The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CONSERVATORY AND WINTER GARDEN.
Having now treated of the several sections of greenhouse plants that appear entitled to first consideration in these pages, we propose to offer a few remarks on the furnishing of the conservatory. It is too much the custom to devote the conservatory to ignoble purposes which necessitate labour and anxiety in proportion to their worthlessness. To grow soft-wooded plants in a lofty, airy, roomy edifice is always a mistake, for while they are unsuitable in character, the conditions are unfavorable to their prosperity, and they neither grow nor flower as they ought to justify the keeping of them. The noblest conservatory plants require far less skill and entail less expense to do them perfect justice than the ephemeral flowering plants that look so fresh and bright when thriving in a warm, damp, low-roofed house, when there is no fear of their being “lost” in a large perspective. The first step towards a proper recognition of the kind of embellishment required is to remember that a conservatory is not a stove, or a greenhouse, or a pit, or a hand-light, consequently it should not be used as any one of these things, or as all of these things combined. We employ the several structures enumerated, the conservatory alone excepted, for production simply; and, therefore, although a tasteful arrangement of plants is everywhere or everyhow to be desired, yet where production is the primary proposal, mere display is of secondary importance. On the other hand, we may, and do, and should employ the conservatory for production, but display is the matter of first importance, and therefore the conservatory claims the first labours of the “hand of taste.” If it be necessary to tie out a plant to a forest of rude stakes, it may be done in the greenhouse; if it be necessary even to suspend a plant head downwards, and make the pot containing it the
IRON CONSERVATORY IN THE GARDEN OF H. BESSEMER, ESQ., BUILT BY HANDYSIDE AND CO., OF WALBROOK, LONDON.
principal attraction to the eye, it may be done in the greenhouse. But nothing of the kind should be allowed in the conservatory. The glass structures that are devoted to horticultural production are related to manufactures ; the conservatory is related to the drawing-room, and, in the broad scheme of horticultural work, it is not a workshop or a museum, but a garden under glass.
To render this covered garden attractive and interesting at all seasons should be the principal object of its possessor. It may indeed be gay with geraniums and calceolarias in the months of June and July, and a damp, cold, cheerless den during the remaining ten months of the year. It should be always attractive, and should at all seasons offer for admiration something fresh and good, and at all seasons it should be as destitute as possible of any exhibitions of manufacturing processes. For ensuring permanent attractions, permanent features are required; mere display is above all things to be avoided, for the mind needs food of a better sort than colour simply, however strong in tone and perfect in combinations. Noble plants that have a history, that endure for many years, that acquire local renown, that present striking outlines, that exhibit distinctive stages of development, are much to be desired, and the more of such that we can find of a constitution very nearly adapted to the peculiarities of our climate, the better for the tasteful furnishing of the conservatory. Above all things, the conservatory should be attractive in the dull months of the year, and then its occupants should not be such as require a high temperature, for it is not well to take a vapour bath every time the mind desires refreshment in the midst of vegetable beauty.
It will be understood, of course, that we regard as proper conservatory plants Dracænas, Palms, Agaves, Yuccas, Camellias, Acacias, Beaucarneas, Dasylirions, Azaleas, Oranges, Tree ferns, Bonaparteas, Lomatias, Rhopalas, and others of like character, notable for distinctness and elegance of outline, rather than for high colouriug, although amongst them we shall find some gay subjects. But we are no advocates for tameness and sameness in a conservatory. Given a sufficient breadth and variety of green furniture, and flowers may be employed with singular advantage. The stove, the greenhouse, and the pit will severally contribute of their productions to enrich the covered garden. The most tender plants, when in flower, will bear without harm a temperature many degrees lower than that in which they have attained their full development, provided they are carefully prepared for it by removal in the first instance to an intermediate temperature, and during the whole time of their stay in the comparatively cool conservatory are supplied with less moisture than they had to promote growth in a higher temperature. Every season should supply new flowers to the conservatory. In the spring, potted bulbs will make a gay beginning, and if orchids are grown in the stoves the bulbs will be followed closely by some of the most resplendent of the family. As the season advances the greenhouse will supply pelargoniums, heaths, herbaceous calceolarias, and specimen petunias, and in autumn the pits will prove their usefulness by providing a glorious display of chrysanthemums. As a rule, however, the less we see of bedding plants in the conservatory the better, for we see enough of them in the open garden during the summer, and it is simply a tax on one’s patience—that is, on the patience of one who believes in eclectic horticulture—to pass from a blaze of geraniums in the parterre to another blaze of geraniums in the conservatory. It is neither our business nor our pleasure to denounce people who, in their horticultural enterprises, are content with some half-dozen genera of plants; but we are bound to say, in defence of plants in general, that there are many fine things adapted to the conservatory which many who profess to love plants have hitherto not made acquaintance with. A rabbit cooked a hundred different ways is tiresome, and the cooking must be very tiresome to the rabbit.
Above all things that contribute to make a gay conservatory, the best of the greenhouse climbers should be thought of. As a rule, it is a folly to grow any of these plants in pots; they should be planted out in borders of sufficient breadth and depth to encourage a free growth, and consistently with the aerial space at command for training them; the number should be few rather than many, that each may display its character fully, and a succession of distinct and decisive features be produced rather than a mere confusion of vegetable tracery. It may suit the purposes of a botanical and experimental cultivator to plant in a conservatory as many kinds of climbers as there are rafters to afford them support, but a beautiful scene cannot be obtained by such practice.
There are many fine plants, showy, hardy, easy of culture, that are but ill adapted for the conservatory, and therefore the selection is not a matter of taste solely. We object to bedding plants, because they belong properly to other scenes, but first-class specimens are admissible while in their prime. None of the fast-growing and free-flowering of soft-wooded plants that are most esteemed as bedders are adapted for permanent occupation of the conservatory; for, irrespective of their unfitness in habit and associations, they will not thrive in such a structure. The fuchsia is not strictly a bedding plant, for it loves not the dry soil and the burning sun as the geranium does, and thrives in the subdued light and constantly humid atmosphere of the conservatory. How fortunate! for the free-growing fuchsias make superb pillar plants under glass, and harmonise with whatever other subjects have an equality of claim to shelter with them. Turning in another direction, it may be said that plants of the heath tribe are as unfit for permanent residence in the conservatory as geraniums and calceolarias are. They need more light, more air, less warmth, less humidity, than the more proper inmates of the house, and, therefore, if employed at all, should be as moveable furniture, brought in when perfect, and removed when the flowers begin to fade.
LEICESTER VASE BY HUNT AND PICKERING.