This section is from the book "Town Gardening", by Mary Hampden. Also available from Amazon: Town Gardening.
The very hot, because sunny, enclosed garden, in London or other towns, may be made gorgeous annually with double and single zonal geraniums, ivy-leaved and scented-leaved geraniums too, zinnias, African, French, Scotch and English marigolds, begonias, marguerites, asters, stocks, agera-tums, petunias, etc. etc. Snapdragons and wallflowers love heat and arid soil. The right kinds of perennials for this garden would include the following ;—
(Perennial Asters, of which Michaelmas daisies are but a few). Blue, violet, crimson, rose, white, flesh, purple, heliotrope, lavender. Tall and medium.
(Achilleas ptmarmica, mongolica and filipendula, Parker's variety). White. The last a brilliant yellow. Tall.
Yellow. Dwarf.
Yellow. Medium.
Double, single and variegated. White. Medium.
(Armerias mari-tima and latifolia). Rose, white or lilac. Dwarf.
Crimson, rose, blue, purple or lilac. Dwarf.
Gold. Medium.
Magenta. Dwarf.
Blue, white. Tall.
Purplish blue.
The rose and white varieties usually succeed. Medium.
Deep rose with beautifully cut-out foliage of silvery effect. Medium.
Red rose, white. Fairly tall.
White. Tall.
(Early-flowering border varieties). AII colours but blue. Tall, medium and dwarf.
Deep blue, azure, indigo, or blends with pink and mauve. Tall.
Lavender with gold centre. Tall.
Orange. Medium.
Scarlet, double or single. Also orange or yellow. Tall and medium.
All sorts suitable. Gold, orange, crimson-and-yellow. Tall.
Gold. Double or single. Tall.
Yellow, orange, lemon.
Tall.
Double and single.
But seldom fail to repeat themselves by seeding. Tall.
Orange-red. Often in bloom as late as November.
Tall.
Lemon - and-orange. Tall.
Pale lavender. Constant bloomer. Medium.
Yellow. Tall. Biennials of this family soiv themselves annually.
A11 sorts are suitable.
Scarlet or crimson. A gorgeous flower that should be more often seen in towns, fall.
Orange, lemon, white. Medium.
Yellow. Tall.
Rose, white, lilac.
Dwarf.
Strawberry leaved. Blends of orange, lemon, scarlet, crimson, in double florists' varieties. Medium.
All colours. Some spreading light annual, such as sweet alyssum, should be sown close around polyanthus roots in April to protect them from summer heat. Dwarf.
Gold. Double. Tall.
Orange or yellow, with brown. Tall.
White. Dwarf.
Gold, white or purple. Dwarf.
Rosy pink. Medium.
Gold. Rosy carmine.
Tall.
Royal blue, violet, while. Medium.
(Veronicas austriaca, incana, longi-folia Spicata). Blues. Medium or dwarf.
Purple flowers. Bright green foliage.
Most bulbous plants will succeed if the soil is enriched by old manure ; a special display each summer may be made with gladioli, Turban ranunculuses, Spanish irises, and lilies. Montbretias can be succeeded by the blood-red Kaffir flag, Schi-zostylis coccinea, in October and even November, whose bulbs should be left in the ground, but covered by cinders during winter.
Bulbs to plant in shade include bluebells or wood-hyacinths, which are obtainable in blue, rose or white, daffodils and narcissi, snowflakes, lilies of the valley, meadow-saffrons, alliums, yellow winter aconite, wood anemones, fritillaries, snowdrops, Christmas roses, the Star of Bethlehem, Darwin tulips, which are perennial, not to be lifted each year, and crown imperials.
As to bedding plants, the culture of which is dealt with in other chapters, calceolarias, lemon. gold, and terra-cotta brown, are famous for shady gardens, fuchsias, double and single, are almost as reliable, while the variegated species is so bright as to rival flowers for beds. Ageratums, for which a familiar name is badly needed, will open their fluffy grey-blue or bright china-blue blossoms, and the single petunias, especially of the smaller sorts, are just as complaisant. Tobacco plants like shade, but dwindle beneath trees. It is not much use to rely on pansies, for they straggle and turn sickly under tall trees, and drip spoils their velvet petals ; but of course they can be grown well in any open places, as may also the brave double daisies (Cellis perennis), in red, pink or white, that flower continuously from spring to winter. These must have dead blooms cut off regularly, and be divided when their tufts become too thick, an operation that can be undertaken at any time, for the parent portion and the severed ones will soon produce buds again. The common or old-fashioned white garden pink is satisfactory in all situations ; if it scarcely blooms in some kinds of dense shade, it still beautifies the border by the cool bluish grey of its foliage.
Trees and climbers suited to shaded and shut-in town gardens are considered further on.
Of course, the plants recommended are bound to thrive better in partial shade and well away from walls; yet the owner of a deplorably formed ' pleasure ground 1 can take heart. of grace and introduce them to it without much risk.
The shaded front garden, or the slope down to the area, the portions of roof gardens behind chimney stacks and parapets, the balcony or verandah tubs, the window boxes, can all have their share of these floral and foliage subjects.
Carnations and pinks of all sorts should be a feature of the very sunny town garden. A few Tea and Hybrid Tea roses should be tried.
The choice of plants for glasshouses must depend upon whether there is sunshine or shade ; in the latter case ferns and foliage plants should be the permanent inhabitants, with some calceolarias, fuchsias, tobacco plants and primulas in summer. A sun-scorched greenhouse will suit cacti, begonias, clivias, amaryllis, pelargoniums, cannas, heliotrope, crassulas and camellias, but only if there is some heating given during winter to keep out all frost. If a very hot house is left to become cold in winter it should be used for annuals only that can be raised in it early, or bought, and for chrysanthemums for early winter adornment, these being stood outside during summer.
A greenhouse that is neither very hot nor very cold naturally, one in the open garden, for instance, is exceedingly interesting if used for the more delicate outdoor plants, of which many are called alpines ; such as Salvias japonica, azurea grandi-flora, and Greigii, cistuses, androsaces, many sedums, saxifrages, and houseleeks, lithospermums, francoas, etc.
The easiest greenhouse to manage is the one that can be kept to a heat varying between 50 and 60 degrees, by the sunshine and summer temperature, and, when those fail, by a small stove. Geraniums, fuchsias, carnations, primulas, cinerarias, genistas, spiraeas, deutzias, hydrangeas, azaleas, liliums, plumbago, even a few roses, can then be cultivated, with palms, maidenhair and asparagus ferns.
But no garden or glasshouse owner need despair, even in a town. The great thing is to choose intelligently what to grow, then learn a few plain rules of culture and apply them with unremitting care.
 
Continue to: