Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) by L. H. Bailey

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MANUAL OF GARDENING

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE MAKING OF HOME GROUNDS AND THE GROWING OF
FLOWERS, FRUITS, AND VEGETABLES FOR HOME USE

SECOND EDITION

BY L. H. BAILEY

1910

[Illustration: I. The open center.]

EXPLANATION

It has been my desire to reconstruct the two books, "Garden-Making" and
"Practical Garden-Book"; but inasmuch as these books have found a
constituency in their present form, it has seemed best to let them stand
as they are and to continue their publication as long as the demand
maintains itself, and to prepare a new work on gardening. This new work
I now offer as "A Manual of Gardening." It is a combination and revision
of the main parts of the other two books, together with much new
material and the results of the experience of ten added years.

A book of this kind cannot be drawn wholly from one's own practice,
unless it is designed to have a very restricted and local application.
Many of the best suggestions in such a book will have come from
correspondents, questioners, and those who enjoy talking about gardens;
and my situation has been such that these communications have come to me
freely. I have always tried, however, to test all such suggestions by
experience and to make them my own before offering them to my reader. I
must express my special obligation to those persons who collaborated in
the preparation of the other two books, and whose contributions have
been freely used in this one: to C.E. Hunn, a gardener of long
experience; Professor Ernest Walker, reared as a commercial florist;
Professor L.R. Taft and Professor F.A. Waugh, well known for their
studies and writings in horticultural subjects.

In making this book, I have had constantly in mind the home-maker
himself or herself rather than the professional gardener. It is of the
greatest importance that we attach many persons to the land; and I am
convinced that an interest in gardening will naturally take the place of
many desires that are much more difficult to gratify, and that lie
beyond the reach of the average man or woman.

It has been my good fortune to have seen amateur and commercial
gardening in all parts of the United States, and I have tried to express
something of this generality in the book; yet my experience, as well as
that of my original collaborators, is of the northeastern states, and
the book is therefore necessarily written from this region as a base.
One gardening book cannot be made to apply in its practice in all parts
of the United States and Canada unless its instructions are so general
as to be practically useless; but the principles and points of view may
have wider application. While I have tried to give only the soundest and
most tested advice, I cannot hope to have escaped errors and
shortcomings, and I shall be grateful to my reader if he will advise me
of mistakes or faults that he may discover. I shall expect to use such
information in the making of subsequent editions.

Of course an author cannot hold himself responsible for failures that
his reader may suffer. The statements in a book of this kind are in the
nature of advice, and it may or it may not apply in particular
conditions, and the success or failure is the result mostly of the
judgment and carefulness of the operator. I hope that no reader of a
gardening book will ever conceive the idea that reading a book and
following it literally will make him a gardener. He must always assume
his own risks, and this will be the first step in his personal progress.

I should explain that the botanical nomenclature of this book is that of
the "Cyclopedia of American Horticulture," unless otherwise stated. The
exceptions are the "trade names," or those used by nurserymen and
seedsmen in the sale of their stock.

I should further explain the reason for omitting ligatures and using
such words as peony, spirea, dracena, cobea. As technical Latin
formularies, the compounds must of course be retained, as in _Paeonia
officinali,_ _Spiraea Thunbergi,_ _Dracaena fragrans,_ _Coboea
scandens;_ but as Anglicized words of common speech it is time to follow
the custom of general literature, in which the combinations ae and oe
have disappeared. This simplification was begun in the "Cyclopedia of
American Horticulture" and has been continued in other writings.

L. H. BAILEY.

ITHACA, NEW YORK, January 20, 1910.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE POINT OF VIEW
_What a garden is_

CHAPTER II

THE GENERAL PLAN OR THEORY OF THE PLACE
_The plan of the grounds_
_The picture in the landscape_
_Birds; and cats_
_The planting is part of the design or picture_
_The flower-growing should be part of the design_
Defects in flower-growing
Lawn flower-beds
Flower-borders
The old-fashioned garden
Contents of the flower-borders
_The value of plants may lie in foliage and form rather than in bloom_
Odd and formal trees
Poplars and the like
Plant-forms
_Various specific examples_
An example
Another example
A third example
A small back yard
A city lot
General remarks
_Review_

CHAPTER III

EXECUTION OF SOME OF THE LANDSCAPE FEATURES
_The grading_
_The terrace_
_The bounding lines_
_Walks and drives_
The question of drainage, curbing, and gutters
The materials
_Making the borders_
_Making the lawn_
Preparing the ground
The kind of grass
When and how to sow the seed
Securing a firm sod
The mowing
Fall treatment
Spring treatment
Watering lawns
Sodding the lawn
A combination of sodding and seeding
Sowing with sod
Other ground covers

CHAPTER IV

THE HANDLING OF THE LAND
_The draining of the land_
_Trenching and subsoiling_
_Preparation of the surface_
_The saving of moisture_
_Hand tools for weeding and subsequent tillage and other hand work_
The hoe
Scarifiers
Hand-weeders
Trowels and their kind
Rollers
Markers
_Enriching the land_

CHAPTER V

THE HANDLING OF THE PLANTS
_Sowing the seeds_
_Propagating by cuttings_
Dormant stem-cuttings
Cuttings of roots
Green cuttings
Cuttings of leaves
General treatment
_Transplanting young seedlings_
_Transplanting established plants and trees_
Tub-plants
When to transplant
Depth to transplant
Making the rows straight
Cutting-back; filling
Removing very large trees
_Winter protection of plants_
_Pruning_
_Tree surgery and protection_
Tree guards
Mice and rabbits
Girdled trees
Repairing street trees
_The grafting of plants_
_Keeping records of the plantation_
_The storing of fruits and vegetables_
_The forcing of plants_
Coldframes
Hotbeds
Management of hotbeds

CHAPTER VI

PROTECTING PLANTS FROM THINGS THAT PREY ON THEM
_Screens and covers_
_Fumigating_
_Soaking tubers and seeds_
_Spraying_
_Insecticide spraying formulas_
_Fungicide spraying formulas_
_Treatment for some of the common insects_
_Treatment for some of the common plant diseases_

CHAPTER VII

THE GROWING OF THE ORNAMENTAL PLANTS--THE CLASSES OF PLANTS, AND LISTS
_Planting for immediate effect_
_The use of "foliage" trees and shrubs_
_Windbreaks and screens_
_The making of hedges_
_The borders_
_The flower-beds_
Bedding effects
Plants for subtropical effects
_Aquatic and bog plants_
_Rockeries and alpine plants_

1. PLANTS FOR CARPET-BEDS
_Lists for carpet-beds_

2. THE ANNUAL PLANTS
_List of annuals by color of flowers_
_Useful annuals for edgings of beds and walks, and for ribbon-beds_
_Annuals that continue to bloom after frost_
_List of annuals suitable for bedding_ (_that is, for
"mass-effects" of color_)
_List of annuals by height_
_Distances for planting annuals_

3. HARDY HERBACEOUS PERENNIALS
_Perennial herbs suitable for lawn and "planting" effects_
_A brief seasonal flower-garden or border list of herbaceous perennials_
_One hundred extra-hardy perennial herbs_

4. BULBS AND TUBERS
_Fall-planted bulbs_
_List of outdoor fall-planted bulbs for the North_
_Winter bulbs_
_Summer bulbs_

5. THE SHRUBBERY
_List of shrubbery plants for the North_
_Shrubs for the South_

6. CLIMBING PLANTS
_Annual herbaceous climbers_
_Perennial herbaceous climbers_
_Woody perennial climbers_
_Climbing roses_

7. TREES FOR LAWNS AND STREETS
_List of hardy deciduous trees for the North_
_Non-coniferous trees for the South_

8. CONIFEROUS EVERGREEN SHRUBS AND TREES
_List of shrubby conifers_
_Arboreous conifers_
_Conifers for the South_

9. WINDOW-GARDENS
_The window-box for outside effect_
_The inside window-garden, or "house plants"_
_Bulbs in the window-garden_
_Watering house plants_
_Hanging baskets_
_Aquarium_

CHAPTER VIII

THE GROWING OF THE ORNAMENTAL PLANTS--INSTRUCTIONS OF PARTICULAR KINDS
Abutilons;
agapanthus;
alstremeria;
amaryllis;
anemone;
aralia;
araucaria;
auricula;
azaleas;
begonias;
cactus;
caladium;
calceolaria;
calla;
camellias;
cannas;
carnations;
century plants;
chrysanthemums;
cineraria;
clematis;
coleus;
crocus;
croton;
cyclamen;
dahlia;
ferns;
freesia;
fuchsia;
geranium;
gladiolus;
gloxinia;
grevillea;
hollyhocks;
hyacinths;
iris; lily;
lily-of-the-valley;
mignonette;
moon-flowers;
narcissus;
oleander;
oxalis;
palms;
pandanus;
pansy;
pelargonium;
peony;
phlox;
primulas;
rhododendrons;
rose;
smilax;
stocks;
sweet pea;
swainsona;
tuberose;
tulips;
violet;
wax plant.

CHAPTER IX

THE GROWING OF THE FRUIT PLANTS
_Dwarf fruit-trees_
_Age and size of trees_
_Pruning_
_Thinning the fruit_
_Washing and scrubbing the trees_
_Gathering and keeping fruit_
Almond;
apples;
apricot;
blackberry;
cherry;
cranberry;
currant;
dewberry;
fig;
gooseberry;
grape;
mulberry;
nuts;
orange;
peach;
pear;
plum;
quince;
raspberry;
strawberry;

CHAPTER X

THE GROWING OF THE VEGETABLE PLANTS
_Vegetables for six_
_The classes of vegetables_
_The culture of the leading vegetables_
Asparagus;
artichoke;
artichoke;
Jerusalem;
bean;
beet;
broccoli;
brussels sprouts;
cabbage;
carrot;
cauliflower;
celeriac;
celery;
chard;
chicory;
chervil;
chives;
collards;
corn salad;
corn;
cress;
cucumber;
dandelion;
egg-plant;
endive;
garlic;
horseradish;
kale;
kohlrabi;
leek;
lettuce;
mushroom;
mustard;
muskmelon;
okra;
onion;
parsley;
parsnip;
pea;
pepper;
potato;
radish;
rhubarb;
salsify;
sea-kale;
sorrel;
spearmint;
spinach;
squash;
sweet-potato;
tomato;
turnips and rutabagas;
watermelon.

CHAPTER XI

SEASONAL REMINDERS For the North For the South

INDEX

LIST OF PLATES

PLATE

I. The open center.

II. The plan of the place.

III. Open-center treatment in a semi-tropical country.

IV. Subtropical bedding against a building. Caladiums, cannas,
abutilons, permanent rhododendrons, and other large stuff, with tuberous
begonias and balsams between.

V. A subtropical bed. Center of cannas, with border of _Pennisetum
longistylum_ (a grass) started in late February or early March.

VI. A tree that gives character to a place.

VII. Bedding with palms. If a bricked-up pit is made about the porch,
pot palms may be plunged in it in spring and tub conifers in winter; and
fall bulbs in tin cans (so that the receptacles will not split with
frost) may be plunged among the evergreens.

VIII. A well-planted entrance. Common trees and bushes, with Boston ivy.
on the post, and _Berberis Thunbergii_ in front.

IX. A rocky bank covered with permanent informal planting.

X. A shallow lawn pond, containing water-lilies, variegated sweet flag,
iris, and subtropical bedding at the rear; fountain covered with
parrot's feather (_Myriophyllum proserpinacoides_).

XI. A back yard with summer house, and gardens beyond.

XII. A back yard with heavy flower-garden planting.

XIII. The pageant of summer. Gardens of C.W. Dowdeswell, England, from a
painting by Miss Parsons.

XIV. Virginia creeper screen, on an old fence, with wall-flowers and
hollyhocks in front.

XV. Scuppernong grape, the arbor vine of the South. This plate shows the
noted scuppernongs on Roanoke Island, of which the origin is unknown,
but which were of great size more than one hundred years ago.

XVI. A flower-garden of China asters, with border of one of the dusty
millers (_Centaurea_).

XVII. The peony. One of the most steadfast of garden flowers.

XVIII. Cornflower or bachelor's button. _Centaurea Cyanus._

XIX. Pyracantha in fruit. One of the best ornamental-fruited plants for
the middle and milder latitudes.

XX. A simple but effective window-box, containing geraniums, petunias,
verbenas, heliotrope, and vines.

XXI. The king of fruits. Newtown as grown in the Pacific country.

XXII. Wall-training of a pear tree.

XXIII. Cherry currant.

XXIV. Golden Bantam sweet corn.

XXV. The garden radish, grown in fall, of the usual spring sorts.

A MANUAL OF GARDENING

CHAPTER I

THE POINT OF VIEW

Wherever there is soil, plants grow and produce their kind, and all
plants are interesting; when a person makes a choice as to what plants
he shall grow in any given place, he becomes a gardener or a farmer; and
if the conditions are such that he cannot make a choice, he may adopt
the plants that grow there by nature, and by making the most of them may
still be a gardener or a farmer in some degree.

Every family, therefore, may have a garden. If there is not a foot of
land, there are porches or windows. Wherever there is sunlight, plants
may be made to grow; and one plant in a tin-can may be a more helpful
and inspiring garden to some mind than a whole acre of lawn and flowers
may be to another.

The satisfaction of a garden does not depend on the area, nor, happily,
on the cost or rarity of the plants. It depends on the temper of the
person. One must first seek to love plants and nature, and then to
cultivate the happy peace of mind that is satisfied with little.

In the vast majority of cases a person will be happier if he has no
rigid and arbitrary notions, for gardens are moodish, particularly with
the novice. If plants grow and thrive, he should be happy; and if the
plants that thrive chance not to be the ones that he planted, they are
plants nevertheless, and nature is satisfied with them.

We are wont to covet the things that we cannot have; but we are happier
when we love the things that grow because they must. A patch of lusty
pigweeds, growing and crowding in luxuriant abandon, may be a better and
more worthy object of affection than a bed of coleuses in which every
spark of life and spirit and individuality has been sheared out and
suppressed. The man who worries morning and night about the dandelions
in the lawn will find great relief in loving the dandelions. Each
blossom is worth more than a gold coin, as it shines in the exuberant
sunlight of the growing spring, and attracts the insects to its bosom.
Little children like the dandelions: why may not we? Love the things
nearest at hand; and love intensely. If I were to write a motto over the
gate of a garden, I should choose the remark that Socrates is said to
have made as he saw the luxuries in the market, "How much there is in
the world that I do not want!"

I verily believe that this paragraph I have just written is worth more
than all the advice with which I intend to cram the succeeding pages,
notwithstanding the fact that I have most assiduously extracted this
advice from various worthy but, happily, long-forgotten authors.
Happiness is a quality of a person, not of a plant or a garden; and the
anticipation of joy in the writing of a book may be the reason why so
many books on garden-making have been written. Of course, all these
books have been good and useful. It would be ungrateful, at the least,
for the present writer to say otherwise; but books grow old, and the
advice becomes too familiar. The sentences need to be transposed and the
order of the chapters varied, now and then, or interest lags. Or, to
speak plainly, a new book of advice on handicraft is needed in every
decade, or perhaps oftener in these days of many publishers. There has
been a long and worthy procession of these handbooks,--Gardiner &
Hepburn, M'Mahon, Cobbett--original, pungent, versatile
Cobbett!--Fessenden, Squibb, Bridgeman, Sayers, Buist, and a dozen
more, each one a little richer because the others had been written. But
even the fact that all books pass into oblivion does not deter another
hand from making still another venture.

[Illustration: Fig. 1. The ornamental burdock]

I expect, then, that every person who reads this book will make a
garden, or will try to make one; but if only tares grow where roses are
desired, I must remind the reader that at the outset I advised pigweeds.
The book, therefore, will suit everybody,--the experienced gardener,
because it will be a repetition of what he already knows; and the
novice, because it will apply as well to a garden of burdocks as
of onions.

* * * * *

_What a garden is._

A garden is the personal part of an estate, the area that is most
intimately associated with the private life of the home. Originally, the
garden was the area inside the inclosure or lines of fortification, in
distinction from the unprotected area or fields that lay beyond; and
this latter area was the particular domain of agriculture. This book
understands the garden to be that part of the personal or home premises
devoted to ornament, and to the growing of vegetables and fruits. The
garden, therefore, is an ill-defined demesne; but the reader must not
make the mistake of defining it by dimensions, for one may have a garden
in a flower-pot or on a thousand acres. In other words, this book
declares that every bit of land that is not used for buildings, walks,
drives, and fences, should be planted. What we shall plant--whether
sward, lilacs, thistles, cabbages, pears, chrysanthemums, or
tomatoes--we shall talk about as we proceed.

The only way to keep land perfectly unproductive is to keep it moving.
The moment the owner lets it alone, the planting has begun. In my own
garden, this first planting is of pigweeds. These may be followed, the
next year, by ragweeds, then by docks and thistles, with here and there
a start of clover and grass; and it all ends in June-grass and
dandelions.

Nature does not allow the land to remain bare and idle. Even the banks
where plaster and lath were dumped two or three years ago are now
luxuriant with burdocks and sweet clover; and yet persons who pass those
dumps every day say that they can grow nothing in their own yard because
the soil is so poor! Yet I venture that those same persons furnish most
of the pigweed seed that I use on my garden.

The lesson is that there is no soil--where a house would be built--so
poor that something worth while cannot be grown on it. If burdocks will
grow, something else will grow; or if nothing else will grow, then I
prefer burdocks to sand and rubbish.

The burdock is one of the most striking and decorative of plants, and a
good piece of it against a building or on a rough bank is just as useful
as many plants that cost money and are difficult to grow. I had a good
clump of burdock under my study window, and it was a great comfort; but
the man would persist in wanting to cut it down when he mowed the lawn.
When I remonstrated, he declared that it was nothing but burdock; but I
insisted that, so far from being burdock, it was really Lappa major,
since which time the plant and its offspring have enjoyed his utmost
respect. And I find that most of my friends reserve their appreciation
of a plant until they have learned its name and its family connections.

The dump-place that I mentioned has a surface area of nearly one hundred
and fifty square feet, and I find that it has grown over two hundred
good plants of one kind or another this year. This is more than my
gardener accomplished on an equal area, with manure and water and a man
to help. The difference was that the plants on the dump wanted to grow,
and the imported plants in the garden did not want to grow. It was the
difference between a willing horse and a balky horse. If a person wants
to show his skill, he may choose the balky plant; but if he wants fun
and comfort in gardening, he would better choose the willing one.

I have never been able to find out when the burdocks and mustard were
planted on the dump; and I am sure that they were never hoed or watered.
Nature practices a wonderfully rigid economy. For nearly half the summer
she even refused rain to the plants, but still they thrived; yet I staid
home from a vacation one summer that I might keep my plants from dying.
I have since learned that if the plants in my hardy borders cannot take
care of themselves for a time, they are little comfort to me.

The joy of garden-making lies in the mental attitude and in the
sentiments.

CHAPTER II

THE GENERAL PLAN OR THEORY OF THE PLACE

Having now discussed the most essential elements of gardening, we may
give attention to such minor features as the actual way in which a
satisfying garden is to be planned and executed.

Speaking broadly, a person will get from a garden what he puts into it;
and it is of the first importance, therefore, that a clear conception of
the work be formulated at the outset. I do not mean to say that the
garden will always turn out what it was desired that it should be; but
the failure to turn out properly is usually some fault in the first plan
or some neglect in execution.

Sometimes the disappointment in an ornamental garden is a result of
confusion of ideas as to what a garden is for. One of my friends was
greatly disappointed on returning to his garden early in September to
find that it was not so full and floriferous as when he left it in July.
He had not learned the simple lesson that even a flower-garden should
exhibit the natural progress of the season. If the garden begins to show
ragged places and to decline in late August or early September, it is
what occurs in all surrounding vegetation. The year is maturing. The
garden ought to express the feeling of the different months. The failing
leaves and expended plants are therefore to be looked on, to some extent
at least, as the natural order and destiny of a good garden.

These attributes are well exhibited in the vegetable-garden. In the
spring, the vegetable-garden is a model of neatness and precision. The
rows are straight. There are no missing plants. The earth is mellow and
fresh. Weeds are absent. One takes his friends to the garden, and he
makes pictures of it. By late June or early July, the plants have begun
to sprawl and to get out of shape. The bugs have taken some of them. The
rows are no longer trim and precise. The earth is hot and dry. The weeds
are making headway. By August and September, the garden has lost its
early regularity and freshness. The camera is put aside. The visitors
are not taken to it: the gardener prefers to go alone to find the melon
or the tomatoes, and he comes away as soon as he has secured his
product. Now, as a matter of fact, the garden has been going through its
regular seasonal growth. It is natural that it become ragged. It is not
necessary that weeds conquer it; but I suspect that it would be a very
poor garden, and certainly an uninteresting one, if it retained the
dress of childhood at the time when it should develop the
personalities of age.

There are two types of outdoor gardening in which the progress of the
season is not definitely expressed,--in the carpet-bedding kind, and in
the subtropical kind. I hope that my reader will get a clear distinction
in these matters, for it is exceedingly important. The carpet-bedding
gardening is the making of figure-beds in house-leeks and achyranthes
and coleus and sanitalia, and other things that can be grown in compact
masses and possibly sheared to keep them within place and bounds; the
reader sees these beds in perfection in some of the parks and about
florists' establishments; he will understand at once that they are not
meant in any way to express the season, for the difference between them
in September and June is only that they may be more perfect in
September. The subtropical gardening (plates IV and V) is the planting
out of house-grown stuff, in order to produce given effects, of such
plants as palms, dracenas, crotons, caladiums, papyrus, together with
such luxuriant things as dahlias and cannas and large ornamental
grasses and castor beans; these plants are to produce effects quite
foreign to the expression of a northern landscape, and they are usually
at their best and are most luxuriant when overtaken by the fall frosts.

Now, the home gardener usually relies on plants that more or less come
and go with the seasons. He pieces out and extends the season, to be
sure; but a garden with pansies, pinks, sweet william, roses, sweet
peas, petunias, marigolds, salpiglossis, sweet sultan, poppies, zinnias,
asters, cosmos, and the rest, is a progress-of-the-season garden,
nevertheless; and if it is a garden of herbaceous perennials, it still
more completely expresses the time-of-year.

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