bloom more freely than the left-overs from last year as a rule; but the old plants are valuable if they can be kept through the winter when flowers are scarce.

The virtues of the corn marigold are many. It has no fads; is willing to grow anywhere, so long as it can have a little sun. All the members of the Daisy family like light and open-air sunshine, though not many can stand drought. So it is desirable to give this plant an open position; a little water when the weather is very dry; space to grow in, and then let it please itself—and very quickly it will please you too!

Another of its good points is its freedom from blight; at any rate, I’ve never seen any on my own plants. They seldom need staking; though, if they encroach on their neighbour’s property, they can be gently restrained with a stick and a little raffia. But if you want plenty of colour, let them spread themselves as they will. In big masses they are really dazzling.

Then for cutting, they are beyond praise. I have known them to keep quite fresh and sprightly in water, for three weeks indoors, after being cut. They, and the ranunculus, are the most-lasting-when-cut flowers that I know. I believe both these would look well at the end of a month, if the water is frequently changed. And cutting—in moderation and with circumspection—does the corn marigolds good. If single flowers are cut on their long stems, leaving most of the greenery intact, fresh blooms will be sent up from every shoot. It is most generous with its blossoms, so long as it isn’t allowed to run to seed. Remove the dead flower-heads and the plant will keep up a continuous supply of new-comers, till cut off by the cold.

Why this lovely thing isn’t seen more often in gardens, I never can understand. It will grow in towns, and asks for so little attention.

When you have grown the chrysanthemum segetum grandiflorum you may like to try others of the Annual Summer Chrysanthemums. They are all easy to rear, and come in a variety of colours, self and mixed. The coronarium varieties—garland daisies our great-grandmothers called them—are all very pretty, and, like the corn marigold, they are all good for cutting.

Two other annuals making a striking show of colour out of doors this New Year’s day are borage and virginian stock.

Borage does not stand severe cold; but so far, it has braved the frosts that carried off the nasturtiums, the marrows, and the scarlet runners.

The drawback to this plant is its habit of hanging its head with such extreme modesty that one can see next to nothing of its wonderful azure blue, unless it is high up on a bank or wall, and the spectator is down below it.

Strangely enough, it is now lifting up its head these winter days, holding its blossoms in a more rational way, presumably to catch every bit of sunshine. In consequence, we now have an expanse of blue such as we never see in the summer.

And what a colour it is! A radiant intense blue; one feels it is the tint of all others that should be called blue. Certain delphiniums have this blue; sometimes its relative the anchusa gets near it. Yet nothing is quite like the borage.

Occasionally it takes on pink, or verges on purple. But while both these are attractive, its pure blue is its outstanding charm, with the touches of black and of white.

The present-day neglect of this plant may be due to its ineffectiveness, when grown on the ground level. Also, like the anchusa, its rough hairiness makes it less pleasant to handle than most garden dwellers. And it doesn’t exactly shine as a cut flower! But if it can be grown among the upper crags of a rock-garden, or on a bank or slope, where it can be looked up to, it is a beautiful thing. And in winter, if it has escaped the frost, it comes as a revelation to see the small bushes covered with blue stars, like nothing else the garden can produce.

It seeds itself from year to year. All the attention it ever gets from us is a persistent weeding out of big chunks that grow up defiantly among the gooseberry bushes, apparently revelling in the fact that one can’t get at them without a stout pair of gloves—which one seldom has handy at the moment! And no matter how indefatigably one may work, to remove them from unauthorised places, one or two are sure to poke out their heads, later on, from the lower reaches of the sweet pea hedges, or disport themselves jauntily among the rhubarb.

Judging by the way they look after their own interests, and allow nothing to discourage them, I am inclined to think that, given one borage seed, it would be sufficient, in due course, to provide one with borage for a lifetime, and then have some over to leave in one’s will!

Of course everybody knows all about virginian stock!

But do they?

At any rate, for the few who may not, I want to proclaim its good qualities. Should you only know it as a quick-growing edging, which soon becomes a dried-up, untidy tangle after flowering, you don’t know the best of it.

Whereas, if the flowers are cut as soon as they fade, instead of being left to seed, a second crop of blooms will soon appear, and even a third, if your patience is sufficient for the job.

If it is only wanted for a short season to fill up a gap, pull it up as soon as the flowers are over, for it is very unsightly if left in the ground to wither.

But it is as a winter and early spring decoration that it can be so especially lovely. Seeds planted in late summer will begin to flower about November. If the winter is not too severe, these will give a pretty expanse of colour right on till the following May.

I have all sorts of odd boxes filled with it; these stand about in corners, or on the tops of walls, anywhere, so long as they are not fully exposed to the gales. They make very cheery pictures of happiness all through the darkest days.

Outside window boxes, facing the sun, can be kept in full flower with this useful little plant, right through the winter. Boxes and pots of it can be reared on a balcony or open verandah. It likes light and prefers to be out of doors, though it can be grown under glass. Or the boxes and pots can be brought inside when a hard spell of weather threatens. Only naturally one’s greenhouse space is needed for more valuable and delicate items in the winter.

Wherever it is planted, it comes up so quickly, and gets to business right away, making no fuss about it, that it deserves better treatment and more careful consideration than it gets.

Often it is regarded (like mustard and cress) as mainly useful for the children to grow in their own little garden. Or at best, it is usually grown in far too crowded a manner, which results in poor attenuated plants; whereas it can be made to provide delightful colour effects if sufficient space be given to it, and a suitable position.

There is a rich crimson variety which is effective, and each colour can be bought separately if desired. The prettiest treatment I have seen was a mixture of the white and the mauve varieties grown as a wide band in front of a massed bank of purple canterbury bells.

I would mention that, for some mysterious reason, the mauve variety is sometimes catalogued as red! If you stipulate for mauve, however, you ought to get the right sort, no matter what it is called on the label. It often starts out as pink, but develops into mauve.

Incidentally, a border that specialises in mauve and purple and white, with a touch of pale blue to heighten the effect, is a sight not easily forgotten.

A writer who gives a long array of plant names can become very boring! And it is extra tiresome if the plants listed require heat and cossetting, should it happen that the reader has neither a heated greenhouse, nor time to do the cossetting.

Therefore, I will only name one other plant that is a real ornament to the garden this first day of January—one that is the hardiest imaginable—variegated kale.

It is so seldom seen. Yet it is not only beautiful, but useful. One can eat it as well as admire it, though I prefer to keep it in the garden to the end of its praiseworthy career, it is so extremely decorative.

Procure your seed from a high-class firm, otherwise you may not get much “variegated.” Plant in the spring, as you would ordinary cabbage. Don’t be disappointed at their appearance when they come above ground; the youngsters won’t look at all remarkable at first, and probably you may think you have nothing but a row of broccoli or spring greens. If you have procured good seed, however, you will see a difference, as time goes on!

Thin them out as they grow bigger; but if you have room for them, don’t throw any away; plant the thinnings somewhere else.

By the late autumn you should have a crop of kale in lovely shades of pink, mauve, purple, wine colour, as well as white. Some will be bordered with the narrowest edge of green; others will show no green at all. At most, there is very little green; mauve and purple being the predominating colours in the foliage, with frills of white, pink, or a darker purple. It is a very frilly plant.

One packet of seed will literally give you yards of colour, which brightens and increases as the cold weather advances. To go out on a frosty morning, and see what looks like big bouquets of pink or rose-coloured leaves, all outlined with sparkling diamonds, comes as a great surprise to everyone who sees it for the first time.

And instead of the winter finishing its beauty, the plants in the following spring will send up tall spires of yellow blossoms, which are most effective when seen in waving masses. When these turn to seed, the plants should be pulled up; their work is done.

Anyone who can find space for a row of these beautiful plants should try them, if they do not know them already. They need about the same amount of space as a row of cabbages; and they look best planted in a row, or singly, where each can display its own colour scheme. But as each leaf is beautiful, one does not grudge them the space they need. As a background for a flower-border they are very striking. While in the kitchen garden they provide such a gay variety entertainment, that even the beets will turn pale with envy.

The sun has just dropped behind the Windcliff opposite us, in a glow of tawny orange; and above this, crimson and purple sunset bands stretch across a sea-green sky.

That pale green tint spells frost to-night!