Stock

Stock (Matthiola) - Annual or perennial herbs, sometimes inhabiting sea cliffs. From a few wild kinds have been obtained the numerous varieties of the garden Stocks, which have so long been among the best of our open-air flowers. The principal of these species are M. incana, M. annua, and M. sinuata. M. incana grows wild on cliffs in the Isle of Wight, and is the origin of the Biennial, or Brompton and Queen Stocks; M. annua has yielded the Ten-week Stocks, and M. sinuata the others. These three primary divisions—the Ten-week, Intermediate, and Biennials—require each different treatment, and Stocks are so easily grown, so fragrant and handsome, that they will ever deserve care in our gardens.

Ten-week Stocks, if sown in spring, will flower continuously during the summer and autumn. The finest strain is the large flowering Pyramidal Ten-week, vigorous plants, each branching freely, bearing a huge main spike of double flowers and numerous branching spikes in succession. A bed of these Stocks should be grown if cut flowers are in request during the summer. The seed may be sown at any time from the middle of March onward, but it is always well to get Stocks from seed early. The seed can be sown thinly in pans or shallow boxes, in a gentle heat, and as soon as the plants can be handled without injury, they should be transplanted to other pans or boxes and grown on quickly, care being taken not to draw them so as to make them lanky. There are various places in most gardens where a bed or patches of Stocks might be grown with advantage, and, given good rich soil, they will amply reward the grower. The German growers have a formidable list of kinds, many of which are more curious than showy. There are, however, sufficient good colors among them, such as crimson, rose, purple, violet, and white, to yield distinct hues. There is a strain of English-selected Stocks, known as Pyramidal, which are of tall growth, and remarkable for their large pyramids of flowers, and there is a very distinct type known as Wallflower-leaved, which was introduced many years ago from the Grecian Archipelago, and which has shining deepgreen leaves, not unlike a Wallflower. In all other respects the type is like the ordinary German Stock. One of the finest varieties of this type, and one of the most beautiful Stocks in cultivation, is known as Mauve Beauty. It has huge heads of pale, lustrous, mauve-colored flowers. The culture for the Ten-week Stock will answer for this. The autumn-flowering strain is very desirable, as the plants succeed the German varieties, and so prolong the season.

Intermediate Stocks may be sown either in July or August, to stand the winter and flower early in the spring, or in March, to flower in the following autumn. The strain is dwarf and bushy, and very free-blooming, and the varieties may be said to be confined to scarlet, purple, and white. There is a strain grown in Scotland under the name of the East Lothian Intermediate Stock, and much used there for beds and borders, the climate exactly suiting it for late summer blooming. It is sown in the usual way about the end of March, planted out at the end of May when 3 or 4 inches high, and blooms finely through August and September, and even later, as the numerous side shoots give spikes of flowers. Thus, by using the autumn-sown Intermediate Stocks for early blooming, the ordinary large flowering German Ten-week Stock for summer flowering, and the later East Lothian Intermediate Stock for late summer, Stocks can be had in flower for eight or nine months of the year without intermission.

Biennial Stocks comprise the Brompton and the Queen, and they should be sown in June and July to flower in the following spring or summer. They are closely allied, and are probably only varieties of the same kind; but the seed of the white Brompton is pale in color, whilst that of the Queen is quite dark. Old growers of the Stock assert that while the under side of the leaf of the Queen Stock is rough and woolly, the leaf of the Brompton Stock is smooth on both sides. Of the Queen Stock there are three colors—purple, scarlet, and white; and of the Brompton Stock the same, with the addition of a selected crimson variety of great beauty, but somewhat difficult to perpetuate. Both types are really biennials. The seed should be sown at the end of July in beds, and the plants transplanted to the open ground in the autumn. The difficulty of wintering the Brompton Stocks deters many from attempting their cultivation, and many die, even in a mild winter. A well-drained subsoil with a porous surface soil suits them best, and shelter from hard frost and nipping winds is of great service. A second transplantation of the seedlings about December has been tried with success.