THE

PARLOR GARDENER:

A TREATISE

ON THE

HOUSE CULTURE OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, AND ADAPTED TO AMERICAN USE,

BY CORNELIA J. RANDOLPH, OF VIRGINIA.

BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY J. E. TILTON & COMPANY, 161 WASHINGTON STREET.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, BY J. E. TILTON & CO., In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

Who in our days does not love flowers, and who does not like to do a little gardening? Assuredly, not you nor I, dear reader, nor any of our acquaintance. But the love of flowers, the taste which of all others affords the greatest amount of elegant and harmless pleasure, is by many deemed to be an unfortunate one, seeing that it is out of their power to indulge it. In your case, sir, for instance, the burden of business, oftentimes a terribly heavy one, which it is not in your power to shake off, absolutely forbids a residence in the country. And, in yours, my dear lady, the duty of watching over your young family obliges you to remain in the city. Others of your friends, who share your taste for flowers, are condemned to a sedentary existence, for the want of that most precious of all possessions--health. Time was when a few favored individuals possessed what was called a garden in the interior of the city; but, at best, those gardens had, as a celebrated wit expressed it, “the shut-up smell.” But nowadays nothing of the kind is to be found; the opening of a street, the laying out of a square, has dispossessed them of the pent-up treasure, or else the ground has become of such value for building purposes, that it is sold at so much the square foot--a price sufficient almost to cover it with gold. Nor is this the case with the capital alone; other cities less crowded, all towns, in fine, of sufficient consequence to grow, will soon be without a single garden, large or small, within their limits; the flower, vanquished, retreats before the building stone. Happily it is not indispensable to possess a garden, either large or small, in order to have flowers, and to enjoy the tranquil delight afforded by the attentions one bestows upon them, and which one experiences in watching the various phases of their development.

Suppose yourself, for instance, after a severe illness, confined to your room by a long convalescence, which it is not in the power of any one to abridge. Even if you were the owner of a garden, you would then only admire its flowers at a distance, through your window panes. Then it is that you would feel all the value of a chamber-garden, the flowers of which could be renewed at small cost every few weeks; taking care to admit into it those only which, from the delicacy of their perfume, or their absence of smell, would be sure not to be injurious to your health.

Suppose this enforced seclusion to have begun in the month of May, a season at which a garden possesses the greatest attractions; suppose your circumstances such as to forbid your indulging in the luxury, little expensive as it is, of a flower-stand; in that case, here is a receipt for gardening without earth, without water, without so much as a flower pot even; in a word, without any expenditure beyond a mere trifle.

Procure from a gardener a fresh bunch of a thick-leaved plant, named _rhodiola rosea_, in English the _houseleek_, that will cost you at most a few cents. At the beginning of June the stalks of the rhodiola are garnished along their whole length with fleshy leaves, and terminated by a bunch of buds, as yet but little developed, and disposed in a corymb. Drive into a wall two hooks, about half a yard apart in a horizontal line; and upon this support lay the stalk of rhodiola, without tying it in any part. This is all that is requisite for a curious experiment in parlor gardening, which cannot fail to awaken your interest and afford you amusement. Nature having endowed the rhodiola with the faculty of living, drawing its nourishment from the air alone, which it decomposes by means of its leaves, you will see it day by day, hour by hour, lengthen, turning upwards at the end where the flower buds are, and dropping its leaves at the lower part of the stalk, where they will dry up and fall off, one by one, while those of the upper part will preserve their freshness and become more numerous. Finally, it will bloom and present you with a bunch of rose-colored flowers as perfectly developed as if the plant had grown in good earth constantly watered.

When these flowers have faded, cut them off; and cut off also the lower part of the stalk. After this preparation, plant it in a pot filled with ordinary garden earth, which you must take care not to water too often. In this situation your stalk of rhodiola will take root, and will, before autumn, form a tuft of young shoots which will all bloom the following year, and supply you amply with the means to repeat the experiment just described.

The rhodiola is called by the French St. John’s herb. You will wish to know, perhaps, my dear lady, the reason for this name. We will cheerfully satisfy your curiosity. In many parts of France the rhodiola grows abundantly on the outskirts of the woods, and there the experiment of its flowering without earth and without water is repeated every year in almost every peasant’s cottage. If it blooms _before_ the feast of St. John the Baptist, (the 24th of June,) they draw from this circumstance a favorable augury with regard to the success of a project or the accomplishment of a wish. In the contrary case, the presage is regarded as unfavorable. I must not omit to add, that this, which, in the middle ages, had truly all the reality and power of superstition, is now no longer any thing more than an amusement of young girls, in whom the oracle of St. John’s herb inspires no more confidence than that of the white daisy.

Should it so happen that you wish to do a little gardening in your room, without being able to afford even the very small expense that the purchase of a bunch of rhodiola requires,--a thing which may happen to any one,--spend nothing at all. Ask some kind acquaintance to procure for you a tuft of the yellow _sedum_, (stone-crop.) It is a very pretty wild plant, which bears, in place of leaves, little green excrescences elegantly set into one another. Each stalk forms part of a tuft composed of a great number of stems coming out from a common centre, and each bears on its top some star-shaped flowers of a beautiful golden yellow. Fix a strong pin into the wall paper of your chamber, and hang a tuft of stone-crop to it by a thread, which you must take care not to tie too tight. In a few days the stalks will curve upwards and stand upright, and the flower buds will all open exactly as if the plant had not been taken from the place where it first grew.

You see now that there are flowers for every body without exception; and of this you will become more fully convinced if you will only peruse, with a little indulgent attention, my PARLOR GARDENING.

PART I. THE GARDEN IN THE APARTMENT.