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I was my own gardener, and sixteen years ago I knew nothing
whatever of the business. The process of education was almost as amusing as
expensive; but that fashion of humor is threadbare. In those early days I would
have none of your geraniums, hardy perennials, and such common things.
Diligently studying the "growers'' catalogues, I looked out, not novelties
alone, but curious novelties. Not one of them "did any good" to the best of my
recollection. Impatient and disgusted, I formed several extraordinary projects
to evade my ignorance of horticulture. Among others which I recollect was an
idea of growing bulbs the year round! No trouble with bulbs! you just plant them
and they do their duty. A patient friend at Kew made me a list of genera and
species which, if all went well, should flower in succession. But there was a
woeful gap about midsummer—just the time when gardens ought to be brightest.
Still, I resolved to carry out the scheme, so far as it went, and forwarded my
list to Covent Garden for an estimate of the expense. It amounted to some
hundreds of pounds. So that notion fell through.
But the patient friend suggested something for which I still cherish his memory.
He pointed out that bulbs look very formal mostly, unless planted in great
quantities, as may be done with the cheap sorts—tulips and such. An undergrowth
of low brightly-coloured annuals would correct this disadvantage. I caught the
hint, and I profit by it to this more enlightened day. Spring bulbs are still a
spécialité of my gardening. I buy them fresh every autumn—but of Messrs.
Protheroe and Morris, in Cheapside; not at the dealers'. Thus they are
comparatively inexpensive. After planting my tulips, narcissus, and such tall
things, however, I clothe the beds with forget-me-not or Silene pendula, or
both, which keep them green through the winter and form a dense carpet in
spring. Through it the bulbs push, and both flower at the same time. Thus my
brilliant tulips, snowy narcissus poeticus, golden daffodils, rise above and
among a sheet of blue or pink—one or the other to match their hue—and look
infinitely more beautiful on that ground colour. I venture to say, indeed, that
no garden on earth can be more lovely than mine while the forget-me-not and the
bulbs are flowering together. This may be a familiar practice, but I never met
with it elsewhere.
Another wild scheme I recollect. Water-plants need no attention. The most
skilful horticulturist cannot improve, the most ignorant cannot harm them. I
seriously proposed to convert my lawn into a tank two feet deep lined with Roman
cement and warmed by a furnace, there to grow tropical nymphæa, with a vague "et
cetera." The idea was not so absolutely mad as the unlearned may think, for two
of my relatives were first and second to flower Victoria Regia in the
open-air—but they had more than a few feet of garden. The chances go, in fact,
that it would have been carried through had I been certain of remaining in
England for the time necessary. Meanwhile I constructed two big tanks of wood
lined with sheet-zinc, and a small one to stand on legs. The experts were much
amused. Neither fish nor plant, they said, could live in a zinc vessel. They
proved to be right in the former case, but utterly wrong in the latter—which,
you will observe, is their special domain. I grew all manner of hardy nymphæa
and aquatics for years, until my big tanks sprung a leak. Having learned by that
time the ABC, at least, of terra-firma gardening, I did not trouble to have them
mended. On the contrary, making more holes, I filled the centre with Pampas
grass and variegated Eulalias, set lady-grass and others round, and bordered the
whole with lobelia—renewing, in fact, somewhat of the spring effect. Next year,
however, I shall plant them with Anomatheca cruenta—quaintest of flowering
grasses, if a grass it must be called. This charming species from South Africa
is very little known; readers who take the hint will be grateful to me. They
will find it decidedly expensive bought by the plant, as growers prefer to sell.
But, with a little pressing seed may be obtained, and it multiplies fast. I find
Anomatheca cruenta hardy in my sheltered garden.
The small tank on legs still remains, and I cut a few Nymphæa odorata every
year. But it is mostly given up to Aponogeton distachyon—the "Cape lily." They
seed very freely in the open; and if this tank lay in the ground, long since
their exquisite white flowers, so strange in shape and so powerful of scent,
would have stood as thick as blades of grass upon it—such a lovely sight as was
beheld in the garden of the late Mr. Harrison, at Shortlands. But being raised
two feet or so, with a current of air beneath, its contents are frozen to a
solid block, soil and all, again and again, each winter. That a Cape plant
should survive such treatment seems incredible—contrary to all the books. But my
established Aponogeton do somehow; only the seedlings perish. Here again is a
useful hint, I trust. But evidently it would be better, if convenient, to take
the bulbs indoors before frost sets in.
Having water thus at hand, it very soon occurred to me to make war upon the
slugs by propagating their natural enemies. Those banks and borders of Saxifraga
hypnoides, to which I referred formerly, exact some precaution of the kind. Much
as every one who sees admires them, the slugs, no doubt, are more enthusiastic
still. Therefore I do not recommend that idea, unless it be supplemented by some
effective method of combating a grave disadvantage. My own may not commend
itself to every one. Each spring I entrust some casual little boy with a pail;
he brings it back full of frog-spawn and receives sixpence. I speculate
sometimes with complacency how many thousand of healthy and industrious
batrachians I have reared and turned out for the benefit of my neighbours.
Enough perhaps, but certainly no more, remain to serve me—that I know because
the slugs give very little trouble in spite of the most favourable
circumstances. You can always find frogs in my garden by looking for them, but
of the thousands hatched every year, ninety-nine per cent. must vanish. Do
blackbirds and thrushes eat young frogs? They are strangely abundant with me.
But those who cultivate tadpoles must look over the breeding-pond from time to
time. My whole batch was devoured one year by "devils"—the larvæ of Dytiscus
marginalis, the Plunger beetle. I have benefited, or at least have puzzled my
neighbours also by introducing to them another sort of frog. Three years ago I
bought twenty-five Hylœ, the pretty green tree species, to dwell in my
Odontoglossum house and exterminate the insects. Every ventilator there is
covered with perforated zinc—to prevent insects getting in; but, by some means
approaching the miraculous, all my Hylœ contrived to escape. Several were caught
in the garden and put back, but again they found their way to the open-air; and
presently my fruit-trees became vocal. So far, this is the experience of every
one, probably, who has tried to keep green frogs. But in my case they survived
two winters—one which everybody recollects, the most severe of this generation.
My frogs sang merrily through the summer; but all in a neighbour's garden. I am
not acquainted with that family; but it is cheering to think how much innocent
diversion I have provided for its members.
Pleasant also it is, by the way, to vindicate the character of green frogs. I
never heard them spoken of by gardeners but with contempt. Not only do they
persist in escaping; more than that, they decline to catch insects, sitting
motionless all day long—pretty, if you like, but useless. The fact is, that all
these creatures are nocturnal of habit. Very few men visit their orchid-houses
at night, as I do constantly. They would see the frogs active enough then,
creeping with wondrous dexterity among the leaves, and springing like a green
flash upon their prey. Naturally, therefore, they do not catch thrips or
mealy-bug or aphis; these are too small game for the midnight sports-man.
Wood-lice, centipedes, above all, cockroaches, those hideous and deadly foes of
the orchid, are their victims. All who can keep them safe should have green
frogs by the score in every house which they do not fumigate.
I have come to the orchids at last. It follows, indeed, almost of necessity that
a man who has travelled much, an enthusiast in horticulture, should drift into
that branch as years advance. Modesty would be out of place here. I have had
successes, and if it please Heaven, I shall win more. But orchid culture is not
to be dealt with at the end of an article.
About Orchids
About Orchids, 1893
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