CHAPTER XXVII

ODD GARDENS

Summer is coming! Don’t you see it? Don’t you feel it? Even while the trees are still leafless and the grass-plots still brown we know spring is here, almost as the plants themselves know it, by the surging up of new life in our veins.

We open wide our windows to let the sweet sunshine in and make ready to welcome the blessed summer so near at hand.

What if you cannot leave the city, as some do, to enjoy the delights of a summer in the country; what if you have not even a foot of ground, you may still have some of the sweets with which summer is so lavish; you may, nevertheless, have your flower-garden. Summer will help you grow your plants. The sun is knocking now on your window, bidding you prepare the ground for summer to make fruitful.

=A Country Garden in the City=

A real hanging garden, with creeping vines and fragrant flowers, will prove a delight, and it may be yours though your window is your only garden plot.

Take your tape-measure and find the width of your window. It is about three feet wide, isn’t it? Well, it doesn’t matter. Whatever the width, add two feet more and you have the length for your garden. Thus, for a three-foot window you will have a five-foot garden. Go to the planing-mill and select a wide board of that length. See that it is without flaws, and do not be afraid of having it thick, for it must bear a heavy weight. Buy a pair of strong iron brackets, or very likely at the mill they will give you two three-cornered pieces of board like Fig. 591, which will answer the purpose as well. With screws fasten these brackets to the board, about half a foot from each end, as in Fig. 592. Near the back edge of the board, directly above the two brackets, screw in good-sized screw-eyes, as shown by A, B, Fig. 592. Measure the distance from the bottom edge of your board to the top of the screw-eye, as designated by the dotted line C in Fig. 593, and fasten strong hooks in the outer wall on either side of your window at the same distance above the window-sill. Be careful about your measurements and have your hooks just as far apart as the screw-eyes. Go to a hardware store and get a piece of wire netting, such as is used for fences, long enough to go around the front and [Illustration: Fig. 594.] [Illustration: Fig. 593.] side edges of your board. Have three strips cut from it, one eighteen inches wide for your garden fence, the other two each twelve inches wide and about three feet long for trellises for your vines. Fit the fence around the board, bending it sharply at the corners, and tack in place along the edge of the board, using double tacks, called staple tacks, for the purpose. Paint the board and wire netting dark green, and, when dry, lift it out of the window, and, resting the board on the outside window-sill, slip the screw-eyes on the hooks in the wall, as in Fig. 592. With two staple tacks fasten the ends of the fence to the wall.

Now you are

=Ready for Your Boxes=

Get two strong wooden ones from your grocer, about eight inches deep and of a size to fit the board at either side of your window, and another to fit between the two end ones. Bore several holes in the bottom of each box, bind the edges where they meet with strips of tin, as shown by the dark strips in Fig. 594. Have the tinsmith cut the tin the required lengths and also bend it to fit your boxes. It will then be easy work to tack it on yourself.

Binding the boxes in this way makes them strong and prevents their bursting apart, as they are very apt to do with nothing to stay them. Paint the boxes dark green, like the board, and on the bottom of each place a layer of charcoal, next a layer of sand and then fill with earth, enriched with fertilizer obtained at the drug-store. Weave two straight sticks, about four feet long, in and out through each piece of wire netting for your trellises. Stand a trellis upright in either end box by pushing the end of the sticks deep into the soil.

It is a country, not a city, garden you want, is it not? Then don’t be persuaded into buying geraniums, fuchsias, verbenas, etc. They are very lovely, but you can have them all winter long, if you wish. What you are trying for now is

=A Real Summer Garden=

—one where you plant the seeds and have the excitement of seeing them come up, then watching them grow, and finally of discovering the first buds which so soon are to blossom and reward you with their beauty and fragrance for all the care bestowed upon them.

Have you ever seen the hop-vine? It is very pretty, with its soft festoons of feathery tassels. The hop-vine, running up the trellis on one side of the window; the red bean, with its scarlet blossoms, on the other, will bring a bit of the country to you as little else can.

Around the front and side edges of the end boxes plant nasturtium seeds, and midsummer will find a wealth of tangled vines and fragrant flowers which will clamber over, under, and through your fence in wild abandon.

In the middle box plant bachelor’s-buttons (corn-flowers), which blossom from July to late autumn with white, blue, and pink flowers. Plant also mignonette for its sweetness, and, to complete the country effect, add lady-slippers.

All these flowers are raised from the seed, except the hop-vine. For this you will have to get the “sets,” which are the underground stems of the old vines cut into pieces. Three or four “sets” planted together will give you a nice vine.

One of the oddest of odd gardens is

=A Water Garden=

This, too, may be just outside your window if you are so fortunate as to have a balcony large enough to hold a good-sized tub; or one corner of your backyard may perhaps be spared for a place in which to rear your water-babies.

Half of a good, strong hogshead barrel makes a fine bed for a miniature pond; a molasses barrel will answer or any kind of tank that will hold water and is at least two feet deep can be used for the purpose.

Do not choose too shady a spot for your water garden. There are very few plants that are not the better for a little sunshine. An unsheltered corner which must endure the burning heat of the afternoon sun is also undesirable, but a place which only the morning sun can reach will be suited to almost any water plant. You will need

=Soil=

as well as water for this aquatic garden, and if you are living in the city it will be a good idea to take a trip to the suburbs, where you can fill a tin pail with the muddy, freshwater swamp soil. Failing that, you may procure from a florist some turfy loam and enrich it with a good fertilizer.

Fill the bottom of your tank with the soil to the depth of one foot and plant your roots before adding the water. It is a good thing to anchor the plants with stones to prevent them from floating out of place when the water is poured in.

For most of your

=Water Plants=

you will probably have to visit the country, as there appears to be no way of getting the simpler kinds but by going directly to Mother Nature and transplanting them from her garden to yours.

Before starting on your search make inquiries and learn what you may expect to find in the various localities.

Water lilies are not found on all ponds, but they are well worth any amount of travelling, and secure some you must, even if several trips have to be taken before they are discovered.

There is a water garden in our neighborhood which is a source of great pleasure to its owner. Floating on the surface of the water in two great stone tanks are pond lilies of several varieties. As the great buds grow and unfold they are watched closely and with intense interest until they are suddenly found full-blown, fair and pure, a floating mass of loveliness.

Any and every plant which grows in the ponds and swamps may be made to grow in an artificial pond or swamp in your own house or yard. The water arum or arrow-leaf; the pickerel-weed, with its spikes of pale-blue flowers; the sagittaria, whose flowers are white, and the water hyacinth are all pretty in the water garden.

There are vines that grow readily in water which you can put around the edges of the tank, allowing them to hang over and partially hide the outside. The Wandering Jew is one which is very hardy and will droop in graceful festoons of green. It is not a water plant, but will thrive in water and should not be planted in the soil at the bottom, but allowed to send out its roots into the water near the surface.

Aquatic plants are the simplest of all kinds to transplant, because the sun does not wilt them when their roots are kept wet. Transfer the plants in baskets filled with wet moss, or make them in packages covered on all sides with several wrappings of wet paper. They can be preserved an indefinite length of time _if kept wet_.

Cat-tail seeds will grow in mud; so will other swamp plants, and a swamp garden, kept always wet, may be an accessory to your water garden.

From time to time you must add fresh water to supply the loss by evaporation in the tanks, but as the growing things keep the water pure it does not need changing.

You may arrange smaller and

=Simpler Water Gardens=

for the window in glass dishes or bowls, or even glass jars, and grow there the small and delicate water plants. Only a layer of clean sand is needed for soil, and some plants do not even require that. The water-milfoil is an ornamental little plant; the eel-grass which, growing at the bottom, sends up its long spiral stems to lift its blossoms above the water, is interesting, and the horn-wort and water-purslane do well in narrow quarters. The duck-weed is a surface plant which drops its slender roots into the water without touching soil. Besides these there are

=Plants Grown Artificially in Water=

A friend of mine tells the story of a morning-glory vine which, growing in water, draped her window luxuriantly and even blossomed in a timid way. This plant was taken from the garden when its stem was several inches long and placed in a bottle of water, where it sent out more roots and grew rapidly.

It is possible, too, and is a very pretty experiment, to start the seeds without soil. Among the plants in my studio window, a short time ago, was a green glass finger-bowl filled nearly to the brim with water. On the surface of the water rested two layers of raw cotton cut to fit the bowl, and on top of the cotton were scattered a number of morning-glory seeds. They lay quietly on their soft, floating bed for a few days, then the seeds began to send out white worm-like shoots, and shortly there appeared on each a pair of small heart-shaped leaves tightly clasped together at the top by the now empty seed-shell. Soon down into the water, piercing the cotton, little thread-like roots made their way, growing thicker in mass and stronger as the young plants shot up in a wonderful growth. We watched them from their birth until they were three or four inches high, when an accident brought their existence to a close and our experiment to an untimely end.

Almost any seeds will sprout when treated in this manner, and in order to keep the water pure during the waiting period it is well to drop into it several small pieces of charcoal. Charcoal is a great purifier and its use is advisable in all water gardens.

=The Green Sponge=

appears quite marvellous to one who sees it for the first time. Take a large, rather coarse sponge, put it in a glass bowl, sprinkle it with sand and give it as much water as it will hold, then scatter all over it flaxseed or mustard seed, clover seed or buckwheat and place in your window. It will not be long before you have a sponge of living green, the secret of whose beauty lies in its being kept always wet.

=Vegetables=

of the tuber variety will grow, not in the water, but with water in them. The sweet potato, which puts forth a pretty vine, the white potato and the turnip have all proved successful experiments in my window, and it is said [Illustration: Fig. 595.] that the carrot and parsnip can be made to grow in the same way; their tendency, however, is to split at the sides, which allows the water to escape and causes them to dry up. I am told that another way to grow them is to immerse each half way in a bottle of water, keeping the vegetable suspended by means of a darning-needle thrust through it and resting on the edge of the bottle. In selecting potatoes choose those which have a number of well-developed “eyes,” and avoid the sweet potatoes which look temptingly clean and smooth. In nearly every case these are kiln-dried, or dried by artificial means, and no amount of coaxing will induce them to sprout.

Take a large potato which will hold considerable water when hollowed out, cut off one end and clean out the inside to the depth of several inches. Puncture holes on opposite sides about half an inch from the edge, pass one end of a string through each hole and tie, leaving a loop at the top (Fig. 595), then fill with water and hang at the side of your window, where it will not touch the glass nor get the direct rays of the sun.

In preparing the turnip remember to turn it upside down, as it is the root end you are to cut off; this is pointed and generally ends in a string-like root; the leaves sprout from the other end and form a pretty foliage. The turnip will not only send out its own leaves, but vines may be planted inside which will grow down to meet the upward growing leaves of the vegetable.

English ivy grows well in water, and you all know that the Japanese lily requires only a layer of pebbles in a dish of water to grow and blossom most beautifully. Hyacinths in their own peculiar glasses are also raised entirely in water.

Of other odd gardens which are full of interest there is one called a

=Friendship Garden=

This is composed entirely of plants given by various friends of the owner, and each plant is called by the name of the giver. Devote one flower-bed, large or small as the case requires, to your friendship collection, and set out all your plants there. They will probably form a strange medley; but so much the better, it will only make the queer garden the more interesting. Roses, geraniums, lilies, fuchsias, heliotrope, sweet violets—sheltered from too great heat by the larger plants—verbenas and mignonette may all grow in this odd companionship. Endeavor not to crowd them too closely and study the habits of each plant, that it may be kept from encroaching upon the rights of its neighbor, if aggressive, or be crowded out of existence if of a retiring and yielding nature. Give all equal care, and your love for each plant and its giver will also grow and blossom in a way most sweet and marvellous.

=The Memory Garden=

is in reality a collection of souvenir plants brought from various places one has visited.

You may have your memory garden in your window if you like, for your plants will probably not be large and very likely will do best each in its separate flower-pot with soil adapted to its needs.

From various parts of the United States, from foreign countries, from places of historical and geographical interest you can bring mementoes for your garden that will be beautiful reminders of the pleasant scenes and incidents of your travels.