CHAPTER X.. The Garden Upon the Large Balcony.

THE GARDEN UPON THE LARGE BALCONY.

The Terrace Balcony.--Boxes to furnish it.--Running Shrubs: Glycine (Wisteria), Virginia Creeper, Buddleya, Clianthus (Crimson-glory Pea).--Assorted Plants.--Seedling Ranunculus.--Manner of assorting the Shades.--Use made of the Plants propagated in the Portable Greenhouse: Pinks, Hyacinths, Tulips, Crocuses, Pelargoniums, Chrysanthemums, Fuchsias, Lantanas, Heliotropes, Mignionette.--Utility of this last.--Winter Dress of the Terrace Balcony.--Galanthus (Snowdrop).--Japan Quince.--Hellebore.--Christmas Rose.--Variegated Holly.

Happy the person, who, in the interior of any large city, possesses a large balcony, with an exposure ever so little to the south. It is almost equal to the possession of a garden.

The Terrace Balcony.

We may consider as garden terraces those long and wide balconies, extending, if not all along the front of the house, at least for a sufficient distance to admit of our gardening there in a far less confined space than in the mere veranda of a window. Access to such balconies being had through windows reaching down to the floor, before each window an interval should be reserved, to allow you to approach the balustrade and lean on your elbows whilst looking out. Should it be your good fortune to occupy a lodging rendered at once healthy and agreeable by such an appendage as a spacious balcony with a good exposure, the side spaces, intermediate to those kept open in front of the windows, may be supplied with wooden boxes, longer than they are wide, painted green, and filled with good garden earth, mixed with manure. You have but to consider these boxes as the borders of a parterre, and proceed to garden there accordingly, as you would on the ground.

Plants for the Balcony Garden.--Wisteria and Virginia Creeper.

At each end of the balcony a box,--its length equal to the width of the balcony,--which two boxes have a special destination: it is there that you must plant a glycine of China--(Wisteria), and a bignonia, or Virginia creeper (trumpet flower),--the running stems of which are to be trained parallel to each other along the balustrade. Thus, without encumbering the balcony, you will have, in the spring, the beautiful bunches of amethyst flowers of the Wisteria, hanging gracefully outside, and shedding an odor the most delicately sweet of almost any of the whole vegetable kingdom; and in autumn the flowers of the Virginia creeper, in bunches of a rich red, will renew the decoration. During the intermediate heats, the abundant foliage of these two plants will very advantageously protect the boxes of ornamental plants from the burning contact of the solar rays. You need not contrive any other shelter for them.

Buddleya and Clianthus.

To procure still more shade, add to the above a robust plant of buddleya on one side, and a red flowered clianthus on the other.

The buddleya, attached to a solid stick, upwards of a yard and a half high, and left to itself from this height, will fall in all directions, with as much grace as do the flexible branches of the weeping willow. At each extremity of slender and supple branches will open a long bunch of flowers, of a fine violet color. Should it so happen that some of these flowered branches, in the exuberance of their spirits, stray off so far as to pay a visit to your next door neighbors, these, especially whilst taking the air at their windows, will have no cause to complain of the intrusion.

The clianthus--to which you must give, as a support, four rods of white osier tied together--will very soon hide this support under its abundant vegetation, adorned with a profusion of flowers of the finest carnation color.

If these two shrubs occupied the middle of the balcony, they would take up too much room, and prevent your seeing out; but, placed at the two angles, they give a little shade, fresh and perfumed, which contributes to render more delightful still those moments of the day that one likes to pass, book in hand, upon the balcony in the midst of flowers.

Other Plants.

The various ornamental plants of each season--the principal of which I have indicated to you as being suitable for making a show in the garden at the window, at the different exposures--can, of course, be made use of in decorating a balcony large enough to serve the purpose of a terrace.

Seedling Ranunculuses.

If, as I advised, you have amused yourself in rearing in the cold portable greenhouse of your parlor a supply of young roots of the ranunculus, obtained from seeds, you will, after having used such of these little roots as were requisite for the ornamenting of your flower-stand, have a considerable number of them left. In the spring, when you have no longer cause to dread the appearance of any more last lingering colds, plant this residue of those little roots in one of the boxes on your balcony. They will give you, for a month’s time, a profusion of flowers, of varied shades, some deep and lively, the others pale and delicate. The first year, these shades will necessarily be mingled together at hazard. When you come to pull up the roots, after the bloom, you must observe the color of the flowers of each plant, and write these colors in a list, with a number affixed to each color. Prepare papers, in which to wrap the roots, by marking each paper with one of the numbers on your list; and when you wrap up the roots, for putting by till the following spring, place all of the same color and shade together in one paper, bearing the proper number. By this means, when they are to be planted the second year, you will be enabled to arrange the deep and light colors artistically. The deep colors are always the least numerous.

Observe, I beg of you, ladies, that if you take care of your ranunculuses when in bloom, watering them at the proper times, and do not allow them to be wasted in bouquets by indiscreet visitors, the finest among them will give you a good supply of fertile seed. The plants that you will obtain by sowing these seeds will not reproduce exactly the colors of the parent flowers; but, by sowing those seeds only which come from the choicest flowers, you will be sure to have a beautiful mixture, presenting the finest shades in proper proportions.

Plants propagated in the Portable Greenhouse.

The boxes of the great balcony--I suppose them to be large enough--will naturally be the receptacle for the plants reared in your portable greenhouse; and among these will be your seedling pinks, that will all find an appropriate place there. A group of variegated tulips; another of hyacinths, blue, rose, and pale yellow; elegant borders of crocuses, which you have taken care to alternate, white, violet, and golden yellow;--these will enamel your parterre from the very setting in of spring. Do not be afraid to multiply by slips your pelargoniums, chrysanthemums, fuchsias, lantanas, and heliotropes, in order that your boxes may be kept constantly filled with plants in flower. You will never have too many, if you be sedulous not to leave empty places in them. With this view, be always careful to sow seeds in the place of the plants you have transplanted. You will be surprised to see how very large a quantity of plants a space apparently so small can hold, if you do what is requisite to make each one of your boxes present constantly, from spring to autumn, a full bouquet, rich in its variety of colors and of perfumes. As regards perfume, sow mignionette every where. It thrives in the shade of the other plants, takes up but little room, and keeps out of sight, its perfume only disclosing its presence; and provided that you take care not to let it exhaust itself in producing too many seeds,--the production of seeds being the business of your garden,--it will continue to bloom until the end of October, holding on till after the first serious freeze. The previous white frosts will then have already killed first the balsams and the Queen Margarets, then the tagetes and the ageratums of Mexico, afterwards the petunias; the chrysanthemums alone will remain. Then it is that you will congratulate yourself for having sowed a great deal of mignionette. So long as it continues to bloom it will contribute largely--now in a far larger proportion than before--to the pleasantness of the visits you will continue to pay, in November, to your balcony garden, on the few fine days which the departing year may yet have in store for you.

The Winter Dress of the Balcony Garden.

Winter is decidedly come. Your faithful little mignionette, yielding at length to what the jurists call force majeure, has abandoned you, and disappeared from your boxes; your chrysanthemums have taken shelter within doors, that they may there continue to present you with flowers. Now, then, as they can no longer wear their summer garments, give to the borders of your balcony parterre their winter dress, which, though much less variegated, is far from being without charms. Plant there those beautiful tufts of the galanthus, its white flowers bordered with green. Its common name, snowdrop, may perhaps be more familiar to your ears; and this name its robust temperament fully justifies, for it is endowed with a most hardy constitution--one that enables it to bloom bravely between two freezings, so that when a pale ray of sunshine comes to melt a thick layer of snow, one is agreeably surprised to find the snowdrop in full flower.

One or two little bushes of Japan quince, some plants of the Christmas rose, two or three hollies, with their variegated leaves, green and white, among which the fruit shines like coral beads,--these will clothe your great balcony with attractions that may tempt you out there to inhale the wintry air, except on the worst days of this worst of the seasons. You will have received there from Autumn the last of her flowers as a souvenir of past joys. You will now obtain there, from her grim successor, a present, acceptable in itself, and yet more so as a harbinger of the coming spring.

And thus, ladies, the refined and refining pleasures which the practice of gardening affords will have been enjoyed by you, in all their variety, without your leaving the house.