CHAPTER IV.. The Flower-Stand Garden.

THE FLOWER-STAND GARDEN.

Manner of keeping it.--Plants bought in Bloom.--Plants to cultivate on the Flower-stand.--Its Dimensions.--Climbing Plants.--Passion-flower.--Mandevillea suaveolens.--Wood Pink.--Thunbergia alata.--Climbing Double Violet.--Manner of cultivating it.--Plants for the Middle Part of the Flower-stand.--Camellia.--Methods to prevent the Buds from falling.--Management in cultivating.--Ericas or Cape Heaths.--Pimeleas.--Mignionette as a Tree.--Manner of forming it.--Its Duration.--Necessity of loving Flowers in order to take good Care of them.

Manner of keeping a Flower-stand furnished with Flowers.

A flower-stand is a very pretty piece of furniture, which may be a little more simple or a little more ornamented, according to the degree of simplicity or elegance of the furniture around it, with which it should harmonize. It makes a necessary part of that furniture. There are two different ways of making use of it: these must be considered separately. If you merely wish flowers while you can get them from the gardeners, agree with a gardener by profession, and he will keep your flower-stand furnished at all seasons with blooming plants. Your care will be confined to watering them and keeping them free from the dust. You will enjoy them; but they will not be your work.

Plants to cultivate on the Flower-stand.

You will do better than that, if, having the leisure, you have the will also, to give assiduous attention yourself to the cultivation of the plants that are to adorn your flower-stand. I imagine this to be the case--that you are disposed to take a little of that trouble which is a pleasure, and to make of your flower-stand a real garden of your own. We will begin, if you please, in the month of November--at the time when the fall of the leaves brings back to the cities those who have passed the fine season in the country.

Climbing Plants.

Choose a flower-stand as large as the space you have to give it will allow; keep it constantly with one side against the wall, so that you can put into it a trellis, shaped like a fan. The first thing now to be done is to cover this trellis with climbing plants; they will not be the least interesting part of this miniature flower garden. Plant a passion-flower, as the principal ornament of this trellis; let it be as wide and as high as it may, the passion-flower will soon cover the greater part of it. You must add to this a somewhat rare plant, the Mandevillea suaveolens, and a very common plant, the wood pink. These three plants--the passion-flower, the Mandevillea, and the wood pink--bloom principally at the top; and that the whole trellis may be ornamented equally with flowers, plant at each end a Thunbergia alata, and in the middle a double violet.

The Thunbergia lays hold of any thing that is within its reach, without ever rising very high. It becomes covered with charming flowers, of a fine nankeen yellow, set off with a black spot in the middle. You find it, as well as the passion-flower and the Mandevillea, at all the greenhouses. The price of these plants is never very high, and they accommodate themselves very well to the artificial climate of an inhabited room. Take good care not to buy them in bloom, even though you should be able to get them in full flower; take them at most in the bud; it will be much more agreeable to make them bloom yourself.

Climbing Double Violet.

Possibly you may never have seen a violet climbing on a trellis. The culture of the double violet in this form is very common in Belgium and in all the north of France. It is not difficult.

The double violet produces naturally, every year, a certain number of runners, like those by which the strawberry is propagated. Attach to the trellis those runners which are so situated as to be able to take hold of it easily, and destroy all the others. The tufts in which each runner terminates will flower abundantly in this position. After they have bloomed, other runners will come out, which you must attach to the trellis as you did the first; so arranging them as that they shall not take possession of the space reserved for the other climbing plants. By this system, continued for some years, (time is necessary for every thing in horticulture,) the runners which have been raised and attached to the trellis will become nearly woody; and every year, from the end of winter to the middle of spring, you will be able to gather from them a profusion of forced double violets, whose fragrance for you will far surpass that of the violets forced by the gardener, and which he makes you a present of for your money.

Plants for the Middle Part of the Flower-stand.

The middle part of the flower-stand is yet empty. To fill it well, place in the centre a fine camellia; a Donkolerii; or, if rose color be a favorite of yours, a marchioness of Exeter; if you prefer white, an alba flore plena, a fimbriata, or an ochroleuca. There are at least five or six hundred kinds of camellias, with flowers very different from each other. Make what choice you please; only avoid taking for your flower-stand a plant that is inclined to grow too tall; it will injure the ornamental effect of the occupants of the trellis.

Management of Camellias.

When you buy your camellia it should be full of buds that have attained to about half their size. If there are too many buds, above all, if there are two or three in a bunch close together, you must not hesitate to sacrifice a portion of them. But, as the very short stem by which the flower bud of the camellia is attached to the branch, is precisely the most delicate part of it, unless you observe great caution in detaching the superfluous ones, all will fall, one after the other, and you will not obtain a single flower. Happily, it is easy to avoid this annoying result. With a very sharp penknife, cut off, horizontally, the upper half of the buds which you do not wish to preserve, taking care to shake the plant as little as possible, and especially not to touch the bud stems. The remaining half of those buds will very soon fall of itself, without occasioning the fall of the entire buds. These will bloom perfectly a month or two later. Moreover, take care not to water your camellia with water that is too cold. This injunction is so important, that I am not afraid of repeating it too often. Should its vegetation seem to you not vigorous enough, give to it, now and then, half a tumbler of the water that the dishes have been washed in. Frequently wash and wipe its leaves on both sides. Do all this, and it will bloom as beautifully in your flower-stand as if it had never quitted the greenhouse of the gardener who sold it to you.

Mignionette as a Tree.

Some pretty plants of Erica (cape heath) of the medium size varieties, and one or two pimeleas,--one with a white hanging flower, the other with a rose-colored, upright one,--will complete the filling of the flower-stand. Do not fail to reserve, at each end, a little place for a plant of mignionette as a tree. You have probably never seen mignionette otherwise than in the ordinary form of an herbaceous plant; and, as you do not live in the north of France, where these pretty shrubs are very much in fashion, it will be difficult for you to procure two tree mignionettes already formed. You must, therefore, form them for yourself. To do this, proceed as follows: Buy a pot of ordinary mignionette. This pot will probably contain a tuft composed of many plants, produced from seeds. Pull up all but one; and, as the mignionette is one of the most rustic of plants, which may be treated without any delicacy, the single plant that is left in the middle of the pot may be rigorously trimmed, leaving only one shoot. This shoot you must attach to a slender stick of white osier. The extremity of this shoot will put forth a bunch of flower buds, that must be cut off entirely, leaving not a single bud. The stalk, in consequence of this treatment, will put out a multitude of young shoots, that must be allowed to develop freely until they are about three inches and a half long. Then select out of these, four, six, or eight, according to the strength of the plant, with equal spaces between them. Now, with a slender rod of white osier, or better, with a piece of whalebone, make a hoop, and attach your shoots to it, supported at the proper height. When they have grown two or three inches longer, and are going to bloom, support them by a second hoop, like the first. Let them bloom; but take off the seed pods before they have time to form, or the plant may perish. It will not be long before new shoots will appear just below the places where the flowers were. From among these new shoots choose the one on each branch which is in the best situation to replace what you have nipped off. Little by little, the principal stalk, and also the branches, will become woody, and your mignionette will no longer be an herbaceous plant, except at its upper extremities, which will bloom all the year without interruption. It will be truly a tree mignionette, living for an indefinite period; for, with proper treatment, a tree mignionette will live from twelve to fifteen years. I have seen them in Holland double this age.

Resources that the Flower-stand offers.

Ornamented and managed as I have directed, your flower-stand will be a continual source of agreeable recreation. There will always be work about your plants. The pleasure of providing for their wants will be as agreeable to you as that of seeing them flower, one after another. Their bloom will be the fruit of your own labor; it will have been merited by the act of cultivating them. They will have for you a hundred times the value that the most beautiful plants would have which you bought, in bloom, from the gardener, and replaced by others without your having a hand in producing them.

Moreover, young ladies, besides the plants with which I have just advised you to adorn your flower-stand, you have an immense latitude and many resources--unlimited, we may say---in the many varieties of the different species of other plants, equally worthy of your care. As we shall, in the course of this treatise, when engaged upon the subject of multiplying and cultivating plants, have occasion to make special mention of those just referred to, this need not be done here. I shall take care to make you acquainted with such as would figure to advantage in the flower-stand of your apartment; which, if its situation be favorable enough, may form a companion to the garden on the mantel-piece, in addition to the garden on the étagère.

And pray observe, mothers,--to you do I now address myself,--that flowers are like children: in order to bring them up well, you must love them. If there be among you any who do not love flowers enough to bestow upon them the attentions that they require, neither the preceding counsels nor those of the following chapters will be intended for any such.