This section is from the book "The Gardener's Monthly And Horticulturist V25", by Thomas Meehan. See also: Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long.
I desire to make a few remarks relating to horticulture in the first part of this century in Germany. The love for flowers is as old as history. Each nationality or class had and has its peculiar preference for certain kinds of flowers. The Chinese and the Indians worship the Nelum-bium speciosum - Lotus flower. The English have the Rose, the Scotch the Thistle, the Irish the Shamrock, the French the Lily, the Germans the Oak, the Swiss the Edelweis, the Southerners the Palm, the Mexicans the Cactus, etc. They selected a certain flower or leaf as a symbol for merit or regard, to be used on special occasions. They adorned the head of an artist or a hero with a laurel wreath, presented the bride with orange blossoms or a sprig of myrtle, and gave the parting one a forget-me-not. They endowed each with a symbolical meaning. The scarlet represented love; white, innocence; blue, hope; yellow, envy, etc. The Violet was indicative of prudence; the Heliotrope of devotion and the Tulip of beauty. In the latter part of the last century some learned men as Linnaeus, Jussieu and de Candolle framed that part of knowledge into a regular system, (Botany,) as a third part of the history of nature, as a foundation to build later discoveries of science upon.
The gardening of those days was quite different from that of to-day. A plot, whose dimensions were governed by the circumstances of the owner, at some distance from the dwelling was fenced in and locked. Shrubs, lilacs, syringas, snow-balls, hawthorns, and golden chain (Cytissus laburnum) were general favorites. Honeysuckles, Wistarias, Boursaltroses, Dutchman's pipe, and Clematis were planted and led to run up framework and pillars. A variety of roses was set out, the old cabbage rose, moss rose, a half double white and dark red, and double, yellow Persian, a splendid eglantine whose flowers were blood red in the inside petals and yellow on the outside, and also a yellow flowering eglantine. Centifolia minor and a still smaller rose of the same character, pink and dark red, were of the greatest ornaments to our gardens. We called them the Pentecost rose and they were always in bloom. At that time too, a pink monthly and tea rose were seen in gardens. The wealthy had in their gardens roses of manifold varieties which they imported from France, and with which they ornamented their pleasure grounds.
Elegant perennials; double pink, blue and white hepaticas; snow balls, saxifragas, crocus, tulips of beautiful shades, narcissus, jonquils, crown imperials, lily of the valley, purple and white violets and pansies were the spring flowers, and were followed by splendid beds of ranunculus, anemones, alstromerias, carnations, handsomer than we have them to-day. Stock gillies, precious wall flowers, asters and balsams were planted in beds bordered with double daisies, dazzling primula veris, Spanish grass, auriculas, pinks, blue dwarf iris and boxwood. The white lily and golden candlestick grew luxuriantly, dwarf delphiniums, monkshood, lychnis calce-donia, double hesperis matronalis, aquilegias, were of many varieties and grown to perfection. The hardy phlox and that handsome dark red peony as well as a large collection of iris, but rarely the handsomest of all, the Iris susiana. When dahlias were introduced from Mexico, they were highly valued. The possessor of a plant like that looked upon it as a treasure.
Verbenas were first only of two kinds, melindris and coerulia; and although a great deal thought of at that time they were replaced by an endless and beautiful collection of their sisters.
I cannot refrain from mentioning a few plants with which I have been acquainted and which made a deep and lasting impression upon my young day observations:
An eglantine rose, a large bushy plant whose foliage spread spicy and agreeable odors, whose flowers were blood red inside petals, and yellow on the outside. There was not, likely, a more charming bush than this rose was when in bloom. Its blossoming time was short, but rich, blooming and elegant.
A perennial spiraea (Venusta) which I saw only once in a florist's place. The plant when full grown is from three to four feet high, the flower about eighteen inches long, a perfect bouquet. It was of a deep pink color somewhat like sp. lobata, the form like sp. Billardi, but close like a bloom of colored pampas grass. I never saw a more graceful flower and it imparted a heavenly enjoyment.
A delphinum perennial with very large steel blue flowers; it was the largest part of summer in bloom, and far handsomer than D. chinen-sis or formosum.
A perennial aster about eighteen inches high and bloomed the latter part of summer, it was a beautiful, perfect, semi-double purple flower as large as a German aster, but a delicate grower.
Another perennial whose name I was told was Tropaeolum canariensis. It was between three and four feet high, clover-like, and blossomed in July. It was covered with little yellow flowers shaped like a canary bird - a very interesting plant; but this, as well as some others, has disappeared to make room for newer and more fashionable plants, and now only exists in my memory. I have not seen one of them in thirty-five years.
The hedging of the gardens was delightful to look upon. Long rows of clipped trees, hedges, evergreens and shrubs were sheared to various forms. Orange and lemon trees, laurel and pomegranate, oleander and myrtle were placed in tubs and stone receptacles. Garden seats were placed at convenient places between beautiful fountains unexcelled at the present day, and which were playing at certain times for the enjoyment of the visitors. The above mentioned vines were skillfully trained over lattice-work forming shady garden houses. There were allegorical groups and single statues representing mythology and horticulture. The large lawns were bordered and planted with shade and ornamental trees and evergreen shrubs such as are described above. There were carriage drives all around the park. Perennials in the center and the balance of the bed filled out with annuals, were planted on both sides of straight plots. Entrances to residences and balconies were generally ornamented with large numbers of plants in tub and pot, and caused a royal appearance. From an emperor's palace to a laboring man's cottage flowers were cultivated. There may be a reason or an excuse for a man not cultivating flowers, but if a woman does not love flowers she cannot be sociable, she lacks heart and is never amiable.
Certain clubs and corporations in convents made a specialty of growing and generating varieties in classes of plants, and raised them to perfection, while all plants of the known world were exhibited in royal gardens. Camellias were raised in one place, azaleas in another, pelargoniums in a third, geraniums, auriculas, alstromerias, stocks, wall flowers, sweet williams, primulas, tulips, asters, balsams - whichever kind was preferred - were attended to with the greatest love.
Amateurs who chose the cultivation of flowers for their pleasure have spent part of their fortune in buying plants, cultivating and exhibiting them for the benefit of their fellow citizens, and have harvested a great deal of honor and satisfaction. Horticultural societies held their yearly exhibitions, and every lover helped to make them a success. Rare plants were sent from all around and shared in the triumph. It was a pleasure to behold these elegant temples of Flora where such perfect collections and such great varieties were exhibited. The aesthetic tastes of the German people seemed to lead up to these displays. The education of the humbler class of people even tended towards it. A laboring man's wife, for instance, saved a few pennies fron her husband's wages, bought a few plants in market, carried them home in triumph, placed them before her window together with her geraniums, balsams, asters, the highly and general beloved rosemary, sweet basil (without those a collection of that kind would have been regarded very imperfect) and other plants which she had collected and planted in tin basins, paint kegs and boxes. She smiles happily as she beholds her flower garden. She loves flowers dearly and wants others to admire them.
The children are allowed a little spot to make a flower garden, and are encouraged and sustained. Thus a taste grows up with them, and they may in after life, perhaps in a different part of the world, create a little paradise in some wild, isolated and forsaken place, Who would say then that the cultivation of flowers was not a blessing of heaven?
In those days greenhouses and conservatories were differently constructed to what they are now. They had sun catchers and were covered with straw mats and shutters at night. They were heated by a smoke flue to keep the frost out, which in very cold weather caused considerable difficulty. Plants were only housed for preservation for summer blooming; consequently flowers in winter were a very scarce article. There were hardly, fifty years ago, so many flowers in the whole winter up to March, through the entire Germany as there are now used during the holidays in the city of New York alone. Greenhouses began to look bright from March ist. All the people cared for was to have plenty of flowers for their exhibitions, which took place in April when masses of camellias, azaleas, French roses, exquisite cinerarias, and all leading plants in bloom were exhibited to the delight of the public and the benefit of the horticultural societies. A night blooming cereus, passifiora or a sensitive plant was looked upon as a wonder of nature. A Stapelia was shown for its disagreeable smell, and people were laughed at on account of the funny faces they made when induced to smell of the flower. Shade trees were only planted in public places and along roads.
Fruit trees were planted around homes and answered for both purposes. The general landscape was even delightful to behold. The sunny hills in March were blue with violets which scented the spring air with their heavenly odor; the blue-eyed forget-me-not by the brooks, the nymphseas in the ponds. The meadows, the roadsides, the woods, the whole landscape was embellished from spring to fall with pretty posies. The song of the lark from the air and of the nightingale from the trees, can never be forgotten. Ivy covered whole buildings, while plants, timely in bloom, were growing in walls, old ruins and churches. In looking at this one is reminded of the old story they tell of an ox which was hoisted up to a steeple to eat the grass.
The German linden is famous, when in bloom, for its healing and nourishing fragrance. So also is the large German honeysuckle, while the German camomile possesses the greatest medical qualities. The old people used to say, " Take off your hat for every camomile flower." No doubt every plant is good for something if we only knew its merits. The sweet spring flowers furnish the first bouquet from the lover to his heart's delight, and rose and peony petals out of the gardens, and the beautiful scarlet poppy and the blue cyanus from the meadows furnish principally the strew flowers for the memorial processions on Corpus Christi day. How gracefully sometimes school girls trim their hats with flowers. Women ornament themselves on various occasions with flowers and vines, often carrying a bouquet on Sunday when they go to church. Youths stick a flower in a button-hole, and men often take a flower between their lips, and they never had a feast without some decoration of flowers. The chrysanthemums with their bright colored beautiful flowers which are distributed in almost every garden, not only add considerably to the pleasantness of the last fall days, but together with all the rest of the flowers which Jack Frost has not yet reached, they form sacred tributes to the memory of deceased relatives and friends on their graves on All Saints' day.
And with the fading of the flowers and the brilliant masses of glossy scarlet berries of the fire-thorn (Mespilus pyracantha) the season closes.
Thus it will be seen that in the olden time the people were not without their delights and their; pleasures, and if they could not boast of as great art and as great varieties as the people of the present day in gardening and horticulture, they had the substantial satisfaction of feeling that all their simple, and indeed, sensible tastes were charmingly and luxuriantly supplied and gratified. Progress is always moving, but memory often turns back and pauses over the bright spots full of delightful reminiscenses in the long past.
We give in this number another of the interesting contributions to the Kingston Freeman, with some additions for our pages, from the pen of our intelligent correspondent, Mr. V. Burgevin, which we are sure our garden-loving readers will appreciate.
 
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