Practical Landscape Gardening (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1855. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXIV. CULTURE OP FLOWERS. No success need be expected in the cultivation of Flowers, if the soil in which they are to grow, be not of such quality as the plants require. The most genial soil--that best fitted for all flowers--is a rich loam, composed in part of sand, to make it dry and loose. Dryness, looseness, and a sufficient depth to enable it to resist the droughts of summer, are the three principal requisites for the soil of a Flower-garden. None but well-rotted manure should be applied to Flower-beds. A supply of the ingredients used in the composition of the ground of Flower-beds, should be always near at hand, for the use of the gardener. The ground should be carefully spaded in spring or fall. During summer, the plants must be kept clear of weeds and the surface of the Flower-bed 19 (217) should be repeatedly hoed and stirred up. In the dry est parts of summer, the tenderest Flowers should be regularly watered. The various Families and Species of Plants generally grown in Flower-gardens may, according to their culture, be classed under three different heads: 1. Annuals. 2. Biennials and Perennials. 3. Greenhouse Plants, which are planted out in the Garden during summer. Annuals.--The Annuals are sown in spring, and flower and decay the same season. It is well to sow some kinds in the hotbed, in early spring, which are to be transplanted, afterward, into the Garden. Others may be sown in March and April in the Garden, in the beds where they are desired to flourish. It is well to cover the seed with fine leaf-mould, when sown in the Garden. ANNUALS, BEST ADAPTED FOR SOWLN'O IN A HOT-BED." Ageratum Mcxicanum. Blue Flowering Ageratum. Asclepias curassayica. Orange Swallowwort. Aster Chinensis. China Aster. Queen Margaret. (c) Bulst. "Amer.