Unless you live in a warm corner of these islands and have a sunny garden, you will not be able to do much this month. If you have any empty ground it should be dressed with manure, dug on a mild day, and left with a rough surface. The frosts then help to break it up, and when spring comes it will be powdery and friable.

Fruit-trees should be dusted after a slight rain with slaked lime or fresh soot, as this kills moss, lichen, and the insect pests that lodge in the rough places of the bark.

Iris Stylosa should be flowering now in the South of England, and even in colder climates under a south wall. Slugs are fond of these plants, and eat them up when they are in bud. If you notice that this is happening, you must dust with wood-ashes or soot. Gather the flowers with a sharp upward jerk when in tight bud, and put them in a room in tepid water to expand.

Snowdrops, Winter Aconites, Crocuses, Squills, early Daffodils, and Grape Hyacinths will all begin to push towards the light this month. When they are growing in heavy soil that cakes badly, you help them by carefully loosening it a little with a hand-fork. You must not do this in frosty weather.

All delicate plants will need protection now. A piece of rough matting supported by sticks at the comers is enough for many things. It is not a bad plan first to stretch a piece of wire-netting across the sticks and fasten it securely. By day it lets in light and air, and at night the mat or sacking is easily thrown over it. If ever you are on the Riviera you will see the gardeners put their plants to bed every evening as carefully as if they were children, while in this country, where much cold is expected, you see numbers of plants in any well-tended garden protected the whole winter with coverings of bracken or matting. When the plant you want to protect is below ground (a delicate bulb or tuber, for instance, or one that quite dies down in winter), you need only pile on manure or ashes or dead leaves to act as a blanket. We know someone who grew tuberoses successfully out of doors in a Cornish garden, and in the winter he protected them with little heaps of ashes, which he did not remove till the May frosts were over. In most parts of England manure is used as a protection for Roses and slightly delicate climbers; but a skilful gardener will shelter many of his delicate plants with little tents that he makes of twigs and bracken. We have seen them all shapes and sizes in a North Country garden where many rare things are grown. Some enclosed the plant altogether, and some gave it shelter, but let in sun and air on the south side.

This is the month when seed lists arrive, and remind you that spring is coming. Remember that it is easier to buy seeds than to grow them well, and do not order more than you have room for, or any requiring conditions you cannot give them.

February.

All weeds should be destroyed this month, both in the path and the edging, as well as in the border. If you have Dandelions or Hemlock, cut their heads off, and cover the remains with common salt. Plantains and most other weeds may be killed in time in this way.

Perhaps you remember that line in Tennyson about Geraint glancing at Enid ‘as careful robins eye the delver’s toil.’ You are sure to think of it this month when you begin to fork over your garden, for wherever you turn the soil there you will see a robin with its red breast and bright eyes looking for food. Never drive one away, for they eat wood-lice, grubs, and worms, but do no harm to plants. A nice big toad—not a frog, but a rough, grey toad—is a most desirable friend, too, as he will eat ants, wood-lice, and flies. Ants are sometimes most mischievous in a garden. They do not eat plants, but they eat certain aphides they find on the roots. Anyhow, they will kill your pet plant if they are so inclined. You see it turn yellow and die, and when you take it up you find its roots gnawed away. We do not pretend that this is a scientific description of what happens, but only one we can relate out of our own sad experience. We once built a wall with great care, meaning to grow many beautiful rock plants on it. We could not understand why they flourished for a time, and then died. Then we found the ants and tried to kill them in various horrid ways that made us feel like inquisitors. We won’t harrow you with them, because they were not only cruel, but useless. At last we asked one of the best gardeners we knew what he did when one of his plants was attacked by ants, and he said he only knew of one thing to do, and that was to remove the plant.

Lady-birds, as well as birds and toads, are friends in your garden, as they eat aphides—what the little girl in one of Anstey’s stories calls ‘those horrid little green atheists.’ Sparrows you must keep away this month with black cotton amongst your Crocuses if you want to see the flowers whole and upright. When you find their yellow petals strewn on the ground, you will know that the mischievous birds have been at them. In mild springs some of the herbaceous plants begin to push up young leaves this month. The Phloxes are amongst the earliest. Look out for slugs, or they will devour the early shoots of many plants, often so greedily that the plant cannot recover.

Japanese Lilies are now arriving, and should be planted in peat and sand. The sand keeps off slugs and attracts moisture. They should have a thick dressing of manure on the top to keep out frost.

Sweet-peas may be sown this month without harm, but it is too early for your other seeds, as long as you depend on an outdoor garden. The impatient, inexperienced gardener reaps nothing but failure when he sows too early. If you are lucky enough to have a frame, you will find it most useful, even though the elaborate, costly hot-beds described in gardening books are beyond your reach. A simple hot-bed can be made with some manure, which must be put in the frame and turned over two or three times with a garden fork. It is then spread out flat, and covered with good garden soil. You can either sow your seeds in this soil or put your seed-boxes on it a few days after it is made. If a hot-bed cannot be made you can fill your frame with cinders, and place your seed-boxes on them. The boxes must be lifted in some way, so as to be near the glass, or the seedlings would grow spindly. On warm days you must open your frame and let in air, or the soil will turn sour and mossy. In showery weather let in rain, and in a drought water judiciously. The four elementary things to remember about seeds grown in a frame are: they must be raised in some way, so as to be near the glass; they must have air to keep the soil healthy; they must be shaded from strong sunshine; and they must be moist, but not too moist. You do not want them either to be withered by drought or smothered by moss.

March.

This is a busy month in the garden. When it ‘comes in like a lion’ you have to sit idle; but directly there are mild, dry days you should be at work. Wherever you mean to sow seeds the ground should be well dug, and then raked smooth and fine. If you just rake the top, and leave the soil beneath in a hard cake, your seeds will be like those sown in the parable that fell on stony ground and had no depth of earth. They will spring up, but they will have no roots, and when the sun comes they will wither away. In a cold climate Sweet-peas and Mignonette should not be sown till the middle or end of this month, and most other seeds will do better if sown in April. March is too early for Nasturtiums or Convolvuluses, two flowers most children wish to grow.

Towards the end of the month you can divide those herbaceous plants that are not spring-flowering, if you wish to increase them. You must not disturb plants that are just going to flower, but all the strong kinds will stand division and transplanting when they have only sent up young leaves. For instance, you could take up a Phlox, a Michaelmas Daisy, or even a Pyrethrum, on a showery day, pull it to pieces, and find that every bit made a strong plant by the autumn. In the rock garden the mossy Saxifrages that have bald places in the middle should be taken up, divided, and firmly replanted. This is the way to treat many little rock plants that grow themselves shabby in a year or two.

Any new hardy perennials you want may be planted in favourable March weather, and so may the autumn-flowering Gladioli.

April.

Most of the hardy annuals may still be sown this month. Those sown in March will be coming up, and you must remember what we told you about the importance of thinning out. In some gardens nearly all annuals are raised in boxes, and pricked out in the borders where they are to bloom. We tell you this because you may belong to a garden where you can get all the annuals you need given this month in the shape of little ready-made seedlings. You must plant them several inches apart on a showery day, and shade them from the sun at first; a tent made of four sticks and a newspaper will serve when there is no wind. As soon as they have taken root, and look well established, it is a good plan to pinch off their tips with your thumb and finger, because then they will make spreading side shoots, and give you more flowers. You can pinch most of your annual and herbaceous plants in this way when they are young, but you must not do it to any plant growing from a bulb or a corm, such as a Lily or a Gladiolus. Some tuberous plants, such as Dahlias, may be pinched with advantage.

Roses are pruned in March or April, but the different varieties need different treatment. You must get some good advice about your special kinds, or be content to cut away the dead-looking wood. The green fly begins this month, and you should keep your Roses free from it, either with an aphis brush or by spraying with quassia chips and water as recommended on p. 126.

Weed hard this month, as you do not want any weeds to seed themselves, and they will do so if you neglect them.

May.

The leaves of your early-flowering bulbs will now begin to look shabby, but you must put up with that if you do not mean to throw away your bulbs or to lift them carefully to the wild garden. Daffodil leaves may be tied up with string or raffia if they are sprawling over seedlings, or over plants you want seen. Weeds grow fast this month, and should be diligently removed. Gardeners weed with a Dutch hoe, but it is an implement that does more harm than good if unskilfully used. You will find when you first try to use one how easy it is to damage the young shoots of your treasures with a hoe, and that in a crowded corner it is far safer to weed with a knife or a small hand-fork.

The middle or the end of May is an exciting time in gardens, because we then bring out our half-hardy plants. Dahlias, delicate annuals, and bedders are all put into the borders when the early May frosts are over. If possible, this should be done in showery weather. Two or three dull, damp, warm days save a gardener a deal of trouble in shading and watering at this time of year. In case the weather is fine and dry, however, remember that a great deal can be done by planting each plant in a little puddle of water and shading it with a flower-pot or a box, or any little tent you can invent. When the nights are warm these coverings can be removed at sunset and replaced in the early morning. You will have to judge in each case how many days of such care a plant requires. When its roots are well established, it will look after itself by day as well as by night.

You know, of course, that plants must never be watered when the sun is on them. Nevertheless, if ever you see a plant flagging badly in the sun, and plainly dying for a drink, you may give it one carefully at its roots. Do not let the water touch its leaves, and, if possible, shade it for the rest of the day.

A great many biennial and perennial seeds are sown in May, for a gardener must work for the years to come as well as for the present one. It is a good plan to try to grow one biennial and one perennial every year, as two boxes of seedlings do not give you too much work. Be sure to get your seed at one of the best places, for nothing is more disappointing than to take great pains with inferior seed.

Look carefully at your Rose-trees every day this month, and remove any leaves that are curled and stuck together. Each one contains a grub, that will become a caterpillar and devour the foliage of the tree later on. Leaves that are merely curled by cold, and not stuck together, must not be picked off.

Convolvulus seed may be sown in the open this month.

June.

Many plants will now require staking. We have told you how this should be done at the end of the chapter on ‘Hardy Perennials.’ Towards the end of the month you will find the leaves of Crocuses and Snowdrops quite dead, so that you can remove them without injuring the bulbs. At the beginning of the month you can still put out bedding plants, half-hardy annuals, and biennials. A plant may be put into the open ground out of a pot at almost any time of the year. It is the safest way of transplanting in hot weather, but you must distinguish between plants that have been honestly grown in pots and those that a nurseryman has potted from boxes a day or two ago. When the soil falls away and leaves the root and stem quite bare, your plant will want care and shade as much as if you had just pulled it out of a box yourself.

Your Primroses and Auriculas should be taken up and divided this month if you wish to increase them. Let them spend the summer in a moist, shady corner of the garden. You will probably lose them all if you plant them where it is hot or dry.

July.

During this month and the next, when the soil is heated by the summer sun, you take cuttings and pipings, and make layers of the plants you wish to strike. Pinks are increased when they have done flowering, but the young shoots of the Carnation are often layered while the older shoots are still in flower.

Daffodil leaves should now come away with a touch, and without injury to the bulbs. Every day this month you should visit your garden with a pair of scissors, and cut off all dead flowers and all annuals that are going to seed. Not one Sweet-pea must be allowed to make a pod, and your Mignonette will have a longer flowering season if you can cut off the green seed-vessels directly they appear. Perhaps you will like some of your Love-in-a-mist to form its handsome seed-pods and sow itself for next year. One pink Canterbury Bell, too, would give you seed enough to fill a big garden; but its seedlings will probably not be pink if you have allowed blue and white ones to grow near it.

When your Lupins, Pyrethrums, and Delphiniums go out of flower, you can either cut off the flowering stems and leave the rest of the plant, or you can cut down the whole plant close to the ground. When you cut down severely you should give a little extra food in the shape of manure, bone-meal, or Clay’s Fertilizer. We did not include Pyrethrums in our short list of perennials, because they are rather capricious: easily managed in some gardens, and bad-tempered in others. Slugs devour them. If they are given to you, and you want to cut them down, do it rather gingerly, and in damp, dull weather. We are not speaking by any orthodox tradition, but out of our own experience, as we have lost many a fine clump through being told that they could be cut down sharply after flowering. In dry weather the operation kills them.

August.

The chief things to do this month are to enjoy your garden, to cut your flowers, and to keep things tidy. Pinks, Pansies, and Carnations may be increased in the ways we have explained. If you have Rose-trees of your own, or are allowed to take a few cuttings from other people’s, you should try to grow some on their own roots. We have told you how to take the cutting and how to plant it in the chapter on ‘Roses.’ The bulb lists arrive this month, and you must decide what bulbs you want for autumn planting.

September.

Your spring-flowering bulbs should be planted this month. In some cases it cannot be done, because their places are not vacant yet, or because you mean to dig over your whole garden later in the autumn. But where complete reorganization is unnecessary, try to find room for your bulbs as soon as possible.

If you have any biennial or perennial plants grown from seed sown in May, they should now be strong and big enough to transplant to their flowering quarters. This is an operation you can carry out either in autumn or spring, but not in winter. Frost soon kills plants that have not had time to take a firm hold of the soil.

Autumn brings much labour in the garden in the shape of tidying, weeding, and preparing for next year. Annuals that have become shabby may be pulled up and thrown away. They will leave a bare place that you must dig over well. Before you replant it you must consider whether what you are going to plant would like a little manure beneath its roots, or as a blanket on the top. A greedy annual has probably impoverished the soil.

Herbaceous plants that flower in spring may all be divided and reset now.

October.

In October great operations are carried out in herbaceous borders. New plants come in from nurserymen or friends; old ones are cut down, fed, and in some cases divided; seedlings are put in groups where they are to flower. These things are done all through the autumn, according to convenience. In a mild district you may go on till Christmas planting out and reorganizing your borders. In a cold one get it done at the end of summer, before the frosts come. Any bulbs you have not planted in September should go into the ground now.

November.

There is still plenty to do in the garden on a fine day. In a wild garden or shrubbery some people leave all the dead leaves lying. We think that this is advisable in a big country garden, but not in a small, compact town one, that should look trim and well-tended. Your flower border you should keep as neat as your bedroom. All weeds, dead leaves, and rubbish must be removed now, and if you have plants that need protection you will give them tidy heaps of manure, ashes, or dead leaves. See that the labels and sticks marking plants and bulbs are firmly in the ground. Cut down herbaceous plants that have done flowering. Throw away the annuals that have become shabby. Lift your Dahlias on a dry day, cut their stems to within three inches of the crown of the roots, and put them, stem downwards, in an airy place to dry. During the winter they must be kept from frost, but not altogether from air. They are often stored in a shed, or on the floor of a cool greenhouse.

Remember that this is the chief month in the year for planting Roses, and do it at the beginning rather than the end.

Any part of your garden that is empty may be dug over and manured now. The surface should then be left in a rough state, so that the winter frosts can work the soil well, and prepare it to receive seeds and young plants in the spring.

December.

November and December are two most important months in the gardening year. All the digging and the alterations you have planned during the summer are taken in hand now. In a cold climate you would be careful to finish your planting early in November, but in the South and West of England you might still be busy with a new rockery or a new flower border. Even in the South you must now expect winter weather, and should complete your preparations for protecting delicate plants. One of the enchanting discoveries you make when you become a gardener is that there is no ‘dead’ season in these islands. In the milder corners you may have Roses, Violets, and Primroses all through the winter, while the early spring bulbs push their spikes through the soil before you have gathered your last Chrysanthemum. But even in a cold climate, when all your plants seem to be asleep beneath the snow, you can be busy indoors for your garden. It is a good plan to make plenty of large wooden labels, as the little ones you buy are easily lost. If you have the use of a shed or an attic, you may wish to repaint your watering-can and wheelbarrow; and out of doors you can sort all your stakes, and point those used for Sweet-peas with a sharp, strong knife. Besides, you will probably have some bulbs and foliage plants indoors that require your care.

If you have any Christmas Roses (Hellebores) in your garden, it is well worth while to make a roof over them with strong stakes and sacking. Then the air can get in at the sides, but the roof prevents the rough winter rains from splashing their faces with soil. When Christmas is over you have January, the worst of the winter months, before you, and after that you will say to yourself every day that ‘spring is coming.’ Even during a cold February the lengthening afternoon lights say this to you a little clearer every week, and during the spell of mild weather that nearly every February brings you will find many other promises of spring in your garden. So the year goes round for us, a tangled tale of work and pleasure, success and failure, hope and disappointment. The great gardener must be wise and humble, or he would not be great; so he knows to the end of his days that he has much to learn. The child who first plants his little plot should also teach himself this lesson. Then, if he observes his plants attentively and patiently, he will in the course of years become a gardener.

‘Who loves a garden
Still his Eden keeps,
Perennial pleasures plants,
And wholesome harvests reaps.’