Plant bed

“ BEDDING PLANTS By bedding plants we mean those plants that are raised in great quantities under glass, and are put out into our gardens in May. To be sure, you hear of ‘spring’ and ‘summer’ bedding, because in the autumn, when you take up your summer plants, you can fill your bed with bulbs and spring flowers, such as Stocks, Wallflowers, Primroses, and Forget-me-nots. The principal of ‘bedding’ is, you see, to plant your piece of ground, so as to have a good display twice a year. Every autumn you throw away your summer plants, and every summer you throw away your spring ones. ”

“ The plant beds are little squares made of very rich soil, black and friable, with sand intermixed, on the sunny side of the garden palings that have a solid base board, or a wall or house, to afford protection. ”

“ For a centre to a circular bed nothing can surpass it in the summer and autumn flower-garden, while numerous other charming uses may be made of it. Not the least happy of these would be to plant a tuft of it on the green turf, in a warm spot, near a group of choice shrubs, to help, with many other things named, to fill up the gap that is now nearly everywhere observed between ordinary fleeting flowers and the taller tree and shrub vegetation. It is better to leave the plant in the ground, in a permanent position, than to take it up annually. ”

“ Culture in Beds.—The Hyacinth will grow well in any ordinary garden soil, but that which suits it best is a light rich loam. The bed should be effectually drained, for though the plant loves moisture it cannot thrive in a bog during the winter. It is advisable to plant early, and to plant deep. If a rich effect is required, especially in beds near the windows of a residence, the bulbs should be six inches apart, but at a greater distance a good effect may be produced by planting nine inches apart. ”

“ The earth encasing the roots sustained the plants during transportation and after setting sufficiently to prevent any loss worth mentioning. This method of the plant-grower can easily be employed on the Home Acre. Pots filled with earth may be sunk along the strawberry rows in the garden, the runners made to root in them, and from them transferred to any part of the garden wherein we propose to make a new bed. It is only a neater and more certain way of removing young plants with a ball of earth from the open bed. ”

“ When the beds are three feet wide, two rows should be transplanted along them: each row should be a foot from the edge of the bed, and they will consequently be a foot apart. In beds that are five feet wide, three rows should be transplanted, also lengthwise,—one along the middle, and one on each side, a foot from the edge of the bed. The distance from plant to plant in the rows should not be less than one foot; at this distance, good-sized heads will be produced: but, if very large heads are desired for exhibition or competition, the plants should be fifteen, or even eighteen, inches asunder. ”

“ A bed may be formed any time of the year, but the usual custom is to prepare it so as to be ready to cut, say, in the fall, for the first time. Take a pan or shallow box and sow the seed any time during the winter before March. When well up, so they can be handled, transplant into small pots, and from these shift into larger, say to three or four inch pots. Keep the shoots pinched back so as to form a stout, bushy plant. During winter they will require an artificial temperature of not less than 50 degrees. ”

“ As the thriving plant covers a considerable space, and there must be a certain amount of traffic on the ground to manage it, there should be one row in the centre of a four-feet bed, with a broad alley on one side; or, better still, mark out a ten-feet space, with a three-feet alley on each side, and in this space plant three rows two and a half feet apart, and the roots one and a half to two feet apart. The planting may be done at any time after the leaves have fallen, late in autumn, and during winter and early spring. ”

“ As regards the bed, it may be made once and for all at the time of planting, a few days being allowed for warming the soil through. But we much prefer to begin with smallish hillocks, or with a thin sharp ridge raised so as almost to touch the lights, and to plant or sow on this ridge, which can be added to from time to time as the plants require more root room. The soil, coming fresh and fresh, sustains a vigorous and healthy root action. ”

“ With round, oval, or, indeed, almost any shaped bed, begin in the centre and work towards the edge; in borders, commence at the back and finish with the front row. Plant with a trowel, disturbing the balls as little as possible, and when in the holes press the soil moderately firm. After the Bed is finished, give a good soaking of water to settle the soil at the roots. Manure for Flower-beds should always be perfectly rotten, such as that from a spent hotbed. When the plants are thoroughly established, water must only be given if they show signs of distress ”

“ Many prepare their beds in the forests, plant and cultivate much the same as the grower under artificial shade. While this is an improvement over the artificial shade, fertilized and thickly planted bed, it is not the way that will bring best and lasting results. ”

“ After the bed is once established the plants may be reset each year by using the side shoots from the base of the old plants. If not reset the bed will continue to produce for several years, but the burs will not be so large as from new plants. ”

“ Where boards are available they can be used for protecting plants that have been set in rows in the garden by placing them on the south side of the row at an angle that will cast a shadow over the plants, and holding them in place by short stakes driven in the ground. Laths, wooden slats, cotton cloth, or shaded sash are frequently used to protect plant beds from the heat of summer. ”

“ If an acre or more is to be planted it will in most cases be more economical to prepare a bed and grow the plants. The method of starting the plants will depend upon the locality and the acreage to be planted, the essentials being a bed of warm earth and a covering to protect the young plants during the early springtime. ”

“ 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 [Pg 40] 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. ”

“ As a general thing, for the ordinary home garden a bed three feet by twelve is sufficient, but the added expense of a few additional feet is so slight and the use of a bed so appeals to one once one realizes its convenience, that it is seldom a mistake to make it too large as, aside from the sowing of seed, it may be used for starting roots of bedding plants, cannas, dahlias, begonias, tuberoses, caladiums ”

“ The little plants appear in from five to seven days, and will need shade and moisture until they have become established. For beds that lie in partial shade they make beautiful borders, forming little rosettes of leaves that in the fall may be taken up and divided by pulling apart into as many plants are there are crowns; in this way one will, in a short time, secure a large bed or border. They should be protected in winter by a mulch of rough stable litter, evergreen boughs, or corn-stalks, and the bed raised to shed water. ”

“ Bedding is ordinarily a temporary species of planting; that is, the bed is filled anew each year. However, the term may be used to designate a permanent plantation in which the plants are heavily massed so as to give one continuous or emphatic display of form or color. Some of the best permanent bedding masses are made of the various hardy ornamental grasses, as eulalias, arundo, and the like. The color effects in bedding may be secured with flowers or with foliage. ”

“ Beds of perennials, Roses, bulbs, and especially of Lilies and Peonies, must be well rounded up to shed water, as all plants are injured by water standing about their roots. If not already high enough to admit of this, more earth must be added to raise them sufficiently. The earth from the window-boxes may be used to advantage, especially for the Tea-rose bed, where a foot of mellow earth, brought well up around the plants and rounded to shed water, will so protect them that, though the tops may freeze, all below the soil will be likely to live. ”

“ I don’t see how one can get along well without it, or without a short hand-rake. But I wanted to read what it says about making the garden beds. That is why I began reading it to-night.”
“It says the bed should be three feet wide by twelve long,” read Natalie.
“Yes, I see; but I have found three feet of soil to be uncomfortably wide to reach over when you wish to weed or dig about the plants. If the vegetables are bush-beans it is almost impossible to work in the middle of the bed without rubbing against the outside plants and breaking off branches. ”

“ With some help I have completed the little flower beds, which I intend to be so pretty next spring—they are intermixed with grass-plots, and are made up of good, fresh earth, properly prepared for the plants they are to contain. Mary, who seems to have a great deal of knowledge, has assisted me—for I find that much of the art of gardening consists in suiting the soil to the nature of the plants. In my jonquil bed, she advised me to put abundance of sand, and no manure. ”

“ Hyacinth beds will be a new thing here, but I doubt if they will make us quite so happy as has hitherto the unexpected advent of some stray pyramid of small odorous bells, pink, blue, or creamy-white, in out-of-the-way places about the garden. After their flowering is over, the pot-bulbs are always turned out somewhere in the borders. When a plant has lived with us for a time under the same roof, or even in the green-house, giving out for us its whole self of sweetness or of beauty, it seems so cruel that it should at last be thrown away as if worthless and forgotten! ”

“ Beds should be well covered before the sun has left them in the afternoon, and not opened in the morning until the sun is well up. Seeds of vegetables for early planting, and those of annual flowers may be sown, and cuttings of green-house and bedding plants started in pots. Such a bed will also be a favorable place for the propagation of grape eyes, in which an experienced person will often succeed better by this humble means, than with the best designed and most conveniently arranged propagating house. ”

“ But let no one persuade us that the newly planted beds would look better if raked smooth instead of being left quite rough. A smooth rose bed means that the soil cakes hard, preventing the rain penetrating in summer, and the frost mellowing the ground in winter. And from early spring to late autumn the hoe should be kept constantly at work between the plants; not merely to keep down weeds, but to keep the surface of the ground open to the influences of rain, sun, and the watering-pot. ”

“ If the bed be not hot enough, fresh litter should be laid round its sides; but, if it be too warm, they should be perforated with a stake, to give vent to the heat; and, as soon as the bed acquires a proper temperature, the holes are to be closed up with fresh earth. When the plants begin to shoot their third, or rough leaf, another bed should be prepared for them, similar to the first; and, when the soil is thoroughly warmed, they should be transplanted into it, in holes about a foot deep, and nine inches broad, filled with light, fine, fresh mould, laid in a hollow, circular form. ”

“ Do we want a successful flower bed—one that our neighbors will envy—or one in which the plants are struggling to exist? If we want the former—and who does not?—we must give our plants good pasturage. They are as fond of the fat of the land as we are, and, since they gladden our hearts with their radiant blooms, we should treat them fairly. And how? By giving them a good, deep soil for their root-run, not only rich in food, but loose and friable. ”

“ Now, in another picture the garden holds, things are somewhat altered. Instead of the big Tulip bed on the lawn there are a number of small cut beds with long beds behind them on either side of a new gravel walk. Instead of the older fashioned borders there are startling colour schemes of carpet-bedding in which the flowers are made to look more like coloured earths than anything. In the long beds, instead of the profusion of Hollyhocks, Sunflowers and bushes of Roses, a primness reigns. ”

“ Even these can be improved by a broad edging of grass to every bed. Herbaceous borders are delightful; we cannot live without them, but we do want beds too, they are so brilliant, so useful, and so well-behaved. “Bedders” are the good children of the garden, herbaceous plants the wayward. To manage them is like playing a game of croquet with Wonderland Alice’s [Pg 79] live flamingoes for hoops and mallets; the plants have the same habit of taking their way, not ours, and this puts us more than ever in conceit with our little plots of green enamel, set with coloured flowers like jewels. ”