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Wall pockets.
Borders. |
264 What Shall We Do Now?
has been standing in the sun, or tap-water which has had the chill taken off it by adding a little warm water. In watering seedlings and tiny plants, keep the rose on your watering-can ; but with big plants it is better to take off the rose and pour the water gently, waiting every now and then for it to sink in round their roots. If the ground is very dry and baked, break up the surface of it round the plants with a rake, or push a fork carefully into the earth. This will help the water to sink in.
Water very regularly during hot and dry weather. It is very hard on your plants to give them a splendid drink one day and to forget all about them for a week.
Ferns should have a gentle spray bath every afternoon if you want to keep them fresh and green, and all leaves look the brighter for a shower from your watering-can.
Perennial plants, annuals, and rose-trees will greatly benefit if watered with slop-water while they are flowering.
If your garden is very small, but is against a sunny wall, the growing room can be increased by fixing a number of pockets, made of wood or of flower-pots, against the wall. These should be filled with good soil, and in them wallflowers, pinks, bulbs of different kinds, London Pride, Creeping Jenny, etc., can be planted.
The first thing to do when a plot has been given to you, is to mark it off clearly with a border. There are several ways of doing this. Gardens are sometimes bordered with escallop shells, which are neat enough but seem rather out of place among flowers. Tiles make another tidy artificial border ; but the best is made of natural rough stones from 6 to I 2 inches long. These stones, which should be sunk into a groove, are soon covered with patches of green moss, and if between their irregular ends you drop a few seeds of low growing annuals, such as candytuft, gilia, or nemo-phila ; or plant little pieces of thyme, blue forget-me-not, purple aubretia, or any kind of rockfoil or stonecrop, the border will become one of the prettiest things in the garden. If you prefer a growing boundary, a very nice stiff little hedge can be made by |
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