i was my own gardener, and sixteen years ago i knew nothing whatever of the business. the process of education was almost as amusing as expensive; but that fashion of humour is threadbare. in those early days i would have none of your geraniums, hardy perennials, and such common things. diligently studying the "growers'" catalogues, i looked out, not novelties alone, but curious novelties. not one of them "did any good" to the best of my recollection. impatient and disgusted, i formed several extraordinary projects to evade my ignorance of horticulture. among others which i recollect was an idea of growing bulbs the year round! no trouble with bulbs! you just plant them and they do their duty. a patient friend at kew made me a list of genera and species which, if all went well, should flower in succession. but there was a woeful gap about midsummer—just the time when gardens ought to be brightest. still, i resolved to carry out the scheme, so far as it went, and forwarded my list to covent garden for an estimate of the expense. it amounted to some hundreds of pounds. so that notion fell through.
but the patient friend suggested something for which i still cherish his memory. he pointed out that bulbs look very formal mostly, unless planted in great quantities, as may be done with the cheap sorts—tulips and such. an undergrowth of low brightly-coloured annuals would correct this disadvantage. i caught the hint, and i profit by it to this more enlightened day. spring bulbs are still a spécialité of my gardening. i buy them fresh every autumn—but of messrs. protheroe and morris, in cheapside; not at the dealers'. thus they are comparatively inexpensive. after planting my tulips, narcissus, and such tall things, however, i clothe the beds with forget-me-not or silene pendula, or both, which keep them green through the winter and form a dense carpet in spring. through it the bulbs push, and both flower at the same time. thus my brilliant tulips, snowy narcissus poeticus, golden daffodils, rise above and among a sheet of blue or pink—one or the other to match their hue—and look infinitely more beautiful on that ground colour. i venture to say, indeed, that no garden on earth can be more lovely than mine while the forget-me-not and the bulbs are flowering together. this may be a familiar practice, but i never met with it elsewhere.
another wild scheme i recollect. water-plants need no attention. the most skilful horticulturist cannot improve, the most ignorant cannot harm them. i seriously proposed to convert my lawn into a tank two feet deep lined with roman cement and warmed by a furnace, there to grow tropical nymph?a, with a vague "et cetera." the idea was not so absolutely mad as the unlearned may think, for two of my relatives were first and second to flower victoria regia in the open-air—but they had more than a few feet of garden. the chances go, in fact, that it would have been carried through had i been certain of remaining in england for the time necessary. meanwhile i constructed two big tanks of wood lined with sheet-zinc, and a small one to stand on legs. the experts were much amused. neither fish nor plant, they said, could live in a zinc vessel. they proved to be right in the former case, but utterly wrong in the latter—which, you will observe, is their special domain. i grew all manner of hardy nymph?a and aquatics for years, until my big tanks sprung a leak. having learned by that time the abc, at least, of terra-firma gardening, i did not trouble to have them mended. on the contrary, making more holes, i filled the centre with pampas grass and variegated eulalias, set lady-grass and others round, and bordered the whole with lobelia—renewing, in fact, somewhat of the spring effect. next year, however, i shall plant them with anomatheca cruenta—quaintest of flowering grasses, if a grass it must be called. this charming species from south africa is very little known; readers who take the hint will be grateful to me. they will find it decidedly expensive bought by the plant, as growers prefer to sell. but, with a little pressing seed may be obtained, and it multiplies fast. i find anomatheca cruenta hardy in my sheltered garden.
the small tank on legs still remains, and i cut a few nymph?a odorata every year. but it is mostly given up to aponogeton distachyon—the "cape lily." they seed very freely in the open; and if this tank lay in the ground, long since their exquisite white flowers, so strange in shape and so powerful of scent, would have stood as thick as blades of grass upon it—such a lovely sight as was beheld in the garden of the late mr. harrison, at shortlands. but being raised two feet or so, with a current of air beneath, its contents are frozen to a solid block, soil and all, again and again, each winter. that a cape plant should survive such treatment seems incredible—contrary to all the books. but my established aponogeton do somehow; only the seedlings perish. here again is a useful hint, i trust. but evidently it would be better, if convenient, to take the bulbs indoors before frost sets in.
having water thus at hand, it very soon occurred to me to make war upon the slugs by propagating their natural enemies. those banks and borders of saxifraga hypnoides, to which i referred formerly, exact some precaution of the kind. much as every one who sees admires them, the slugs, no doubt, are more enthusiastic still. therefore i do not recommend that idea, unless it be supplemented by some effective method of combating a grave disadvantage. my own may not commend itself to every one. each spring i entrust some casual little boy with a pail; he brings it back full of frog-spawn and receives sixpence. i speculate sometimes with complacency how many thousand of healthy and industrious batrachians i have reared and turned out for the benefit of my neighbours. enough perhaps, but certainly no more, remain to serve me—that i know because the slugs give very little trouble in spite of the most favourable circumstances. you can always find frogs in my garden by looking for them, but of the thousands hatched every year, ninety-nine per cent. must vanish. do blackbirds and thrushes eat young frogs? they are strangely abundant with me. but those who cultivate tadpoles must look over the breeding-pond from time to time. my whole batch was devoured one year by "devils"—the larv? of dytiscus marginalis, the plunger beetle. i have benefited, or at least have puzzled my neighbours also by introducing to them another sort of frog. three years ago i bought twenty-five hyl?, the pretty green tree species, to dwell in my odontoglossum house and exterminate the insects. every ventilator there is covered with perforated zinc—to prevent insects getting in; but, by some means approaching the miraculous, all my hyl? contrived to escape. several were caught in the garden and put back, but again they found their way to the open-air; and presently my fruit-trees became vocal. so far, this is the experience of every one, probably, who has tried to keep green frogs. but in my case they survived two winters—one which everybody recollects, the most severe of this generation. my frogs sang merrily through the summer; but all in a neighbour's garden. i am not acquainted with that family; but it is cheering to think how much innocent diversion i have provided for its members.
pleasant also it is, by the way, to vindicate the character of green frogs. i never heard them spoken of by gardeners but with contempt. not only do they persist in escaping; more than that, they decline to catch insects, sitting motionless all day long—pretty, if you like, but useless. the fact is, that all these creatures are nocturnal of habit. very few men visit their orchid-houses at night, as i do constantly. they would see the frogs active enough then, creeping with wondrous dexterity among the leaves, and springing like a green flash upon their prey. naturally, therefore, they do not catch thrips or mealy-bug or aphis; these are too small game for the midnight sports-man. wood-lice, centipedes, above all, cockroaches, those hideous and deadly foes of the orchid, are their victims. all who can keep them safe should have green frogs by the score in every house which they do not fumigate.
i have come to the orchids at last. it follows, indeed, almost of necessity that a man who has travelled much, an enthusiast in horticulture, should drift into that branch as years advance. modesty would be out of place here. i have had successes, and if it please heaven, i shall win more. but orchid culture is not to be dealt with at the end of an article.
