The Children's Book of Gardening

A PERENNIAL is a plant that comes up year after year, and increases as it grows older. We will tell you how to grow fourteen of the best, and when you have succeeded with those...

BY annuals we here mean flowers that bloom in summer from seed sown in early spring. Out of a long list we shall choose twelve that are all easy to grow and last in flower a lon...

UNLESS you live in a warm corner of these islands and have a sunny garden, you will not be able to do much this month. If you have any empty ground it should be dressed with man...

A TRUE bulb has a series of layers, or scales. An onion is a bulb, and so is a Hyacinth; so are Lilies, though of a different kind. A Crocus, a Gladiolus, and a bulbous Iris, ar...

IF you are fond of flowers, and cannot have even a small garden, perhaps you can have a window-box, or some plants in pots or bulbs in glasses. A window garden should face south...

THE first thing to decide is that you really want a garden of your own, and mean to work in it and keep it clean and tidy. The next thing is to learn a little about situation an...

BIENNIALS are plants that do not flower till the second year after sowing. They are sown in spring and summer, pricked out when large enough, and transplanted, either in the aut...

EVEN in a small garden there should be one or two Roses, and as you may have to choose yours from a long bewildering catalogue, we will begin by telling you a little about the v...

THE very worst advice we ever saw given about gardening was given in a popular magazine in an article on Rock Gardens. It said that all you wanted for a rockery in a town or sub...

TO this hour one of the authors of this book prefers unripe Greengages to ripe ones, because they remind her of those that grew against the wall of her own garden when she was a...

YOU can grow carnations near London, as they do not mind some smoke and soot; but they are most particular about soil and situation. A damp, heavy, wet soil is poison to them, a...

WE will begin with Lilium Candidum, the Madonna or Cottage Lily. You know it, of course: the big white lily that the Madonna, and sometimes the angels, carry in old pictures, an...

WE think the American who described climbing plants as ‘creepers and crawlers’ must have been first cousin to the American novelist who said the house in which his heroine lived...

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’ be...

AS we told you in our first chapter, the worst piece of ground you can have for a garden is one already occupied by the roots of trees and coarse-growing shrubs or hedges. All a...