Birds and flowers, or, The children's guide to gardening and bird-keeping

CHAPTER VII. Window Gardening

Plates and bowls of flowers. — Little Hyacinths and Dwarf Tulips. — Pink, and blue, and white groups. — How to manage Bulbs. — Darkness. — Warm water. — Plants to be close to the window. — Cyclamen. — Saucerful of Crocuses and Red Tulips such sweet-scented flowers ... Page 38

KALENDAR OF WORK TO BE DONE IN THE GARDEN.

January.

Root work. — Leaf soil. — Charcoal. — Food of plants. — Wheeling soil to the garden. — Shed work. — Nice work for indoors in the evening. — Coloured paper or wafers for marking plants. — Garden memoranda. — Planting Bulbs and Anemones. — Window flowers. — Washing plants 44 February.

Deep digging. — Don’t stand on borders. — Transplanting flower roots. — Adding new soil. — Pruning Roses. — Window garden.' — Bulbs in blossom. — Seeds to be sown indoors.— Contrivances for warmth ... 58

March.

Mignonette. — Plants for rustic fence. — Transplanting shrubs and Rose-trees. — Mud bath. — Seed sowing.— Planting out hardy plants 66

April.

Stocks and Campanulas, planting. — Hollyhocks. — Watering frozen leaves with cold water. — Hardy annuals to sow out of doors. — Tender flower seeds to be raised in a little

warmth. — Watering seedlings 72

May.

Striking cuttings. — Easy way of growing most sorts. — Air at night when not frosty. — Sand and water to grow young plants in.— Potting. — Cuttings struck out of doors ... 76

June.

Notice of Colours. — Forking. — Tying and pegging down. — Cuttings to. pot for window plants 82

Contents .

v

July.

Rose budding. — Implements. — How to put in the bud. — Cloudy weather best for it. — Way of practising Page 84

August.

Cuttings struck for the winter’s stock. — Pinks and Carnations.— Cutting down old Geraniums. — Hardening ... 88

September

Taking in cuttings. — Sowing hardy annuals. — China Roses. Rose hedge. — Netting. — Bulbs. — Edgings. — Plants for

October.

Keeping plants. — Cut-down Fuchsias. — Building a turf-pit. — Light frames. — Linen lights. — Dry site for the turf-pit. — Boarded or wattled sides. — Ash bed. — Watering. — Airing and cleaning 95

November.

Planting a hedge of Roses. — Bank. — Lilies of the Valley and Purple Violets. — Moving Shrubs. — Bulb planting. — Bed of Tulips. — Beds of Crocuses edged with Snowdrops quite lovely 101

December.

Keeping things neat. — Damp to be avoided. — Mulching tender plants. — Window garden. —Flowers in blossom. — Pots of Primroses. — Successions.— Supports. — Sponging leaves of Evergreens. — Plants to be inside shutters at night 106

PART SI.

BIRDS.

CHAPTER I. Introductory

Responsibility of Bird-keeping not to be forgotten.— Birds starved by forgetfulness. — Few birds better than many. — Birds’ tempers. — Mr. and Mrs. Bullfinch. — My crusty Goldfinch. — Poor wild Robins caged and killed. — All caught birds miserable. — Happy little home-bred birds. —Far better and most amusing 115

VI

Contents .

CHAPTER II. Doves

Management. — Bathing. — Gravel. — Bay-salt. — Warmth. — “Tottum,” and Tottum’s tricks. — Pussy’s hypocrisy. — - Tottum’s punctual habits. — Little Doves. — Nest

food Page 121

CHAPTER III. Foreign Birds

Java Sparrows. — Wax-bills. — Glazed cage. — Indian Sparrows or Cut-throats. — Their pretty ways. — Sparrows singing to Puss. — Cost 126

CHAPTER IY.

Our Native Song Birds.

Harmless bird’s-nesting. — Feeding whole tribes in snow. — Robins’ nest. — Master Tomtit. — Mrs. Tom, and her behaviour.— Goldfinches’, Chaffinches’, and Bullfinches’ nests.

■ — Feeding nestlings.- — Letting old birds rear some. — Teaching tunes to birds. — Taming them. — “ Goldie” and “ Spinkie,” and their bad conduct. — Birds loose in a room so amusing. — Food and dainties 129

CHAPTER Y.

Canaries and Nestlings.

Choice of Canaries. — Little trees. — Open wire cages. — Management of the birds. — Number to keep. — Cats mistake brown Canaries for Sparrows. — Sunshine. — Building materials. — Hideous little birds. — 111 -behaved Canary chicks. — Canaries in fits. — Feet with clogs of sand. — Dangerous things in cages. — Teaching Canaries to

whistle 138

CHAPTER YI.

Talking Birds.

Starlings and Jackdaws. — Jackdaw-nesting. — Parrots. —

Naughty Polly. — Finches talking 149

CHAPTER YII.

General Rules for Bird-Treatment.

Remedies for sick birds. — Draughts. — Sunshine. — Canary fainting. — Cages. — Wires. — Seed and water things.— Baths. — Naughty Dicky and clean Fiddie. — Tommy’s retreat. — Warmth. — German Paste 153

OR, THE

PART I.

FLOWERS.

TEE YOUNG GARDENER;

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Chapter I. Introductory

FEW days ago, three young friends of mine made an urgent request that I would tell them about my garden when I was a child, and that I would advise them also how to manage theirs.

And so it struck me that a book about small gardens might really be very welcome.

I remember indeed, when we all were children, what work we had to find anything described in books small enough for our wants. Once we read all the chapters that spoke of “ Cottage Gardens,” because we calculated that they must be small ! J3ut, alas! we found that turnips and potatoes were

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The Young Gardener .

the plants chiefly treated of. Many an hour afterwards in the long winter evenings we pored over “ Mawe’s Gardening,” but that was an old-fashioned and a very solid work, and we did not make much out of it. After awhile, however, we were enchanted by a present that we received of a book called “Mrs, Loudon’s Gardening for Ladies.” Oh, how charmed we were — I have still got the book. But after all it was a great way beyond such limited wants as ours ; the fine long names besides were always so very tempting, and led us into trouble. I do not like them now, because we soon discovered that the best things get pet names ; and I have too gone back again to think, with most children, that the commonest things are nicest, so that we need not scout a Primrose or a Blue-bell— no, nor the wild Geranium, although they are very common.

Why, if we talk of common, the double white Narcissus grew wild in our own fields. Lilies of the Valley carpeted the woods, and the loveliest pink Violets that I remember anywhere grew on a limestone rock just above the quarry. And there was also a Hawthorn-tree, it was a pink one, and you should have seen the Violets that clustered around its root !

Do you want to grow specially fragrant Violets ?

What the Garden is like .

In that case try what some bits of old mortar or some nice broken limestone will do on yonr behalf, all nicely pounded up and mixed with the soil all ready — and then plant the Violets on a nice warm dry bank, where, nevertheless, they can get a little shade, such as a wild Rose gives, or a tuft of dry soft grass. (The nicest wild Violets always nestle into a clump of grass.)

I cannot tell for certain ; but I guess that if some people do all this, they will be sure to find nice sweet Violets some day.

But now I am reminded that we must “ begin at the beginning, and go on quite regularly all through the year,” and describe in its proper order all that there is to do in laying out the garden and keeping it in fine order.

Chapter II. What The Garden Is Like

It may be all very well for people who have got gardens, and who know exactly what they are like b 2

The Young Gardener .

already, but I cannot believe my three young friends are right when they say “please go on, and never mind describing what the garden is ; we only want, you know, to know just what to do with it.” No, before I begin I will describe what gardens may be made like.

One of our gardens was a long narrow border, with a gravel walk all along, and that was edged with Box, which did not answer nicely because we were always treading on it.

Another time we had a round bed on the lawn, and that was nice, because little round beds hold a great many flowers ; and again I remember having a three-cornered bed, with a little hedge of pale pink Roses round it — such early Roses they were too — and my sister and I used to have to kneel down quite close on the grass to smell them; and there was a bed of Roses close by full of sweet white Lilies ; and another too, with great large purple Violets, growing close all round. One early spring, when I was a little girl, I had the scarlet fever, and the first day I was better and they carried me to the window, what should I see but quite a mat of purple — the Violets all in blossom ; for I had been so ill, no one had .been there to gather them ! very soon indeed I coaxed a housemaid to make a

What the Garden is like .

for ay for me, and, oli ! the heaps of wet Violets that were caught upon my bed !

Perhaps, however, our very best, at least our completest garden, was one that was made for us by a goodnatured grown-up cousin, and I think, if I tell you all about it, some of you will manage famously to make one something like it.

It was then, at first, a piece of ground about twenty steps from one end to the other. The back was a shrubbery, and the front was a lawn, and in the shrubbery there was what we called a gooseapple-tree, with great large apples that were not very good to eat, though the cook always snapped at them to make into apple sauce. Well, our domain was along this shrubbery, and we had also a piece of lawn in front about as far as two people could reach if they took hold of hands and stretched out their arms across.

Quite large enough that was, you will allow, I think, for such little people as we were then to manage.

Well, the great thing is, as everybody knows, to make a garden all quite complete to itself, a hedge all round it, and a gate to go in by ! Don’t people feel independent when they have such a pleasure ground? Ours had just such a hedge, all covered

The Young Gardener .

•with, blue Convolvolus, Sweet-peas and Nasturtiums ; and do you know indeed, though I am a grown-up woman now, I would exceedingly like again to have such a garden. So you see that grown-up people do not at all despise a real nice child’s garden.

Shall we suppose that all my readers have got a piece of ground, something between six steps long and twenty ? Only if you have a choice as to where that is to be, mind be sure and don’t get a place which is always shady. A little bit of ground where the sun shines in the afternoon after two o’clock, or early in the morning, is perhaps the very nicest, and in such a place, if sheltered, you will have the earliest flowers.

I cannot help making one suggestion here ; every one knows how very awkward it is to have to do all “our untidy work,” making our heaps of stones, and stands of flower-pots, and beds of seedlings, and perhaps keeping our hand-glasses, in our only garden.

This is a thing that troubles grown-up gardeners quite as much as younger ones, only young gardeners more generally are much limited as to space.

Now I cannot help thinking that however small

What the Garden is like.

a garden is, it still may be possible to screen off the untidy part. Some people do this by making a tailish cross-fence, and covering it with some creeper that shuts out the view of a scrap of ground at the back. Others again keep the garden generally in no specially ornamental state, which latter is often the case where there are a good many small . gardens, but then they devote themselves to some one particular little bed or corner, into which they put everything that is prettiest, and which they often shut in by some little fence to itself. These atoms of gardens I have seen look lovely. You know beauty does not consist in being great ; and so a little garden of a few feet square may be in itself as beautiful and as complete as one of a few acres. We gave, I remember, one of the two flower-beds that I shall soon describe to one of our governesses, who was very fond of flowers, and she used to go and garden very busily, and always made it look quite a mass of flowers ; she was a capital gardener, and used to teach us all quantities of things about plants and gardening, while her own bed was as pretty as it could have been in a ten times larger garden. For people then who want to have a really lovely .garden, no matter how small it may be, I greatly

The Young Gardener .

would recommend a trellis or cross-stick fence, that gives a narrow border ; or a circular bed surrounded by a creeper-grown fence of the same description; or even a corner, 'providing it faces either south or west , in which they may make a tiny garden within a garden.

I shall hereafter give a few hints occasionally for this especial little nook of flowers. But what month shall we begin with ?

Well, do you know, I think March will do best, because people take houses often at Lady-day, and doubtless, therefore, that is the time when you will take your garden. Besides, before March perhaps you would not do much good.

Do you like a garden to be full or empty when you get it ? I rather like it empty because then it has all to be done.

The first thing, of course, will be : — 1 . To lay out the garden. 2. To put the ground into planting order. 3. To keep it always full and neat. The first of these three things has to be done once for all. So I will give a few chapters on these arrangements which may of course be missed by people who have got their gardens already laid out nicely, and who do not want to alter them.

The second also may or may not be wanted.

What the Garden is like.

Some people are fond of shirking all the work and making a small show cheaply. And these perhaps will have got the garden dug and put in regular order, and I should not wonder if it even were planted for them. For my own part, I always liked to do all the work myself, and for people who like it also I have described as clearly as possible how they should set about it. People can generally find some one who will wheel them a heavy load, or give the last tug to some tough tree that does not choose to stir for all our digging ; and for the raking, and forking, and hoeing, and weeding, and even the digging mostly, it strikes me, the more we do of it the more we enjoy our gardens, and the prettier we think our flowers are when they come.

The third concerns the keeping our gardens gay, sowing seeds too and raising cuttings for them.

All this is work varying with the months, so for this we will have a kind of monthly Kalendar* or list of operations. And as Spring begins in March, we will begin then also, and see what we have to do.

Chapter III. Laying- Out A Square Garden With A Rustic Fence And Gate

Suppose then, now, that we have each a garden, twelve steps long by about the same width in all, stretching from a shrubbery out into the lawn. The ground in front of the shrubs is capital for a kitchen garden, and on the slip of lawn we will lay out our flower beds. The question is, what shape are they to be made ? Because I know that a round bed or a diamond has a more grown-up look about it, and all sorts of little shapes and twists might really imitate a scrap of a great garden. Gravel walks, say some, and with little beds in between ; and that, no doubt, does very well indeed in places where grass will not grow, but where people can have grass, I beg to assure them they can have nothing better.

Now for this piece of grass — how nice and smooth it is, and what heaps of those pretty three-

Laying Out a Square Garden .

lobed clover leaves. Before we lay it out let us make a plan on paper.

That is work for a wet day in-doors.

If the garden is twelve feet long and six feet wide, get twelve little squares marked out upon the paper, and six rows more behind them, and then each square will be a foot of ground, and if we want to be very grand we may call them acres ! Suppose the paper is all nicely marked out in squares, the next thing is to fix how to make the beds. Our prettiest garden was just like this first pattern ; (Fig. 1 ;) the beds were

Fig. 1.

xxj

Beds of

Flowers.

Grass or Gravel.

The Young Gardener .

placed straight along the front, about six feet long and three feet wide, and in the middle there was a sort of arch.

The garden, I must tell you, was hedged in all round with the prettiest fence that I ever saw. Perhaps you know what the Midland County people generally call “ sallies” — they look to me like stout willow sticks, which I expect they are.

Well, our garden was fenced all the way round with these nice smooth-barked willows. The little posts were cut much about the same size, and hammered into the ground one across the other, standing, perhaps, about eighteen inches high. In the middle, I was saying, just between the beds, came a pretty arch, which was of' willow also, and which had fixed to it a pretty little gate. Was it not grand to possess an archway and to have a real gate to go in and out by ? We called it a drawbridge, and a moat, and a portcullis, and I do not know what besides; but hearing one day that all our names were wrong, and that portcullises were gratings, and that drawbridges were real bridges, and not mere pretty arches, and that moats were ditches always full of water, we were really for ten minutes almost in despair.

Laying Out a Square Garden . 13

After that we got happier, for the bright thought struck us that we would have a moat; and a splendid deep hole we dug, although the turf was hard. But really, old John was extremely angry ! He said that such young ladies he did never know, and he even threatened to give us no more flower-seeds and to lock up the tool-house when we wanted to get light rakes. I fear young ladies are sad plagues to gardeners !

However, with our experience of John’s indignation, you see I should be wrong to advise you to dig a moat.

For ourselves, we took to a portcullis, and as we had just read Marmion it all came very pat.

The portcullis, however, is rather an awkward thing — it is so apt either not to fall when we wish it would, or else, being down, it may refuse to rise ; and when people’s gardens are so strongly fortified, it sounds unreasonable, though possible, to clear the walls in a flying leap !

For my own part, if the time were to come again, I think that a gate might, after all, answer best.

Some of us are sure to have packthread, and very likely some bits of good stout cord, or even of strongish wire ; cord does best though.

The Young Gardener .

We measure how wide exactly our great doorway is, perhaps it may be three feet, and then we take two sticks just as long as that, and two more sticks the same height as the paling ; and all these four we tie together tightly into a kind of frame, afterwards fastening two more sticks across. If it is all done firmly, really, you cannot think what a nice little gate it makes ! And then with some list, or a piece of leather, (we coaxed a piece of a leathern belt out of a kind nurse, ) — the door should be “ hung ” — the leather, you understand, being passed round the frame of the outer part of the arch, so as to keep the two together, and the door swings on this quite well — better even than it would do on a proper hinge. Of course doors must shut — though I confess it is a use they have which is apt to be forgotten by people in a great hurry. But in this case I will describe a latch* The willow sticks, as every one knows who ever saw a basket made, bend extremely well ; we therefore tie a piece of string to one of our strongest posts, and bending the willow sticky which should be six inches long, we tie the ends tightly together round our door-post, so as to leave the stick just hanging like a loop. Then for the hook. That is rather difficult. We sometimes

Laying Out a Square Garden . 15

were impatient and got a stick from the heap that was piled up for pea-sticks, and cut it with a straight hook to it, just at the end. But that may not answer, as they are apt to be dry and rotten. The proper thing is to hunt out a proper ash-stick, one of those nice supple shoots which spring up from a root, and then cutting it off just where it springs out with a nice curve from the root, we use the curve of that for the best hook possible. Most boys, and perhaps some girls, know where to get such sticks !

This stick can be tied at one end to the gate, so that it can be raised and hooked into the loop — and then you see your gate is quite secure. It has also a charmingly rustic look.

But I have not yet told you how to make the arch.

For this we should begin with four stoutish posts driven firmly in at the corners. (Two of these must be used, you know, for the gate-posts.)

Having hammered these in very tightly, and perhaps got one of the gardeners to give a good thump at the top of each, we must get some nice

The Young Gardener .

easily-bent willows for the upper part — binding down the ends firmly to the posts, and making the bent sticks long enough to make a pretty arch.

Some people put three of these frames, and then they lace sticks through them, which makes the arch much closer.

Ours was done in this way, and quite the first year we had it the creepers grew all over it.

I really think most people could make something quite as nice as ours — and ours looked pretty even in the winter, because it was not mere ugly bits of lath and stick, but most of the posts took root and made quite a pretty fence.

When people cannot get willows, however, of which to make the fences, a boy who knows how to carpenter can make a dark green trellis which is also very nice and pretty.

A good rough sort is made of two long bars of wood laid parallel with each other, like A in figure 2, and then a set of laths are nailed across to each, like B, and then another set are nailed the other way, like C. This plan is much more elaborate than the other and requires a good workman to make it strong and proper. A regular carpenter would use thick square pieces of wood at A, and cut the places for the cross laths to fit in.

Laying Out a Square Garden.

Fig. 2.

A.