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Wood and Garden

by Gertrude Jekyll

By Gertrude Jekyll · Science · Public domain

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Wood and Garden is a public-domain classic of science by Gertrude Jekyll.

The complete text is on this page and the chapter pages below — all 39 chapters, about 73,714 words (~6 hours of reading), free to read online with no signup. Chapters include “CHAPTER IV. March 32-45”, “CHAPTER V. April 46-58”, “CHAPTER VI. May 59-76”, and more.

Wood and Garden at a glance

Author
Gertrude Jekyll
Length
73,714 words · about 6 hours to read
Chapters
39
Price
Free — public domain

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CHAPTER IV. March 32-45

MARCH 32-45

Flowering bulbs -- Dog-tooth Violet -- Rock-garden -- Variety of Rhododendron foliage -- A beautiful old kind -- Suckers on grafted plants -- Plants for filling up the beds -- Heaths -- Andromedas -- Lady Fern -- Lilium auratum -- Pruning Roses -- Training and tying climbing plants -- Climbing and free-growing Roses -- The Vine the best wall-covering -- Other climbers -- Wild Clematis -- Wild Rose.

CHAPTER V. April 46-58

APRIL 46-58

Woodland spring flowers -- Daffodils in the copse -- Grape Hyacinths and other spring bulbs -- How best to plant them -- Flowering shrubs -- Rock-plants -- Sweet scents of April -- Snowy Mespilus, Marsh Marigolds, and other spring flowers -- Primrose garden -- Pollen of Scotch Fir -- Opening seed-pods of Fir and Gorse -- Auriculas -- Tulips -- Small shrubs for rock-garden -- Daffodils as cut flowers -- Lent Hellebores -- Primroses -- Leaves of wild Arum.

CHAPTER VI. May 59-76

MAY 59-76

Cowslips -- Morells -- Woodruff -- Felling oak timber -- Trillium and other wood-plants -- Lily of the Valley naturalised -- Rock-wall flowers -- Two good wall-shrubs -- Queen wasps -- Rhododendrons -- Arrangement for colour -- Separate colour-groups -- Difficulty of choosing -- Hardy Azaleas -- Grouping flowers that bloom together -- Guelder-rose as climber -- The garden-wall door -- The Pæony garden -- Moutans -- Pæony varieties -- Species desirable for garden.

CHAPTER VII. June 77-88

JUNE 77-88

The gladness of June -- The time of Roses -- Garden Roses -- Reine Blanche -- The old white Rose -- Old garden Roses as standards -- Climbing and rambling Roses -- Scotch Briars -- Hybrid Perpetuals a difficulty -- Tea Roses -- Pruning -- Sweet Peas autumn sown -- Elder-trees -- Virginian Cowslip -- Dividing spring-blooming plants -- Two best Mulleins -- White French Willow -- Bracken.

CHAPTER VIII. July 89-99

JULY 89-99

Scarcity of flowers -- Delphiniums -- Yuccas -- Cottager's way of protecting tender plants -- Alströmerias -- Carnations -- Gypsophila -- Lilium giganteum -- Cutting fern-pegs.

CHAPTER IX

AUGUST 100-111

Leycesteria -- Early recollections -- Bank of choice shrubs -- Bank of Briar Roses -- Hollyhocks -- Lavender -- Lilies -- Bracken and Heaths -- The Fern-walk -- Late-blooming rock-plants -- Autumn flowers -- Tea Roses -- Fruit of Rosa rugosa -- Fungi -- Chantarelle.

CHAPTER X

SEPTEMBER 112-124

Sowing Sweet Peas -- Autumn-sown annuals -- Dahlias -- Worthless kinds -- Staking -- Planting the rock-garden -- Growing small plants in a wall -- The old wall -- Dry-walling -- How built -- How planted -- Hyssop -- A destructive storm -- Berries of Water-elder -- Beginning ground-work.

CHAPTER XI

OCTOBER 125-143

Michaelmas Daisies -- Arranging and staking -- Spindle-tree -- Autumn colour of Azaleas -- Quinces -- Medlars -- Advantage of early planting of shrubs -- Careful planting -- Pot-bound roots -- Cypress hedge -- Planting in difficult places -- Hardy flower border -- Lifting Dahlias -- Dividing hardy plants -- Dividing tools -- Plants difficult to divide -- Periwinkles -- Sternbergia -- Czar Violets -- Deep cultivation for Lilium giganteum.

CHAPTER XII

NOVEMBER 144-157

Giant Christmas Rose -- Hardy Chrysanthemums -- Sheltering tender shrubs -- Turfing by inoculation -- Transplanting large trees -- Sir Henry Steuart's experience early in the century -- Collecting fallen leaves -- Preparing grubbing tools -- Butcher's Broom -- Alexandrian Laurel -- Hollies and Birches -- A lesson in planting.

CHAPTER XIII

DECEMBER 158-170

The woodman at work -- Tree-cutting in frosty weather -- Preparing sticks and stakes -- Winter Jasmine -- Ferns in the wood-walk -- Winter colour of evergreen shrubs -- Copse-cutting -- Hoop-making -- Tools used -- Sizes of hoops -- Men camping out -- Thatching with hoop-chips -- The old thatcher's bill.

CHAPTER XIV

LARGE AND SMALL GARDENS 171-187

A well done villa-garden -- A small town-garden -- Two delightful gardens of small size -- Twenty acres within the walls -- A large country house and its garden -- Terrace -- Lawn -- Parterre -- Free garden -- Kitchen garden -- Buildings -- Ornamental orchard -- Instructive mixed gardens -- Mr. Wilson's at Wisley -- A window garden.

CHAPTER XV

BEGINNING AND LEARNING 188-199

The ignorant questioner -- Beginning at the end -- An example -- Personal experience -- Absence of outer help -- Johns' "Flowers of the Field" -- Collecting plants -- Nurseries near London -- Wheel-spokes as labels -- Garden friends -- Mr. Robinson's "English Flower-Garden" -- Mr. Nicholson's "Dictionary of Gardening" -- One main idea desirable -- Pictorial treatment -- Training in fine art -- Adapting from Nature -- Study of colour -- Ignorant use of the word "artistic."

CHAPTER XVI

THE FLOWER-BORDER AND PERGOLA 200-215

The flower-border -- The wall and its occupants -- Choisya ternata -- Nandina -- Canon Ellacombe's garden -- Treatment of colour-masses -- Arrangement of plants in the border -- Dahlias and Cannas -- Covering bare places -- The Pergola -- How made -- Suitable climbers -- Arbours of trained Planes -- Garden houses.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PRIMROSE GARDEN 216-220

CHAPTER XVIII

COLOURS OF FLOWERS 221-228

CHAPTER XIX

THE SCENTS OF THE GARDEN 229-240

CHAPTER XX

THE WORSHIP OF FALSE GODS 241-248

CHAPTER XXI

NOVELTY AND VARIETY 249-255

CHAPTER XXII

WEEDS AND PESTS 256-262

CHAPTER XXIII

THE BEDDING FASHION AND ITS INFLUENCE 263-270

CHAPTER XXIV

MASTERS AND MEN 271-279

INDEX 280

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FRONTISPIECE face title

A WILD JUNIPER face page 19

SCOTCH FIRS THROWN ON TO FROZEN WATER BY SNOWSTORM " 27

OLD JUNIPER, SHOWING FORMER INJURIES " 29

JUNIPER, LATELY WRECKED BY SNOWSTORM " 29

GARDEN DOOR-WAY WREATHED WITH CLEMATIS GRAVEOLENS " 39

COTTAGE PORCH WREATHED WITH THE DOUBLE WHITE ROSE (R. alba) " 39

WILD HOP, ENTWINING WORMWOOD AND COW-PARSNIP " 43

DAFFODILS IN THE COPSE " 48

MAGNOLIA STELLATA " 50

DAFFODILS AMONG JUNIPERS WHERE GARDEN JOINS COPSE " 51

TIARELLA CORDIFOLIA " 53

HOLLYHOCK, PINK BEAUTY. (See page 105) " 53

TULIPA RETROFLEXA " 55

LATE SINGLE TULIPS, BREEDERS AND BYBLOEMEN " 55

TRILLIUM IN THE WILD GARDEN " 61

RHODODENDRONS WHERE THE COPSE AND GARDEN MEET " 65

GRASS WALKS THROUGH THE COPSE " 66

RHODODENDRONS AT THE EDGE OF THE COPSE " 68

SOUTH SIDE OF DOOR, WITH CLEMATIS MONTANA AND CHOISYA " 72

NORTH SIDE OF THE SAME DOOR, WITH CLEMATIS MONTANA AND GUELDER-ROSE " 72

FREE CLUSTER-ROSE AS STANDARD IN A COTTAGE GARDEN " 77

DOUBLE WHITE SCOTCH BRIAR " 81

PART OF A BUSH OF ROSA POLYANTHA " 82

GARLAND-ROSE SHOWING NATURAL WAY OF GROWTH " 82

LILAC MARIE LEGRAYE (See page 23) " 84

FLOWERING ELDER AND PATH FROM GARDEN TO COPSE " 84

THE GIANT LILY " 96

CISTUS FLORENTINUS " 101

THE GREAT ASPHODEL " 101

LAVENDER HEDGE AND STEPS TO THE LOFT " 105

HOLLYHOCK, PINK BEAUTY " 105

SOLOMON'S SEAL IN SPRING, IN THE UPPER PART OF THE FERN-WALK " 107

THE FERN-WALK IN AUGUST " 107

JACK (See page 79) " 117

THE "OLD WALL" " 117

ERINUS ALPINUS, CLOTHING STEPS IN ROCK-WALL " 121

BORDERS OF MICHAELMAS DAISIES " 126

PENS FOR STORING DEAD LEAVES " 150

CAREFUL WILD-GARDENING--WHITE FOXGLOVES AT THE EDGE OF THE FIR WOOD. (See page 270) " 150

HOLLY STEMS IN AN OLD HEDGE-ROW " 153

WILD JUNIPERS " 154

WILD JUNIPERS " 156

THE WOODMAN " 158

GRUBBING A TREE-STUMP " 161

FELLING AND GRUBBING TOOLS (See page 150) " 161

HOOP-MAKING IN THE WOODS " 167

HOOP-SHAVING " 169

SHED-ROOF, THATCHED WITH HOOP-CHIP " 169

GARLAND-ROSE WREATHING THE END OF A TERRACE WALL " 178

A ROADSIDE COTTAGE GARDEN " 185

A FLOWER-BORDER IN JUNE " 200

PATHWAY ACROSS THE SOUTH BORDER IN JULY " 202

OUTSIDE VIEW OF THE BRICK PERGOLA SHOWN AT PAGE 214, AFTER SIX YEARS' GROWTH " 202

END OF FLOWER-BORDER AND ENTRANCE OF PERGOLA " 210

SOUTH BORDER DOOR AND YUCCAS IN AUGUST " 210

STONE-BUILT PERGOLA WITH WROUGHT OAK BEAMS " 214

PERGOLA WITH BRICK PIERS AND BEAMS OF ROUGH OAK " 214

EVENING IN THE PRIMROSE GARDEN " 217

TALL SNAPDRAGONS GROWING IN A DRY WALL " 251

MULLEINS GROWING IN THE FACE OF DRY WALL (See "Old Wall," page 116) " 251

GERANIUMS IN NEAPOLITAN POTS " 267

SPACE IN STEP AND TANK-GARDEN FOR LILIES, CANNAS, AND GERANIUMS " 268

HYDRANGEAS IN TUBS, IN A PART OF THE SAME GARDEN " 268

MULLEIN (VERBASCUM PHLOMOIDES) AT THE EDGE OF THE FIR WOOD " 270

A GRASS PATH IN THE COPSE " 270

WOOD AND GARDEN

CHAPTER I. Introductory

INTRODUCTORY

There are already many and excellent books about gardening; but the love of a garden, already so deeply implanted in the English heart, is so rapidly growing, that no excuse is needed for putting forth another.

I lay no claim either to literary ability, or to botanical knowledge, or even to knowing the best practical methods of cultivation; but I have lived among outdoor flowers for many years, and have not spared myself in the way of actual labour, and have come to be on closely intimate and friendly terms with a great many growing things, and have acquired certain instincts which, though not clearly defined, are of the nature of useful knowledge.

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Contents — all 39 chapters

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