Читать книгу Gardening for Little Girls - Olive Hyde Foster - Страница 27

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Sweet peas require peculiar treatment for an annual. As early as the ground can be worked—about the middle of March around New York—get some one to dig you a trench (and it is best to have it run north and south), about fifteen inches deep. Have put in this trench a layer of well-rotted manure, then a layer of soil, a sprinkling of wood ashes, and then another layer of soil, filling the trench until it is left only six or eight inches deep. Soak your seeds over night in warm water to make them start more quickly, and then plant them two inches apart, in a double row. Cover with only a few inches of soil until they sprout, and then gradually fill up the trench as the vines grow. Train them on brush or chicken wire, and keep them well watered in order to get the best results.

The latest method I have had recommended for growing sweet peas—but which I have not tried—is to have the soil just as carefully prepared, but then to rake it smooth, make a straight drill only half an inch deep, and plant 3 seeds every 6 inches in the row. If all three grow, pull up the two weakest, leaving only the best plant every 16 inches apart. This way—with plenty of water and cultivation, is said to produce the very finest kind of flowers. You might try a few on the side.

During the hot weather put grass clippings around the roots to help keep them moist and protected from the hot sun. Cut the flowers every day in order to prolong their blooming.

A word about names, though, before we go a step farther. I intended at first to give you only the common names, despite the protests of a very good friend—an English botanist. To clinch her argument one day, she exclaimed with considerable heat, "Why, what they call 'baby's breath' here on Long Island might be 'infant's sneeze' up in Connecticut! But if you tell the children it's real name is GYPSOPHILA, they'll never be mistaken."

And later, when I found that foxglove (originally Folk's glove, alluding to the "little folk," or fairies) has been known also—according to Holland—as Thimbles, Fairy Cap, Fairy Fingers, Fairy Thimbles, Fairy Bells, Dog's Fingers, Finger Flowers, Lady's Glove, Lady Fingers, Lady's Thimble, Pop Dock, Flap Dock, Flop Dock, Lion's Mouth, Rabbit's Flower, Cottages, Throatwort, and Scotch Mercury, I concluded I would better urge you to remember its Latin name, DIGITALIS, by which the plant is known the world over.

The botanical terms will easily stick in your mind, too, because they are unusual. Then people who are familiar with flowers will know exactly what you are talking about, and you yourself will always have a certain pride in the scientific knowledge that enables you to call things by their right name.

You will see, if you study the lists given, what a simple matter it is to plan for a garden, big or little, and with reasonable care you will be rewarded with flowers throughout the season. The following list will give you more explicit information about the ones people like best:—