Archive for April, 2006
There is no more stately a flower than the rose. Just simply gorgeous in its beauty. Of course, the range of variety is outrageous. Let’s study how to cultivate the rose in our garden:
CHAPTER XIX.
ROSES—CULTIVATION AND PROPAGATING.
The Rose is preëminently the Queen of Flowers. It has no rival in the floral kingdom, and will always stand at the head in the catalogue of Flora’s choicest gems. To it alone belongs that subtle perfume that captivates the sense of smell, and that beauty of form and color so pleasing to the eye. Add to all this, it is one of the easiest plants to cultivate, as it will grow and flower in almost any soil or climate, requiring but little care and attention as compared with many other favorites of the garden.
The showy tropical bulbs - how we ooh and aah.
CHAPTER XVIII.
TROPICAL BULBS. — TUBEROSES.
Gladioluses, Tuberoses, Cannas, and Caladiums, come under this head, and are the best known of this class of bulbs. They are not hardy, and the slightest frost will injure them more or less. It is customary to allow tender bulbs of this kind to rest during the winter, the same as one would an onion. They can be safely kept through the winter under the staging of the green-house, in a dry, frost-proof cellar, where there is plenty of light, or in any other place where potatoes can be safely stored. Tropical bulbs of all kinds are much benefited by planting them in good, light, loamy soil, well enriched with well-rotted stable manure. They may be planted out in the open ground as soon as it can be worked in the spring, and all danger from heavy frosts is over.
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That’s a quaint phrase, “Holland Bulbs”, I guess we don’t really think about Holland so much these days. To you and me, it’s just this species or that species of tulips.
Here’s a guide to the fall bulbs from the book Your Plants
CHAPTER XVII.
FALL OR HOLLAND BULBS.
That class of bulbs known as Fall, or Holland Bulbs, includes Hyacinths, Crocuses, Jonquils, Tulips, Narcissuses, Snow-drops, and several less known kinds. These bulbs are grown in Holland in immense quantities, the soil and climate of that country being peculiarly favorable to them, and they are annually imported into this country in great numbers. The fall is the time to set them out; any time from the first of October, to the middle of December. Tulips, Jonquils, Narcissuses, and Hyacinths, should be planted four inches deep, and eight inches apart each way; the Snow-drops and Crocuses two inches deep, and six inches apart.
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The kids and I picked up a couple of pots of pansies for my wife’s birthday. What a variety of colors and shapes available!
Here’s a guide to the pansies:
CHAPTER XVI.
ANNUAL FLOWERING PLANTS.—PANSY CULTURE.
Annuals flower the same season the seeds are sown, perfect their seeds, and then die. “There is,” says James Vick, “No forgotten spot in the garden, none which early flowering bulbs or other spring flowers have left unoccupied, that need remain bare during the summer. No bed but what can be made brilliant with these favorites, for there is no situation or soil in which some of these favorites will not flourish. Some delight in shade, others in sunshine; some are pleased with a cool, clay bed, while others are never so comfortable as in a sandy soil, or burning sun. The seed, too, is so cheap as to be within the reach of all, while a good collection of bedding plants would not come within the resources of many, and yet very few beds filled with expensive bedding plants look as well as a good bed of our best annuals, like Phlox, Petunia, or Portulaca, and for a vase or basket many of our annuals are unsurpassed. To annuals, also, we are indebted mainly for our brightest and best flowers in the late summer and autumn months.
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