hicks oe Cornell University Library OF THE Mew Work State College of Agriculture 12) niversi Hardy plants for cottage gardens, Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002844524 NUGUV) AHL JO ALIS IHL, American Nature Series Group IV. Working with Nature HARDY PLANTS FOR COTTAGE GARDENS BY HELEN R. ALBEE ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY IgI0 § Aq.bas CorvRicHT, 1910, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY Published May, 1910 CONTENTS IN TRE CBEGINNING: goo es oe te ee ae I An INcIPIENT GARDEN . . . . . 6 ee ee ee ee ee CO Tae GaRDEN GROWS . . 6 6 6% 8 8 we we ee ee we OB My AmsBition GRowS . . . . . 1 6 1 ee ee we ee WITHIN THE GARDEN WALIS. . . - . 1. 1 1 ee ee ee GO SEEDS). 4. 6 oS) KR eR OR Ww RS eR Ss ee ee A DESCENT INTO PARTICULARS . . «~~ «© 1 ee. es we ew e 68 PROPAGATION OF PLANTS . «©. ee 1 ee ee we ew ee) QP Vices OF PLANTS « 6 6 % #8 © # % © Hw SB eH ww = Tor Mine ENEMIFS . . ww ee ew ee ee ee ee ee IB PHOTOGRAPHY OF FLOWERS ....... +. + s+ + « + 134 Some GARDENERS I Have Known. . . . . 1. 1. se we + 345 A DEDICATION ¢§ 6 @ 6 @ 8 Be HH RB ee HR we we we ww EEO CLASSIFIED LIsTS . . 1. 1 ee ew ee ee ew ee «OT White Flowers: . 5 © ss @ oH 8 eH ee we we we ee w TES Blue Hlowerss < « % # = 2 &@ ®@ ww & ww 8 ew 4 w BIO Yellow Flowers . 2. 2. 6 1 1 ee ew ew we ee we ew 830 Pink Flowers . 2 2 6 we ee ee ee ee ee ee BAF Red. Flowers... 8 6 8 @ 8 a ee ee we Se ee we O72 INDEX)¢ SS eS a a Sw Be ew ee BY ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE THE SITE OF THE GARDEN. . . . - . . «frontispiece DIAGRAM OF THE GARDEN OF Omar Suanows. rua idle rote ce I THe WELL CurB.. . > depres See He) A gee Le. 8 A Dry BED IN EARLY May eA idee aug Boas GPa ey Me 8 THE Dey BED IN JULY. « 2 2 8 i oe % we eH ee TO Alirac BusH . . . 1... ee A Si see ee tee ed NSE Hy EO THE OLD STONE WALL AND THE APPLE Tree * BS iy aah “Se cee, 6) Se eh eT A CoRNER OF THE STONE HEaP . . . . .. eS Se ES THE DEEPER You Dic, THE More Rocks You GET ‘Our ss « 28 FraME EpGINGS .. . Sy ne fy ae, Sed ciety! ag ae a Atte” 20: Tue ARBOR SEAT. «© 6 1 6 ew ee ee ee ee we tO My Earty HottyHocks ....... . +4 + 2+ « © © « 24 AN UNEXPECTED Nook. . . ae ee a er ee ee ee | THE PRODUCT OF FEMININE iabOR Be ay Lae Ss Gein SAEs RE, HD A CHOoIcE oF Ways . £ a. we ik’. oe Sécrihy. car Gera cae MBO A GarpDEN Line MAKING FOR A SLOPE Pe he ate ne. Bee ap BO A Doupte TERRACE. . 2. 6 6 6h 8 e ) % we ee eS QR A BLUE AND WHITE CORNER* . . 2... OS BE A Croup oF Inrant’s BREATH GIVES GRACE TO THE "GARDEN - . 36 A Wave oF GARDEN HELIOTROPE . . . . 36 ‘THE GARDEN CovoRED WITH SNOW Passes : A Sucdres ‘Scans, UNBROKEN SURFACE .... ee ae eee ee Snow Lirs LaTE UPON THE BEDS IN Sprine as Gea Be SB BS ee 7 A CoRNERSTONE OF HAPPINESS . . . . . «+ + © © «© © © 44 A Bic STONE AND A LITTLE PaTH . . . «we ee ee ee O44 CLemaTis TRAINED UP AS AN ENTRANCE GATE ..... .- = 46 Waite Physostegia Virginiana . . - . + 46 A TANGLE oF MEapow-Rvg, WILD Crewatrs: AND Hop Vine ee 648 “THat AWNING” . . . be Sa ee Ve hoes Gi cS CHEESE CLOTH Paornexion FOR eavoite Yo ow w we we 82 THE Same ANNUAL BED IN AUGUST .. . - 52 THe New Nursery BED SHELTERED BY A Watt a AND 5 Tae, Penny. NIALS PLANTED ABOVE IT ......... =... =. «58 * Illustrations marked by an asterisk are from photographs by William Homes; all others are from photographs by the author. vi Illustrations SHIRLEY: POPPIES 4. @ 4. Bo oS eo Ge es ROA we es WitpCarRor: oy 4 a oe Ss Soe Be ee Ss JAPANESE CLEMATIS (Clematis paniculata) . . . . «ss s+ VIRGINIA CREEPER AFTER AUTUMN PRUNING ....... - A TERRACED DRIVEWAY* . 2. 2 1 6 ee eee Dianthus plumarius . 6. 1 6 6 6 ww ee ee ee GOUTWEED (Zgopodium varigaia) ASA BORDER PLANT . . . . - Low BorvEr PLants HIDE THE FRAME AND STONE EDGINGS TO THE BEDS? ghacet ine Al ie tar a ee ey RE oy SR ES AzURE BLUE LARKSPUR. . 2. 6 1 6 ee ee et ee Livac P@ony Poppies . . . . 1. ee ee ee et Pink CANTERBURY BELLIS . . . . . 7 ee ee ee A SEPTEMBER Rost, Mrs. JOHN LaInc . . . . .. + ss SYRINGA BUSH): 4 6 3 % % 3 3 8 w 4 © eH 8 eH % 8 Bouncinc Bet anpD Litac P@#ONY PopPIES . . . . . . ee VALUE OF TREES AS A BACKGROUND IN SUMMER AND A WINDBREAK TN WINTER’? ogee ep mee er a THe LANDSCAPE TOWARD THE EAst AS SEEN FROM THE GARDEN a As SEEN FROM My Winpow* . . . 2 1 1 ee ee ees A Heavy BLanKket oF SNow FaLits Earty AND DISAPPEARS LATE A BountiFruL BED FULL OF VicoROoUS P4ONY POPPIES. . . . . GOLDEN GLow AGAINST GRAY SHINGLES). ip thie te Se. Boos Hydrangea paniculata «©... ee ee ee MEADOW-RUE) ng: ce eK Rw wm ‘ HoLiyHocks STRIPPED OF THEIR FOLIAGE BECAUSE OF RUST . A Hazy Day IN OcTOBER . . . . . 1... 1 1 ee ee ee THe Droprinc oF LEAvEs MarKs THE PROGRESS NATURE MAKES A CurvED WALK witH TERRACED BEpDs CuT Our oF A SLOPE, SuG- GESTED BY SHADOWS AT NIGHT . fe. Me ES in nd vat EI PorTION OF A BED SET WITH YOUNG SHRUBS FOR AUTUMN EFFECTS Late SEPTEMBER ANNUALS...) ee ee ee ees WHITE FOXCLOVES « «© 4 6% *% % B® Be Be BE Se we es Waitt FLowers RECURRING LIKE A CHORUS IN A CONTINUOUS MELODY: 26.4) la OS a ae Be ss ei WILD WHITE DalIsIES UNDER CULTIVATION . . . . 2. 1 eee TaBLET—“ THE GARDEN OF OBLIQUE SHADOWS” . ..... CHRYSANTHEMUM MaximMuM ...... 2 BBO Earty Pink Cosmos STILL BLOOMING IN Ocroser Pe ee ee Arctotis SoutH AFRICAN Daisy (Arctotis grandis) . . . . 2. SwEET ScaBIoUS AND DoG-FENNEL ........ ees cy DIAGRAM of HOPE ey“. OF OP a 2 GARDEN OF OBLIQUE SHADOWS CI og Ny cy = ; aw ¢ Sot” $ e- ee of Cie Oo aa ‘3 or oe BE IS Pia NURSERY BED 0 Ge, ke WALK : 2, ae ie ° o 'o eo* 90 pe SFT. ABOVE LOW GROUND Wark 000009090000000000 00000 9000 a?) 2 FT. STONE WALL : ®@ I bo a ° SEx*, BED SFT. ABOVE LOW GROUND 5 x og ' ISH Z oF | § | 5 oa © 2 WALK 2FT. HIGHER 2 of O g | E 3 ihe Ig cete'ccccccscs ce c0000 B % a ee RAL a gt. 8.) WALL oat. pany Tet Pe ts Ce Ue, SED * © BED ON LEVEL WITH WALK 2“ a a OO we ST > bor ev 4 pee Sa & rad ye ty Gd ME. e Warn ° 8966 %50000800 -——_ Rog, 2oTY 3 OND OSes See ttn tFT. HIGH GAR oe ‘sie ay Se egoe0e p90 0 0 gag pairs Oy as fy 85 steps ©? 6? a= @ROUND a a 3s og gt "7 & LOW ae =: & 7) DOTTED LINES INDICATE RISING LAND boa cy BANK ON EITHER SIDE @ 2 Ws a a” ae é "cy WAL 80° fo, : a a oO ee a B SS?) °BED 2 pt Oe ey agit Yo C3” eBELO ge: Gouvsouudg De ene, (A L OF LAWN eee 3 + cosh aes cD ; iu ee , pay Cy = wea Le : ry & PES a * se* HELEN R. ALBEE € Byooe’ c 4 Sua, ne LeveL eet? BIRCHES 2 ae o = ° 0 oe ~ c's . a # * % nue “gy Pe, 33 gove MAIN GARDEN aoa he i ‘Gog . : STBIRGHES,—<3 ¢ 0 y 7 g 2 ert, ABOVE C56 3 Sr ee % 5 ( HOCKS rn oo o- : ° STGNE WALL & ARBOR a F 1 3 BED CUT IN BANK => Sa iw 2 7 GARDEN LEVEL | ~} Po! : 2 TH FY by é [peamace BED 3FT. HIGH TILT. : a,C2n, th ° = \ q q eee go STONE WALL “OFT 7° "97 eS 3" et =° BED CUT IN BANK -c rr be roma ® “9 .o a: ® “> 5 BED ¢ ee =. a eet hae f ry a) Pe ie. He. of oF eco °S MAIN 2. NS_ fF of e? a or) < GARDEN 043 Wee ys ° ee layer sta < a iro g v @: =z{ a 3 )4 © yes Oe 3 o a - a 2 i}? 3S o< = g @ 0 ‘y io 9 BED ~ 1 ae ee So D {ooo FQ on > bd e¢ + ae land ta Low GROUND WALK. : 2 Co gies Fe KON + STEPS WALK BED 2 ‘OBED [ere -¢ ye Pies . ON LEVEL in WATER AY 0° @ o%o° S 60000099000 > = foe ae o'3"o 0 I ee : WALL ta FT, 4 ISTONE WALL o, feet all BED ON BANK 2 PBEDON BANK © -—:, ¢° GED CUT ON " wees, 4 3 tS sf BANK ABOVE MAIN GARDEN. BED 2FT. BELOW LAWN WALL 2FT. KK : pa ong biFT. ° iY LAWN iS 3 HOUSE BACK ISFT. HARDY PLANTS FOR COTTAGE GARDENS IN THE BEGINNING + did from the head of Jupiter. Opening wide his wicket gate the author discloses hundreds of rosebushes bend- ing under a perfumed burden; he points to shrubs of giant height and multitudes of perennials, difficult to raise, that are perpetually in bloom. Though the author may touch blithely upon the possible disasters of the floral kingdom, they are treated more as a matter of tradition than as a present evil; his larkspurs show no blight, his hollyhocks are free from rust; his lilies fail not from mites or drought. Apparently all is smooth sailing from start to finish; yet we, who have dabbled a bit with Nature, read with mixed emotions as we recall sea- sons of despair over our own roses, lilies, larkspurs and holly- hocks; for these wayward inhabitants of our garden have had an unfortunate habit of contracting every known disease. Other unhappy memories of defeat and loss rise up and darken the page. Our humiliation is needless; for, in the flush of success, authors have thoughtlessly omitted any men- tion of mistakes. The present volume is not an ambitious contribution to the subject of floriculture; it is a faithful record of the ignorance, repeated failures and disheartening losses that have attended I 2 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens my effort to assemble in a limited area the choice varieties of hardy shrubs, perennials and annuals offered by our best nurserymen, and to arrange them so as to have a succession of bloom of pure color in each separate bed throughout the season. I am not so far removed from my mistakes as to have forgotten the way to final success. That my garden blooms and flourishes to-day is due wholly to indomitable perseverance and untiring energy; for I represented the average woman, who wants flowers but lacks knowledge and experience in their culture. The average woman seldom knows what she wants, and she has neither an unlimited purse nor a corps of trained assistants at her command. While she hopes to ac- complish great things with the aid of her one man-of-all-work or perhaps none, she is bewildered by the array of scientific names in the catalogues, for the florists make no concessions to her ignorance by listing plants under their common names; so, after a brief and unsatisfactory survey of catalogues, she returns to her initial thought which has hovered about some familiar flowers, dear from association; or, perhaps, if of bolder spirit, something seen and admired in another’s garden. Whatever the original impulse is, it results almost invariably in a few nasturtiums, marigolds, zinnias, or other easy, short cuts to a mass of color. If successful with these indestructible plants, her enthu- siasm grows and she reaches out cautiously toward larger operations; but with the best intentions at heart, there is much that an ardent purpose will not supply; it is not enough to know the botanical names of desirable plants—one must know their manner of growth, height, time of blooming, exact color, special requirements of soil and moisture, and a hun- dred et ceteras of vital importance. Such has been my ex- perience and I know the bitterness of defeated hopes, and have seen summers culminate in failures due to my ignorance, In the Beginning 3 and realized that months must elapse before I could remedy the mistakes. In fact my garden has been a natural growth of hardy con- stitution, else it could not have survived the shocks it has re- ceived. Planted in various latitudes, lying dormant years at a time, it has suffered every phase of misfortune and neglect, but has finally surmounted all difficulties and is now enjoying a beautiful resurrection. It is impossible to state when or where the germ was first planted, but it must have germinated and have had a long tap root at an early age; for, when six years old, in a burst of en- thusiasm, I declared one day, “When I grow up I mean to marry a gardener, then I shall have all the flowers I want, and I shall have morning glories running over the stovepipes.” As our house was not rich in stovepipes—being heated by an unpoetic furnace—it was evident that my imagination had already begun to riot in unconventional freedom. My florist propensities had scant opportunity in a city lot filled with a number of fruit trees, inconceivably big to young eyes. It is not a pleasure to recall my efforts to cultivate a narrow strip of ground that lay between a high brick wall and a six-foot board fence, unvisited by a ray of sunshine. I shall not linger upon those years when I tried to bring a bit of the woods into this north fern bed, where transplanted wild flowers scarcely survived a season. I used to walk up and down the narrow path looking wistfully for signs of my wild flowers which seldom came up. Yet this was a growing season for me; for unconsciously I learned the names and habits of the flora of southern Ohio, and my love of nature was expand- ing and thriving on starvation rations. Gradually I became acquainted with many cultivated flowers, known to me only through visits to greenhouses or in the gardens of neighbors having a southern exposure and no fruit trees. 4 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens One thing I did not learn was, that you cannot trust to the tender mercy of Providence when planting; so for years and years I bought small packages of seeds, and in blind faith dug little holes in the ground, which I watered intermittently; and some of the holes came up—but most did not—and all was vanity. Nor do I think this experience of mine, futile and ignorant as it sounds, is rare among genuine lovers of flowers. They, as well as I, do not know how to go about it; and in con- sequence, we see our ambitious plans fruiting in puny re- luctant plants that reflect our neglect as plainly as the pro- truding ribs of a starved horse proclaim the cruelty of its owner. Both are pitiful to see, and deep is my repentance over those past victims of misguided affection. However, as I have said, through innumerable failures and guilty of a thousand floricides, I came to learn that a flower bed must be prepared, that seedlings must be protected from frost, sun and drought and too much water; that plants must be cared for and groomed daily, and that, if you do your part faithfully, your protégés will surpass in growth and bloom the most flattering promises of seed catalogues. T shall never forget my first efforts to reform life-long er- rors. I had married and was living in the country with un- limited space and sunshine and ample leisure to gratify my love of flowers. During the first two summers I followed the old trick of tucking in a seed and bidding it God-speed—but nothing sped. Then it was that Adam, who chanced to be an illuminated edition of my early ideal—a gardener at heart, though not by profession—suggested that a flower bed should be prepared. I felt there was much hard-headed sense in his remark, yet inwardly resented it. “T have prepared it,” said I, with the bland innocence of a babe. “How did you do it?” inquired he. In the Beginning 5 “Oh,” said I, “I dug it up, and made the earth light. What more do you have to do?” and I showed him where I had prodded the earth a little, perhaps three inches deep. He did not answer, but smiled inscrutably. “I'll make the bed ready for you,”’ he said; and then began such elaborate operations as I had never dreamed of. It was around a huge boulder that the bed was to be made. First he took an axe—a very dull one, to be sure; but I began to see the varied and hitherto unsuspected uses of a whole row of axes which hung neatly upon the barn wall—and made a deep clean-cut line through the turf two feet distant from the boulder. Making cross cuts a foot apart, he lifted the squares of sod lightly with an implement called a spading fork, turned them over to beat the loose earth from the roots, which soil he assured me was too good to lose. Then he spaded the earth fifteen inches deep, picking out every stone, then brought a whole wheelbarrow load of well rotted manure, working it in thoroughly, and added a bucketful of wood ashes, mixing it with the soil. I am ashamed to relate the amazement I felt at the great care he was taking. “Do you have to do this with all flower beds?” I asked with studied carelessness. “Tf you want things to grow,” answered he. Now if Adam had been any other man he would have seized the opportun- ity to instruct his wife on her many dishonorable points of ignorance; but, because it was he, I was allowed to chew the cud of reflection on past sins of omission and draw my own inferences from former failures. When the bed was smoothed and raked, and the loose earth and stones removed from the grass, Adam stood off for the first time to view his work, which restraint I think shows masculine superiority. I have a fluttering way of stepping off at least ten times while doing anything, just to see how well it looks. 6 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens I was very effusive in my praises; I realized what a valuable lesson I had learned in agriculture as well as in the neat work- manlike way a bed should be made. The instruction was not lost. The next day I gathered all sorts of tools together, chose an axe from the unlabelled col- lection, and trundled them out on the lawn to make a bed for myself. Everything was stubborn from the insubordinate turf to the hard soil. Every time I put in my spading fork it struck against stones. It was very hard unaccustomed work, and I soon sat down to ponder the easy grace of the gardener’s movements the day before. I worked a little more and then sat again, reflecting on the wisdom of the negro, who said, “De sun am so hot, de cotton am so dry, and dis yer nigger am so tired, I don’ got a call ta preach.” At this moment Adam appeared, and everything went on velvet wheels. Faint from fatigue, I was thoroughly dis- couraged, and decided that if successful flower gardening in- volved such labor, I should never attempt to play with that graceful art. But my memory of fatigue is short-lived, and before many days I began another bed, and again faltered; and I noted that if I faltered at the critical moment when Adam hove in sight, I had an able assistant at my command. So by dint of a little work and the use of discretionary fatigue I got a tidy bit of arable land under cultivation that summer, and I learned to pluck at my tools quite handily. I had the usual commonplace assortment of flowers, tall and dwarf nasturtiums, the double and single African marigolds in lemon and orange colors; but they made a respectable showing. Following the curve of the driveway, we had set out old- fashioned semi-double red Lancaster roses in a bed perhaps a hundred feet long, and I alternated the above-named an- nuals with the roses, so that there might be a succession of bloom after the roses had fallen. This also was successful, In the Beginning 7 and we might have gone on planting the common annuals and extending our nine beds to an indefinite number, had not the following year been one of great drought. I am not good at remembering figures, but the toil of that summer burnt in two numbers on my mind. For just thirty-five evenings Adam and I dragged fifty buckets of water from the well to irrigate our widely separated plantations. The rose bed, which was several hundred feet from the well, required nine buckets of water to give each struggler just a sip, on which we thought, considering the season and our heroic efforts, that out of common gratitude, the roses ought to have contrived to get along. But they did not even try. There is no codperative spirit in flowers. They will not accommodate themselves to your necessity, and be thankful for half loaves when there is no bread. The only side-light of appreciation we got for our pains came from our old Irish cook, who remarked to me one day that ‘‘we made a pretty picture on the lawn,” which was a great concession, considering she had to launder my draggled white frills and Adam’s duck trousers. I tried to get what comfort I could from the esthetic side of our never-ending labor, and when a trifle fagged, I would suggest to Adam, “that we group ourselves for Marcella’s benefit.” Vainly did we empty the well on the parched earth; thrice did we plant some beds, nothing succeeded. At the end of the summer we came across the most tragical little growths. In clearing up a nasturtium bed, where aster seeds had also been planted, I discovered a single wee anomalous plant about three inches high, bearing a morsel of bloom less than half an inch across; and this rarity proved to be an aster. I also found morning glories with only two leaves, proudly bearing a miniature terminal flower on its four-inch vine. Poppies were mere threads of growth, with quarter inch flowers. Everything had peaked and pined. In the Beginning 9 we have a continual succession of brilliant color from May until October. Later we set out another permanent bed equally accom- modating, with white lilacs as a background, and filled it with hardy roses—rugosas, old-fashioned semi-double red roses, the pink cinnamon, the white and pink Scotch, and the com- mon blush roses; and as a border to them were planted al- ternately sweet-william and purple iris. This gives a succes- ~ sion of bloom without a conflict of color, and beyond forking over the earth and dividing the plants as they increase, this bed takes care of itself; occasionally it is weeded and the grass edge must be cut out. As a beginning in shrubbery we planted syringa, white and purple lilacs, snowball trees, Hydrangea paniculata, masses of cinnamon roses, and wild roses brought up from the sea coast, purple fringe, sumachs, young spruces and hemlocks, white locust, mountain laurel, shad bush and native rhododendron. By giving them deep mellow soil and a liberal mulching they need no attention in the way of water, unless the summer be exceptionally dry. Most of them spread from the root, and can either be allowed to grow in clumps, or divided and reset, to increase further. I like this way of enlarging one’s stock; there is a patriarchal flavor in having young families grow up around the parent stock, in time to be set out as centers of other communities. By gradual separation and extension one can get beautiful masses without much labor or expense. Meanwhile I had already begun to plant hollyhock seeds everywhere. I say begun, because it grew to be a habit, and when I had nothing else to do, I used to go out and drop a few seeds in a new spot. This was nothing more or less than atav- ism, for I had not entirely escaped my old desultory methods. Vet the results were good, owing to Adam’s careful fertilizing, and before long I had quantities of young plants that were set 10 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens out permanently to bloom the succeeding year; and they have continued to bloom ever since increasingly in geometric ratio. You cannot have too many hollyhocks, provided they are deli- cate pink and pure cardinal red in the single, semi-double and double varieties. Kind neighbors are only too glad to share the burden of caring for them, and an oversupply of any choice plant often leads to interesting exchanges. Before I had a real garden and a consequent enlargement of heart, I used to think the matter of exchange very small business. This doling out seeds or young plants and getting others in return was too much like dickering, and I frowned upon the whole proceeding. But there came a time when flowers bore a new aspect, and nothing now gives me greater pleasure than to have a friend present me with her favorite flower, which ever after is associated with her. The more things I have planted in this way, the dearer has my collection become; and to-day I go through my garden and tell over these offerings, linking them with affectionate thoughts of the givers, much as the pious nun tells off her beads to the various saints. More than this, when the gift has been bulbs or plants that require resetting, the bond is so strong that those who sent them seem to hover near and companion the hours devoted to planting the contributions of friendship. But, as the too loquacious novelist of the last century used to say when he brought his froward pen to an abrupt pause— this is anticipating. A Litac BusH [P. 9] AN INCIPIENT GARDEN #415 I have related, the indiscriminate spotting of the &3| lawn with flower beds big, little, long, round and ) square continued during several seasons, and I 4 look upon it as the Dark Ages, during which flori- culture made no progress. I wearied of the narrow limitations imposed by a few shrubs. I hungered for flowers and color, though each new experience convinced me of the wisdom of confining myself to durable nasturtiums, marigolds, and ever more nasturtiums—they being the only flowers that survived the droughts that yearly doomed us. That sin- gle wizened aster decided me that asters were not for me, nor cosmos, poppies, cornflowers and many other hard- ridden favorites. Then there came a pause in a peculiarly severe winter that housed us for months, that piled the snow almost to the tops of certain windows, a winter which cut one off from all past ex- periences and left him like a new-born babe, open to new in- fluences. At first when the wind roared down the chimneys, and rattled our doors and windows, and made merry with drifting the snow still higher toward the eaves, I took refuge in the atlas. Thumbed were the pages bearing the maps of semi-tropical countries; worn were the margins where pink and yellow sun-kissed islands bask in turquoise seas. I was on intimate terms with a hundred sheltered nooks in many climes, and all open to a southern exposure. Adam confided to me that he hoped by another winter that we could go to the Equator where he meant to have a house right on the Line, it 12 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens with the front door opening to the north and the back door to the south of it. It was at this juncture that several of those much-maligned seed catalogues came to Adam, who prudently buys his vege- table seeds during the month of February, before the spring rush comes. Idly turning over its pages, my eyes struck two familiar names—Ageratum and Agrostemma. In an instant I was carried back ten years, when, one summer, in Minnesota I undertook gardening on the alphabetical basis (just as the Peterkins were instructed in foods) and I got no further than the A’s, so interesting was the initial letter of the alphabet. The A’s always have the advantage, much as the first vol- umes of Grote’s “History of Greece” show wear and finger- marks that entirely disappear when the twelfth volume is reached. In that remote time I had read the A’s with enthusiasm, and as none of the names was familiar, it is small wonder that my fancy was captivated with these words; ‘““Ageratum—effective plants for bedding, covered with bloom throughout the sea- son.” Surely that was the plant for me! Hear also, “ Agro- stemma—aAttractive, free-flowering perennials of easy culture and excellent for cutting.” Attractive? It not only at- tracted, but caught me at first sight. I bought both, dug little graves for both, visited them at increasing intervals, as those do who are careless of their dead, and then quite forgot them. No, not quite; because for years after I used to specu- late about their fate; had they come up? What did they look like? I had never found out. Now here was a chance for an intelligent settlement of that ten-year old question. I’d buy them, and watch. So I browsed on; not only the A’s but every letter in the alphabet was rich in treasures. If the A’s bloomed throughout the season, the B’s were “an unrivaled strain saved from the best selected blooms of the finest hy- An Incipient Garden 13 brids;” the C’s were characterized by “richness of color and profusion of flowers”—and so on with undiminished eloquence to Z—Zinnia, where my intoxicated eyes caught “one of the finest plants . . . commence to bloom in June and continue throughout the season... require little care... any common garden soil... prize strain . . . unsurpassed.” Ah! here was a fulfilment of a life-long desire; here were quan- tities of lilies that toiled not, and nobody had to toil; no more fifty buckets of water at night; no more digging and manuring beds two feet deep; “any common soil” would do. Had I not the grower’s word for it? and we had a hundred acres of just such soil needing zinnias to hide the poverty-stricken grass that grew in segregated clumps over our barren hill-top. What cared I for snow-drifts, for howling winds, and 20° below zero weather? Airily I spent my days on the lawn (in my mind) gently plucking flowers that never grew less than two feet high and eight inches across. The sun shed only a soft genial warmth; the sky was always blue, except when it showered agreeably. I was in the gardener’s Paradise, and had a glori- ously happy time; and my lists grew. One day, when looking out of the window, it occurred to me that, with so many prospective treasures, I ought to have a garden to plant them in. Surely a garden—not patches on the lawn; a garden where some day perhaps I could walk, and I resolved if that day ever came, I shouldn’t go trailing long drabbly white garments about damp walks in the dreamy ab- stracted fashion of damsels such as artists have loved to paint; for my garden was going to be damp, perpetually damp, walks and all; it would have to be if it bore those eight-inch flowers. And thus did I go on planning the garden that Eve should make. Why not take the very spot before my eyes? Was it not sheltered on the north by a high stone wall and apple trees, that, at the proper moment, should form a pic- 14 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens turesque background for—just what would be the correct foreground did not occur to me at that instant. Sub rosa let me confide that the foreground has been and continues to bea perplexing problem, for under the shade of the trees the tall pink hollyhocks, foxgloves and sweet williams planted there have a shifty method of drying up in a time of famine, though for two seasons they were beautiful, yet not quite coincident with apple blooms; so I have come to regard the old stone wall as a permanent background to the general garden, height- ened by the green of the apple trees and the bed itself is little more than an experiment-station where I test the endurance of plants. Further:—was there not a fine tangle of grape-vine that needed a reconstructing hand to weave it through the boughs for a natural arbor over a stone seat that could be built in the corner, and a dozen yards more of it used as a covering for the rustic fence to be made on the west side? Surely less charms than a stone wall, overhanging apple-trees, a grape-vine, a possible arbor and a stone seat—later found to be a great promoter of rheumatic joints, because it was so shady that it never got quite thawed out in summer—have de- cided more momentous questions than a garden site. In ten minutes I laid out more work than I accomplished in a whole year. Immediately I set to work with a large sheet of paper in front of me for diagrams, my seed catalogues on the right— for I had foreclosed and taken possession of all current and past issues of the seedsmen—seeds in packages piled up on my left, and doubly flanked on every side by seed lists—Cornelia- and-her-jewels fashion. These same books, lists and pack- ages became my intimate companions. The daily paper would be found under them; they strewed tables and chairs; they preémpted couch and floor space. I arranged and rear- [P. 14] THE OLD STONE WALL AND THE APPLE TREE An Incipient Garden 15 ranged the magical names upon diagrams until frequent era- sures compelled fresh ones—and all the time I was learning a little about flowers. Impatiently did I wait for the tardy coming of spring, and the subsidence of the snow was marked by Mount Ararat ap- pearing in its usual place on a slope about fifty feet from the house. As the snow melted, I made a painful discovery. It was true that the spot I selected and diagramed at least twenty times had a protecting stone wall, also, apple-trees overhanging, also—a grape-vine—also it was not the smooth inviting hollow my fancy had pictured, but a dump heap for boulders and rocks, big and little, that had been unloaded there for years with a view to filling up the swale that lay be- tween the two slopes, one of which fell away from the house, the other rising across this natural runway; also—countless wild blackberry and red raspberry bushes, hardhack and other tough shrubby growths that had become deep rooted among the rocks. This crescendo of difficulties lacked noth- ing to complete my discomfiture. When the snow lay five feet deep it was a smooth undulating stretch. How had I hap- pened to forget these insuperable conditions? I grew lower in mind, but said nothing. One bright Sunday morning when the sun shone as all suns should shine on prospective gardens, I bade Adam go forth with me. Isat him down on the bank still soggy with the winter storms, and said, as collectedly as I could: “Well, what do you think of it?” “Think,” he repeated slowly, a way he has when he wants to gain time and is about to say something that he knows will be disagreeable to me. “Yes,” said I a trifle impatiently, recognizing how gently he was about to slay my pet plan, and anxious to have it over. “This is the spot I have chosen for the garden. What do you think of it?” 16 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens “J don’t think anything of it; it’s impossible,” said he. ‘“Rocks—brambles, you can’t make a garden out of them.” For a brief moment his denial shook my confidence; but a cherished hope is long-lived, and thrives amidst thorny ob- stacles. “Tt is pretty discouraging,” I urged, “but what of all my plans—my dreams—my charts? I can’t give it up. Nowhere else is there a stone wall with a grape-vine and trees in happy propinquity.” Then he turned a full masculine gaze upon me. “You ought to have known there were rocks there and bushes; there are plenty of places, why choose the hardest possible spot on the farm?” “Oh yes,” pleaded I, “plenty of spots, but not garden spots. I don’t want to go about digging any more holes in the ground at random. I want to decide on a place already selected by Nature as a favorable location, and build up where she has begun. The very size of these bushes proves the fertile con- ditions,” I urged, laying desperate hold upon the most obvious impediment and bending it neatly to my argument. ‘This is the only suitable place on the entire farm. Besides, it is not only near the house and the well, but it has natural ad- vantages and features,” and I glibly enumerated them again, forgetting that for weeks I had talked of little else than of a certain stone wall, grape-vine and apple-tree. He looked sceptically about him. “T’ve heard of them be- fore, and if you like the idea of that grape-vine, and stone wall and apple-tree, why not enjoy them just as they are? why tangle them up with the garden question? My advice is, don’t make yourself any unnecessary work; any place will do.” Here he arose, and paused; “I’m sorry for your disap- pointment, but you must surely see for yourself that it is An Incipient Garden 17 wholly impossible. It’s too damp to stay here any longer,” and he strolled away. Finding myself weakened under the force of his arguments, I chose another adviser—my pretty maid with golden brown hair and rose leaf cheeks, to whom I had daily confided my accumulating dreams. “Mollie—come here—sit down,” and down she sat obedi- ently. “This is it,” said I waving an authoritative hand in the direction of the tree and grape-vine, ignoring rocks and brambles. “This is JT. My good Adam says it is impossi- ble; what do you think?” She looked not at the difficulties, but like a true woman she spoke. “Do you want it?” “T do,” replied I fervently. “Then I’d have it,”’ quoth she. And thus it came to pass that a certain well-beloved spot is bounded on the north by a stone wall and a background of trees, on the east by a rising slope upon which open my cham- ber windows, on the south by the full sunshine, and on the west by another rising slope beyond which stretch forest trees. Never was there a more favored nook, free from early and late frosts, moist from the depression made by the swale that runs between the banks, forming a natural waterway to carry off the winter snows, sheltered from the wind in every direction.? 1 See Frontispiece—The Site of the Garden. THE GARDEN GROWS (y v T is one of the blessed compensations that we can- cate) not recall pain once experienced, we cannot sum- ae "i mon the fear that once paralyzed us. All our past ——=— is insulated by varying degrees of forgetfulness. Now, after eight years when I stand at the edge of my small world, it is difficult to recover the alternating moods of en- thusiasm and despair, the high hopes of each new day and the utter fatigue and discouragement at night—when I attacked that stone heap. Be it remembered, however, that I had been: housed most of the winter by five feet of snow on the level, that for months my feet had tingled to get out on the solid earth, and my hands, being normal hands, longed to pull and tug at something. Moreover, I was fired by a holy zeal; yet if this recital is to be wholly truthful, I must state, that, having gathered a crowbar, a hoe, a pickaxe, a grubbing hoe, a shovel, a sickle and a potato digger into a wheelbarrow, I paused with sinking heart when I wheeled my cargo to the stone heap. T felt the need of more tools! I had decided to recover twenty-five feet square of the waste, and my original idea was to dig out the bushes from between the rocks, remove the larger rocks, levelling off the others, and then have several cartloads of good rich soil dumped on the twenty-five foot area, and mark out my beds. My experience is that nothing affords such violent mental gymnastics as an original idea. It never works; yet one clings to it like a drowning man to a plank; and if you can conceive of the drowning man trying to nail a few more planks to his 18 Tue Deeper You Dic, tar More Rocks You Ger Our [P. 19) The Garden Grows 19 slender hold on life, you have my position exactly. I hold on to an idea with a death grip, and.by attaching to it all sorts of incongruous compromises, it materializes in a form never conceived; which proves that original ideas are vital organ- isms, and follow their own mode of development, and you meekly trail on behind. TI used to think my failure with origi- nal ideas was due to an excess of imagination. I now believe it is due to gross ignorance of the laws that govern the mental world. This enterprise proved a shining example of the phoenix form such an idea takes from the ashes of one’s plans. For many years the rock heap had been the dumping ground for coarse rakings of manure and small stones from the flower beds, mulch from the vegetable garden, clippings of grass from the lawn and dead leaves. These had decayed and made a rich black compost. Hence, the tilling of a stone heap is a very different matter from tilling the average New Hampshire soil. In the former, the deeper you dig, and the more stones you get out, the more light rich earth you have; while in the ordinary soil the deeper you dig and the more rocks you get out, the bigger the hole left. I think I come close to the truth when I say our average land runs a bushel of rocks to a pint of earth; and as for the quality of the earth, the less said, the better it is for the reputation of New Hampshire farms. Let it be understood that I am generalizing from a - single example, which is said to be the prerogative of genius. When conversation flags in our household, I can always radi- ate a genial heat by introducing casually the topic of the na- tive soil. Adam rises to it like a fish to a fly, and one would think we were Government experts, the way we fling our sta- tistics. In his loyalty he declares New Hampshire raises more corn to the acre than any State in the Union. This is met with scorn; the great Western States are cited; but Adam ut- terly disclaims the possibility of a yield of a hundred bushels 20 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens to the acre, nor seventy, no, nor forty; perhaps twenty-five would represent the actual figures. Somehow this conversa- tion, oft repeated with interesting variations, reminds me of Lot pleading with the Almighty for the salvation of Sodom, and the numerical results closely resemble each other. I like Adam’s sincere defense of a lost cause; it is a strong guarantee of domestic fidelity, even if he does call me Miss Ipse Dixit before we get through. If it were not for the rocks and native soil and a yearly drought thrown in for good measure, a gar- dener could loaf most of the time in this region. The first few days proved I was still an amateur. I would dig out a bush here, heave a rock there, shy little stones to- ward a deep unfilled hole in the corner until my hands were worn down to the quick; but of good honest systematic work there was none. I very much needed a boss; but Adam had evidently decided not to interfere with my education; and he also knew, that, when possessed with an idea, I am apt to grow a little heady. So he wisely absented himself, though I knew he was always within hailing distance in his own garden, and was only waiting to be summoned. The deep deposit of black soil found between the rocks was like striking a vein of metal, and I speedily decided that life was not long enough to dig over the entire area; that I had better abandon the plan of covering the stones with earth, that it was easier to lay out the beds at once and confine mining operations within their limits. From necessity I had to reinforce my deepening shafts by enclosing them with strong wooden frames, and this is how it happens that my beds are bounded by box (?) edgings—an ugly device, but cheaper than brick. Within these enclosures I dug down about eighteen inches and after the stones were removed, I had perhaps eight to ten inches of mellow black earth. The beds were then filled to the top of the board edg- ings with a mixture of the top soil of Adam’s vegetable gar- THE ARBOR SEAT The Garden Grows 21 den—some of it being coaxed, and some quietly appropri- ated—wood ashes, leaf mold from the woods, sand and manure. I had a man place the larger boulders in the corner, where the long-talked-of seat was made, and the smaller ones T laid up in a low wall on two sides. This was another com- promise with the original idea. I had intended to have the stones hauled away—just where was not clear, but some- where. But this use of them as boundary walls proved a much easier solution; and from this first makeshift disposition of the stones came the later construction of the garden walls, which are not only one of the chief beauties of the garden but have proved to be of the greatest value to me. Of these walls I shall speak more at length later. A rustic fence on two sides was made from young spruces from our woods, the vine was woven through the boughs of trees into an arbor over the stone seat, and finally everything was in readiness for planting my seeds. Measured by the labor expended on bushes, boulders, the rustic fence and preparing the compost, the twenty-five- foot garden was enormous; but when enclosed by walls on three sides, it shrank to the size of a postage-stamp. I con- soled myself with the thought that everything is dwarfed when measured by Nature’s yardstick. Her areas are so vast that the ground plans for the most spacious house become aston- ishingly small when staked out. When I came to follow the diagrams made for sowing seeds, I saw that too many things had been crowded into a small space, and though the plans were followed in a way, I hap- pened upon a much safer method of distribution, that I still use, which is to scatter the packages of seed over the allotted ground, and when the bed is thus apportioned, one can better judge how much space should be given to each variety. I planted five and twenty varieties of seeds, but recall only a few of them, and these are remembered chiefly for their mis- 22 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens conduct. The evil that we do lives after us. The early cos- mos quoted as three feet high was given the whole length down the middle of a bed; but in my virgin soil it grew over five feet, and when a long rainy season occurred while it was in full flower, it leaned over and completely blocked one of my paths; and I let it do so, because I did not know any better. T never thought of stakes in those days. The pentstemon, a gift, grew lustily, and when September arrived with no visible ~ bloom I thought it wise to look up its credentials, and found that while it was very desirable, it was a tender perennial. As I knew nothing of shielding delicate constitutions from our northern severities, its place knew it no more after that first summer of green promise. I had been attracted by the high praise given to the Nicotiana affinis, and I planted a whole paper of seeds, watered and watched them advance from their first seed leaves. Occasionally I questioned why the nicotiana appeared all over the plot, but thought it was due to the scat- tering of seeds by the birds, that sat daily on my rustic fence to fly down during my absence and nip off the heads of the blue annual larkspur. This was a vague inference about the cause of the decapitated heads that were found on the ground until the cosmos grew over the walk like the leaning tower of Pisa, and further access to the larkspur was cut off. So I went on in bland ignorance, and fingered the woolly leaves of my nico- tiana, and by September I began to wonder why there was no bloom. One day I had a visitor, a young woman of prompt and ready action, who had made a special study of botany. She looked patronizingly on my bit of cultivated rock heap with its fading beauty, while I apologetically set forth my plans for an extension another year. She suddenly made a dive and plucked out one of my nicotianas and tossed it aside. “Why what are you doing ?” cried I in dismay. The Garden Grows 2 “You don’t want these weeds in your garden; why here’s another—they are all over the place.” ' “Yes,” said I proudly, “those are my nicotianas; they are doing well, but for some reason they won’t bloom.” The Botany girl laughed. “Nicotiana! mullein!—and you have been tenderly growing mulleins all summer?” and she tore out another handful with deadly precision. I respected her knowledge, for she had just received her degree, yet I was distressed and unconvinced. “Are you sure? do you know nicotiana?” I questioned, pointing to the label clearly bearing the name of the row. “You had better ask if you know mullein,” and she laughed again, and tweaked out the last vestige of my woolly plants. She was right, and to this day, not quite certain of the differ- ence, I grow a certain number of mulleins in the fond belief that they are nicotiana, in spite of the fact that the first mul- lein leaves, before the tiny inner ones begin to show, are slightly crenate or scalloped at the edges, while nicotiana has an entire edge and much smoother leaf; otherwise I still hold they resemble each other quite needlessly. The delightful fragrance of the latter and its beautiful flowers are somewhat offset by their being closed through the day, except in very dull weather, and the plant is infested by the potato-bug. I had an abundance of delicious wall flower, ten weeks stock and pansies. Everything flourished—plants, cutworms, grubs, moles, but of these I sing later. The hollyhock seeds planted along one side by the rustic fence made a famous growth. They sent down deep roots among the rocks below and bloomed vigorously the second year. Each year yields a moment of pure joy. The first occurred when a friend stepped down into my small domain to view things. He sniffed delightedly. “What is it that smells so good? It is delicious,” and he 24 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens stooped over the stock. “No, it is not that,” and he smelt of the wallflower. “No, what is it? It recalls to me the delight- ful memories of childhood.” _ Now there is no more delicate compliment that a man can pay a woman than to tell her that something she has or does restores that happy time. I fairly bristled with pride. He hovered an instant over the mignonette, sweet peas, white petunias and pansies, no—it was none of these, nor boy love nor sweet alyssum. Then he picked up a rosy-cheeked apple, one of the many that clutter up my walks each sum- mer—a phase not included in my inventory of charms when deciding on the site of the garden. “Ah, this is a part of it,” he exclaimed softly. Then he stood up and turning slowly around he tried to concentrate all his senses in his nose. The fragrance was penetrating and sweet. “It is the garden!” said he at last, and he was so pleased with the solution that I almost expected that he would tell me that I reminded him of his mother. The next climax of satisfaction came during the second year of my campaign. I was making an extension, which meant that a slope rising both ways had to be dug out, and the earth redistributed. That is the most that men ever do: they never actually make anything. They dig out a bit here, and fill up there; they cart matter from one place to another, but they neither add to nor substract a jot from the original sub- stance of creation. I was in the act of redistributing, and I did not know that Adam had been watching the manful way I clove the bank with my pickaxe, and then tossed brimming shovelfuls of earth into the wheelbarrow, thoroughly enjoying the exercise of my strength. “Haven’t you an Irish ancestor somewhere in your family ? You dig like a Paddy.” “AN UNEXPECTED Nook [P. 25] The Garden Grows 25 Never has praise from any lips so rejoiced my heart as this unexpected tribute. The third moment came two years later when a very skilful amateur gardener made me an afternoon visit. We talked intelligibly without the need of an interpreter. She knew candytuft and Dianthus without being told; also spoke under- standingly of the deeper mysteries of Physostegia, Stokesia, Boltonia, Euphorbia corrolata, things representing the higher education in a garden. By and by she slipped away from my side, and while I was prattling on with an ordinary denizen of this lower world, she threaded her way through the paths from terrace to terrace. “How delightful your garden is,’”’ said she on her return. “You can really walk in it, and how many charming, unex- pected nooks and corners you have!” Sweet is the praise of a friend. Had I not cherished in my heart for years this privilege of walking in my garden? not merely stepping down into it and out again, and seeing the whole at a glance as I did the first year, but take a leisurely stroll from bed to bed, from one elevation to another, and choose which way one should go. Her words touched the tenderest depth of my aspiration. I was much impressed that first summer with the total lack of dignified reserve that exists in the floral world. The riot- ous way that self-respecting flowers, with centuries of culti- vated ancestry behind them, hobnobbed over the rustic fence, was a scandal. The raspberry bushes, still left in the un- claimed territory, leaned over the wall and dallied with the cosmos. The climbing nasturtiums, which were supposed to make a decorous barrier between the sheep and goats, lost their reserve and got into many disgraceful entanglements with the tramps outside. The bindweed and wild buckwheat vines found ready admission to the select society of African 26 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens marigolds and stock, and established the most intimate rela- tions. Both inside and outside my walls was a spirit of jovial fellowship. But the most immoral thing in the garden was a hop vine, perfectly incapable of self-support, ready to at- tach itself to any object. I found it one day twining like a boa constrictor around a tall grass stalk. Such shameful depend- ence upon any frail support at hand will, ultimately and in- evitably, lead hop vines, when they reach the human stage, to look to their wives for maintenance. I fostered an unnecessary grief that first summer. I was so happy in the plenitude of bloom, that I was ready to order mourning in advance of the sad day when the frost should de- stroy the beauty. Gentle melancholy darkened many an Au- gust day with the anticipated sorrow. But Nature has a kind way of alleviating many of our griefs. Before the frosts came, almost all my annuals—I had little else that summer— had run their race and wore a frowsy, jaded look, and I was thankful when, at last, a sharp frost added the finishing stroke, so that, with a clear conscience, I could tear up the withered stalks and throw them over the wall to make a deeper compost among the rocks outside. The need of removing -each plant as it faded had never occurred to me, for most of the garden faculties of my mind were still dormant. MY AMBITION GROWS ONG before the first summer was over I felt the “| need of more room. The twenty-five-foot area was but a narrow chrysalis shell, and I determined | to spread my wings another season. Then, too, I did not like the things that went on in that impenetrable jungle outside the walls. Almost any hour of the day one could hear strange noises within its depths, rustling sounds, fugitive glimpses of snakes, chipmunks and red squirrels. In October I cleared a new piece about twenty-five feet by forty of rocks and bushes, and looked upon the daily exercise as an outdoor game rather than work. I had learned to use my tools more intelligently; the shovel more often replaced my threadbare hands in removing earth; occasionally I remem- bered to put on gloves. It has been my privilege recently to read how a lady con- ducts herself in a garden, and I now see how I have defied every convention in the matter of garden etiquette. The book must have been written at a time when damsels were addicted to tight lacing and swoons, for the author apologizes grace- fully for the lady who wants to garden, and her advice is ob- viously to give courage to a feeble sisterhood. “Tt must be confessed,” writes my English authority, “that digging appears, at first sight, a very laborious employment, and one peculiarly unfitted to small and delicately formed hands and feet;” and then, after a careful explanation of the wey mere man performs the operation, she continues; “A lady with a small light spade, may, by repeatedly digging over 37 28 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens the same line, and taking out only a little earth at a time, suc- ceed in doing with her own hands all the digging that can be required in a small garden, the soil of which, if it has been in long cultivation, can never be very hard or very difficult to penetrate; and she will not only have the satisfaction of seeing the garden created, as it were, by the labor of her own hands, but she will find her health and spirits wonderfully improved by the exercise, and by the reviving smell of the fresh earth.” Was ever hard labor so delicately sugar-coated? with all my errors of judgment I never took a homeopathic view of the relation between earth and tools. I feel like a hoyden when I recall my energetic efforts, the farm shovel, the pickax, the thirty-five-pound crowbar. I have no extenuating “as it weres” in myrecord. It isa clear and undeniable charge upon my past that I did actually create my garden from a stone heap—not from “land under long cultivation.” I am a barbaric Amazon; but what can be expected of one with a probable Irish ancestor except a wild outbreak of rude strength in unguarded moments, when wrestling with virgin soil. Further: the lady’s proper weapon is a spade “smooth, sufficiently slender for a lady’s hand to grasp, of close elastic wood,” only “tolerably strong”—evidently no lady is ex- pected to expend her precious strength, provided she has any, on garden operations—“one that shall penetrate the ground with the least possible trouble.” Still further: “ A lady should have a pair of stiff leathern gloves or gauntlets to protect her hands not only from the handle of her spade, but from stones, weeds, e¢ cetera which she may turn over with the earth, and which ought to be picked out and thrown into a small light wheelbarrow which may be easily moved from place to place.” Surely this picture of sweetness and light quite shames me. This is the way true femininity conducts itself in the presence My Ambition Grows 29 of rocks, soil and weeds; and as a guarantee that this is a real, and not a fancy sketch, the lady’s hand, that makes but a pleasant mockery of toil, is pictured gently extended, clothed to the elbow with her stout leathern gauntlet—as I recall mine, they were mostly either in the barn or sunning them- selves on a distant rock—and in her hand is something that looks like a composite growth of all the garden, thus proving that feminine labor lightly pursued is productive. And the Lady’s wheelbarrow, duly portrayed on the next page, is the triggest, nat- tiest little toy ever offered for sale. Then the author tells you the angle at which to thrust in your spade, how to use your strength, how to raise the earth on the spade—all of which she says “may be done with ease.” She evidently measures the human chain by its weakest link, and after saying that “so few ladies are strong enough to throw earth from a heap,” she tells how the feeble can make a profitable compromise, and achieve the same results by a strategic use of her tools. I do not know what would have happened if I had used these dainty super-refined methods. It took brawn and pluck and plenty of it to prepare my land. In vain do I scan my authority for some hints regarding how a lady should act when she strikes among the et ceteras a rock several feet across, or finds her garden line escaping from the “soil under long cultivation” and making straight for a slope that has not been tilled since the nebular period of our globe. What sort of a compromise shall she make with her shovel so that the increasing pile of earth, dug out of an ever rising and extending bank, shall deposit itself on the further side of a ter- race wall; and is the lady’s wall to be made by sundry stones 30 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens evaporating from the general heap and wafting themselves into place? The voice of the silent past answers not, and Iam forced to the conclusion that no lady would attempt such a project, or she, who does undertake it, cannot be of gentle rearing. These doubtful imputations do not trouble me much, even though the garden I possess is mine solely through the conquest of just such impossible conditions. Winter set in before the work was done, and again I re- sorted to the catalogues and botanies as my chief literature. I did not exactly distrust the glowing accounts of the seeds- men: I wanted corroboration; and when I found the impartial Asa Gray, who seldom raises his scientific admiration to the heat of adjectives, quoting any plant as “handsome,” “showy,” or “cultivated in choice gardens,” immediately that gem went on my list. Neglected was the atlas; warm sun-kissed islands had no attraction; the foot-rule, blank sheets of paper, spread out on a lapboard, a rapidly decreasing eraser, gave full occupation until January, when I sent off for fifty varieties of annual and perennial seeds. I prudently limited myself to those not costing more than ten cents per package. I bought also two hundred Neponset paper flower pots, that come in all sizes, and take the place of the more perishable earthen pots at one third their price. Each acts as a guardian angel to the seedling raised in it; for, in trans- planting, the pot may be turned over a plant to shield it from the sun, and it also gives protection from any untoward frost that may descend at unpredicted moments. Under its be- nign shade a plant endures transplanting as comfortably beneath a hot July sun as if it were a cloudy May morning. I had brought in a quantity of rich mellow soil—it should have had more sand in it, as rich earth often causes young seedlings to “damp off,” that is, to drop over and die sud- denly, when kept too moist—many little stones to put in the A GarbDEN LINE MAKING FOR A SLOPE [P. 29] My Ambition Grows 31 bottom of the pots for drainage, and one bright Sunday morn- ing at the dark of the moon (to obey the almanac) I began the holy work of planting some of the seeds. Later I planted others at intervals of a week apart, writing the name and date of planting on each pot. Every sunny window and warm corner in the house was laid under contribution to my pur- poses. My forcing-house was a long mantle shelf over a wood stove, which was kept at temperate heat day and night. When the first seed leaves appeared, the pot containing the new-born was placed in the sun in a contrivance made by fitting a shal- low frame into the lower casing of a window, with cleats nailed across the ends from six to nine inches apart, and narrow shelves four inches wide were set on the cleats. When three pairs of leaves appeared, each seedling was transplanted into a separate pot and placed in the cool shade on the top of a low bookcase which served asa cold frame. By the time the seed- lings had recovered entirely they were ready for the fourth stage, which was to take them into a sunny chamber upstairs with a south exposure, but no fire, where an even temperature of about 60° was maintained. As I had no appliances, I used anything at hand; and when a large table became too full, I took out the shallow drawers of an old-fashioned bureau and filled them with my pots, resting one end of a drawer on the window-sill, the other on the edge of the table, and in this way increased my area of possible sunshine three or four times. This last stage of hardening is imperative; for if seedlings are kept long in a warm living-room they grow spindling and very tender and are quite unprepared for the changeable weather and high winds of our Northern spring. By May I had several hundred plants, and the chamber had an attenuated smell of a real greenhouse. While this method of propagation gave me a good start, I have never tried it since. In the first place it is an enormous care, and 32 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens very little is gained by an early start. I had to dig the little things up with my eyes during February and March; but when the vital force of spring really begins, nothing can resist it. It stirs the heart of the onion buried in the depth of the cellar, and the potato from the black depths of its barrel reaches out in response; and until this force operates, nothing speeds as it should. I found, too, that asters planted in February in- doors were but a trifle larger toward the end of May than those grown from seed planted in the open the last of April; and further: when a most unexpected and unheard of frost befell us toward the end of May, the asters grown in the open were untouched, while the tender house-bred ones were killed al- most without exception. I have worked out a better and much easier plan for growing annuals, which I will give in its proper place under Seeds. While these green things were cheering my heart indoors, I made careful diagrams for the dimensions and arrangements of beds in the new section. The frost was not yet out of the ground when I began afresh on the work outside, and each morning before the sun got high enough to melt them, I found those curious and beautiful crystal growths made by the mois- ture oozing out of wet soil in slender glittering filaments, each bearing, as a crown or blossom, a tiny patch of earth carried up from the place it sprang. A little corner was dug out of the rising slope so that the excavation was perhaps eighteen inches deep at the furthest extremity and tapered down to nothing as it reached the old garden. A stone wall was here laid three feet high before the ground began to rise, but tapered to eigh- teen inches where the bank was eighteen inches deep. This gave a uniform three-foot wall above the level of the new beds, which were dug out as before a foot or two deeper, enclosed with boards, and a thick layer of sods was spread evenly, which is said to prevent the heaving up of the earth in freez- [ef -a] govaaay, TIanog V vies My Ambition Grows 33 ing and thawing, and is also an admirable fertilizer, as it speedily decays. Then they were refilled with a compost as the first beds had been. To do this I had several cartloads of black muck, garden loam, sand, manure and wood ashes hauled onto the bank near the house and dumped separately, and a little at a time was hoed from each into a central pile, which a man wheeled to the beds. The old subsoil was thrown over the new walls, which bounded the extension on the west and south, and by filling up to the level of the top on the outside of the walls and back to the rising bank, a new elevation was established. I have now done this twice, and have thus secured a double terrace on the west side of the garden, from which side the main portion presents the ap- pearance of a sunken garden, with the first terrace three feet and the second rising six or more feet above the original level. Effective as this arrangement is, it was conceived as a matter of pure utility, and a convenient means of disposing of the surplus earth in excavating the bank, and saved carting it off. It is a safe statement to make that where necessity is used as a guide, a certain kind of beauty inevitably follows. For this reason it is not well to imitate another’s work, but to follow where your own conditions lead. I much regretted at first that I had no garden plans to study for a model; but, as I now see my own completed, I cannot imagine it as successful in any other form, owing to the peculiar conformation of the land. It has lent itself to my convenience in the gradual exten- sions from year to year; it offers every condition, from full exposure to the sun to complete shade, of dry and moist situa- tions. Certain beds have been planted so as to maintain bloom the whole season through; others are arranged to keep up the appearance of bounty by maturing at a late day when many things are gone. Though made of units, the garden is composite in its structure. 34 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens I shall not attempt an enumeration of the things I tried that second summer, for the general results of my eight years’ ex- perience are given in the Appendix; and it is a matter of no consequence what I began with, or when I attacked the deli- cate question of bulbs and lilies, when I planted shrubs, when I was fired with a desire for roses. Sufficient to say that each year I have followed some central thought; and if one has a catholic taste, it is inevitable that he will thirst for new posses- sions each year: but, do not add more than can be cared for properly; for even a plant should have the right of Christian burial. With this addition sprang up the idea of maintaining pure color in my garden; so one bed was devoted to blue and white flowers, another to pink, another to pure red and another to yellow. Several were uncertain and mixed in color, experi- ment stations as it were, and one I called my Isolation Hos- pital, where unknown things were set out until their speech should bewray them. The results of that second summer were so-so. Some things were glorious in their bloom; among them were the hollyhock, Lilium auratum, yellow day lily, Agrostemma cel rosa, garden heliotrope (Valeriana officinalis) rose colored sweet-william, cornflower, Cosmos, the ever-faithful nastur- tiums, marigolds and calendula. I found it very difficult to maintain my color scheme. Chance seeds of another color would get in and flourish so vigorously that I had not the heart to weed them out. The greatest struggle was and has been to get a succession of bloom in the blue beds. I know the height, the time of blooming, the manners and customs of in- numerable blue flowers; I tear to pieces and reorganize year after year those blue beds, making combinations that I be- lieve will surely be successful; and they would be, except for the fact that plants newly set sometimes sulk and will not [P. 34] A BLUE AND WHITE CoRNER My Ambition Grows 35 bloom. Some take a year or two to get established after being transplanted; others, just as they are about to bloom, get some infantile disease like the blight of the larkspur, and all is up with them for that year. I pray and water those beds with my tears, but supplication is in vain. Theoretically my arrangement last summer was perfect; but what can one re- sort to when larkspurs fail, when the Japanese iris is all leaf (it used to have glorious crowns of bloom before it was trans- planted), the Siberian iris multiplies, but otherwise balks, the two-year-old Penistemon grandiflorus remains an obstinate little green clump, the Catananche and Wahlenbergia follow the Pentstemon’s bad example, the Lobelia sy philitica is eaten down by a cutworm, and the blue and purple asters get caught between the upper and nether stone of the annual drought. What avails it that the lovely white Physostegia, Chrysanthemum maximum, meadow rue, infant’s breath, wild carrot, achillea, garden heliotrope, Hes peris matronalis, peren- nial white phlox, all planted as accessories to give grace and airiness to the heavier blue tones, do their part bravely—the bed is distinctly white, not blue, save for early blue spring flowers gone by June, monkshood and campanula of July, the Veronica spicata of July and August, and the lilac Physos- tegia, Liatris and Michaelmas daisies of August and Septem- ber. I love these plants, and want to get a definite color effect through them, and I do not want to compromise by substitut- ing quantities of annuals; cornflower, nigella, anchusa, nemo- phila, annual larkspur, Phacelia, Eutoca viscida, just because they are arich blue. ‘To arrange blue perennials, so that they will present a succession of bloom from May to October in the same bed, is the high ideal I aim to reach, and I seem likely to give my remaining years to thestudy. Incidentally I find com- binations that are beautiful such as white Physostegia Vir- giniana and Veronica spicata ; German Iris and white col- 36 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens umbine; white larkspur and Stokesia cyanea; deep blue colum- bine and the white Hes peris matronalis, also caraway; white Achillea Ptarmica pl. fl. and nigella or cornflower (if the latter does not grow too tall); purple Japanese Iris and Gyp- sophila paniculata (Infant’s breath); blue monkshood, elder- berry and meadow rue; blue larkspur, meadow rue and white wild carrot; Michaelmas daisy and the tall white Cosmos; forget-me-not and perennial candytuft; blue lupines and gar- den heliotrope; Canterbury bells and feverfew; snowdrops and scilla; grape hyacinth and Arabis albida; but in arrang- ing combinations you must not only have the bloom of plants coincident, but also an equality of height for each to act as a foil to the other; everything depends on the two blades of the scissors acting in conjunction. The more beautiful a bed is at any given time, the more sure it is to show blanks at other times. Through a mistake of judgment I grouped one year an entire bed with blue spring flowers, and until the end of June the effect was all that could be desired, but during the remainder of the season it was noth- ing. Few flowers remain in bloom longer than three or four weeks and some last but a week or ten days; one must recog- nize that each is but a small passing contribution to the sum- mer glory, and make provision for an understudy when a par- ticular star retires from the floral stage. I now know my flowers so well that I can count on the precise time when they come and go, and I have tried the experiment of planting cer- tain things at intervals over the garden, so that, for a week or two, when those plants are at the height of their bloom, a wave of that color is all over the beds instead of being massed in one place, to leave a great void when they go. Great care must be exercised if you place a little pink or blue in a yellow bed to end the engagement before the yellow plants rise in combat totheeye. It takes more knowledge to manage color this way, A WaVvE oF GARDEN HELIOTROPE [P. 37] My Ambition Grows 27 but it is far more satisfactory. For example my yellow bed is not distinctly yellow until August when the Rudbeckias, Heleniums, Helianthus letifolius and Helianthus mollis and golden glow are all in bloom. During the earlier part of the season I can count on these plants being green, and I plant in that bed any color that I intended to emphasize over the gen- eral garden up to August. In early spring that bed shows blue hyacinths, later the rose pink Lychnis dioica rosea; later still the blue Campanula rapunculoides. During the interval be- tween the last named, the creamy yellow day lily (Hemer- occalis flava) shines forth like stars against the north bound- ary wall beyond. In this way certain beds may be committed to definite colors, yet lend themselves to a larger color tone that may pervade the whole garden for a brief season. I mean to work along this line still further; but it must be remem- bered, that, to get a strong general effect, one should have from a dozen to thirty plants of showy bloom of any given variety. Instead of giving a single large space to columbines I distribute them according to color in every bed, and during their reign, the garden seems to be largely columbines. In the same way, I have used the Michaelmas daisy, hollyhock, campanulas, forget-me-not, perennial phlox, flava lily, pol- emonium, foxglove, Chrysanthemum maximum, perennial pea, infant’s breath, lupines, iris, lychnis, sweet-william; also meadow rue, garden heliotrope, and clematis, which break into a white foam, the high-water mark of the whole summer, and then gently ebb into green obscurity. By choosing your dates with exactness, you may plant what you will in any bed, and still maintain pure color; but, to do it, you must know your plants intimately. For several years I have kept a careful record of the date of bloom of each plant. If conditions are normal, they appear each year promptly to a day; but some- times the season is late, or a cold prolonged rain defers them 33 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens a week, or a hot dry season forces them along, for all of which allowance must be made. These lists are of the greatest aid in arranging combinations. A spirit of thankfulness is a good thing to cultivate at all times. I remember, several years ago, being not a little an- noyed at finding a huge African marigold flourishing in a cor- ner of one of my blue beds. I was inclined to pluck it out at once as an impertinence. Later, when a heavy shortage of blue flowers occurred in that vicinity, and my yellow bed went to pieces under a two months’ drought beginning in July, I was grateful for my brave little marigold and only wished there were twenty like it in the same place. Yellow beds and pink ones can be counted on with much more certainty than blue ones, because both comprise many long and steadfast bloomers; and there is so much life in these colors that a little of them will brighten quite an area. A good way is constantly to try new combinations and trust not a little to chance. Some of my happiest effects are largely due to chance, di- rected by a consideration of the height of certain plants. When the question involves color, height, time of flowering, also length of bloom, it takes much shuffling to achieve what you want. Every moment that could be spared from other duties was given to my flowers that second summer. I wearied poor Adam almost to extinction. I would talk over the wheel to any acquaintance we met on the road. From every one who came to see me was wrung the concession that things looked flourishing, and promised even better by another year. It never occurs to an enthusiast that there may be an obverse side to his shield; that he may seem mildly mad when he is having a beautiful effervescent time with a hobby. We gradu- ally come into all the truth that is for us, and it was in this wise that a flood of light was let in on my conduct. I was in My Ambition Grows 39 the midst of an accidental conversation held in the middle of the road late in September that second year, when my in- structor, a calm, middle-aged woman, but old and established in garden ways, suddenly broke in upon my fusilade with the query, ‘“‘ Have you had your garden long?” “No,” said I, “only two summers of garden and two win- ters of catalogues.” “T thought so,” she replied enigmatically. I scented some- thing wrong. “What made you think so?” demanded I. “Because you take it so hard,” and mischief lurked under her innocent smile. The blow staggered me for a moment, but I recovered, and answered jauntily: “The second summer is always hard on teething babes, and I am cutting a lot of wisdom teeth this year.” WITHIN MY GARDEN WALLS Seeqp|Y happy coincidence our two birthdays and the an- eo) v niversary of our wedding day come before the ys middle of April, for each occasion offers the op- portunity of presenting seeds and plants. The first time I tried this wholly disinterested act was when I made a birthday offering of rose bushes to Adam. I liked the thought of a living souvenir, which should yearly blossom in celebration of the day; but I now have the idea that his hopes may have been fixed elsewhere, for I not only had to explain the reason for my choice, but he never remembers they are his, and he takes no particular interest in their growth. Somehow his indifferent attitude reminds me of an illustration I once saw in which Algernon Sidney was bestowing a box of cigars upon his young wife Angelina, who in turn presented to him, as her gift, a pair of lace curtains. The artist caught Adam’s expression exactly when I introduced him to the roses. Per- haps it is because of Adam’s other-worldliness that he soars above things terrestrial. A gleam of genuine pleasure lights up his countenance when I give him a Greek book or new neckties—provided I do not make a fatal choice—but the smile and the gift are soon laid away, and it is like putting a child through the catechism to find out later from him what he actually received. In subsequent years I celebrated our anniversaries in a way pleasing to myself. One February I made myself a wedding gift of one hundred and fifty varieties of plants, shrubs and seeds. A few omissions were supplied in March on my own birthday. The next year my generous 40 Within My Garden Walls 41 gift was repeated and highly appreciated—by myself. There is a yearly crop of new books on Greece, and I confine my souvenirs to Adam to them, for I notice that they elicit a broader and more permanent smile than does any thing else that I choose, and he never innocently asks me a few days later, “Who gave you that?” as he has been known to do about other tokens of affection which I have presented. Iam always a bit embarrassed at his laying the burden of posses- sion on me, when it happens to be my gift to him, prayerfully selected and done up in the whitest of tissue paper and the palest of blue ribbons, with a sweet little sentiment inside; but he never feels embarrassment over his mistake—he simply laughs and leaves me to ponder why my gifts make no perma- nent impression on his memory. Perhaps the male brain is not developed in appreciation, and we must not be too hard on mental or physical incapacities. As I have not yet arrived at the age when birthdays no longer recur, I have gradually acquired large additions to my stock, and each year witnesses an extension of my territory. The garden has crept up both banks until it is now one hun- dred and twenty feet by sixty, and has almost reached the house on the east side. Wherever it has been possible I have given beds the protection of a stone wall from two to three feet high and the advantages of a wall are so great that I must dwell a moment on the subject, for it has a much wider appli- cation than merely to my own use. In choosing the site of a country house, one naturally selects an eminence, for the sake of outlook, drainage and other considerations. New England abounds in such sites, but these same eminences are full of rocks and ledges; the soil is usually poor compared with low- lying lands, and the question how to make things grow near the house on a hot, dry, stony hillside becomes a serious prob- lem. For this reason my solution of this particular difficulty 42 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens may be of value to many amateurs. A stone wall three feet high built southeast or south or west of a bed not only shades the roots of plants from the hot rays of the sun, but in the cool shadow of it, evaporation does not go on as in the open, and the soil of a dry exposed bed, when thus protected, is rendered damp and shaded for a good part of the day. Several hours of direct sunshine are good, but few plants can stand it all day. Also in winter these walls catch the snow and pile deep drifts that are a perfect protection to even tender perennials. Al- though a portion of the garden lies on a low level, the greater part of it is three and six and even eight feet above that level; yet, when covered with snow, it presents a smooth sloping un- broken surface under which all inequalities of height disap- pear. In the shadow of the walls the snow lies late upon the beds in the spring, which saves the plants from the alternate thawing and freezing that are so disastrous. In some in- stances these walls merely face the cutting of a bank that rises from two to three feet above a bed, and sometimes I have built them up from the ground in a double row of rocks. I note that plants in these shaded beds flourish amazingly and never suffer from drought no matter how prolonged it may be; this means an economy of labor in watering. Aside from the utility I like the strong contrast of tender plant life against the stern granite. The Japanese have used stones as one of the chief adornments of their gardens, and while we cannot and need not imitate their use of them, we can make them serve in our own way. I have a broken jagged stone almost four feet high at the corner of one of my walls, that I always speak of as a corner-stone of happiness, so great is my pleasure in seeing it serve as a background in turn to rock columbine, harebells, meadow rue, Japanese iris, clematis, Physostegia and Michaelmas daisy. Nothing could be more favorable to the growth of deep- } Sa Mo ba ih 1% ib ae x Sin ee THe GARDEN COVERED WITH SNOW PRESENTS A SMOOTH, SLOPING, UNBROKEN SURFACE [P. 42] a ee) Snow [irs LATE UPON THE BEDS IN SPRING [P. 42] Within My Garden Walls 43 rooted perennials than the cool wet rocks that underlie many of my beds. They afford a perfect drainage, yet retain the moisture to an astonishing degree. Even in a very dry season I often find the walks of the lower garden quite damp in the early morning. When once rooted among these’ rocks plants establish themselves amazingly. I once planted seeds of the hollyhock mallow (Malva alcea), and as they gave no evidence of growth the first year I forgot all about them. Late in the following year I discovered a new plant in bloom, which, when analyzed, proved to be the forgotten mallow. I was de- lighted—but not for long. The third year it grew like Jack’s beanstalk, not the promised three feet, but five—and still on until eight feet high. I stood about helplessly witnessing this phenomenon, yet powerless to check it. It waxed still stronger the fourth year and covered a space of four and a half feet through, by eight feet high—imagine thirty-six cubic feet of mallow with its wretched little straggling bloom. I deter- mined to evict it. I used first the gentle persuasion of a potato digger, the most homeopathic treatment I ever apply. It firmly resisted. Then I got the spading fork, but the mallow stood unshaken. Then I seized the pickax and crowbar and wrought fearful havoc, extracting the greater part of it, at least two bushels of roots that were a foot and a half long. A little of it was kept to set out in the dryest and most exposed por- tion of the garden, and it has meekly shrunk to a three-foot growth. This year I found a portion still remaining in its former place, lording it over a fine lot of pink Lilium spe- ciosum and I peremptorily took off all the heads when only a foot high. I have decapitated it regularly once a month throughout the summer. It is now bigger than I am; a small portion has become equal to the whole, in defiance of mathe- matics. I mean to get it out if I have to sacrifice the pink lilies. 44 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens The same thing happened with a blue lupine. It wouldn’t budge until I applied pickax and crowbar. I tried the same forcible argument on a blue Veronica spicata that was given temporary shelter in a pink bed until the pink tenants got better established. So far the Veronica has won every round; its position is impregnable and I am alternately divided be- tween my determination to use dynamite if necessary, or to capitulate with the Veronica and decide that a little bright blue is not criminal in a pink bed. As the season advances and the bloom is past, and it is incontinently shedding its un- reachable seéds in every direction, I think I shall resort to ex- plosives. Rocks are great institutions for permanent residents. My various operations have included many compromises. I came across one stone that took two straining men and a stout work horse to slide it down into a deep hole, where it was covered up to remain until Judgment Day. Then I found others that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t stir, and they still maintain their positions by sheer force of character. One of these I walked around so much, trying to decide what could be done with it, that I wore a little path. The big stone and the little path looked so very Japanese that I came to accept it on those terms, and by dint of rough stone steps leading up to the little path, a clematis trained up as an entrance gate to it, and a rustic vine-covered fence beyond, I have a queer anomalous corner filled with a succession of blue flowers that quite delights my heart, for I can see it through a window as I sit at my desk every day. To-day the blue flowers are mostly gone with only the Liatris and Michaelmas daisies still to come: but by accident a native white aster by the rustic fence has shot up several stalks seven feet high, with a crown of bloom several feet across, and framing it about as a halo, I see pale pink, deep rose pink and cardinal red hollyhocks which grow in beds beyond it. It is needless to say that this Within My Garden Walls 45 chance combination will be carefully preserved another year, and repeated elsewhere—if an inspiration can ever be re- peated. A favorite point of view is a rustic seat that commands a larger part of the garden. In the beds facing it I have planted many of my favorite flowers, the deliciously-scented flava lily (Hemerocallis flava), Madonna lilies, Lilium auratum, blue and white lupines, blue and white larkspurs, Physostegia Virginiana alba, that resembles threaded pearls on its green stems; the beautiful white Achillea Ptarmica, pale shell pink and salmon pink columbines, infant’s breath, lovely meadow rue, forget-me-nots, the fragrant garden heliotrope and Hes- peris matronalis, and other delectable things. By the side of the seat grows a sweetbrier rose in the deep shadow of a stone wall, where it has made a growth of eight feet. Over the seat is a trellis upon which is trained a white clematis, Virginia creeper, fragrant yellow honeysuckle, and a hop vine; also the Allegheny vine modestly creeps up one side every year, and I always find deep purple and white morning glories looking into my face before the summer is over. Of all these I think the hop vine is the most fascinating in its graceful festoons of pale green hops. p There is only one trouble in my garden, there is always too much everywhere. I am soft-hearted and one thing after an- other gets a start, and they hail other companions, and before I know it a dozen things are crowding to the front. So long as they do not kill each other, I let them alone, for every plant has its day, and we need many days to fill the entire summer with bloom. J have in another direction an arbor leading out of the main garden to an upper terraced wall. It is covered with hop vines and Virginia creeper growing at one corner, at a second is a Wistaria sinensis that makes a beautiful leafy column about 40 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens its post each year, though it does not bloom—it is said to take seven years’ residence in one spot for the wistaria to feel at home,—a grape-vine and Japanese wistaria are on the third side. It is a perfect bower of green and proved a curious stumbling-block to a strange urbanite, who found herself on our hill one morning. She wanted to get away, and I was anxious she should, as she came at a critical moment in my affairs, when, if she had been an intimate friend, I should have given her a good book, bidding her go sit under a green tree and be happy until I was free. Being a stranger, she was treated with more ceremony and less tolerance. “Tsn’t there a path down to the high road?” she inquired. “There is,’ said I with ill-concealed satisfaction. “You go down through the garden, and on through the orchard be- yond, and you will find a turnstile in the wall just as you reach the wood path.” She seemed a bit confused—perhaps she had once been lost in a wood and felt a natural caution. She wanted me to re- peat the directions; I did so, but she still stood uncertain. “I am to go down through that path and under that’’—she paused, extending a much bejewelled forefinger, her vocabu- lary, gathered on the city pave, had no equivalent for a luscious green arbor—“ That, ah—that awning?” she interrogated. “Yes, go under the awning,” I repeated, “and out through the orchard—you can’t miss the turnstile.” What this last rural term meant to her mind I never learned. As no one was reported missing in the woods, I presume she must have found her way. My walks are covered with sand, for it does not track into the house as the native soil would. Sand has another ad- vantage; it serves as a seed bed for a multitude of self-sowing plants. When I want a forcible hollyhock, lupine, canterbury bell or columbine, or desire particularly strong annuals such CLEMATIS TRAINED UP AS.AN ENTRANCE GATE [P. 44] Within My Garden Walls 47 as candytuft, sweet alyssum, cornflower, Linaria marrocana, or catchfly, I do not plant the seed; I look about my walks un- til I find them and then transplant them. This is where I get my best specimens to fill the gaps made by cutting down early perennials after they have bloomed. I do not have to coddle these sturdy plants; they have stood the test of winter and a frosty spring. Any one who has watered seeds to young plant- hood has a genuine admiration for self-supporting walk- grown plants. “But,” exclaims the Tidy Woman, she who maintains an orderly top bureau drawer though the heavens fall, “how disorderly your garden must look all cluttered up that way.” “Indeed it does, Madam, at times; so much so that Adam files an injunction to restrain me from further neglect, and threatens to hoe the walks himself if it is not done by a certain day.” “My path is literally strewn with flowers,” I protest to him sentimentally, and I remember various church weddings with little pages and flower girls strewing posies down the aisle; they were but a symbol, and this the real thing. My words have no visible effect upon my neat Adam. He is a worthy man, but he has no eye for nice distinctions existing in seed leaves. He does not know at sight a new-born lupine or columbine or asperula or forget-me-not. He simply can’t be trusted in my walks unless disarmed of hoe and shovel. Sometimes I am forced to accompany him. “Tpse Dixit, Pll not wait another day; your walks are disgraceful,” he announces suddenly; his determined voice has a long-suffering undertone that I respect. T well know what this means, and leave any important do- mestic situation to act as body-guard—not to him, but to the intended victims. He always wants to begin at the entrance, and work steadily 48 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens over every inch of ground on to the bitter end. “Now you. may begin here,” I say, setting his metes and bounds as if he were the ocean, “and work carefully down this way, keeping clear of every border at least a foot; they are full of things I can’t spare; but don’t touch this,” suddenly spying some perennial advanced to the third pair of seed leaves, “nor this—oh, you must shy away from that,” and I make magic rings of cleared ground with my own hoe about the endan- gered seedlings. : ~ Adam has learned the fatal power of concentration, and hoes steadily on. His are not the sins of omission; he has a good heart and an imperturbable temper, yet he has the red hand of the slayer. Vainly do I make vast deserts of sand about little green oases I want spared. IfI look up in the sky one minute, or wander ten feet from his side to escape the death-cry of his victims—the deed is done. Destruction, apol- ogies and clean walks are synonyms for Adam’s hoeing. - Of late years I undertake this delicate commission alone. My hoe has intermittent habits, I always have from four to six very hot irons in the fire, and the worse the walks look, the less I want toseethem. But affairs work up to a climax, and I stand in nota little awe of Adam’s salutary criticism. . I prize his approbation and I am growing to likea clean, trim walk for its own sake, so I have learned to harden my heart and reap great harvests of flowering things that I would fain let stand. But when the painful task is over I feel the guilty contrition of a young girl I once knew, who used to beguile her lonely hours with rifle shooting, and, beiny a good shot, she would daily bring down a chipmunk or .ed squirrel, which she proceeded to bury with many tears *» her own small garden plot. Her grief took a prudent forr., for she planted each limp little body at the root of a shrup to serve as a fertilizer, and in consequence I always sp'.e of Margaret’s garden as her animal orchard. WILD CLEMATIS AND Hop VINE [P. 45] RUE, F MEADOW A TANGLE 0 . 46] [P u 4u “THAT AWNING” SEEDS ; S4|/HE third winter we spent in Florida, and as we did bas ed not return home until the first of April, I had to *Al i resort to other methods than mantel-raised seed- —— go Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens ground has been thoroughly prepared, and the plants having been set with reference to their peculiar needs, provide for themselves. Annuals are grouped in a small area, and re- quire very slight attention, if the heavens are propitious. My advice to an amateur is to let a garden follow a natural growth from small beginnings, and add to it only as you need elbow room. Half the pleasure in life is to grow and to make breaches in old horizons. If you begin too ambitiously, ex- tensions may become a burden, and the more assistance you require, the less the personal joy. Occasionally I have a man for half a day to haul cart-loads of various soils to my dump- ing ground, or to gather stones for new walls; but this is the extent of my purchasing power, for I prefer to devote funds to buying choice varieties rather than to employ a man’s labor. However this represents a personal idiosyncrasy of one who has learned to value the probable Irish ancestor, who has entailed upon me a wholesome love of work. In choosing a site for a garden, let it have a southern ex- posure, or one to the southeast or southwest; get all possible shelter from the north, northeast and northwest winds and storms. If procurable in no other way, plant a hedge or wind break of trees a few yards from the garden, but not so close as to encroach on the soil. Some trees will run out their roots for yards in search of water or mellow earth. Choose a place with natural beauty and some irregularity. Use the defects as so Many opportunities to bring out individual beauty. Un- less your mind is constitutionally built on straight lines avoid long straight walks and borders. In marking out curved walks or beds, lay down a rope or hose to represent the proposed line, and study your curves from many points. A defect in curvature may not show from one place yet be obvious from another. Any undue flattening or bulging of a curve spoils its contour. Seek to have features of particular interest, to be Bouncinc BET AND Litac PZONY POPPIES [P. 38] A Descent into Particulars g! seen at the end of a vista or where walks converge, or as a cen- tral idea. If, beyond the garden, a distant landscape is of- fered, study the possibility of having it framed in by branches of trees. A remarkable example of this is the manner the Japanese have pictured under innumerable phases their favor- ite mountain, Fugi-yama, always represented with a tree in the foreground, enhancing, but not concealing, the view. Keep the garden closely related to the house, where it may be enjoyed from the windows or a piazza. If necessary cut a window down into a door leading out to it. Plant sweet- scented honeysuckle and other fragrant things where the south wind, the prevailing quarter in the summer, may blow the fragrance through the house. PROPAGATION OF PLANTS SQIHE first requisite for the propagation and growth a. ed of plants is a suitable soil. Most people take their WMP || soil as they find it, adding much or little dressing =———J from the barnyard, or patent fertilizers, put in their plants, and abide by the results, which are, that certain things flourish well and others quietly disappear. This gentle disappearance, usually attributed to the weather, the nursery- man’s stock, or pests, is the only protest a plant can utter against an unsuitable diet. It generally gives a month’s warning that it is about to quit your service when it pines and droops, and whenever you see a plant grow pale and languid it is high time to consult authorities. I presume the best all-around soil is a rich sandy loam, for this is adapted to the majority of plants. By loam I mean the top soil of pasture or grass-lands, just under the grass for a few inches. It is full of fiber, and is the product of decayed vegetation, which has been incorporated in the earth beneath and has enriched it. It is generally brown or almost black, finely pulverized and rich in humus. It varies greatly, owing to the character of the soil beneath. In low wet lands it is black, heavy and some- times a little sour, which last condition can be altered by spreading out a pile of it to the sun and air, and letting it freeze through a winter. In sandy districts it will be very light, and will need manuring, and, if procurable, a little clay and black muck well mixed with it, to give it body. In gravelly places it will need leaf mold, black muck and per- haps a little sand. A heavy loam resting on a clay subsoil is g2 [P. 90] VALUE OF TREES AS A BACKGROUND IN SUMMER AND A WIND-BREAK IN WINTER Propagation of Plants 93 one of the best conditions, though it is harder to work; but it will need less fertilizing, will retain moisture and keep fertile longer than any other. This is a favorable condition for roses. The basis of all gardens should be loam, with a bottom layer of turf turned root side up, and other ingredients spread over the whole area; or, a still better way would be to make a rich general compost of one half loam mixed with leaf mold, sand, ashes, well rotted manure in moderate quantity. When this is well distributed, and dug in, special conditions may be created where they are needed. In setting out roses more manure and a little clay may be added directly to the soil where they are planted. For plants that thrive in sandy soil, a considerable quantity of sharp sand may be given. Others require leaf mold to excess, and this may be given. In short every plant, according to its need, may be provided with its own peculiar nutriment. It is also well to have a small pile of general compost to which has been added an equal amount of well rotted cow or horse manure, and let it stand a whole year or longer, stirring it from time to time until it is perfectly in- corporated. After a year or two this may be used on lilies and gladioli, neither of which will survive if placed in direct con- tact with fresh manure, yet require a highly enriched soil. If you havea clay soil your difficulty will be greatly increased, for it hardens and cakes badly, and you must at any cost add a quantity of sharp sand to lighten it. Manuring will not do it, and sand is a necessity. I carefully save the coarse mulch and leaves removed from the garden in early spring, adding to them all the fresh refuse of plants, as they are trimmed after flowering, and upon this pile I place a little manure and com- mon loam. By autumn the bottom of it is resolved into a finely pulverized soil that makes an ideal fertilizer for plants when they are reset and prepared for winter. With a good general compost basis to which other ingredients, previously 94 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens mentioned, have been added where required, one can raise every variety of plant suited to temperate regions. In the Appendix I have given the particular kind of soil recom- mended for the plants named, and it is worth while to give this subject serious consideration. There are various methods of propagating plants—the commonest is from seed; yet I have shown in my chapter on Seeds, and also in the cultural conditions given in the Appen- dix, that it is not enough to plant a seed in good soil and water it. Certain seeds are more exacting than this, and it is well to give attention to the time of year when it is best to sow them; also the length of time they retain vitality. It is not prudent to plant perennial seeds in a cold northern climate as late as August or the first of September; for if they come up promptly the little seedlings will not grow large enough to establish themselves before winter. It is a waste of time and seed to try it. Either plant them later, so that they may lie dormant until spring, or wait until spring, unless you have a cold frame, and can give them attention through the winter. Seeds that take six months to germinate may be planted in September or October. Further, the amateur may not realize it, but the price of seeds bears a close relation to his probable success with them. Five-cent packages will prove an excellent training-school for one, as they represent prolific sure seeders that will grow if you but throw them out of a window. The ten-cent ones will survive many ignorances; the fifteen-cent ones require specific knowledge, while the twenty-five and fifty-cent kinds are a pure gamble, being seeds of costly hybrid varieties that are apt to revert, or new acquisitions that may not be entirely acclimated to our difficult climatic conditions. Do not sow the whole package at once; seeds have been known not to come up, and a second and even third trial are often neces- [P. 91] Tue LANDSCAPE TOWARD THE East aS SEEN FROM THE GARDEN Propagation of Plants 95 sary. If annuals, a succession of sowings insures a succes- sion of bloom: but do not sow as I did once:— Thad not much space to give to poppies, and I was delighted with the idea of succession; so the seed was sown in little patches, perhaps eight inches apart, and the extra plants thinned out. When about four inches high I put more Shir- ley seed in the spaces so as to alternate with the growing plants. ‘They also came up promptly, but the first planting became an impenetrable jungle through which no ray of sunlight penetrated. I was pleased, for I foresaw a pro- longed thicket of bloom through the summer. By and by when the first growth showed signs of fading, I began a search for the successors, and faith! they needed a rescuer badly. Of all the anemic, attenuated growths I ever reared, they were the sickliest. In vain to admit them to sun and air then: they had reached a state of painful decline, and speedily faded from view. When you plant a succession of anything, choose a new spot each time, where the plants may have at least a fighting chance for life. Remember, however, that when you undertake to raise perennials from seed, you should have the hope of living several years; else you may plant and leave it to men, who shall come after you, to gather the fruit thereof. Happy is the perennial seed that comes up in less than three or four months; happy is the perennial seedling that achieves a vigor- ous tuft of leaves the second year; thrice happy is the owner of the seedling that grows to a blooming clump the third year. If you have an incurable malady, either confine your- self to annuals, or buy full-grown perennials. Only those in whose veins the life currents pulse strongly, and have confi- dence in the future, can afford to play with perennial seeds, or plant young trees. I am willing to gamble with Fate, and yearly buy the tardy seed, and only resort to the purchase of 96 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens plants when I have failed repeatedly to germinate certain seeds. Do not think because you have a perennial garden that you can set out your plants once for all, and then retire on the half-pay list. It often takes more strenuous labor to get a plant out of the ground than it took to put it in. A peren- nial garden worthy of its name grows like Jack’s bean-stalk and requires division, resetting and bestowal upon the poor twice a year: not every plant of course; but enough to keep up a continual exhuming and excavation. There are various ways of dividing roots, and unless you know your plant well it is advisable to lift it bodily and hold an autopsy. Some plants, like the Armerias, make a single close tuft of leaves and the root cannot be divided safely. They must be propagated by seeds or cuttings. Others send out running shoots from the root, each in turn making a sep- arate root growth of its own, such as the Michaelmas daisy, garden heliotrope, sweet-william, Physostegia, Bocconia sub- cordata, Achillea, Boltonia; these can be separated and reset. Others form huge clumps and must be divided by a spade; others form a clustered group of separate roots, which need only to be untwined and set out; the Verbascum for example. I have tried in the Appendix to cover this point of propaga- tion by division of the root in its special application to dif- ferent varieties. Some plants require layering for their propagation, which is to bend a branch down to the ground, making a slight incision in the stem near a bud with a sharp knife, usually cutting in a slanting direction, pegging it down either with a hairpin or a small pronged twig so as to keep it in place, then covering this incision an inch or more deep with sandy loam. Keep well watered, and in the course of a few weeks, roots will form at this point, and in six months or a year the [P. 97] As SEEN FRoM My WINDOW Propagation of Plants 97 branch may be severed from the parent plant and reset. This is the usual way that Wistaria is increased; also the honeysuckle and many other plants which I enumerate later. Sometimes a branch cannot be bent down, and then the method used is different. A flower-pot or similar receptacle is cut in two lengthwise; the branch is run through the hole in the bottom and the two halves of the pot are then tied firmly together and filled with earth. The incision in the stem should come well below the surface of the earth in the pot, and the latter held securely in place by building a tem- porary support for it to rest on. This is a more difficult method, though frequently used by nurserymen. The clean cut partial incision in the stem promotes the formation of roots at that point, and the root formation may also be facilitated by scraping the bark lightly where the roots are to form. Another method of propagation is by cuttings, which may be taken from the ripe old wood, the half ripened wood or new green shoots according to the plant. They are set in sand or sandy loam so as to cover two or three eyes or buds, allowing from two to six inches of the wood above ground; they are usually covered with a tumbler or glass jar for a season to prevent their becoming dry. If kept too moist they are inclined to rot; but if allowed to become dry, the delicate rootlets are killed at once. Cuttings should have little or no sun, for a time; and various devices have been worked out to promote their rooting well. One of the most practical suggestions is to take a box, and cut the sides so as to form a slanting top on which is fitted a glass frame. The box is filled with sand mixed with a little rich loam and the cuttings set with but one or two eyes above the earth. The glass cover retains the moisture, and may be lifted a little each day to admit air. Bottom heat, which may be derived from manure under the sandy soil, will facilitate growth if the 98 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens weather is very cool. When the cuttings have rooted—and this takes considerable knowledge and experience to judge —the little plants may be reset in separate pots; these are plunged in a box filled with sand, which should be well watered so that the moisture may be absorbed by the earth in the little pots. It is a nice undertaking, requiring skill, watchfulness and good judgment, and the special require- ments of various plants are too numerous to touch upon, so I give nothing but a general description of the method. This is an excellent way to root slips of roses, cut late in the autumn, and kept through the winter in damp sand in the cellar, or buried deep under a foot or more of earth in the garden where they will not freeze. They should be fresh and green when set in early spring. Observe another point of importance: there is no one time when plants should be lifted, divided and reset. Some pre- fer to move the first of May; others like to be taken when dead asleep in a dormant condition, just before hard freez- ing weather sets in, or very early in the spring before growth begins. I have tried to indicate this in the appendix, as far as I could learn the choice of plants; but it is a matter for study and experiment. There is another delicate question for the gardener to consider, and that is what.sort of protection should be given to plants in winter—in short, the matter of mulching. I have known delightfully candid people who frankly asked what it was to mulch a plant. I like people who want to know things (provided they do not use that expression of surprise, “I want to know!”’), who are willing to confess that we come into this life like a desk with pigeon-holed compart- ments—all empty—to be filled only as we experience loss, failure and disappointment, unless a fairy presides at birth and bestows that rare gift of being able to take advice. I A HEAvY BLANKET OF SNOW FALLS EARLY AND DISAPPEARS LatE [P. 99] A BouUNTIFUL BED FULL OF Vicorous P@ony Poppies [P. 102] Propagation of Plants 99 presume this reluctance to take another’s experience is Nature’s way of enforcing her truths upon each individual, for nothing is really ours until we have made personal proof of it. To come back to those who timidly confess that the com- partment of knowledge labeled “mulch” is empty. Mulch is half-rotten straw, hay or like substance with which plants are covered to prevent the alternate thawing and freezing of winter. It is also placed in summer about the roots of certain plants that suffer from drought, to keep the ground moist. In our severe winters only a slight mulch is needed; for a heavy blanket of snow, which falls early and disappears late takes its place, and when the ground once freezes, it remains frozen. Mulch is not so much to keep the ground from freezing as to prevent the alternate action of thaw and freeze, which not only throws the roots of plants out of the ground, but allows a plant to awake to life only to be nipped by the next freeze. Mulch prevents the sunlight from get- ting to the earth, and keeps it frozen until warm weather arrives. Various things are used as mulch. Coarse manure, which gives the best protection from cold, also promotes an unsea- sonable growth, owing to its heat. It must be banked high over tea-roses and hybrid teas, also spread from six inches to a foot deep over some lilies; but for most plants I think it a very questionable thing to use, except in great moderation. One of the best mulches is coarse straw, hay or grass, pro- vided it is free from weeds. It is light, porous and effectual. Another good mulch is leaves, provided they are not put on deeper than three to five inches. They mat down closely when wet, and will suffocate plants if too heavy. Another mulch is pine boughs, or other evergreens. We have these in abundance and Adam finds them invaluable 100 ~©=>rdsHardy Plants for Cottage Gardens for covering the strawberry beds. One winter I used them in great quantities, covering every bed deep with them, after a heavy snow fall, and it proved the most disastrous winter in my experience. The field mice got in, made nests of the needles, subsisted on a mixed diet of resin from the pine, larkspur crowns, iris leaves, the bark of shrubs. The pine needles were gnawed off and strewn thick over the entire garden. I may be reasoning from a false premise, but I have laid my heavy losses that winter to the score of pine boughs, as it was the only winter I ever was troubled with mice, and the only time I ever used pine boughs to any extent. Some plants are said to be benefited by a heavy mulch of coal ashes, such as hollyhocks, larkspurs; but I notice this advice proceeds from the vicinity of New York and New Jersey where the winters are more open and trying to plant life than they are in my region. In reviewing my various experiments, I find the best results came from allowing a thin layer of leaves to settle over the beds, as they were blown about in the autumn, adding them where too thinly spread, holding them in place by slender sticks or the stalks of tall perennials, and after the first snow fall, which serves as a blanket, I spread a very thin coating of strawy manure over the snow. This gives a three-ply covering, each very slight, but the protection is perfect as the snow does not melt under the manure until early April, unless it rains. In the winter of 1906-’07, the most severe on record, I did not lose a single plant under this treatment. It cannot be depended on save in regions where the snow lies deep all winter. How- ever, it is not the actual cold that kills hardy things: it is the unseasonable warm day that prematurely starts growth; and anything that can prevent this, gives protection. In warmer latitudes than mine people have great trouble in raising young hollyhocks, perennial poppies and white larkspurs, Propagation of Plants 101 because the little plants winter-kill. I have never lost a single one at this stage, even if they were growing astray in the walks, quite unprotected by mulch—but it is all due to the deep snow. In removing mulch in the spring, do it gradually, to avoid the results of heavy spring frosts at night. It makes considerable difference where certain plants are set. The Montbretia is quoted as a tender bulb, which requires lifting and storing in the cellar during winter. I have carried mine through several winters successfully, when planted in the main lower garden, in a sheltered position, though I have lost others twice when they were planted on an elevated terrace within a foot of the outside stone wall. Give tender things a sheltered corner, and perhaps a pine ‘bough or two, or better still place a barrel or box over them filling it with leaves. I attempted this treatment with a Cher- okee rose brought from Florida, but I failed to place manure zbout the roots first, though the leaves were piled to the top of the box when I left in early winter; on my return they had melted down to four or five inches. The consequence was T lost all but a single shoot of my rose. I ought also to have put a cover on the box. I forgot to mulch it in any way the next winter, and lost it entirely, though I have carried Florida honeysuckle through three winters without much attention. As I look back I seem to have made every mistake possible toignorance. But, given every possible mistake, one is bound to learn considerable as the years go by. ‘Tender roses and shrubs should be tied up in straw, but I do not try to grow things that have to be coddled. Under the propagation of plants comes the very essential question of how close plants should be set together. There are different opinions about this matter, and I have tried all sorts of ways, and find ina dry climate such as mine, that close planting is a necessity. For annuals of tall slender 102 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens growth such as asters, cosmos, Gaura, Tridax, Phlox Drum- mondii, mallows and the annual larkspurs I allow but four or five inches between the plants. Ifa plant is bushy as Ca- lendula, Lavatera, Shirley poppy, cornflower, saponaria, mar- tynia, allowance must be made for a reasonable spread of foliage, and from six to eight inches will be ample. Where plants are close, they shade their own roots, their leaves pre- vent evaporation of moisture, and the sun does not dry out the ground. I like to see bountiful beds full of vigorous growth with no earth showing between. The same treatment applies to perennials. Those of slen- der erect habit require but a few inches of space if the ground be rich; and even those of coarse spreading foliage like the Incarvillea, larkspurs, garden heliotrope, hollyhock, Helian- thus and foxglove can be grown close to each other if the lower leaves are removed to make room for each other. If the overlapping foliage covers the ground too much, it pre- vents the rain from reaching the roots. A little experience will show how far a stripping of foliage may be carried. Another value of close planting is that in beds where a succession of bloom is desired, the early plants are in full bloom while the later ones are still very small. By continu- ally trimming out and cutting down plants after flowering, others coming later have a chance to spread their upper branches freely over the same area; and by preventing the seed-vessels from forming, the vitality goes into root growth. Once in a while stripping off the lower foliage is disastrous. For example, I once wanted more room in a pink bed, and cut off a number of lower leaves of the Ulmaria rubra venuista. To my dismay I saw later what destruction I had wrought; for out of these first leaves spring the tall stem that bears the beautiful peach-colored head of bloom, and unwit- tingly I had destroyed the blossoms for that year, save on a sin- Propagation of Plants 103 gle stalk which I had left untouched. The loss was irrepara- ble as the Ulmaria is one of the most beautiful of my plants. Another mistake easy to make is to overlook the position of certain plants that are late in springing to life. One spring I watched vainly for my Incarvillea to come up, and not finding it, I thrust in a sharp little pointed trowel to remove a spirea growing near by, and, to my horror, I pierced the Incarvillea to its very heart. It was as cruel to me as if I had maimed a human being. I muttered many incantations over it, gave it massage and absent treatments, and prayed my guardian an- gel (I only know I have one in times of sore need) to heal the wound. The plant lived, but it is a cripple for life. The Dodecathon media, Mertensia Virginica and Liatris are also late in coming up, and these I mark with tall stakes so as not to mistake the places where they are planted. Certain plants attain an unruly height and need special treatment. Among these are the golden glow, Helenium au- tumnale superbum, some of the perennial varieties of Helian- thus, Boltonia and the perennial phlox. When these are less than a foot high, nip off the tips of the plant. They will then branch freely and grow perhaps four feet instead of six or seven. This retards the blooming a little and perhaps makes the flowers smaller, but there will be more of them. In treat- ing phlox thus, a longer season of bloom may be secured by nipping some and allowing the others to grow. The un- nipped ones will bloom perhaps two weeks earlier than those cut off. After a bed is planted, do not think your responsibility is over for that season. Whenever you have a leisure hour, take a hand fork, a small implement with three flat tines, and stir the ground about the roots of plants. This is particularly needed if the season is dry, for it opens the ground to catch any slight rain that does fall—Adam calls them vegue little 104 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens showerettes—and the loose top soil not only absorbs moisture from the air and the night dews, but it acts as a mulch to the earth below. If you want to force any plant along, stir in a little ashes, manure or fertilizer, and then water well. The subject of water and watering is a serious problem with me. When the heavens are brazen, and the well is almost dry, and famine is sore in the land, my whole heart goes out to the suf- ferers. I then follow the advice of wise gardeners, and after stirring the soil well, I water as much area as I can thoroughly, and let that portion go for days while I relieve others. Par- ticularly do I water those in full’ bloom, or those about to bloom. I also place a thick mulch of grass clippings about the roots of those plants that suffer from drought: gladiolus, tritoma, larkspur, hollyhock. I have found the earth moist under this mulch a week after it has had a good drenching. A valuable help is the waste water from the Monday wash tubs, provided no washing powders, borax or turpentine has been used in the laundry. Also the water from jars in the bed chambers may be given as a fertilizer to roses, vines and shrubbery. But the chief point is to keep the soil light and porous and every drop given has full value. When I go about the garden in a pitiful mood, singling out extreme cases as re- cipients for my restricted bounty, my heart yearns for those that lie just beyond the water limits. One year when the well went almost dry, the suffering was so extreme that I could not bear the sight of it, and I did not go near the garden for weeks. All the more cruel is it when a shower will carry over the gar- den for days, and a heavy rain suffices for two weeks. One evening when plying my ineffectual watering-pot, I observed to Adam: “What generous agricultural methods Nature has! When she waters her charges she descends upon vast areas; she does not single out a township or even a State for her bounty, but she can cover half a continent. In the Propagation of Plants 105 same way when I painfully rake up my walks, I note the large way she sweeps a whole hillside with one touch of her winds. T love her magnificent operations. They are superb, inimi- table, perfect!” Adam was in a critical mood. “TI think she is very imper- fect,” he responded. ‘“Sheneedsa man. Unaided she works in a blundering brutal way: she averages well: her cloud- bursts and washouts and her parching droughts give us a fairly uniform average rainfall. Remember she wrecks and destroys as well as vivifies. She is a great extremist. She is far from perfect,”—and he spoke as a man who had thrown down the gauntlet. I, who am a blind and ardent worshipper of Nature, dropped down into the arena and picked up the glove. “How so?” J inquired, determined that he should make good his charge. “ Her great cosmic laws are not applicable to the individual. She is a wild untamable force. She does not strive for per- fection. Where do you find a perfect plant, or even a perfect leaf? She begins well, but grows absent-minded about de- tails,” continued he, warming to the argument. “How about the exquisite and perfect mechanisms re- vealed by the microscope? It opens a whole world of unap- proachable beauty, harmony and symmetry,” I questioned. “That may be true,” replied he, ‘but her vast forces on one hand and her minute details on the other reveal also the very painful gap that lies between. Given perfect atoms and per- fect forces, we should have perfect creations, which we cer- tainly don’t have: something is wrong. Nature unaided blunders sadly. Nature plus man is Art; Nature plus man is Progress; Nature plus an able assistant produces a relative approach to perfection. For example: compare wild natural fruit with the Spitzenberg apple or the Albemarle pippin; the 106 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens wild strawberry with the Belmont; or to come on to your own ground, compare the common wild rose with your fine garden roses—the Sharman-Crawford, the Mrs. John Laing.” “Mere hybrids—all of them,” I defended. “Man destroys the balance utterly. He sacrifices everything to size and color. We think them beautiful, but are they? Man is blighting with his megalomania all fruits, increasingly beauti- ful to look upon, but with less and less flavor. How about the Ben Davis apple, the Keifer pear? Man’s flowers have color, but no fragrance; size, but no fertility. A modern rose has no seed; it has to be budded to be reproduced. Man sacrifices all proportion to attain any given end, whether he breeds poultry, cattle, fruits or flowers; he weakens the vitality and makes them a prey to a thousand civilized pests. Do you call that perfection? But has not Nature herself provided the peculiar condition that man merely seizes upon to exaggerate? If you call it utility I grant it. Man has learned to take an ac- cidental sport of Nature, and by artificial means to reproduce it. She furnishes both the sport and the man of wit to use it, but the moment he relaxes his vigilance Hybrid Perpetual roses revert to the manetti, the original stock upon which they were budded; the suckers below the graft of Spitzen- berg apples revert to wild stock; highly civilized nations are becoming sterile.” Adam is as little convinced by my defense as I am by his arraignment. I find ample corroboration of his point of view on every hand. Every where I come close to the defeats and imperfect types that Nature casts aside as if they were broken experimental molds, not quite adapted to her use of them as final expressions or manifestations of Spirit; yet, when I close my eyes to the outward form and meditate on the purpose of creation, and Nature’s ideals in her use of matter, I hear faith singing low in my heart, and I know that all is well. VICES OF PLANTS F criminologists would make an exhaustive study of plant life, they would find the sources from which many roots of evil spring. The human so- cial fabric has a close analogy to the floral world, and much becomes clear when viewed in rudimentary forms. I do not know which way to refer the resemblance—that plants are so human in their character and expression, or human beings so plant-like. Perhaps the latter is the more logical to students of evolution. Plants have simple, ele- mental vices. They show rapacity, improvidence, caprice, selfishness, sloth, arrogant self-seeking and profligacy. It has been reserved for the human race to develop the meaner, petty vices—jealousy, anger, slander, envy, pride and ingrati- tude: of these an honest self-respecting plant is incapable. For example, predatory wealth finds an equivalent in rapa- cious plants that make not only a vigorous central growth, but reach out on every side to establish branch offices where they install children and grandchildren with incredible speed; who absorb all the nutriment within many feet, and try to choke out those who dispute their territory. The progenitors of rascally railroad presidents, sinecure officials, commercial monopolists are descendants of the original sinners in the gar- den of Eden, the Michaelmas daisy, Achillea, perennial as- ters, garden heliotrope, Helianthus letifolius, Virginia creeper, Calystegia, bouncing Bet and hawkbit. Let but a single one of these prototypes of greedy financiers get a firm hold in your garden, and certain notorious oil monopolies are con- 107 108 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens servative compared with it. The only thing to be done with either the floral or human type is to keep it moving. They best serve utility when not allowed to get thoroughly estab- lished. Both destroy a large portion of the social fabric when an effort is made to uproot them, for their ramifications are so complete that they underlie many innocent victims. I rep- resent a generous distributor of this unlawful wealth. I be- stow not millions—for plants have not evolved to that degree of debasement—but bushels of it on young struggling gar- deners that need endowment, as I am determined to die poor in daisies, heliotrope and hawkbit. Whenever I hear of a new opportunity to play the generous benefactor, I unload my surplus—never quite able to impoverish myself, however. I attach no condition that an equal amount shall be raised by the recipient before the gift is forwarded. It is not that helio- trope, Calystegia and daisies are not good—nor dollars; it is merely a question how much of a burden of plants or dollars one can carry without inconvenience and impoverishment in other directions. The pauper poor, with their irresponsibly prolific families, are but the human form of those improvident plants that shed their too fertile seed in every direction. If the population is restricted in either case to a reasonable limit, where society can provide for the children, they become excellent citizens. Otherwise they are flung out on the cruel world without suit- able provision, and either the mortality is great—Nature’s kind and universal way of disposing of a surplus—or both are forced to emigrate to find lodging for the ever increasing hordes. My orphanages, almshouses and foreign colonies are very shady unsanitary spots down by a brook, also the sides of the lane, where both diet and shelter are precarious, owing to the fact that that corner of the world is a regular slum district, already crowded with hungry trees and underbrush looking for work, Vices of Plants 109 and but scanty rations are accorded either to old residents or the new-comer. I try to play a Guardian of the Poor to these too-numerous waifs, and I know the difficulty of finding good Christian homes for the progeny of Lychnis dioica rosea, Veronica spicata, Digitalis purpurea, Aquilegia vulgaris, Rud- beckia, Chrysanthemum parthenium, Chrysanthemum maxi- mum, all illustrious families found in every Florist’s Blue Book. I try to build model tenements to accommodate the most promising of them in the annual construction of new beds, but I cannot keep pace with the teeming population, and for want of sufficient ground space, may have to devise hanging gardens eighteen stories high—garden-scrapers shall I call them? I should like to communicate with any one in possession of the original working plans of the hanging gar- dens of Babylon, for though they may be somewhat old-fash- ioned, yet they may furnish good ideas. I always prick up ears when Asa Gray mentions any plant as “cultivated in choice gardens,” certainly a patent of floral nobility. I now believea choice garden represents the aristocratic inner circle, the élite, a condition where the undesirable proletariat, the free seeders, are strictly excluded. Surely that is high society that has no poor relations, no unsought younger sons, no Botany Bay. Some plants are valetudinarians, tender of constitution, with crochety appetities; and if the table prepared for them is not to their liking, they die of disapproval. Lilies are ex- amples of this caprice. They like rich food, the richer the better, but it must be predigested, as it were. They require a heavily manured soil, further enriched with leaf mold; but it must be prepared a year or two in advance, and then they must be carefully insulated from it by a generous environment of sand. Their conduct reminds me of delicate ladies who pretend to nibble at the table, and gorge unseen from the pantry shelf. Would it be surprising, after eons of such cod- 110 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens dling, if lilies reappeared as capricious spoiled darlings of fortune? Even as lilies, they toil not, neither do they spin, and what can we expect, when, from the first, the moral edu- cation is neglected ? Certain plants are of singularly frail constitution, and though they may buffet the storms of life for a while they take cold easily, and all is over with them. I had a Spirea astilbe, that survived two winters, and was progressing to beautiful planthood. One spring night when Astilbe, “was in thought To brave its blossoms to the air,” an unusual frost overtook it. At first I thought it but a severe cold, and that a little doctoring would restore health; but it grew steadily weaker, and by another winter “it was laid away,” to use the pious euphemism for plain dying. The feverfew also has weak lungs and is sadly afflicted by a frosty spring night. It develops an irritating cough in the form of leaves that turn brown in a single night, which it perversely carries about with it long after it begins to flower, as if to remind you of your neglect. It always interested me to note the cold-blooded attitude of political economists in the matter of the death of the indi- vidual, who had been reared to an age of self-support, and then thwarted the best interests of the commonwealth by carelessly dying. Their statistics make no mention of what that loss is to the father’s heart, nor of the mother’s tears: that death, or any death, before the individual earns enough to make full return for his keep, is so much needless loss to the State. If economists had their way, all persons at the age of four years would be compelled to give bond to live until fifty at least, or make a heavy restitution. I am com- pelled to take this same view of my plants, when, forgetful GoLpDEN GLow AGaINst GRAY SHINGLES [P. 103] Vices of Plants Ill of the care given during infancy, the cost of transportation, plus the nurseryman’s modest profit, a plant repudiates its debt to the past, and disappears from pure sloth. Of course it is easier to die than to live, sometimes. We all know, when beset with the thorns of life, how cool and inviting the ground is six feet down; but we are trained to the moral obligation to live, and live we do, in the face of fire, flood and disaster of every sort, if we are plucky and Atropos keeps her shears in her pocket. As a product of commercial enter- prise plants have no right to shirk duty and go into bank- ruptcy; or worse, to disappear altogether. Do they commit suicide, or abscond, for they take every available asset with them? To what refuge do they flee? Yes, I know my remarks are growing pointed, and I mean to go still further and name as a chief offender the Lilium auratum, long recog- nized as a garden absconder, and lovely pale pink Pyrethrum bore it company. Among the idle loafers who ate and drank heartily at my table two summers ago and made no return were Lilium candidum—true they were planted in a place too wet and shady, but what of that?—Funkia subcordata, Hydrangea paniculata, only recently turned into a slothful vagabond, tritoma, Japanese iris, Stachys lantana, lusty look- ing Canterbury bells, two-year-old pentstemons and gerar- dias—all went out on a strike, and their labor had to be done by overworked annuals. Even a wee abortive blossom would have shown a good intention. True it was a cold summer, but sometimes one has to work to keep warm. Given a worm at its root—which is a plant’s heart—a lawful disease, the destroying hand of Fate in the form of drought, or ripe old age, it is right that a plant shall die—let it first discharge its debt of bloom to the race; but no word of exten- uation can be said of the plant that sulks and won’t work. For this cause came it into the world. 112 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens I have long pondered the question of when a plant actually dies. Surely not when its stalk is cut, for often the severed stalk holds its bloom and opens new buds for days after. Your arm makes no growth when it is cut off; so here is a new condition. Growth is the accompaniment of life and life is but a manifestation of the Spirit: but where does the Spirit reside? Both root and stalk may grow when the latter is severed, and single buds may be stripped from the stalk and later open into flower. At what point then does the residing Spirit wholly withdraw itself so that we may say, it is dead? Because I cannot answer this question, cut flowers become a painful responsibility to me. As long as there is a semblance of life in a single blossom, it is still a precious abode of divine energy, and the sad obsequy of throwing away cut flowers devolves upon Adam, who has a reasonable dislike of faded, offensive things. I want to be very sure that decomposition has set in, as that is our only proof of death, before I consign it to a final resting-place under a lilac bush: it is torture to see it cremated. Once I had to wait at a railroad station for a delayed train, and I studied the condition of life and death presented in the form of a lively locust-tree growing by the side of a telegraph pole. First I noticed the points of correspondence between the two, their contact with the soil, both were subject to the influence of the elements, both were alike in a woody tissue, in erect position, and equal in height. Ah, but the differ- ences! One was stiff and inert, a rigid monument of an outlived past; the other lightly bent and swayed with every wind. Responding to its environment the tree sent forth its tender green leaves in friendly greeting to sun and rain, while to the pole the elements were consuming enemies slowly gnawing with relentless tooth. One represented growth, progress and reproduction, every fiber was instinct Vices of Plants 113 with life; the other was the consummation of death in all its grim nude ugliness. Was a dim sense of brotherhood pos- sible between these two widely separated creations? Can the wildest imagination of a tree ever foresee itself builded into floors, timbers, into temples, or ships, or railroad ties? Is the lumber pile ignominy, or the destiny coveted of trees; and do they feel thwarted in their life work when they merely fulfil the life purpose, and are not used in constructive ways? Men are not happy merely to live; they must express them- selves in one way or another. Is it a disgrace in a forest to fall from old age? Are there vague stirrings of aim and ambition in the heart of trees? What is their secret feeling toward storms, the winter cold and winds? ‘The train came too soon for me to answer the questions that arose, but I felt it had been good to have sat for an hour, trying to interpret their silent council. I have wandered far afield, and must return to depict vice as I find it. Some plants have low instincts and attract to themselves bad associates. If you are in the detective ser- vice and want to track the rosebug, visit the seemingly respectable garden heliotrope, any of the Spireas, the Asper- ula hexaphylla, and you will find him feasting at the table of your favorites like a bon vivant. If you want to entrap the green aphis send an investigating committee unawares to the tips of your choicest roses or gaura;—if you would arrest the potato-bug, set a spy on the nicotiana. I like not this company, and shall not further enumerate the black- legs of the garden, for you will find them duly pictured in the Rogue’s Gallery under the title of Mine Enemies. I merely mention the fact that some plants are leading a double life, and consort with very questionable companions. Then there are plants with bad habits. Whether they eat too much, or drink too much, or it is due to some other 114 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens indiscretion, they are an easy prey to disease. Else why should a larkspur of healthy parentage suddenly fall ill with a bilious attack of blight? Why should certain roses and the Michaelmas daisy suddenly break out with an eruption of mildew, as disfiguring a disease as smallpox? Why should robust hollyhocks fall like an apoplectic patient under the rust? Why should white larkspurs develop a cancerous condition in their young crowns, which learned practitioners call “the rot”? I advise an abstemious diet for the young; for one has no right to be a promoter of disease and become a peril to society. The prototype of the social climber is the vine that clutches at anything higher than itself for a support, and uses every- thing but as a stepping-stone to further its advancement in the world. Doubtless we have all come the way of the vine through our remote past, for I have seen several varieties of forest trees, lying on the ground, denuded of their bark, and the twining propensities had not yet been outlived, for the grain of the fiber of the trunk still distinctly showed the spiral tendency. We are further advanced from the tree than the tree is from the vine, and it is high time that the race left this ignoble heritage of the past behind. Any one who has seen a vine strangle the life that helps it to mount higher, and then cut its acquaintance to gain another foothold, loyal to none, hurtful to all in its wolfish aggressions, must have an intense scorn for the social climber, who uses the same cruel methods, destroying a friend who has once served; whose only passion is to push a claim of rapacious arrogance at any cost. Compared with this type I love the one I am about to describe—beggars. I discover beggary running far back of human annals; for in the weeds of the garden I see the fore- shadowing of the outstretched palm, the avoidance of re- Vices of Plants 115 sponsibility, the shameless effrontery of the lazzaroni. Any squalid corner will do for a weed—a crevice in a stone, a cranny in a wall, while they flaunt themselves unblushingly in good soil. They are sun-loving brothers, running rampant if unchecked, yet thankful for the slightest foothold, willing to share even an inch of ground with any flower—their grat- itude lifts them above the vicious outcast. My feeling toward the weed is indifference rather than dislike, for I grow so many flowers in a limited space, that the weed has but small chance. Sorrel is the most persistent mendicant, yet it is never defiant; then I have an occasional plantain, here and there an isolated grass stalk, and perhaps a morsel of chick- weed and smartweed, and occasionally a sporadic case of purslane. While they respect the flower beds, they do hold mass-meetings in my walks, and every representative becomes a walking delegate, and they march in processions ten abreast until Adam steps in to quell the riot. I ought to have a very kindly spirit toward weeds since they have given me many a happy hour, for weeding is my pleasant excuse to linger in the garden. I have even a mild sense of wrong when I root out here and there plants, commonly called weeds, simply because they bear no beautiful blossom, and I speedily pass from this unpleasant task to the removing of withered leaves or seed vessels from my plants, cutting back those that have bloomed, to make room for others waiting their chance to occupy the middle of the stage; then I turn to one needing a stake, or another that is worthy of being pulled forward into prominence, and I arrange and rearrange them as one does cut flowers. I linger long and lovingly over this grooming process, much as the fond mother detains impatient little Mary to pat and caress her bow of ribbon after it is once tied. A touch here, a removal there, another weed destroyed, a moment of leisure in which I pause to catch the glory of 116 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens earth and sky—how the morning has sped away without a thought or care of fleeting hours and neglected duties! What a glorious waste of time weeding is! I only truly live when un- conscious of existence. I have come to know my weakness, and unless prepared to give up my whole morning, I go no farther than the doorstep; and even here I dare not linger long, so great is the entice- ment. It is this affectionate attention that tells in a garden. Any brief neglect shows itself in decay and disorder, especially if the season be too wet or too dry. One must not only care for the living, but provide for the dead, and the friendly per- sistent weeds ever draw me forth and spur me on to duty. To my mind the worst offenders are the wantons that cross- fertilize with anything. From their choicest selected stock will spring mongrel types of the most aggravating colors. Among this debased class I name the sweet-william, colum- bine, the hollyhock, the peony poppy (sometimes). I well recall the care and two years’ nurture I gave the seeds of a very beautiful cardinal red sweet-william. The third year it had reached the blooming period, and had been set out every- where to replace a deep rose pink variety. To my disgust, the new plants proved every coloring known in sweet-william’s calendar save pure red. Some wore prison stripes, some had ted eyes, some were “straked and pied”; since then sweet willie has played me every sort of trick until I learned to snare him by taking a single plant that is particularly beautiful, and propagating by division of the root. I have even failed in this, for a plant singled out for its beauty, should be cut back the moment it breaks into bloom so as to throw its whole life into the root; and twice I have lost a very lovely tone of warm old rose, because I loved the bloom too well to cut it off, and the plant exhausted itself in flowering and died. One has to practice much self-denial in gardening. Vices of Plants 117 While I believe plants have their likes and dislikes—I can’t imagine the hothouse heliotrope having a regard for a tiger- lily—and some prefer to die rather than endure uncongenial society, I see no evidence that plants show the least germ of morality. They have not yet arrived at any nice discrimina- tion between plant and plant as we see it between man and man. Perhaps this is why the garden is so smiling and con- tented. I find no trace of servility, malice, no bitterness of speech. Happy is that state of existence where vice and vir- tue are still but future, unrecognized possibilities. MINE ENEMIES BYHERE is a certain cult that tells us with an air of f4| superiority that “our enemies are those with whom Md we have failed.’ I was inclined to question this —" large way of throwing the blame upon the inno- cent sufferer, but the garden sustains the New Philosophy; for surely my garden pests are but so many examples of my negli- gence, ignorance or tender heart. When I first began gardening I should have put the tender heart first on the list, for my early life was molded by a prig- gish anecdote about a boy who needlessly put his foot upon an ant. There was no question left in the mind of the reader that the boy might have been absorbed in boyish projects and did not see the ant. No generous extenuation was allowed; the foot went on the ant with deadly precision, and the wickedness of that act will be handed down to the seventh generation. I feel that the little boy should now be absolved, in view of full expiation of his crime through having served as a moral lesson to countless young minds, who, in the agere- gate, have walked tens of thousands of miles out of their path to give right of way to ants, caterpillars and spiders. T recall my shrinking desire to let my first instalment of white grubs live, and how I deposited six of them in a capa- cious bushel basket awaiting my stout-hearted executioner, Adam, and how four of them crawled out through the holes before the man’s hand appeared. But necessity and Adam’s tardy coming have hardened me, and I have gone through progressive stages of ferocity, from throwing them over the 118 Mine Enemies 119 stone wall, to covering the bier of my victim with green leaves, until now—in the words of the beloved Nelson—the garden expects every woman to do her duty and she does it. Three things denote the experienced gardener: ability to pluck a handful of squirming rose-bugs without qualms and despatch them neatly in a kerosene bath; with a sharp trowel in hand to play at cross-purposes with grubs and cutworms and to win the game; to stand unflinchingly while all sorts of bees, wasps, hornets, green, yellow, striped and red-headed flies gambol about one’s head and face. These are the tests that prove the veteran of many summers. Any one cherishing qualms and fears, revulsions and nerves, may chatter glibly about botan- ical names and cultural directions; but if she cannot stand the fire of exigency that meets her at every turn, she will never fight the good fight involved in successful gardening. But where shall I begin the enumeration, I, who love the heavenly blue and black velvet coat of the web-worm, who gaze with undisguised admiration on the iridescent metallic beetles, the coppery green armor of the dogbane beetle, the humming-bird moth with its bird-like whiz and movement, on silken butterflies, from the tiny white bride-like ones that hover over the filament stems of the Asperula, to the great yellow and black that hatch all sorts of unmentionable broods? It is hard to believe that these are real enemies—but they are. We must forget our natural history if we would en- joy the fluttering butterflies, balancing themselves on the edge of a flower. If these lovely creatures would only sip sweets perpetually and emancipate themselves from domestic duties, we should greet them cordially. Butterflies have but two lawful functions—to act as a poetic supplement to a fragrant flower, and to serve as a text on immortality. The first pest of the season is the little stiff whitish worm, less than an inch long, found under the leaves used as mulch 120 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens in early spring. Iam told by an entomologist that they are the larvae of some small Bibio flies, and are not particularly in- jurious, as they feed upon dead leaves and decaying vegeta- tion. I am glad they have carrion tastes, for it disturbed me not a little to find whole nests of these vermin every spring, a sort of vanguard of the hordes that I have to combat later. As they have no criminal record, I’ll dismiss them for worse offenders. In dry seasons the most destructive worm is the brownish gray, sometimes bluish lead-colored cutworm, varying from half an inch to an inch and a half long. Whenever you see a young plant cut off just above the ground, and withering in the sun, you may know it is the work of the cutworm. Take any weapon you can find—a hairpin, if no other is at hand— and stir the earth slightly within a few inches of the plant, and you will find the worm just below the surface of the earth. It never goes deep, nor far. Do not throw it over the wall, but kill it on the spot. Sweet peas, sweet alyssum, gypsophila and coreopsis are its favorite diet among annuals; among peren- nials, young larkspurs, lychnis, lupines, lily of the valley, gla- diolus, and pansy; and it dotes on a two-year-old Eremurus. Before planting a bed, or before anything is up in it, the ad- vice is to spread a poisoned bait made of one part of Paris green to fifty parts of dry bran, placed in tiny piles over the ground in the afternoon and evening. Also to dip fresh young clover, pigweed, mullein or peppergrass in a solution of one part of Paris green to one hundred parts of water. As cut- worms eat at night, it is also recommended to go out with a lantern and gather the harvest. I never could understand why a burglar’s outfit of lantern and weapons were necessary, when the good honest sun will find the culprit eating almost any hour of the day and when not eating, snoozing in torpid idleness near his table. The cutworm never indulges in a con« Mine Enemies 121 stitutional after a full meal. So I take any convenient dewy morn for my operations, as I have to battle with them inter- mittently from early spring until other pests arrive to divide my attention. The white grubworm is, in a way, worse than the brown cutworm, for it works below ground, eats the roots of plants, and cuts through the stem so near the roots that a plant seldom recovers from its tooth. It isa wholly unnecessary by-product of a garden, provided one takes the precaution never to use fresh manure directly in the beds. Prepare a compost heap where loads of sand, leaf mold, loam and well-rotted manure are deposited and worked over from time to time. When a year old, add this mixture as a fertilizer and you will have no grubs. During my first two years of gardening I made the mistake of using fresh horse-dressing, and the white grubs were everywhere. Since I have established a compost"heap, the grubs have entirely disappeared. They have to be dug out and despatched, unless you are fortunate or unfortunate enough to have moles also, which follow a worm as the day the night. If animals could only be taught how to use a garden prop- erly all would be well with my world: but dogs do not stand at the edge and wag their tails in mute admiration of its beauty; cats will not avert their eyes from birds and concen- trate on mice and moles; and moles will not pick their way guardedly between rows of plants and shoo their prey in well- defined runways. Hence, dogs, cats and moles are anathema, and I will have none of them. “Ah, very nice,” exclaims the gentle reader, “we do not like moles either, but what can you do to drive them away?” Before I answer that question, let me relate my early experi- ences with the mole. My garden was constructed from a stone heap, and a stone 122 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens heap is the natural abode of the mole, who soon found a rich harvest in the fare I had unwittingly spread for it. While a discreet number of moles may be desirable, when it comes to daily tunneling under tender annuals, so that their roots are lifted high in air, where the hot sun makes short work of their young life, I prefer grubs to moles. At first I watched these loose elevations of the earth quite helplessly, then I went out four or five times a day to crowd down the earth, a process al- most as destructive as the hot sun had been—and then I de- cided that between the mole and the grub, that would nip one plant and pay swift penalty, the odds were in favor of the grub, and I signed the death-warrant of the mole. With subtlety and craft I began to study the mole. I took a comfortable chair into the garden and sat guard for the better part of several days. I found it to be a true rustic, breakfasting before six, dining about eleven, and supping at five. One could almost set the clock by its regular habits. It is curious how gazing steadily at anything semi-hypnotizes one, and how easily the imagination is aroused. I watched the ground until things wavered, but one day it was more than a waver—but was it ? no—yes, yes, there was an unmistakable crepitation of the loose brown earth, and the long-sought villain was stealthily moving beneath it. But what was the good of that knowledge? I had nothing at hand to capture it, and though I tiptoed lightly away, and secured a weapon I watched in vain that day for any further upheaving of the earth. Next day at eleven I occupied a reserved seat in the front row, ready for the performance to begin. My chosen aid was a potato-digger, which looks like a hay fork of five tines curved at right angles. Again things wavered, and I trembled with excitement. I had supposedly laid aside my tigerhood thousands of years ago, but at the sight of that uncertain mov- ing earth the old ferocity leaped to the front. I quivered as Mine Enemies 123 I have seen cats quiver just as they are about to pounce upon their prey, and I stood, potato-digger in hand, eager, but hesitating; for the movement was under some young wall flowers, and I could not sacrifice them. I waited until it reached the asters, and with a swift animal pounce I drove the digger deep into the earth and as quickly threw earth, asters— and mole out upon the walk. Ignorant of its blindness in the bright sunlight I feared lest it should run away, and unequal to despatching it, my mind reverted to my faithful killer, Adam—but where he was, heaven only knew. It was a wild moment and wildly did I behave. For the first and only time in my life I gave my lungs free rein and how I yelled! It was blood curdling. Flung to the winds were those thousands of years of increasing self-control, of gentle aspiration, of calm- ness and I only hoped that the winds would carry them to the ears of the absent Adam. Thinking the garden was afire, or some deadly disaster had overtaken me, he and my maid came rushing to the rescue; and shamed was I, positively abased, to confess the occasion of the ferocious clamor. While the prisoner was hurried away I determined to catch more moles—but differently. My ambition now was not so much a capture, but to exercise some self-restraint, and only when I should be able to catch one, clapping it into a flower- pot, cover it calmly with another, and walk composedly to Adam, wherever he was, and say sweetly and quietly—“take it””—I should know that I had mastered self. So I watched, flanked on one side by flower-pots, on the other by the useful digger; but I had to catch four before I could quite conquer my mad desire to shout for help. When my beds were filled with perennials I had to give up my clawing operations; and now I find that common moth balls dropped in each hole or runway are quite sufficient to drive moles away. 124 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens I am told that in the great cosmogony toads are invaluable to the gardener. I wish they had neater habits, and would squat on the walks, instead of wallowing out great holes under valued possessions. If we must have toads, let them be small and trig of figure, young and ever active. I havea hoary old grandfather with a spread of six inches from tip to tail, that clucks like a hen. Another trial is the mouse that gnaws the bark of shrubs, girdles young trees, and eats the rootstocks of iris, and nibbles young perennials. Sometimes it may be caught in a trap, sometimes it is poisoned, but the surest way to protect trees and shrubs is to tie about them strips of tarred paper from six to ten inches high. If a heavy mulch is applied to the garden before the ground freezes, both mice and moles will seek win- ter shelter in the mellow soil, which may be prevented by late mulching after a hard freeze. When the cutworm has been ordinarily numerous, there is no respite in the war waged against it, but a new campaign begins from the tenth to the fifteenth of June against a small tan-colored beetle called the rose-bug. And why rose-bug? By courtesy alone should it thus be called. For years it has ravaged the panicles of our sumachs, stripping the creamy green blossoms down to the bare stems. There is where I failed. I should have pursued it long ago; but, as I have only recently squandered myself on choice roses, I am just awaken- ing to the fact that the rose-bug is a desperate evil. Authori- ties agree that hand picking alone conquers. Some days before the new roses were in bloom, I discovered that a certain fern was suddenly blighted—it was the rose-bug at work. As I had never measured the strength and number of this foe, I merely began—a stampede; but one can’t do that long; so I got a large tin tobacco-box (how useful Adam’s manners and customs are to me) and mixing a little kerosene {ofr -q] Isny 10 asavoad aov -I10.J UIGHL 40 GaddIYLS SHOOHATIOWZ [rex -q] TAY-MOaVAYL Mine Enemies 125 with water, I entered the detective service. Many times a day I went out, and found the garden heliotrope and Spirea sal- icifolia swarming; also the beetles were strolling up and down the stems of the Asperula hexaphylla, and gnawing great bites out of the Chrysanthemum maximum. They do not attack the half wild red Lancaster and cinnamon roses, and I thought I had cleared the garden of them before the choicer roses appeared, when I discovered new relays on the goutweed, mallow, meadow-rue, and hundreds of them on a Virginia creeper. Not that the rose-bug likes Virginia creeper; but, as an enemy, he finds a vine over my favorite seat a vulnerable point to attack. Everywhere save in the heart of roses, where we are bidden to search for the evil one, do we find it. Rose- bug, forsooth! It is no such dainty epicure as that; it should be called Omnivorous Bug, for it samples everything, even your- self if you stay any length of time. But you don’t, for another pestiferous creature drives you frantic and you escape in- doors. I do not know its name, but it looks like a triangular fly with a small head and broad spreading transparent wings with dark spots, and it circles around your head and lights on your arm or back and bites as no gentle rose-bug ever thought of biting. There is something malignant about this noisy fly, and it is seldom that you can get a full view of it. I have had them pursue me over a hundred feet and even fly in at the screen door after me. To return to the rose-bug: it flourishes a month or more, when the males die and the females descend into the earth to lay their eggs, come to the surface and die. The eggs hatch in twenty days, and the young larve begin to feed upon tender roots. In October they descend below the reach of frost where they remain until spring, gradually come to the sur- face, and in May are transformed into pup# and in June be- come beetles. Two remedies besides hand-picking into kero- 126 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens sene are recommended: spraying with arsenate of lead—five pounds to fifty gallons of water; or Paris green at the rate of one pound to two hundred gallons of water. The latter solu- tion injures the foliage. Since Paris green is a remedy, I do not see why one cannot use it as we do for the potato-bug, which is half a teaspoonful of it sifted in a quart of flour and dusted over plants when they are wet. This proportion is not injurious to foliage. The rose-bug is a gentle creature, and clings to a leaf until you get a fair hold on it, which makes capture an easy thing. Another rose pest is a small green worm that works on the under side of the leaf and leaves behind a brown skeleton fiber. Spraying helps a little, but it is better to stir into the ground a little air-slaked lime in early spring. One half of a rose bed where this was tried was quite free from the pest; the other half where no lime was used was eaten almost bare. Sprink- ling the under side of leaves with one tablespoonful of white hellebore to a pailful of boiling water is recommended. I was quite worn out by the time they departed, for their season was unusually long that first year of discovery, when to my distress I found the wild clematis vines almost denuded of leaves, also the Anemone Pennsylvanica was in tatters, and the new invader was a dark lead-colored bug almost an inch long, resembling a lightning-bug on the back, but with a huge gray abdominal expanse. It has a very small pin head which it carries in a spirited, cocky fashion, and drops at a touch. Later it infested the Japanese clematis, and proved a vora- cious devastator. I couldn’t hand pick this loathsome insect, but scraped it off into my kerosene box. Before this pest disappeared I found another and larger creature at work—my trials that particular summer grew like an inverted triangle, and if winter had not come to my relief, our garden pests would have increased to the size of a cat. Mine Enemies 127 The new horror was the oil beetle, a bright blue metallic in- sect without visible wings, fully two inches long, with a ridic- ulously small waist, and an enormous distension of body tapering toa point. This also infested the Anemone Pennsyl- vanica, now in complete rags and tatters, the wild clematis, Japanese clematis, and occasionally the larkspur. Drowning in kerosene is the only fit death for this disgusting vulture. I despatched about forty thousand of these despicable ene- mies, had my usual bout with the potato-bug which devours the Nicotiana affinis, and thought to breathe something be- side the nauseating fumes of kerosene, when I discovered the aster beetle at work, not so much on the China asters as on the Michaelmas daisies. It is a jet black beetle, less than an inch long, and must be hand picked, or more correctly speak- ing—hand-scraped into kerosene. I am sure these enemies have been with me in previous seasons, but either in less num- ber, or the scales had just fallen from my eyes. We had un- usual rains that year and in consequence more bugs. Drought may be my chief blessing after all. With the establishment of a white woody variety of late aster, came a horde of yellow wasps, which were despatched by scraping them into a glass of soapy water, either early in the morning, or late at night when they were a trifle stiff with the cold. The green louse that infests the tender tips of roses, also the Gaura and pinks can be controlled by spraying with a strong solution of Ivory soap-suds; or add to hot soap-suds two tablespoonfuls of kerosene to four gallons of water; mix thoroughly with a sprayer and then spray two or three times at intervals of two weeks. This is a weak kerosene emulsion and may be used for white worms, rose beetles and aster beetles, but is better for sucking insects. A solution of one pound of whale oil soap to eight gallons of water will also 128 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens keep in check sucking insects. I kept my roses in healthy con- dition all summer merely by spraying them with strong Ivory soap-suds at intervals of a week or ten days. I found no rose- bugs on any rose except Madame Plantier, and not more than a dozen on that. Contrary to the accepted opinion, I consider bees an enemy in a garden—an enemy to beauty; and bumble bees are rougher in their habits than honey bees. I have felt an angry protest, when observing the wanton destruction of a poppy bed made by the bumble bee, as it tumbles about among the stamens and loosens the petals so that they drop within a few hours. I have also observed when both bumble bees and honey bees are numerous, that the bumble bees vacate the poppies and give precedence to honey bees, betaking them- selves to the hollyhocks instead, where they load up with pol- len unmolested. There is something about hollyhock pollen that fuddles a bumble bee completely, and at early twilight, when all respectable bumble bees should be sitting by their firesides relating the day’s adventures to the young, a tall hol- lyhock resembles a thirteen-story apartment house without its shielding walls to hide the occupants, and every flower has become a bed-chamber where one or more bumble bees, help- lessly intoxicated and unable to go home, find shelter for the night. Nor do they always sleep off the effect by morning, for I have found them at nine o’clock still torpid and unable to move. There are many minor pests more or less destructive in the form of flies that puncture the leaves of the aster, Chrysanthe- mum maximum, and tender leaved plants, leaving round dark dots; also those that pierce a stem to lay their eggs, causing a white spittle-like foam to ooze from the spot. Then there are special diseases of plants so numerous as to require tech- nical study to meet them wisely. For example, the larkspur Mine Enemies 129 is subject to the crown rot in early spring, and the remedy is to cover them with ashes as a fall mulch; also to sprinkle air- slaked lime about the foot, and over the crown. The larkspur blight is now under advisement, and no remedy is yet assured, so I was told by the Plant Industry Department at Washing- ton; though I shall relate my own experiment later, which has been quite successful for two summers. It assumes the form of a shriveling of the buds just as they are about to appear, leaving abortive stems only. The only thing recommended so far by the Department is to cut out and destroy all infected plants, and spray with copper fungicides, using the following Government formula for Bordeaux mixture: Copper sulphate, three pounds; fresh stone lime, six pounds; water, fifty gallons. It is much better to use it freshly mixed, and as a small garden will not need so large a quantity at one time, each of the above ingredients may be dissolved separately in twenty-five gallons of water to be kept as a stock mixture. If the water evapo- rates, add water to make up the loss, and combine them as re- quired, stirring thoroughly. Or, it may be made freshly each time in the exact quantity needed, using the above formula, by dissolving separately at the rate of one ounce of copper sulphate and two ounces of fresh stone lime each in a half gallon of water. Stir well when dissolving and when mixed together. In slaking lime add but a little water at a time to the lime, as it generates great heat, stirring until all lumps are slaked. Slaked lime should be kept covered with water until it is used. The hollyhock rust has proved quite as deadly and unman- ageable as the larkspur blight, when once established. As I have grown my larkspurs and hollyhocks from seeds, and I am a mile or more from any extensive garden that might have infection, the appearance of blight and rust was unexpected. It is said that rust, like mildew, attacks weak plants, but my 130 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens experience is to the contrary, for I have never seen such vig- orous plants as my hollyhocks were when the rust first ap- peared. Each plant was from three to four feet in circum- ference, and each sent up from four to six stalks six feet high or more. I was advised to use a weak solution of per- manganate of potassium, enough to tinge the water, if the plants were young; or a weak solution of Bordeaux mix- ture, if the disease was advanced. I used the latter, as the yellow spots had crept up to the top leaves and the lower ones had all fallen leaving my hollyhocks as naked as a plucked fowl. The result was immediate death—I trust a painless one. Reasoning from the advice that a frequent spraying with Ivory soap-suds was an excellent general insecticide for roses, I proceeded to apply the suggestion in a new way to holly- hocks and larkspurs. I made a thick foaming suds, adding, as an antiseptic, a half teaspoonful of baking soda to two or three quarts of water. Taking a handful of the foam, I be- gan at the root of a plant and ran my hand upwards so as to cover with foam the under sides of the leaves as well as the top, the stems, and even the buds, if they were forming. This treatment was begun in early May, and four or five applica- tions were made at intervals of a week. For the first time in many years the hollyhocks were free from rust, though on several plants, that did not get an early treatment, it appeared toward the middle of the summer in a mild form; and on others, that, intentionally I did not treat at all, the rust ran its usual destructive course. This method was wholly success- ful with larkspurs, and was rewarded with a full crop of bloom, the first in years. This simple remedy costs nothing, does not disfigure the plants, and from my two years’ experiment I believe that these two diseases can be kept under control, if the applications are begun early, and continued for a month Mine Enemies 131 or more. Do not wait until the rust appears before you begin treatment, but start with the first growth of leaves. Mean- time I advise a renewal of the stock by raising a yearly crop of seedlings and replacing old plants with strong young ones from time to time. Then there is mildew that attacks roses, Michaelmas daisy, larkspur and other plants. It is due to continued wet weather, sour soil or unfavorable situation. Various remedies are offered. As a preventive, apply once a month Bordeaux mixture diluted to half strength, using the formula: sulphate of copper, six pounds; lime, four pounds; water, ninety gallons. This renders the foliage unsightly, and a milder preventive is often used: sulphide of potassium, one half ounce; water one gallon; apply once a week if the weather is wet and washes off the mixture. Another remedy is one tablespoonful of sulphur and wood-soot, made into a paste with water. Add boiling water, perhaps one or two quarts, and when cool, sprinkle plants or bushes. For mildew that has actually ap- peared, powder the plants and the ground beneath with flowers of sulphur; also stir into the soil a little slaked lime. The Clematis Jackmanni has an artless way of disappearing without a word of farewell—mine did before I learned the probable cause and remedy. The bark on the stem of the Clematis is very brittle, and easily scraped when packed for transportation, and when this has occurred, the wounded place becomes an easy entrance to the eel worm that burrows in and destroys the vine. It travels at the surface of the earth, and if the wound is near the ground it has access. The remedy is to cut the stem off to the very root when planting, hill up sand about the plant, and cover the crown at least an inch with soil. My Physostegia sometimes suffers from a blight that turns the plant yellow, and rots the stem off at the root and it dies. 132 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens TI do not know the cause, but think it must be due to a sour condition of soil kept too shaded and moist. They are planted all over the garden, and in sunny locations the plants are healthy; elsewhere they are not. I mean to try a little lime in the earth as a remedy. The cause of the auratum lily disappearing is said to be a white mite that infests the scales. In foreign countries where they are raised, the conditions are such that this is kept in check, while it flourishes in America. A well drained sunny situation, a rich soil with plenty of leaf mold in it, but no fresh manure, the bulb well insulated by a handful of sand directly about it when planted, give the auratum at least a favorable environment. The Lilium Candidum is also subject to disease, and, as a corrective, the bulbs should be powdered with sulphur before planting. There are other specific diseases too numerous to mention; apparently they are the appointed way that plants pass out of this world, like the aster blight, due to the blue aphis that attacks the tender roots, for which the specific is wood ashes in the soil at the root; the carnation blight due to a little worm that finds lodgment in the stem and has to be burrowed out. Then there are plants that root near the sur- face of the ground, and while they die if kept too wet, they are also killed if the roots dry out or the hot sun strikes the collar of the plant. Many of these peculiar requirements and conditions I have tried to enumerate under their proper heads in the Appendix; yet the treatment of plants can no more be generalized than the treatment of children can. There are inherent capacities and aptitudes that seem to demand certain environment, yet at times plants adapt themselves in a marvelous way to quite contrary ones. Evidently the great life energy is reaching out as eagerly to produce ever higher’types through plant forms Mine Enemies 133 as it does through human beings, and there seems to be a uni- versal desire on all planes of existence to escape the type form and achieve an individual expression. But it is only through a healthy vehicle that it can come to pass. Interesting sports in the garden proceed from healthy growths. If we desire to assist Nature’s effort to produce through a strong normal type an individual variation, it can only be done by first eliminat- ing disease and destructive agencies from the garden, and then affording every favoring condition. PHOTOGRAPHY OF FLOWERS &)HEN Adam presented me with a camera, possess- ing the various attachments designed to bewilder simple woman, together with a dozen rolls of I films, I was as much overwhelmed with the new dignity thrust upon me as if I had been an obscure Western politician summoned to take a Cabinet position. I had not gone through the snap-shot-pocket-kodak kindergarten; I was innocent of the least knowledge of the wiles and tricks a modern camera can play one, and here I was like a two- year-old given a parlor clock to play with. I was taken in hand by a professional photographer, who explained to me the functions and readings of the diaphram, the way to set for distance, who also interpreted the mysteri- ous phylactery over the eye of the lens, T. B. 1-25, 1-50, 1-100—all of which instruction I asked him to let me repeat parrot-fashion after him, and when he declared my answers to the catechism were correct, he closed the camera, assuring me it was loaded—a terrifying word to one whose life-long horror has been a gun—and I reluctantly departed, saying that he would probably see me again shortly. I lingered on the doorstep of his piazza wondering if I could not invite him up to the cottage to spend a week, so hazy already was my impression of what had been said, and so unprepared had I been for the interview. Adam had intended to surprise me with his gift, and the effect was greater then he hoped—I was truly dazed. As we drove home with the camera, I admired the case, reported every word of my instructions, 134 Photography of Flowers 135 and offered to show the delighted Adam the esoteric mysteries within, and then I found I had failed to ask how to open the little beast. I was much chagrined, for it was a somewhat important item, and we were three miles from the source of wisdom. In the course of a few days I made the journey again, returned and felt myself ready for action. I confess to no interest in genealogy, but I am sure if any one took the pains to investigate my lineage, it would be found that I was a near relative of Elizabeth Eliza Peterkin, whose extraordinary density was the delight of my youth. I could now open and close the camera, and my next desire was “to behold this world so wide” through the finder, preparatory to taking pictures. I found the finder, but noth- ing else, for I steadfastly held the open camera with the bellows end towards me, and, direct it as I would, I saw nothing but the back of the camera in the glass. I had sense enough to know that something was wrong, and that the fault was mine, though that was small consolation when I contem- plated another three-mile drive for instruction. I was given the same advice offered to Elizabeth Eliza, who was found by the Lady from Philadelphia sitting on a high stool, playing on the piano through the open parlor win- dow. Elizabeth Eliza explained that the expressmen had carelessly set up the piano in the parlor with the keyboard next to the wall, and though she could reach over a big square piano and play at arm’s length for a while, she could not do it long. So she had almost decided to give up her music, when it occurred to her to place a high stool outside the open window where she could reach through and play quite easily. “My dear Eliza,” exclaimed the Lady from Philadelphia, “Why don’t you turn the piano around?” “T never thought to do that,” replied Eliza. 136 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens Said my instructor, with a twinkle of mirth in his eye, “You have been standing in front of your camera instead of behind it; turn it around, my child, and look.” The child turned it, and was deeply mortified at her utter stupidity; but she laughed to cover her confusion and said: “This reminds me of an episode that occurred at a baby show I once attended in the South. All the negro babies under a year old of the district had been sent in to compete for a prize and as they arrived they were duly ticketed with a large number pinned on the dress. Just before the open- ing hour, an assistant came in haste to the manager and said anxiously, ‘We have lost No. 9. Have you seen it? And we have two No. 6’s; we are getting all mixed up.’ “*No,’ replied the manager, ‘it was there a few minutes ago, for I marked the baby myself—it was a girl.’ “Then followed a hasty search, and a sudden exclamation of satisfaction from the manager, who called out, ‘Here’s No. g; some one has set her wrong side up so she looks like a 6.’ ” More than a week had now slipped away, I had mastered two minor points, but had not ventured to take a picture, and I have to laugh at myself now as I recall my maiden effort. The camera had been bought to gratify my desire to photo- graph flowers, but no one had told me, that, of all objects under the canopy of heaven, flowers are the most difficult, and require technical instruction. I was unaware that four o’clock in the afternoon in a shady place is not quite the condition to set an exposure at 1-25 of a second with a 64 diaphragm. The object chosen was a lovely confusion of blue lupines and yellow day lilies, and I spent half an hour in set- ting up the camera, and measured the distance at least three times, anxiously inspecting the various contrivances to be set. My cheeks grew hot and my hand unsteady while I tried to pluck up courage to squeeze the bulb. It sounds Photography of Flowers 137 easy to do, but for a novice whose previous education has not included a course in squeezing bulbs it is a difficult science. Your hand seems a thousand miles from the directing brain, and the communicating command to squeeze loiters on the threshold of the spinal cord, proceeds leisurely to the shoulder, and down to the hand as if out for a holiday. Meantime the hand waits for the word and wonders if the cable is cut. I gave a nervous, tremulous, continuous grip, and then fearing that I had not done it properly, I gave another, and the deed was doubly done. It had been an agi- tating hour, and while I longed to make instant use of the newly gained knowledge that double squeezes are an evidence of a perturbed mind, I felt I had had enough excitement for that day and was satisfied to close the camera and walk into the house, assured that I had fulfilled every condition, and that my initial attempt was undoubtedly successful, if some- what flurried. I was truly distressed when the first roll of developed films was placed in my hands—they were worthless; and more than this, the lupines had gone by, as well as the various other things I had taken, so they were lost to me for a whole year. The second roll was edifying, but not useful. Then in a sapient moment, I decided to keep an exact record of my mis- takes, confident that, in the course of time, I should cover the entire range of possible errors, and it would be a pleasure to know what not to do, for I was not in the least disheartened. So I ruled out a little memorandum book thus: Date |No. Set} Time | Diaphragm | Distance} Subject | Hour | Weather |Results and I have kept a careful report of every exposure taken. As I look over the column marked Results, I am surprised at 138 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens the fertility of my blundering mind, and to see what a variety of things can go wrong, and yet never repeat the same mis- take. They run thus: Lost—time exposure left open, losing two films—under-exposed—lost through duplicating on last exposure—rolled film too far—snapped the shutter attach- ment by accident—focus bad—forgot to set any of the attach- ments—over-exposed. By and by the tide turned and the results began a dif- ferent theme—good—fair—very good—excellent—best of all. After three years of faithful practice I can set forth a few words of advice—not as a finished exponent of this art, but as an earnest student who has learned somewhat of the fundamental principles. One is that crisp details add beauty to a flower photograph, and these demand a long exposure and small diaphragm. No. 32 of the F. system is excellent, even a 64, if the sun is very bright, or thin white clouds flying, which give a high degree of the actinic rays. I find with a 32 diaphragm, a bulb (B) exposure of 1-3 to 1 second, or more, according to conditions, give good results. By conditions, I mean the degree of light, and hour of day, whether in full sun or in shade, whether light or dark objects, at a distance of three feet or a distant view. From nine to ten o’clock in the morning during the summer months, the shadows are long and the atmospheric quality is tender and diffused; but the light is not strong and the exposure may be a second, which is beyond what is required at high noon. Also from three to four o’clock in the afternoon, the shadows are deep and rich in tone though the light is only fairly strong. A hazy day is also good, even a dull day, though it will be lacking in shadow, and the time of exposure must be increased accordingly. An excellent guide in the matter of timing exposures is found in the Wager Exposure Scale, manufactured in Baltimore, Md., by the John H, Tae DRopPinc oF LEAVES Marks THE PROGRESS NATURE MAKEs [P. 140] Photography of Flowers 139 Herrick Co. It makes allowance for every condition—the month of the year, hour of day, long, short or average dis- tances, light or dark objects, also for clear sun, bright, hazy and dull weather and varying speed of plates. I have found it reliable and comprehensive. In the matter of plates or films I learn from an experienced authority that the most rapid are necessary for flower photog- raphy, and that a color filter helps to preserve values, but extra timing is necessary with a color filter. I learn also that the conditions of flower photography are peculiar, in that to bring out the sharp details of a red blossom requires from four to six times as long an exposure as a white one; green details require two or three times; yellow but little longer, unless of deep orange tone; blue, unless of a deep purplish tone, about the same as white. An excellent way to acquire a practical knowledge of your camera is to take the same object under different conditions of time, size of diaphragm, sun, shade, and distance, making a careful record of each exposure, and note which gives the best results. A helpful article on “Photographing Trees and Flowers” appeared in “The Photo-Miniature,” No. 13, Vol. II., to which I refer the student. The subject is too large and technical for me to attempt any definite instruction. I only know enough to avoid the common, egregious, need- less mistakes. ‘Ten years hence when I have squandered my entire patrimony on films, plates, cameras and tripods, I may have an authoritative word to say. To-day I am but an index finger pointing to a delightful amenity of life. One does not realize the constant flux and flow in nature until he has tried to photograph out of doors. There is but a single day in the life of many plants when they represent perfection of growth and bloom. If, on that particular day, you forget the engagement, or the rain falls, or the wind is 140 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens high, or other duties interfere, the chance is lost. Sometimes the conditions seem perfect, and the tripod is set in place, when a slight wind springs up, and the delicately poised flowers wag their heads in response, and you wait, bulb in hand—and wait—and wait—sometimes half an hour for a moment of calm. It comes usually after a sharp blow, and you must be alert to take advantage of it. If you lose patience, and let it go, you are likely to lose the subject altogether; for a plant is not the same on any two days, and its climax of beauty is short-lived. In the early spring we can easily follow the swift changes in the opening leaves and rapid growth; also in the autumn the daily variations of coloring and the dropping of leaves mark the progress Nature makes. We are apt to think that she rests, or gently matures during the interval. With camera in hand we grow sensitive to the infinite gradations of light— a passing cloud alters the whole aspect—of the magical changes wrought through the passing hours, where shadows shift momentarily; of the fluid character of the air, seldom in quiescence; of daily transition from leaf to bud, from bud to flower and flower to fruit. Contrary to actual experience, perfect beauty always impresses me with confidence in its permanence. An apple-tree in full flower, a maple-tree in au- tumn dress convince me that they are dependable stage prop- erties; that, as lovely accessories, they must endure, they are guaranteed for life: and I am ever perplexed to see the petals fall and the beauty fade. Once only in my life have I known perfect repose in Nature. It was a January day in a North Carolina pine barren, and I had wandered away from my companions, and sat on a fallen log to observe things. The stillness and hush were indescrib- able; not a leaf rustled, not a bird, cricket or insect could be seen or heard, no living creature stirred in the underbrush, Photography of Flowers 141 no cloud floated across the sky. The landscape with its white sandy road, losing itself in a weird blackened forest of half- charred turpentine pines, clothed knee high with flaming red underbrush of scrub oak, was as lifeless as a painted canvas, and I became sceptical of my own reality. The longer I sat the more fantastic and improbable did the trees and sky and my own existence seem. It was with an effort that I shook off the illusion, and dropped back into a living active world, where every leaf must act its part, if it be no more than to twinkle and coquet with the wind, where birds must flutter by and sing, and clouds float, and distant hammers and voices ring, and dogs and poultry utter their cry to keep men sane and normal. We must have action and sound, else Na- ture oppresses us as a bad dream of the night where nothing moves, nor is anything brought to pass. Only when we try our apprentice hand in the faulty use of ‘such a force as light in photography, instead of dense matter, do we realize how subtile, how powerful any force is, how in- violable are the results. We may blunder and patch up a mis- take with matter; but a mistaken application of force is ir- remediable and destructive. Any thoughtful experiment leads us to the threshold of almost unimaginable speculations about the conditions when, as disembodied spirits, ages hence, we shall be liberated forever from the limitations of matter, and sometime be entrusted with the use of these sublimated agents—forces—not destructively and experimentally, but constructively. How shall we build, when we employ thought instead of brick and stone? What shall our gardens be, when we use the life principle instead of plants? What shall we communicate, when we send forth musical vibratory color in- stead of dense thought or still grosser words ? When we study a garden for its photographic possibilities, we see a thousand things before unobserved, and in new rela- 142 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens tions. We grow sensitive to the artistic effect of unusual combinations; we study with a view to rearrangement; mere color grows less emphatic and beauty of form, symmetry, va- riety and distribution more. We note the quality of shadow as well as light; we observe the ensemble as well as particulars; we see more in perspective. We visit an object to observe how it looks at different hours of the day, and at night. We note the modifications made by the different atmospheric condi- tions. Some of my most delightful suggestions have come through studying the garden under the moonlight, when a wholly unfamiliar aspect is presented, and the deep shadows supplement reality. My latest extension along the slope was a problem for a whole year, during which, I worked out many diagrams, but none of them pleased me. Last August I chanced to look into the garden when the moon was full, and across a certain walk tall perennials and shrubs cast shadows, that looked like steps rising in a series of threes, curving toward and lost beneath a distant arbor. Here was a clear solution of my question, which was to construct a walk at the base of the slope and running parallel with it for thirty feet, and then let it rise in a curve to the top. To accomplish it, I had only to cut the bank on either side of the rising curve down to the level of three long terraced beds that already existed, and merely needed to be ex- tended to meet the walk; and then by facing the cuttings with stone walls, I could secure the moist and shaded conditions that were so much needed for certain shrubs and tall peren- nials that had to be moved from their present exposed posi- tion because they suffered from drought. These were planted on the right, the taller ones next to the walls and shading the smaller ones, while on the left of the rising walk, where the slope was cut down perhaps five feet and leveled towards the front, was an unlimited space for masses of the low Lancaster A CurvED WALK wItH TERRACED Beps Cur Out oF A SLOPE, SUGGESTED BY SHADOWS AT NIGHT [P. 142] PoRTION OF A BED SET WITH YOUNG SHRUBS FOR AUTUMN EFFECTS [P. 143] Photography of Flowers = = 143 roses, hybrid perpetuals and my annual overflow of peren- nials arranged in front of a long undulating background of shrubs that I am gradually assembling for autumn effects. The photograph shows but a small portion of it in a new raw state, just as it was planted in late autumn. All about the stump are planted wild clematis and tall ferns, and in the corner of the first bed below the stump is a white variety of Clematis Jackmanni. The upper right-hand bed, which is a perfect Sahara, is set with Rudbeckia and Helianthus leti- folius, both able to withstand any drought. The next just below was a former nursery bed, and is reset with columbines, blue lupines and meadow-rue, deep blue larkspur, white fox- gloves, hollyhocks, perennial phlox and late asters. The third and lowest bed is planted with Lychnis dioica rosea, Paris daisy, Chrysanthemum maximum, white larkspur, golden glow, Helianthus, Helen flower and perennial phlox, with red Shirley poppies for a brilliant midsummer effect. And this is the fruit of a moonlight vision. How varied the night effects are, seen under a crescent, or full, or waning moon, with clear soft blue-gray sky, or flying scud of cloud! How penetrating and tangible is the black darkness that blots out everything! I shall never forget an experience one starless night when a wild gale was blowing, and a storm impended. I went out to gather a ripe poppy- head that I had been saving and feared would be lost, and my feet were guided by instinct, as it was pitch black. There was something ghoulish in the clutching wind; the thick dark- ness was choking and malevolent. A spirit of evil was abroad and filled me with terror. I actually fled before it, and ran breathless into the house. Instead of taking random pictures of any chance thing, I urge lovers of flowers to make a study of them by means of the camera. One may prefer to arrange cut flowers as a subject; 144 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens another, single growing plants; some may choose garden ef- fects at different seasons; some wild flowers; some perhaps will take a single family and secure photographs of its differ- ent varieties and species. It is vastly more interesting to use this art intelligently, and with definite purpose, than to gather a meaningless collection of prints. Aside from the interest and pleasure it gives, it has an esthetic, educational value to the earnest student. SOME GARDENERS I HAVE KNOWN 3, HERE are as many motives in growing flowers as there are reasons that take people into the coun- try. A genuine passion for nature is seldom the root of either. Frequently it is mere obedience to convention. The “best people” are observed to do and to have certain things, and thus it is recognized as the proper thing to have orchards, well-kept grounds, a stable, a kennel and a garden, and worshippers of convention buy them as they do groceries, hire others to care for them, visit them rarely, and have no personal relation with any one of them. If an entertainment is to be given, the gardeners wheel in their products, and the maids, or some poor relative, arrange them; and a bushel or two left over gives no pang to the mis- tress; the surplus is a gratifying proof of the prodigal yield of the estate. “God Almightie first planted a Garden. And indeed, it is the Purest of Humane pleasures. It is the Greatest Refresh- ment to the Spirits of Man; without which, Buildings and Pallaces are but Groose Handy-works; And a Man shall ever see, that when Ages grow to Civility and Elegancie, Men come to Build Stately, sooner than to Garden Finely,” says Bacon. Then there are those who have a barbaric love of color— masses of it—and whether their flowers are in the ground, or crowded into fat round bowls, they present solid sheets of color. As far as esthetic effects go they might as well spread yards of Turkey red calico or large flowered prints upon the ground. But this is their taste, and thus do they express it. 145 146 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens Nothing is more interesting, than to observe the key-note of any given garden, and nothing is more significant as an inter- pretation of the owner’s taste. There may be hundreds of varieties and many colors, yet at a distance all are blended into some particular composite tone which dominates, and too often it is a vicious purplish red, better known as solferino, or magenta. For some inexplicable reason, most garden effects remind me of an old book of household wisdom belonging to my grandmother. In it were recipes for cookies, pastry and pud- dings; homely remedies for croup, typhoid fever and rickets; infallible cures for spavin, thrush and sprung knees, and use- ful hints about the care of young calves; instruction in domes- tic economy and the management of servants—a veritable re- pository of human knowledge. But the versatility of the writer did not end here. Being something more than a mere housewife and free dispensary, she prudently shut the door upon the material domain by inserting two blank pages as an insulator, and then launched upon the difficult questions of esthetics. She gave carefully prepared and authoritative re- cipes for painting skies, water, moonlight, fountains, trees. These were rescued from the blundering instincts of artists, and once for all chromatics was placed within the easy reach of the multitude. For years I used to hover over this compen- dium like a bee about a honey pot, and then look wistfully at a southwestern sky, when it presented a certain ineffable tone that was neither blue, nor gray, nor yellow, and wondered whether it was composed of gamboge, Venetian red, ultra- marine blue, Naples yellow, or what, heightened by white— all the recipes generously allowed for “heightening,” what- ever that might mean. I never reached any decision on this question; for, to my deep regret, a southwestern sky was not mentioned in the Book of Wisdom; so I finally concluded that Some Gardeners I Have Known 147 the sky I loved best must be like the Italian sky, indescribable; else it certainly would have been prescribed. If the author were alive to-day to add an appendix, one item would cer- tainly run thus: Average Garden—Take ten square feet of mixed petunias, preferably blotched and mottled, two feet by four of yellow and red zinnias, an eighth of an acre of yellow marigolds, an equal area of scarlet geraniums, a yard of bal- sams. Blend indiscriminately. Shade with purple asters, magenta balsams and variegated coleus. Heighten with sun- flowers, cannas, castor bean and solferino dahlias. Again there are those who feel a proprietary right in every- thing they touch, and such people grow flowers to cut. They have no more scruple in going out with a large basket and sharp relentless shears to devastate the beauty of their beds than they would to cut into a yard of cotton cloth. That is what flowers are for, and merciless is the hand of the butcher. To them they are useful commodities like butter, soap and tea. Glorious stalks of lilium auratum are not sacred (the more glorious the better, just as high-priced unsalted butter is pref- erable) nor great spikes of larkspur, nor campanulas, nor hibiscus, nor lilium speciosum. Never mind if the whole year’s fruition is centered in a single head of splendid bloom, and half the buds are still unopened, off goes that head as lightly as if it were a nasturtium. No matter if, when cut, it lives but a day in water; it has served—for it was grown to cut! There are of course instances where you may eat your cake and keep it in a garden; but for the most part perennials allow themselves a limited amount of bloom, and you cannot have it on the stalk and on the mantelpiece at the same time. Then there are certain spendthrift natures that grow flowers to giveaway. They have a passion for generosity. They will call in little Jennie from her play to give away the dress on her back; they will dispose of the last new book before the 148 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens family has had time to read it. Jellies and pickles never ripen on their cellar shelves, for they are sent as a glad tribute to neighbors. They will dig up anything, and strip their mos* precious possession to give to any passer-by, who seldoi troubles himself to carry it as far as the gate. When such a one meets a person gluttonous of things, sad is the havoc wrought. For example: in the early days when I was study- ing not only flowers, but the habits of mortals let loose among them, this conversation took place. Said a Gluttonous One: “My daughter and I were calling upon Mrs. -—— who has a beautiful garden, and she told us that we could help ourselves to anything we liked; and my daughter gathered white fox- gloves—the greatest quantity—as many as she could hold in her two hands,” and she related the atrocity with all the relish of a cannibal who had just eaten a missionary. I imme- diately called her attention to a certain view of the moun- tains and gently but firmly led her a safe distance from the garden. Incidentally let me confide that this same mountain view is my trump-card. Some people—strangers in our part of the world—have come to look upon us as public property, and not a few have even been known to visit us as they would a boul- der or a glen. Their arrival is not always coincident with my convenience. They may come at the critical moment when the dressing for my truly delicious mustard pickles is thicken- ing; when, at my ablutions, my ear alone catches the sound of the knocker, and I have no way of communicating either their coming or my helpless condition to Adam in the gar- den, or my maid who may be hanging out the clothes. They come at dewy morn when I am transplanting; they come when we are at dinner—a matter not half so tragical as arriving just as dinner, for three only, is ready to be served. They come in rain, and when the thermometer stands : WHITE FOXGLOVES [P. 148] Some Gardeners I Have Known 149 at 95° and the entire family is in dishabille. No wonder I have had to resort at times to defenses against strangers, and this is my decoy, used particularly when my guests wear clean white gloves and natty little silk coats, and carry a lorgnette. Recognizing enemies of my convenience—they generally come in squads—I welcome them with great hos- pitality, not, however, asking them to sit down. I make a pretense of showing some new thing of interest about the room, and suddenly say,—“Let me show you something in the garden,” holding them in leash at the edge, then wheel toward the aforesaid mountain view always conveniently at hand, wait until the adjectives are expended, then turn back to the lawn. There is nothing left to do; their carriage is ob- viously waiting for them, and they are encouraged to mount their chariot; they are down the lane before they realize that they have inadvertently stepped upon my inclined plane which gently bows an intruder down and out without hurting the feelings of anybody. Pray do not make the mistake in thinking that this device is used often. It is only when cir- cumstances force the worm to turn, and never after three o’clock in the afternoon. I have drifted from my subject, and return to the conserva- tive gardener, who lives by tradition. She, it is, who preserves a remnant of her grandmother’s garden, who has a natural antipathy toward all innovations as pernicious. She is an archive of the past. Her lettuce is always eaten with sugar and vinegar, never with a French dressing. Her culinary heavens rest upon the two pillars of baked beans and brown bread Saturday night, and Indian pudding in the middle of the week. No one ever need stumble over her furniture in the dark; for, from time immemorial, the chairs have been placed just so. Yet dear and sweet and true is she in all her aspects— if a little rigid; for it is she who has retained for us the old- 150 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens fashioned favorites, the almost forgotten things with aro- matic odors. She it is who has giant bushes of cabbage-roses, blush-roses, moss-roses, the deliciously scented white-rose. In her garden flourishes the heliotrope, carefully removed to a south window through the winter. Wallflowers are there, and fragrant evening stock, clove-pinks, and lavender, boy love and sweet-fern. Her little bed of annuals represents touch-me-nots and snapdragons, and zinnias and gillyflow- ers, and she raises a puzzled eyebrow when you call them Impatiens balsamina, Antirrhinum majus and Maithiola annua. While these are worthy exponents of the noble art of gar- dening—and may their tribe increase, for we can never have enough flowers in this sordid world—I find myself at variance with their principles. I am but a beggarly creature to the lordly owners of ten thousand flowers of any single variety; I am wholly lacking in esthetic appreciation of cut flowers to her who crams every fireplace, table and mantle shelf with her posies; I am a stingy miser to the openhanded, and an indiscriminate vagabond in the floral world to the con- servative grower of a few favorites. I scarcely know how to defend my position against so many opponents, and I dare not hope to make good my cause; yet this is where I stand. Once fairly launched on the catalogues, I had a consuming desire to make the personal acquaintance of every kind of hardy annual and perennial that I could obtain. Not that I wanted to continue raising them all, but I could not know them unless I grew them. Nor could I hope to accomplish my task in a single summer; I had the remainder of my life to pursue this fascinating question. Though I have bought from fifty to a hundred new varieties each year, I have the prospect of going on indefinitely. In short, my chief purpose Some Gardeners I Have Known 153 has been to maintain a sort of experimental garden where I might learn flowers, study them from their first seed leaves, watch their manner of growth, and rejoice in their first bloom. How eagerly I have awaited this event, this manifestation of the seen from the unseen, ignorant of the precise form it would take. It has been as marvellous to me as if I had stood at the elbow of Deity when the first forms were spoken into life, and my eyes had been the first to see the results. I can- not fashion a flower, but I can grow them, and thus repeat the miracle of creation. So I plant my seeds, obey the laws, and at my bidding a world of loveliness springs into existence. To me life is life, and all life divine; and I have no more desire to strip a plant ruthlessly of its beauty, than I have to pluck an arm from a child, or to disfigure its face. The whole develop- ment of a plant is sacred to me, and it has a right to fulfill its life just as I have mine; and when this is accomplished, and its bloom is passing, I remove all but one perfect seed-vessel, which is carefully labéled and preserved for future use; for in this way the plant is saved from a needless exhaustion of its vitality. Flowers are protected in my garden, and by making the conditions favorable for plant forms to grow to perfection, I feel that I codperate with the vast cosmic law, that is guiding every manifestation of the Spirit through varied and progress- ive material forms: in my small way, I can thus aid and fur- ther the great cause of evolution of that, which is ready, at this particular moment of its existence, to take the special form of plant life in my garden. Does not this place in the reverent gardener’s hand a divine commission? ‘This may seem a fine-spun theory to the orthodox, but it gives a joyous impulse to the watering-pot! Encyclopedias of horticulture become intensely interest- ing when we grasp that they are the genealogical records and biographies of various manifestations of Spirit on a lower 152 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens plane, where each entity has its own name, its family history and its native country. They record a world-wide compulsory emigration, and not infrequently the unwilling colonist has died of homesickness; others adapt themselves to strange con- ditions only after generations—but they are never again the same creatures. Not having evolved to the stage of locomo- tion, the achievements of plant life are circumscribed to the number, size, color and arrangement of leaf and flower. Some have developed the talent of fragrance; some have the genius of beautiful flower and fruit. Each one strives to manifest the perfect type, though few reach perfection. The family is rep- resented in youth and age, the young offsets or shoots spring- ing up about the parent stock. Some have a desire for travel and fling their seeds out upon the winds. Some families show great inequalities of development, having branches that have not progressed beyond the tiny herb, while other members have aspired to the higher forms of shrubs. The orthodox have claimed that the earth and the fruits thereof were made for man. But I came toa truer knowledge one summer when, picking wild strawberries, I caught a glimpse of this truth: that each manifestation in the plant or animal world exists primarily for its own private evolutionary purposes; but that since both men and strawberries are de- rived from the same source, and equally obey the cosmic law that no creation liveth or dieth unto itself, there is that fine adaptation to each other, that fits the lower to serve the higher, without making that service the ultimate end of its existence. Its utility is merely a by-product of its life. It is the germinal form of a larger phase, which we call codperative brother- hood, that vibrates through the whole universe. I have become so sensitive to the Spirit in my plants, that at times when the garden is at its height, I am overwhelmed with its fulness of life, and am often filled with a deep mel- Some Gardeners I Have Known 153 ancholy as I walk among my children—little creatures that have taken form at my bidding; for I am burdened with the heavy responsibility of having called so many into existence, and there are seasons when I cannot provide properly for their meat and drink, and on every side I feel their mute claims upon me, their foster parent. We feel a pitiful sym- pathy for the limitations of our dumb four-footed brothers, who yet speak eloquently through their eyes; but what of the unuttered gratitude or sorrows of our garden friends, who find no adequate expression to reach the careless heart of him who is pledged to love and cherish them? Their dumb silence touches me almost more deeply in their joy on a June morning than does their bitter pain under an August drought. Spencer says the quality of life is determined by the degree of response to environment. If this be true, what is the quality of life that points a grown-up finger helplessly at the ordinary maple, oak or elm, our daily companions in either city or country, and says, “What tree is that?” that glances casually at the commonest flowers, poppies, morning-glories—even a nasturtium—and asks in good faith, “ What is that?” Surely such a response to environment needs quickening, and I give as the chief reason for my garden efforts that I wanted to know something definite of the floral world; I wanted to re- spond intelligently to this beautiful phase of human environ- ment. A single specimen is sufficient to study and cherish. It is enough for me to have a single Ulmaria filipendula, with its extending family, and watch with keen interest for the precise date when it breaks each year into soft foamy white bloom. No stray visitor in the garden knows of my modest Ulmaria, nor of my one exquisite Tviteleia laxa, now multi- plied twentyfold, with its fragile thread-like stems and starry blossoms, nor the corner where the Houstonia grows, 154 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens nor a hundred other dainty tidbits that are their own excuse for being. But I can close my eyes when a thousand miles away from them and make an exact diagram of each bed with its loved tenants. I often think that to inherit a garden, would be much like coming into possession of another’s life at middle age. One would not know what to expect. What complica- tions would arise! How little would be understood! My next reason is that a garden gratifies my love of color and form. I do not care for it so much as a mass, although it is very beautiful with its successive waves of pink, blue and white—the white recurring at intervals like a chorus in the midst of a continuous melody; I love to descend to particulars, to get down close to a plant, study its manner of growth, the form and texture of leaf and petal and their markings, ob- serve the perfect harmony of color and number as presented in stem, leaf, calyx, corolla and stamens. The stamens of some flowers are indescribably beautiful. I have sat and watched the soft gray green stamens and white filaments of a grayish lavender poppy until they seemed the most perfect example of beauty in all the world. I know one sensitive soul, who said to me once with brimming eyes, as we stood looking at a pale pink gladiolus with its lavender anthers, “It is so beautiful, it hurts.” What could be more lovely than the carmine stems of the Stephenandra flexuosa, or the mahogany stems of the Gaura; or the red-tipped foliage of the Spirea superba; or the heart of a Lancaster rose or an oriental poppy; or the lyre-shaped markings in the throat of the martynia; or the bearded throat of the iris or Pogonia? Emerson says: “I do not so much marvel at the beauty of the world, as at the necessity of beauty.” A third and very cogent reason for my garden is to distrib- ute the roots and seeds about the country side. With few exceptions perennials increase so rapidly either from the root Waitt FLowrers RECURRING LIKE A CHORUS IN A CONTINUOUS MELODY [P. 154] 3 Witp Warr DaIsIEs UNDER CULTIVATION [P. 179] Some Gardeners I Have Known 155 or through self-sown seeds, that one must divide his stock yearly to preserve any sort of balance. It takes time to secure the first increase, particularly if one buys only a single plant of any one variety; but in the course of three or four years his loaves are so multiplied that he can give away a basketful. If I have a choice recipe, a rare plant, a good book, I must share them; and I hope the time may come when my best and choicest plants shall be the common property of the entire region. When I give any treasure it is always with the in- junction—“ You must pass it along when it begins to mul- tiply.” If all gardens were thus distributed, we should not need to organize village-improvement societies; a generous rivalry would spring up that would leave no dooryard un- graced. Eager as I am to distribute roots and seeds, I never offer cut flowers to my visitors, and this withholding of what to me is too precious for an indiscriminate sacrifice, is often severely judged; yet I find all true flower lovers feel the same about this point. My home is the rendezvous of many interesting people, who summer in our region within a radius of fifteen miles, and often it would seem as if we were holding a reception. Pray what would my garden look like if each visitor went away with her two hands as full as they could hold? Asitis, Mary’s eyes are not always blue, nor her hair in curl. My apologies for bare green spots and bloomless sections are profuse; for, like other gardeners, my aim is to have the whole garden in perfect flower all the time. I wish my midsummer visitors were clairvoyant, and could see in my aura the loveliness of May and June. In August when poor Mary’s eyes no longer shine, I have to groom the garden and rake the walks more assiduously than ever to make a presentable appearance, much as a middle-aged belle depends more and more upon 156 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens her steamed complexion, heightened by rouge and cosmetics, adopts a restricted diet, massage and Delsarte to preserve her fast-waning beauty. When locks grow thin, they can at least be parted neatly; and a careful removal of faded and dead growths keeps a September garden trim and neat. One more reason for my garden, if any further be needed, is that it affords the most delightful and wholesome exercise imaginable. True, one is not beautiful in big, stout boots, in short skirt and too often collarless waist. Freckles and sun- burn and roughened hands are not the usual weapons of co- quetry. What matter these disqualifications when you have plotted a whole week for a free day in the garden? I have risen at half past five o’clock to get a good start; I have worked in the hot sun until I was forced to retreat for a few minutes under a tree to cool off; I have paused from sheer fatigue mid- way to the garden with a wheelbarrow of stones for a wall toa new terrace, and questioned if that present moment yielded the pure joy I had been anticipating for a whole week. I have rested shovel in hand while digging into a bank, to wipe my weeping brow just as a street laborer does, and recovering breath, asked myself why I was eager to do such work? To none of my questions have I ever found an answer, save that it was for the joy of the doing, and for the results that justify the hard work. Without these preparatory labors the gar- den could not have existed. From the very start I decided that I should have nothing done that I could not do myself; this was to be my one plaything, devised for my individual pleasure and exercise, and when it became too ambitious for my hands to tend, I’d give it up. All I know of these specially appointed days is that they are too short, too few; the hours do not exist. I have clumped into the house at six at night—having taken only a reluctant period of rest at noon during a hasty dinner—so tired and Some Gardeners I Have Known 157 stiff that I could hardly move—but so happy, so content, so full of the events of the day that I could hardly wait till the morrow to resume the work. This does not explain the fas- cination; I merely know that it exists and continues unabated year after year. After eight years I am still of the mind to have no stone walls that I cannot lay myself—and I have grown as fastidious about the selection and placing of my stones as a lapidary who works in mosaic—I shall have no new beds that I cannot prepare. At this moment I have just com- pleted new extensions, a mood that takes me each autumn. And what lessons have come to me through this so-called drudgery! Who shall measure the impetus to horticulture every amateur gives, when insuperable obstacles are sur- mounted, and proof is made that a truly beautiful garden is possible where conditions were supposed to be impossible? It was only through the toilsome erection of overshadowing stone walls and careful digging out, refilling and fertilizing the beds, that our barren dry hill-top was capable of growing any- thing. Every step of this preparation was necessary to secure the perfect bloom. In short the garden as it now stands is the fine flowering of the varied manual effort that prepared it. I sought still further to see if the analogy would hold true be- yond matter, and I saw that the beautiful glimpses of truth that had illumined so many of my working hours were a more etherialized flower and fruit of labor; that in my intimate per- sonal contact with matter I had learned that it is but a symbol of spirit: matter had become the interpreter of higher things. Labor was the nexus which had linked matter with spirit, and through it, gradually, the many problems that confront my awakening soul are becoming plain and intelligible. Now when I address the elemental forms of rock and soil or the more spiritualized form of plant life, or my own inner con- sciousness, they all speak the same language, and proclaim 158 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens the same truths. I feel unified and in harmony with the world about me; I am one of the working forces of Nature. So the real flower of the garden is ever extending onward and upward as a revelation of spiritual insight. It is more to me than pul- pits and books; it answers all questions; it purifies my beliefs and confirms my visions. A DEDICATION 3 UR labor is but a manifestation of our thought, and in its performance we may swink and toil under = the burden, or we may use matter joyously as a plastic means to an end. No one should have a garden which grows nothing but flowers, and yields no other recompense to the gardener ex- cept successful plants. Over, beyond and above must hover the spirit of poetry, of wonder, of mystery; otherwise there comes a day of disillusion when you awaken to the weariness, anxiety and watchfulness, and begin to measure the reward. You need a larger insight, something that connects your ef- forts with the universal in nature, the ideal, the soul of things. Into this you may lift the garden, and at once drop the tired body and soiled hands, and the whole material aspect of labor. For six summers I had watched the sun and rain weave a garment of flowers over the bare earth, and knowing that each creation of Nature differs from aught else in the universe, I sought to find wherein lay the essential difference between my garden and all others. By day and night I observed the play of color, the quantity and direction of light, the atmospheric effects; and it becomes a vastly interesting study to see how a familiar object behaves itself from day to day, how it ac- cepts its environment, and adjusts itself to heat and cold, to sun and cloud. Each day the expectant eye catches a fresh glimpse of an infinite variety. In time I discerned the soul of my garden, which mani- fested itself in its long subtile shadows. It was as if Nature 159 160 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens had forbidden any but the soft gray shadows to enter; they, who love to magnify and duplicate beautiful things, alone were allowed to walk softly among the trees and flowers at dawn and twilight; and through the long moon-lit nights they molded with deft fingers images of all they saw. But never was a direct shadow permitted to enter. In recognition of this mysterious beauty, a tablet has been erected bearing the name of the garden in Japanese characters THE GARDEN OF OBLIQUE SHADOWS SHA YEI YEN CLASSIFIED LISTS A WORD TO THE READER N the following classification I do not offer an ex- haustive list of hardy trees, shrubs, perennials or annuals. Many are omitted that are choice, but =4 not quite hardy beyond the latitude of New York City; also very expensive varieties are not included among shrubs. I name those that I have actually grown, or am now experimenting with. The nomenclature has been derived from Nicholson’s “Illustrated Dictionary of Gardening,” Asa Gray’s “Field, Forest and Garden,” R. G. Leavitt’s “Outlines of Botany,” and Mrs. Loudon’s “Gardening for Ladies.” In making color divisions, I have given “White Flowers” the first place, because the majority of plants have one or more white varieties. The cultural directions for those grouped under “White Flowers” will not be repeated in other lists, even though their names may appear, duly recorded as special varieties, under other color lists. Should a plant have no worthy white variety and appear for the first time under “Blue” or other color, the cultural directions will accompany its first mention, to which the reader will be referred for the culture of subsequent varieties, that may occur in later color lists; and so on throughout the whole Appendix. I have arranged this very simple, though seemingly com- plex, classification, which catalogues each plant separately throughout the different lists just as far as it has representa- tives of pure color, in order to give amateurs every oppor- 163 164 Classified Lists tunity to choose not only their favorite flowers, but the exact variety that represents the color they may desire. It should be borne in mind that the date of blooming given in these lists is for a place lying a little north of 43° latitude, which has a season a few days later than that of Boston, and two weeks later than New York, and a month later than Washington, D. C. Without wishing to discriminate against others, who may be equally reliable, I take pleasure in commending several firms that exercise especial care in regard to the quality of the stock they send out: for seeds, Schlegel & Fottler and R. and J. Farquhar, both of Boston; and for shrubs and plants Irecommend, to New England purchasers, Fred’k H. Hors- ford, of Charlotte, Vt.; and to those of southern latitudes, Wilkinson Elliott, of Pittsburgh, Pa., and Bobbink & Atkins, of Rutherford, N. J. WHITE FLOWERS APRIL WHITE SHRUBS—None APRIL WHITE PERENNIALS Crocus (C. vernis, var. Mont Blanc). 4 in. Single erect lily-shaped flowers; leaves striped with white. Each year the old corm or bulb dies out and new ones are formed. When the foliage dies after the plant flowers the bulbs may be lifted, divided and reset, allowing room to spread. If lifted before ripe, replant at once in another place to ripen. They do best in a sandy loam and leaf mold, mixed with a few small stones to insure drainage. For lilac, violet and yellow varieties see Blue and Yellow Per. for April. Pansy or Heart’s-Ease (Viola tricolor). 6-12 in. Many hybri- dized varieties in white. A universal favorite that is seldom grown to perfection by amateurs. For early flowering in April and May, sow seeds the previous summer, and keep the young plants over winter either in a cold frame, or transplant where they are to remain and cover lightly with coarse hay as a winter mulch. For summer bloom, sow seed as soon as the ground is mellow. Pansies require a sandy but rich soil, moisture and partial shade. All seed-vessels must be picked off, and if inclined to grow straggly, prune the plant to make a close growth. Do not expect too much of them in midsummer, for they flower best in spring and autumn, and suffer from heat and drought. Plant deeply to keep roots cool. For other varieties see Blue and Yellow Per. for April. SNowpror (Galanthus nivalis). 5 in. Single nodding white flowers borne on slender stems. The bulbs should remain in the ground as they dry out when lifted and lose their vitality. Single and double 165 166 Classified Lists varieties. Give a rich light soil, and they will thrive under the drip of trees. They are increased by offsets. It may be planted with Scilla Sibirica which blooms at the same time. MAY WHITE SHRUBS AzALEA Mo tts. 3-4 ft. A very handsome shrub that TI cannot recommend as hardy, as it winter-killed the first winter. FLOWERING ALMOND (Prunus Japonica). 4 ft. A low hardy shrub generally, but erroneously, known as Prunus nana, with handsome white or pink double flowers in clusters of twos or threes borne along stalks 2-4 ft. high. It is propagated by suckers and thrives in any good garden soil. Prune after flowering. It requires no winter protection. It is effective planted with a background of evergreens. See Pink Shrubs, May. BRIDAL WREATH (Spirea prunifolia, var. flore pleno). 5-6 ft. A slender hardy shrub bearing a profusion of double white blossoms along the upper portion of its branches. All Spireas flourish best in rich moist soil, and spread by suckers at the root; can be increased by cut- ting through the extending roots, and after they establish themselves independently, replant them. In common with other Spireas the fo- liage turns a beautiful red in autumn, and looks well when planted near the white Boltonia asteroides which blossoms late in the autumn. Devrzia. Slender (D. gracilis). 1-2 ft. A low bushy shrub with panicles of snow-white flowers that resemble miniature snowdrops. A beautiful variety, but not quite hardy and should have slight protection in winter. Give a light rich soil. Devurzia (D. Lemoinei). 2-3 ft. A later hybrid form, having a stouter growth than D. gracilis, larger pure white flowers, reddish yellow stamens. Late May or early June. Frince. White (Chionanthus Virginicus). 10 ft. A hardy shrub with long clusters of fragrant fringe-like white flowers and large leaves that appear very late in the spring, and for this reason should be placed in the rear of other shrubbery. They turn a rich yellow in autumn. Does best in sandy moist loam and sheltered position. It can be in- creased by layering or seeds, and it may be grafted or budded on the common ash. White Flowers 167 LEvcOTHOE CATESB#I. 4 ft. An almost evergreen shrub, leaves on long stems; handsome pure white flowers though their odor is unpleasant to some. Give a rich moist soil, sun and sheltered position. Lizac. White (Syringa vulgaris, var. alba grandiflora). 6-10 ft. A hardy shrub of more graceful and slender growth than the common purple variety. It also bears smaller more open clusters of snow-white fragrant flowers. By keeping the roots heavily mulched with manure it throws out an abundance of suckers, which may be separated from the parent bush; propagated also by layering the branches. Should have a sheltered position, for it is sometimes blighted, when about to flower, by late spring frosts. After blooming cut off seed-vessels, else the buds for the next year will not form well and the bloom will be reduced. Peart Buss (Exochorda grandiflora, sometimes called Spirea grandi- flora). A beautiful shrub, often growing to a small tree with large white flowers growing in axillary clusters; has a rather naked, straggling growth and should be pruned to a compact form or planted in the rear of other shrubs; propagated by seeds, suckers and layering. Give cul- ture similar to Spireas. Blooms late in May or early June. Prum. Purple-leaved (Prunus Pissardi). A small tree with incon- spicuous white blossoms, but prized for its bark and foliage. In the spring, the bark on the new growths is deep purple, and the bursting leaves are a violet crimson. Later they take a darker hue which they hold all summer without fading. Without a rival as an ornamental tree, though its fruit is inferior. SHap BusH, JUNEBERRY.(Amelanchier Canadensis). 4-12 ft. A hardy bush or low tree with foliage of tender reddish green in spring, and of rich hue in autumn. The large and open-petalled white flowers are borne in long drooping racemes. In the wild state the growth is rather straggling, but it can be grafted on the hawthorn or quince and make a finer effect. It requires rich loam, and is propagated by layers or cuttings. SNowDRop TREE, SILVER Bett (Hoalesia tetraptera). 4-18 ft. A handsome shrub or small tree wild along streams from Virginia, South, but planted for ornament North. Bears showy drooping flowers from the axils of fallen leaves of the previous year; should have a sheltered position in deep sandy moist soil; propagated by cuttings in spring and autumn. Not quite hardy far North if exposed. SPIREA ARGUTA. 3 ft. A variety closely related to S. Thunbergit. 168 Classified Lists Slender branches, flowers pearly white, enveloping the entire bush. One of the best early shrubs. For culture of all Spireas see Bridal Wreath. SPIREA PRUNIFOLIA, see Bridal Wreath. SPIREA THUNBERGII. 2-3 ft. A dwarf compact shrub with slender graceful branches, blooms very early with snow-white flowers in long open sprays. A beautiful variety. SprrEA VAN HourTet, an improved form of S. irilobata. 3-5 ft. A spreading bush with long drooping branches, that are literally covered with flat clusters of white flowers; blooms several weeks later than S. Thunbergii, and is especially recommended. St. PeTer’s WREATH, ITALIAN May (Spirea hypericifolia). 3-6 ft. A hardy shrub with long drooping branches, small white flowers in small flat heads. For culture see Bridal Wreath. THORN. Scarlet-fruited (Crategus coccinea). 3-6 ft. A hardy shrub or small tree, very ornamental because of its handsome foliage, flowers and scarlet fruit. The white flowers are borne in numerous clusters. It requires a dry sunny situation, and is propagated by seeds that sometimes lie for two years without germinating. One of our most beautiful native shrubs, but rather difficult to transplant. MAY WHITE PERENNIALS ARABIS ALBIDA, see Rock Cress. ASPERULA ODORATA, see Sweet Woodruff. ASPHODEL (Asphodelus albus). 2 ft. Lily-like leaves form a tuft at base from which rise tall spikes of clustered white flowers; should have deep sandy loam. They increase rapidly by suckers which should be divided and reset in the spring. For yellow variety see Yellow Per. for May. Canpyturt. Evergreen (Iberis sempervirens). 1 ft. A choice perennial bearing the greatest profusion of snow-white flowers in flat heads almost three inches across; thrives in any good soil and sunny exposure. Sow seed in spring and set out in September. Increased also by cuttings and division of root; is self-sowing. It is beautiful when grown with Lychnis dioica, Mertensia Virginica, Phlox sublata, or grape hyacinth. White Flowers 169 CoLumBINE (Aquilegia chrysantha, var. alba). 2-3 ft. The colum- bine is one of the most desirable of our hardy perennials and comes in every color and variety of combinations. The divided foliage makes a bushy growth from which spring many tall stalks bearing erect or drooping flowers that take the form of a cluster of spurred cups. They do best in a rich sandy loam. They are much sought by bees that cross-fertilize the varieties. The way to perpetuate a strain is either to divide the root, or to cover the plant with fine muslin during the flowering season, so that insects cannot get access to the flowers. Sow the seeds when they are ripe, and transplant the seedlings where they are to remain, giving each a space of 9 in. each way. Self-sowing; and though the self-sown plants are particularly vigorous, they are not true to color. From seeds derived from a pale lavender columbine IT grew every tone of pink and red, the palest rose, deeper rose salmon, shell pink, old rose and old red. It is in this way that new varieties are secured. EncusH Datsy (Bellis perennis, var. Snowball). 4 in. A hardy border plant making a tuft of leaves bearing numerous quilled white or white and pink flowers. It thrives best in rich well-manured loam in a cool shady situation. An English authority recommends taking up and dividing plants two or three times a season. They bear transplant- ing even in full flower if taken up with a portion of soil attached. Prop- agate from seed; if sown in early spring it blooms the first year late in July. FoRGET-ME-NOT (Myosotis alpestris, var. albus). 1 ft. A very hardy variety of Forget-me-not in white, sky blue and pink, which makes a close tuft of leaves from which spring many loose spikes of small blos- soms with a yellow eye. One of the most valuable of early perennials either for bedding or as a border plant. It may be planted among hya- cinths or tulips, which will be out of bloom by the time the Forget-me- not is budding. Alternated with Zgopodium varigata, the blue variety of Myosotis makes a lovely border. Give a rich soil and sunny position; when once established it reproduces itself freely from self-sown seed. Plants derived from seed sown in early spring are especially strong and prolific in bloom the second year. See Blue and Pink Per. May. HyacintH (Hyacinthus orientalis, var. La Grandesse). x ft. An early spring bulb with thick lily-like leaves and a close large spike of waxy fragrant flowers. Plant in October an equal depth of three or four inches in light rich soil in sunny location. Give a light mulch 170 Classified Lists through the winter. After blooming in the spring cut off the flower stalks and allow the plant to ripen. When the leaves turn yellow, lift and dry slowly and store in a dry cool place to be replanted in autumn. Mature bulbs deteriorate in time, so in order to keep up stock, remove small offsets when the bulbs are taken up, and plant in a nursery bed to the depth of two or three inches; they will flower the third year. To increase a rare variety the Dutch make one or two cross-cuts half way through a strong bulb after taking it up, and the next year it makes but little growth, but forms a quantity of small bulbs. These are separated and planted in nursery beds where they mature the third year. For other varieties see Blue, Yellow, Pink and Red Per. May. HyvyacintH. Roman (Hyacinthus orientalis, var. albulus), 1 ft., is the parent of the Roman Hyacinth. It is more slender and delicate in growth than the common Hyacinth, but its culture is the same. IcELAND Poppy (Papaver nudicaule). 1-2 ft. A hardy plant with ornamental cut leaves forming a low tuft from which rise slender erect stalks bearing single and double white flowers. Give a pood garden loam and sunny position. They are not very permanent and though they are self-sowing to a degree, it is well to sow a little seed each year to furnish new seedlings. Vigorous plants should flower for several months, and to promote bloom keep the seed-vessels picked closely. A light covering during winter is desirable. For other variety see Yellow Per. May. Irts. German (I. Germanica, var. Silver King and Florentina). 2 ft. A hardy perennial with sword-shaped leaves, large showy silvery white flowers from 4-6 in. across, and thick rootstocks that tend to in- crease at the surface of the ground. For this reason the roots must not be covered, as they rot readily, and do best in a well drained soil. They are propagated by breaking the rootstocks into sections and replanting in September, but it takes a year or two to get established, and they bloom with more certainty if left undisturbed for three or four years. See Blue and Yellow Per. May. LILy OF THE VALLEY (Convallaria majalis). 6 in. A familiar favo- rite, with two broad lily leaves, and single stalks of small sweet-scented globular flowers. Should have light moist soil, enriched with leaf mould. There is an erroneous impression that this plant needs shade, and it is too frequently given a cheerless north exposure, or a neglected comer of a garden. As it grows shabby after blooming it should not have a prominent position, but give it a warm shelter and considerable White Flowers I7I sun. Divide the clumps every few years in the early autumn, for the running rootstocks crowd each other and it does not flower so well. Plant the crowns or root buds so that their points are just below the surface, giving them room to spread. These root buds bear only leaves the first year, small flowers the second and are in full perfection the third year. Top-dress with manure in autumn. Narcissus, Port’s, PHEASANT’s Eve (N. poeticus). 18 in. A hardy bulbous plant with narrow lily leaves and broad showy fragrant white flowers slightly nodding. Does well in any good soil, and is increased by offsets, and should remain undisturbed unless the roots become crowded. The foliage should be allowed to wither naturally as in the case of Hyacinths, Tulips, Lily of the Valley, for new bulbs do not form well when the leaves are cut off as soon as the flower has faded. If this is persisted in, it finally kills the plant. Divide clumps in July or August; if done later it checks the new growth. Top-dress when the foliage is removed. Narcissus. Double (JV. poeticus, var. alba plena odorata). A double variety of the above. Narcissus (NV. poeticus ornatus). An improved variety of poeticus, that is larger and blooms earlier. Puiox. Creeping (Phlox sublata, var. alba). 6 in. A low creeping border plant making a dense mat of prostrate branches, which bear quantities of flowers an inch across. By shaking loose soil amongst the plants in summer, the trailing branches will take root and can be di- vided and reset in autumn. Give a sunny sheltered situation as it sometimes winter-kills in severe open winters in the North, and it should have a light mulch. For pink variety see Pink Per. May. Poppy. Iceland, see Iceland Poppy. Rock Cress (Arabis albida). 6-9 in. One of the earliest border perennials which continues to flower from early May until autumn; bears fragrant white flowers in terminal racemes; gray woolly leaves sparingly toothed; thrives in dry shady location or in full sun; is prop- agated by division of the root, seed or cuttings. Rocx Cress. Alpine (Arabis alpina). 6 in. A smaller and later variety making a close busy growth, plant downy, leaves sharply toothed. SAXIFRAGE. Early (Saxijraga Virginiensis). 9 in. A low-growing native plant making a flat tuft of leaves from which spring close heads of white flowers borne on naked stems. It should be more often culti- 172 Classified Lists vated, and can be used as a border plant with blue Forget-me-not. Propagate by division and seed. Sweet Wooprurr (Asperula odorata). 6-8 in. Bears snowy white terminal clusters of delicate flowers, stems four-sided, leaves in a whorl; scentless when fresh, but when dried has an agreeable perfume; is used to spread among clothes to keep insects from them. Give a moist shaded location; spreads rapidly; divide roots, also propagate by seed. Tuuw (Tulipa gesneriana, var. L. Immaculee and Pottebakker). z ft. A hardy bulbous plant with broad leaves and erect lily-shaped flowers; requires a sunny sheltered position; plant six inches apart in October or early November to the depth of three to four inches with a little sand about the bulb to prevent rotting. After blooming, allow leaves to turn brown before lifting; dry slowly out of the sun and store in bags or drawers where the air can circulate. If the garden space is needed at once, take up the bulbs and plant at once in another situation where they can ripen; then store. Can be propagated by seeds or off- sets; either is a slow process. Seeds sown in February in a cold frame, and protected the first winter, may be planted out the following spring, and will bloom in four or five years. The first year they are usually self-colored, but afterward assert their own coloring and markings. New varieties are obtained this way. The small offsets must be removed when the mature plants are taken up, and may be set out in a little nursery where they will mature in a year or two. The Tulip comes in almost every coloring; for other varieties, see Tulip under other lists. JUNE WHITE SHRUBS Arrowwoop (Viburnum dentatum). See Snowball. Docwoop. Flowering (Cornus florida). 8-12 ft. A small tree with wide-spread branches, flowering at the end; and what is mistaken for the blossom, is a whorl of four large leaves of creamy white sur- rounding the true flowers that are inconspicuous; fruit bright scarlet; foliage turns crimson and purple in autumn. Slow growing; give a rich soil and moist situation. HOBBLEBUSH, WAYFARING BusH (Viburnum lantanoides). 3-5 ft. A native shrub with handsome large leaves and broad flat heads of sterile flowers encircled with showy white flowers; berry turns a bril- White Flowers 173 liant red in early autumn, and the foliage becomes a rich old rose hue. Notwithstanding these features the bush itself is not handsome, because of its long naked straggling branches, and should be planted among other shrubbery such as Spireas, Flowering Almond or Stephenandra flexuosa which are of similar height. It is hard to transplant, unless taken young, though it can be propagated by bending down its branches, pegging securely; these take root easily and can be severed; hence its popular name. Give a rich moist soil and shade. Ire Vircrnica. 5-8 ft. Flowers in terminal clusters; leaves turn in midsummer from green to scarlet crimson and retain the shade until autumn. It should have a prominent place among white summer perennials. Give a sheltered position and protection in winter, for some report that it is not quite hardy. Laprapor TEA (Ledum latijolium). 2-4 ft. A low evergreen shrub with glossy elliptical leaves revolute at the edges, covered on the under side with a soft cottony lining which becomes rusty. Flowers, in large terminal clusters, are very handsome; the whole plant has a strong aromatic fragrance. This shrub should be more often cultivated. Sparingly found in New England. Locust-TrREE, FatsE Acacia (Robinia pseudacacia). 10-30ft. One of our most ornamental trees with pinnate leaves and great drooping clusters of fragrant white flowers. If given severe pruning for several years, while still a low shrub, it will induce a thicker growth, and pre- vent it running up to a tall tree with naked trunk and bare lower branches. It has a bad habit of spreading from the root and may easily become a pest. It is used also as a stock upon which may be grafted the Rose Acacia (Robinia hispida) a very beautiful rose-colored variety of low growth. Mountain AsH, European (Sorbus Americana). 30 ft. Pinnate leaves, white flowers followed by clusters of handsome red berries. Very hardy. RosEs, GENERAL CULTURE OF. Roses should be given a well-drained, warm, sunny location protected from winds. The bed should be dug out from two to three feet, and if the soil is wet, should have at least six inches of loose stones or broken brick at the bottom for drainage. Fill the beds to the depth of a foot with well-rotted coarse dressing, cow manure and grass sods turned upside down; over this should be several inches of rich light loam. Upon this loam set the roses, carefully spread- ing out the roots, and then fill the beds to within two inches of the top 174 Classified Lists with a rich compost of loam, manure, leaf mold and a little sand. Add clay to the soil for Hybrid Perpetuals. In planting budded roses set the budded parts two or three inches below the surface of the ground, to prevent throwing out suckers; press the soil well in about the roots, leaving a slight depression about the root so that when watered the moisture may be all absorbed. For winter protection, draw the earth well up about the roots (for Teas it may be a foot or eighteen inches deep); peg down any long branches; cover with a foot or two of coarse grass or hay, and over this a few inches of coarse manure—green manure will answer, and a part of it may be dug in in the spring. Very hardy varieties do not need so heavy a mulch, only a little manure at the roots and a few inches of dry leaves and a bough or two to keep them in place. It is well to wrap the stalks from six to twelve inches high with tarred paper, just before the manure is placed about the roots, as a preventive against mice which work close to the ground. When in bud give fre- quent weak solutions of liquid manure, and continue through the flower- ing season. This may be made by securing a stout burlap bag to a barrel hoop, and placing in it a half bushel of manure and suspending it in a barrel partly filled with water; or sheep manure in the proportion of a pound to five gallons of water, and when used, as much more water may again be added. In setting out, prune from one third to one half, cutting just above a bud on the outside of the cane, and cut off smoothly all broken or bruised roots. At no time prune too severely, as it induces vigorous leafy shoots, but no flowers. Pruning a collection of mixed roses is a serious matter, and needs much study and knowledge of particular varieties. Some may be cut within six inches of the ground; others, like the dwarf Hybrid Perpetuals, should be slightly pruned in the spring, and cut back at least one half after the blooming season is over; others, like the Teas and Hybrid Teas, can bear only a gentle pruning, little more than cutting away dead or weak wood when the dormant buds begin to swell; otherwise one may mistake live wood for dead. Roses may be planted either in the autumn, some say rather early, others advise November; or they may be set out in early spring while still dormant. They should be taken up every four or five years and reset in a new place, or in newly enriched soil. To propagate roses take cuttings six inches long late in October or November—after the wood has ripened and the leaves have fallen. Tie them in bundles and store for the winter in boxes of damp sand set in a cold frame or cellar where they will be protected from frost. Or the cuttings may be buried White Flowers 175 out of doors in sand, putting them eighteen inches deep, and giving them further protection from the frost by a thick mulch of leaves or manure. In spring as soon as the ground can be worked, plant the cuttings in trenches leaving only one bud above ground. In making cuttings, cut just under a bud, which enables them to root more easily. For further directions see PROPAGATION OF PLANTS. I have found a strong solution of Ivory soap an excellent general spray for roses. For mildew, it is recommended to spray with 1 oz. of sulphur to one gallon of water. For lice, spray with Kerosene Emulsion made as follows: dissolve 4 lb. hard soap in 1 gal. boiling water, adding away from the fire, 2 gals. kerosene, and churn it well with a hand pump. Dilute twenty times for lice, soft-bodied bugs or caterpillars and four times for scale. For other pests and treatment see chapter, Mine Enemies. RosE, Captain Christy (Rosa Indica, var. Tea). A vigorous-growing white rose, delicately tinted with rose, very large and full flower, good foliage; an early and late bloomer. In the coldest winters a little pro- tection should be given. RosE, Margaret Dickson (Rosa Indica, var. Hybrid Perpetual). White with a pale flesh-colored center; petals large and of firm texture; vigorous of growth, but will run to wood if pruned too severely. RosE, Frau Karl Druschki (probably a hybrid Perpetual). Re- garded as the finest white rose grown; is too vigorous in growth for small rose beds, as it often attains five feet the first year. Blooms snow- white, fragrant, buds frequently three to four inches long; flowers at intervals throughout the season; requires full sun as it has a tendency to mildew in damp weather. Rosr, Mabel Morrison (Rosa Indica, var. Hybrid Perpetual). A pure white, sometimes edged with pink, very large in size and hardy. Ross, Madame Plantier (Rosa Indica, var. Bourbon). A perfectly hardy pure-white rose, blooming but once, but in the greatest profusion; spreads slightly from the root, and the suckers may be severed and in the course of a few months be lifted and reset. An UNKNOWN VARIETY, 4 ft., that came originally from Virginia, makes a strong bushy growth, leaves roughish, a free bloomer in June only, but lasting a month or more. Heavy clusters of large white roses shading into a delicate pinkish-yellow heart; spreads from the root. A desirable and entirely hardy variety free from all disease, though relished by the rose beetle. 176 Classified Lists Roser, White (Rosa alba). An old-fashioned white rose tinted with blush pink, very fragrant, with smooth leaves, perfectly hardy, spreads from the root and may be thus propagated; rather subject to disease; blooms but once in June. Rose, Scotch (Rosa spinosissima). A slender low-growing, very spiny variety, with small shell-shaped creamy flowers, some shading to a blush pink; spreads from the root and is propagated by suckers; is perfectly hardy, free from disease, slightly fragrant; blooms but a short season. Rose, Wichuriana, var. Manda’s Triumph. A trailing hardy rose, with small, double white, very fragrant blooms. Useful for covering banks, stone walls or trellises; requires but little pruning if used thus. SNOWBALL TREE, GUELDER Rose (Viburnum opulis, var. sterilis). 8-10 ft. A cultivated variety from Europe of the High Bush Cran- berry (a native of low swampy ground), with large heads of a snow- white sterile flowers becoming globular; hence its name. Fruit bright red in the original variety, and used as a substitute for cranberries. Transplant in October or November as it has few fibrous roots, and is apt to be killed before it is established if the spring season be a dry one. It should have a moist, even a wet location, if possible, for even when well grown it suffers from drought. Propagate by layering or cuttings of half ripened shoots inserted in sandy soil. Mulch in summer. SNOWBALL, Japanese (Viburnum tomentosum also known as V. plica- tum). Shrub of medium size, and dense heads of sterile flowers whiter and more delicate than the common Snowball. SNOWBALL (V. dentatum, Arrowwood). 5-10 ft. A variety with bright blue berries. SprrEA, Golden (Physocarpus [or Spirea} opulifolia var. aurea). 5-7 ft. Double white flowers, bright yellow leaves; desirable as a foliage plant to be used with red or purple varieties. STEPHENANDRA FLExvosA. 4 ft. A hardy shrub with glossy deep- cut leaves, stems that are crimson in spring and autumn, and clusters of small white flowers that cover the whole bush in the blooming season. Foliage is a beautiful reddish green in spring and autumn; a most desirable shrub that needs no protection. Give a good loam and a partial shade on roots. StyRax Japonica, also known as S. serrata. 10-20 ft. A very choice shrub growing to be a tree. By nature, it assumes a single stem with low branches; but, by pruning, it branches freely, and the small and White Flowers 177 numerous twigs are covered with pure-white flowers an inch across, having yellow stamens. Leaves small and light green. Related to the Snowdrop-Tree, Halesia, but surpasses it. Seeds hang in round balls resembling coffee. Handsome at all seasons, although the bloom is of but short duration. Perfectly hardy. Sumacu, Fern-leaved (Rhus glabra, var. laciniata). 3-5 ft. A low variety with finely cut foliage on long stems, whitish flowers. The chief beauty is the brilliant crimson hue of the leaves in autumn, when it is compared to a ball of fire. It is best grown in the form of a low bush with several stalks springing from a common root. Prune tips to get a spreading top. Dry sunny situation. SumacH, Smooth (Rhus glabra). Whitish-green blossoms in large branching heads; compound leaves, becoming a rich crimson in autumn; fruit is made up of velvety berries arranged in cone-shaped spikes, The whole appearance is very showy. It suckers badly, taking posses- sion of entire fields, and is hard to uproot. Grows in dry sterile situa- tions; excellent to plant about the base of trees. Syrinca, Mock Orance (Philadelphus coronarius). 8-12 ft. A hardy shrub making a large bush with many branching stems, large white fragrant flowers. As it flowers on the wood of the previous year, prune after blooming, thus encouraging new growths for the fol- lowing year; propagated by seeds, cuttings, layering or division of the root. WEIGELIA (Diervilla florida, var. candida). 5-8 ft. A commonly cultivated shrub with cream-white funnel-shaped flowers; will grow in any soil, sending up many suckers, by which it may be increased. For pink and red varieties see Pink and Red Shrubs, June. WirnE Rop or Tree (Viburnum cassinoides). 8-12 ft. Flowers yellowish-white in crowded heads; fruit a rich deep blue, ripening in September. Prune to a bushy form; spreads from the root; prefers wet low ground. Mulch in summer if planted in a dry location. JUNE WHITE PERENNIAL HERBS ACHILLEA, SNEEZEWoRT (A. Ptarmica fl. pl., var. The Pearl). 2 ft. One of the best perennials grown, making a low bushy plant, bearing many loose heads of white flowers. It increases rapidly, and when out 178 Classified Lists of flower, cut to the ground to promote growth. Divide in the spring; also propagated by seeds and cuttings. ANEMONE. Pennsylvania (A. Pennsylvanica). 1 ft. A low herb with radical deeply cut leaves from which spring, later, stems that bear large snow-white flowers. Very attractive as a cut flower; spreads badly at the root. Give a moist light loam mixed with leaf mold and a shaded location, with plenty of room to spread. Is attacked by many insects, especially the oil beetle. Propagate by division of root. ARCHANGELICA (Angelica archangelica, var. officinalis). 4 ft. A bushy herb with large, showy leaves, and huge flat heads of bright white flowers; does best in moist rich soil; good to plant among shrub- bery. It does not spread. AsPERuLA (A. hexaphylla). 2 ft. A hardy perennial with smooth erect stems and needle-like leaves arranged in whorls of six; very small numerous white flowers borne in airy loose clusters. It resembles Infant’s Breath. Give any good soil, in moist shaded location; if in dry sunny place, it makes a stunted growth, and dies down early; propagate by division or seed. Self-sowing. Bepstraw. Northern (Galium boreale). 1 ft. A native plant that, under cultivation, makes an ideal low bushy border plant, spreading at the root gradually and easily divided. It has a square stem, slender elliptical leaves arranged in a whorl of four, delicate fragrant white flowers borne in showy terminal branching panicles. If cut back con- tinues to bloom all summer. In its wild state it is tall and straggling and not useful. Give full sun, a deep rich moist soil and frequent division. Caraway. Garden (Carum Carui). 2 ft. A delicate herb with finely divided leaves and lace-like flat heads of tiny white flowers. While it is usually grown in the herb garden for its seeds it gives light- ness and grace to colored flowers. Give a moist rich soil. CLEMATIS. Erect or Upright (C. recta). 2ft. An herbaceous erect form of Clematis, with large clusters of fragrant white flowers and small heart-shaped pinnate leaves. Give a rich moist soil and partly shaded position. Propagate by seeds and cuttings. Mine winter-killed. Daisy. Paris (Chrysanthemum frutescens). 3 ft. A variety coming in late May just after and closely resembling the common daisy in flower, but a little larger, and literally covering with bloom the plant, which makes a bush two feet across. In spring it throws out many horizontal herby branches from white fibrous roots, that can easily be White Flowers 179 divided; perfectly hardy and self-sowing. I have a curious plant of this variety which is inclined to sport and produces two flowers joined in one at the end of a stalk, each facing a different way. One of my best perennials in point of bloom and vigor. Give a rich deep soil and full sun. Daisy. Wild White, or Whiteweed (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum vulgare). 2 ft. A much despised weed which makes a beautiful garden plant under cultivation. In rich moist soil it makes a more bushy growth, and bears quantities of large white flowers on tall stems. Daisy- shaped flowers add much to the grace of the garden, and as these come earlier than the Chrysanthemum maximum and Shasta Daisy, they supply the early type of this plant. Do not let it go to seed, but propa- gate by division of root. DOoDECATHEON, SHOOTING STAR, AMERICAN CowsLiP (D. Meadia) 1 ft. A curious growth with a low tuft of leaves from which spring a simple flower-stalk a foot high, bearing handsome white nodding flowers with reflexed corolla; also a pink variety. It requires a rich moist soil; dies down in midsummer; increase by seed and division of root. See Pink Per. June. Dropwort (Spirea filipendula, var. fl. pl.). 1 ft. Known also as Ulmaria filipendula. A most lovable plant of delicate beauty, with finely divided fern-like leaves forming a tuft, from which spring a num- ber of stalks bearing loose clusters of small white flowers, a close rosette in shape. It requires rich, moist soil and spreads slowly from the root. Foam Fiower, FAts— Mitrewort (Tiarella cordijolia). 1 ft. A low running herb with a short raceme of white flowers. Good for naturalization in damp shaded situations. Spreads gradually from the root. FoxGLoveE (Digitalis purpurea, var. alba). 4 ft. A handsome hardy biennial, and, if favorably established, it is a perennial. The leaves form a broad spreading tuft from which spring somewhat branching flower-stalks four feet high bearing declined large white finger-shaped flowers. If the flower-stalk is cut down after blooming the plant will bloom again in September. It is self-sowing and the strongest plants are thus obtained, do not try to divide; the results are not good. Give a rich moist soil either in sun or partial shade; is often planted under trees. Also purplish red and pink varieties, see Blue Per. and Pink Per. Gateca, Goat’s Rue (G. officinalis, var. alba). 3 ft. An erect perennial with bluish-green leaves and clusters of white pea-shaped 180 Classified Lists flowers. It makes a bushy growth, and needs room. Give it a sunny location in a rich soil, and let grow undisturbed. Propagated by seed and division of strong plants reset in deep rich soil. Also a blue var.; see Blue Per. GALIUM BOREALE, see Bedstraw, Northern. Gatium Mottuco, see Bedstraw, White. White Per. July. GaLtonta, SumMMER HyacintH (Hyacinthus candicans). 3 ft. A very beautiful bulbous plant bearing racemes of large fragrant droop- ing white flowers. It needs protection in winter. Can be raised from seed, but it is better to propagate by offsets. Requires moist rich leaf mold. Very late in June or early July. GarvEN Hewiorrore (Valeriana officinalis). § ft. An attractive herb with large cut pinnate leaves and broad flat heads of small lilac- white flowers that are deliciously fragrant; the root also has a pleasant aromatic odor. It can easily become a pest because of its vigorous running rootstocks. If kept under control it is one of our most desir- able perennials; flourishes best in rich moist soil in either sun or partial shade. Is infested by the rose-bug. Goat’s BEARD (Spirea Aruncus, var. astilboides). A handsome herb with cut foliage and compound panicles of yellowish-white flowers. Used also as a house plant in winter. Needs rich soil. It cannot be de- pended on, as it will survive severe winters with a little protection, but a late spring frost will sometimes kill it. Give a sheltered position on this account. GOUTWEED (Aigopodium podograria, var. varigata). 2 ft. A low running herb with beautiful soft gray-green and cream colored foliage and flat heads of lace-like white flowers borne on stems two feet high. When combined with blue Forget-me-not it makes a handsome border plant; or it may be used effectively with scarlet poppies. It spreads at the root so badly, however, that it is a great pest, and difficult to weed out when once established. Thrives best in rich soil and partial shade. HELIANTHEMUM, ROCKROSE or SuN Rose (H. mutabile). 6 in. A dwarf evergreen plant with whitish flowers that fall after the first day; opening only in the sunshine. Propagated by seed; good after once established; may be used as a border plant. Sandy loam, protect in winter. , Tris. English (I. xiphioides, var. Mont Blanc; I. Angelica of garden- ers). 2 ft. A bulbous-rooted Iris later than the German variety, and a little earlier than the Spanish varieties. All bulbous-rooted irises White Flowers 181 should be lifted every two or three years, as the new bulbs are formed directly under the old bulb, and in the course of time descend so low as to be out of reach of the air and are lost. They should be reset in Sep- tember in light rich soil and sunny location. For other varieties see Blue Per. and Yellow Per. Iris. Spanish (2. Xiphium, var. Blanche Fleur; I. vulgaris of garden- ers). 2ft. A still later variety than the English Iris. The outer petals or falls are not like those of the usual Iris, but are long and strap-like, bearing heart-shaped petals at the end, which gives a curious orchid appearance. This is also bulbous, and the culture is the same as for the English variety. For yellow and blue var. see Yellow Per. and Blue Per. June. Lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus, var. albus), 3-4 ft. One of our hand- somest perennials with palmate leaves borne on long stems and very dense racemes (often ten to fifteen) of white pea-shaped flowers. Seed pods are covered with silvery down. Requires rich soil, sun and mois- ture. Dig in fertilizer each spring. Propagated by division of the root and by seeds; is self-sowing. When once established makes a magnifi- cent growth. See Blue Per. for blue var. Lupinus Douctasi. 3 ft. A new hybrid variety, which is a cross between the annual and perennial varieties, blooming the first year if started early; spikes of bloom a foot long in white, pink and blue. MeEapow-RvueE. Several varieties are native to New Hampshire, but all are desirable plants under cultivation. The Tall Meadow-Rue (Thalictrum polygonum) grows from 4-7 ft. with beautiful compound foliage resembling the Columbine, and terminal loose clusters of yellow- ish-white flowers; also Thalictrum cornuti, 4 ft. and T. adiantifolium, 2 ft. This latter variety is an excellent substitute for Maidenhair fern which it much resembles in foliage. JT. flaviwm has pyramidal clusters of yellowish-white flowers and fern-like foliage that makes an excellent substitute for ferns in arranging cut flowers. After blooming cut to the ground as the leaves grow shabby; they all require rich moist soil, and partial shade, at least upon the roots. Musk Mattow (Malva moschata, var. alba). 2 ft. A hardy herb with leaves cut into linear divisions and broad white or rose-colored scented flowers. Grows in any good soil; propagated by seeds or di- vision. Also pink var.; see Pink Per. Prony (Paonia officinalis alba, var. Marie Lemoine). 2 ft. T name but one variety of white peony of the many that are offered. A well 182 Classified Lists known hardy plant making a bushy growth, and bears huge double flowers. Peonies come in almost every color and many are sweet- scented, and there are many single varieties. Requires a rich deep soil, and should be mulched and well watered in summer when the growth is made. A gross feeder; dig in cow manure about the roots. Should remain undisturbed, but can be propagated by division of strong plants in August or September, or by seeds. New varieties are obtained by crossing, and can be done by an amateur, if time and patience are given to the matter. CARNATION or CLOVE-PINK (Dianthus caryophyllus). 1 ft. While this variety is most frequently seen in pots as a house plant it will bloom in the open in four months from sowing the seed. A very full double variety with a fragrant clove scent. It makes a tall brittle growth, and if size of bloom is desired the plant should be disbudded and only a single flower be allowed to bloom. Give a deep rich soil of mixed loam, sand, cow manure or leaf mold. The buds are apt to burst on one side, which may be obviated by gently dividing the calyx with a pin as ° soon as the buds are swelled. Propagated by layering, for which, cut a strong shoot half through in a slanting direction at a joint, and bury an inch or two deep, fastening down with a pronged twig, or hairpin. Moderate water and shade should be given until the shoot roots; also propagated by cuttings in sand under glass, and by seed. Not hardy except varieties Vienna and Grenadin in white and scarlet. The Mar- guerite Carnation will bloom in the open from July until frost if sown in the spring. They are half hardy, and in sheltered situations if well mulched with coarse straw and pine boughs survive the winter. Pink. Japanese (Dianthus Heddewigii, var. albus fl. pl.). 2 ft. A double white biennial variety of a beautiful but scentless pink that blooms late the first season, and is covered with bloom the second year. It is hardy with a slight protection in winter. Give a rich moist soil, a sunny sheltered position. Pink. Hardy Garden, or Common (Dianthus plumarius, var. Cyclops). 1 ft. A single flowered variety of the old Scotch Pink, mak- ing a tuft of grass-like leaves; bears quantities of small sweet-scented whitish flowers with fringed petals. Propagated by seeds and cuttings, and sometimes by division of root. I do not succeed with this last method. ‘There is also a double variety, and pink and white varieties of double Dianthus plumarius. A beautiful border may be made by alternating the Garden Pink with Forget-me-not. White Flowers 183 Rocker. Sweet (Hesperis matronalis). 2-3 ft. A hardy plant with coarse pointed leaves and loose racemes of white and lilac flowers very sweet-scented at nightfall with an odor like Clove-Pink. Does best in sandy, rich moist soil. Propagate single varieties by seed, the double variety by division of root. If taken up as soon as the flowering season is done, and transplanted into rich light soil, it will attain an extraordi- nary size, and flower splendidly the next season. Also a lilac variety. Romneya Coutteri. In California a shrub 6-8 ft. high, but in the East it is nearly herbaceous. A very handsome addition to the garden, blooming freely from early summer to autumn, with delicately scented white flowers from 4-6 in. across, having a central boss of golden sta- mens. It needs a sunny sheltered position and very rich soil. I have: been unable to raise it from seed and know but one nurseryman who offers it. In a moderate climate it is certainly worth trying; it has been known to be hardy as far north as Scotland. SwEET-WiLiiaM (Dianthus barbatus). 2 ft. A hardy garden favo- ‘rite that grows in a great variety of colorings. The flowers form a flat- topped cluster, borne in great profusion. If cut back as soon as flower- ing is over, new blooms will appear. While they can be raised easily from seed, they rarely come true to color, owing to the cross-fertilization by insects. Propagation of a certain variety may be secured by division of the root or by covering a plant with fine gauze during the flowering time. If by division, cut off the blooms as soon as the color is learned, lift the plant and reset in very rich light soil where it will throw out a heavy growth from the root, which may be carefully divided either in spring or autumn and reset. Whole borders may be secured from a few plants in two or three years. There are beautiful pale pink and bril- liant pure red varieties that are much more attractive than those with markings and eyes of another color. See Pink and Red Per. June. Turirt, SEA-PInK (Armeria cephalotes Formosa, var. alba). 1 ft. A white variety with a low tuft of narrow leaves and an erect red stalk bearing a close head of handsome flowers. It is difficult to divide the root, and it is better to propagate by seed. There is a lovely pink va- riety. Still another variety, A. maratima also called A. vulgaris is in- creased rapidly by division, and as the seed comes up quite regularly it is often used by either method as an edging instead of Box. See Armeria, Pink, Per. June. ULMARIA FILIPENDULA, see Dropwort. VALERIAN. Spurred, JuprTER’s BEARD (Centranthus alba) 2 ft. 184 Classified Lists A pleasing herb with smooth leaves and several stalks from the root bearing small terminal clusters of white, pink and coral red flowers resembling Honeysuckle. Thrives in any good soil; propagated by seed or by careful division of the root. It does not spread. JULY WHITE SHRUBS Boy Love, OLD Man or SOUTHERNWOOD (Artemesia Abrotanum). 3-5 ft. A woody stemmed shrubby plant with finely divided, grayish aromatic foliage. Seldom flowers, but when it does the bloom is in whitish-yellow panicles. Cultivated for its aromatic perfume. Easily propagated by cuttings; any good soil. Docwoop. Panicled (Cornus paniculata). 5-7 ft. A late variety that takes a bushy form, with whitish leaves and loose clusters of white involucres in July and August; bark ash-colored; berries white. See Dogwood, White Shrubs, June. ; ELDERBERRY (Sambucus Canadensis). 4-6 ft. A vigorous shrub with woody stems only toward the base; bears large flat showy heads of small white flowers followed by small purplish fruit. Give it rich soil and it soon makes a large clump. SWEET GALE (Myrica gale). 3-4 ft. | Cut-leaved fragrant foliage and greenish-brown flowers. Give a moist sandy loam. SwEET Peprer Bus, WHITE ALDER (Clethra alnifolia). A native shrub, from 3-6 ft., cultivated for its deliciously fragrant white flowers. Does best in moist rich soil and partial shade. JULY WHITE PERENNIALS Apam’s NEEDLE, BEAR Grass, SitK Grass, Yucca (Yucca fila- mentosa). 1-2 ft. A hardy variety of a subtropical plant with sword- shaped leaves edged with thread-like filaments, and bears a branching terminal cluster of cream white bell-shaped flowers. Prefers a deep sandy soil, and is propagated by suckers. It is well to give it protection in winter. Excellent against a background of shrubbery. Basy’s BREATH. This name is applied to several plants, one Gyp- White Flowers 185 sophila paniculata 2-3 ft. A dense spreading bush with tiny white flowers in light open panicles and delicate foliage; resists drought and grows in fairly dry soil. Propagated by seed, division and cuttings. See also Bedstraw, White. White Per., July. BEDstRAW. White (Galium Mollugo). 3-5 ft. This plant is er- roneously called Gypsophila for which it is frequently mistaken, and also Baby’s Breath. It makes a bushy growth, increasing rapidly at the root, has a square stem, elliptical leaves arranged in whorls of 6-8 and open clusters of tiny white flowers faintly scented. It does best by frequent division; also propagated by seed and cuttings. Give a deep rich moist soil and full sun. BELLFLOWER. Campanula. This genus represents some of our most valuable and showy plants. While most of them are blue, there are many white varieties such as C. turbinata alba, 6 in. 1 ft.; C. persici- jolia alba, 1~3 ft.; C. Mariesi grandiflora and C. Mariesi compacta nana. These have large showy flowers. There is also another, C. rapuncu- loides, a showy blue variety that spreads badly, has smaller nodding flowers, with many stalks springing from the root, drooping bell-shaped flowers borne in the axils of the upper leaves; if cut will bloom through the season. All can be propagated easily by seed or division of the root, and do well in any good soil. For blue varieties see Bellflower, Blue Per., June. BocconiA, JAPANESE PLUME Poppy (B. cordata). 4-6 ft. A hand- some perennial herb with ornamental fig-leaved foliage and terminal clusters of yellowish-white flowers. It is excellent to plant in an angle or corner where it is sheltered from the north and east winds. Cutting off the suckers in summer will benefit the old plant and increase the stock. Give a rich soil. Handsome when massed against shrubbery. CANTERBURY BELL (Campanula medium). 3 ft. A biennial form of Campanula, bearing a quantity of bell-shaped flowers two or three inches long; very desirable. If the seed-vessels are picked off as they form, it will bloom almost the whole season. It is self-sowing and the strongest plants are thus obtained, transplanting them in the autumn for the following year. Ciematis (C. Jackmanni, var. Henryi). A climbing perennial of great beauty. It dies to the ground every autumn but makes a heavy growth each spring; flowers from 2-4 in. across. Does well in any rich light soil and sunny exposure. Propagated by seeds and cuttings. For further cultural directions, see page 131. 186 Classified Lists Crematis, WILD, see Traveler’s Joy. CHRYSANTHEMUM MAXIMUM. 3 ft. This plant mekes a magnificent bushy growth, bearing flowers about three times as large as the common white daisy. It blooms for many weeks if the seed-vessels are not al- lowed to form. Grows in any good soil in full sun. Propagated easily from self-sown seed or division of the root. CHRYSANTHEMUM LATIFOLIUM. 3 ft. A variety coming perhaps two weeks later than C. maximum; is, if anything, a better plant with broader leaves, larger flowers and more prolonged bloom. I had still another variety that had a sort of frilled row of petals notched at the outer edge that was more desirable than either of the other two, and seemed to be a sort of C. latifolium, or derived from a stray seed of the Shasta daisy. Daisy. Great Oxeye (Chrysanthemum uliginosum). 2-4 ft. A graceful variety with slender bending stalks, bearing loose terminal clusters of white flowers, leaves sharply toothed, sessile. Propagate by seeds and division. EvPHoRBIA, FLOWERING SpurcE (E. corollata). 24 ft. A very sat- isfactory plant bearing a broad open cyme of snow-white leafy append- ages that are taken for flower petals, borne on Jong branching stems. Desirable for cutting or graceful addition to a red or pink bed. Give a rich loam and partial shade. Propagated by division of strong plants, but does best when well established. FEVERFEW, PELLITORY (Chrysanthemum parthenium fl. pl.). 2 ft. A plant having a strong aromatic smell, making a bushy growth and bearing numerous clusters of white rayed flowers with yellowish cen- ters. This, like all other white rayed flowers, adds variety and grace to beds of a single color. Propagated by self-sown seed. While hardy through severe winters, the young growth is tender under late spring frosts. Does well in any good soil and any location. If pruned low makes a good edging. FoxcLovE. Woolly (Digitalis lantana). 2 ft. A biennial form of Foxglove of no great beauty; rather coarse leafy plant with curious brownish-white spotted flowers an inch long on terminal racemes. Not especially desirable. Moist light soil, partial shade. Propagate by seed and division. FRAXINELLA, GAs Piant (Dictamnus fraxinella, var. albus). 2 ft. An aromatic herb bearing showy flowers in long terminal racemes. When bruised has a balsam smell or like lemon peel; emits a volatile fragrance Earty Pink Cosmos STILL BLoominc mv OcToBErR [P. 267] White Flowers 187 on hot close nights, which is so strong that it can be lighted with a match; hence its name. Does best in a dry situation, but not under trees. Do not crowd or disturb; give a rich heavy soil. Propagate by division of the root and by seeds sown as soon as ripe. Also a rose variety. Gatrum Mo ttuco, see Bedstraw, White. GaurA, BUTTERFLY FLOWER (G. Lindheimeri). 2-4 ft. While this plant is usually offered as an annual, I have found it a hardy perennial when protected with the usual mulch. It has but few leaves obscurely spotted like smartweed, and bears a continued succession of handsome white orchid-like flowers on tall branched mahogany-colored stems, which wave gracefully above other plants like hovering butterflies. As an annual it grows 2 ft. high; but as a perennial it is from 3-5 ft. Does well in rich dry soil and full sun. Propagated by seed. I especially recommend this flower which is too little known. GYPSOPHILA PANICULATA, see Baby’s Breath; also Galium Mollugo. GyYPSOPHILA STEVENI, also known as G. glauca. 2 ft. A variety with long recurved opposite leaves, the whole plant covered with a gray bloom; tiny Bray-white flowers on fine wire-like stems, petals reflexed, altogether presenting a curious metallic appearance. Very useful to support more delicate cut flowers. Propagated by seed and by division of the root that spreads slightly by deep suckers. Has a rather prostrate habit, and needs a support. See Baby’s Breath, G. paniculata; also an annual variety of delicate beauty; see White An. for June. Iris. Japanese (J. levigata, var. Moonlight. Also known as J. Kempferi). 2 t. The Japanese Iris blooms after the other varieties are gone and surpasses them in beauty, size and variety of coloring and marking; the flowers of some of the garden varieties measure from 6-10 in. across; are broad and flat; the leaves are more delicate in form than the usual Iris, and can be used more decoratively. It does best in rich moist but not wet, soil, and partly shaded situation. As it takes several years to get well established it should be allowed to remain when once planted. It increases by running rootstocks extending in a circle, making handsome clumps. It can be also raised from seed (thus new varieties are obtained) but it takes a whole year for the seed to germinate, and five or six years before strong blooming plants are developed. Moonlight is a beautiful white variety with yellow center. For other Var. see Yel. Blue and Pink Per. Larkspur. White (Delphinium grandiflorum, var. album). 3 ft. This Larkspur is one of the loveliest of all hardy perennials, but because 188 Classified Lists seedlings often winter-kill further south is rarely offered in either seed catalogues or by nurserymen and then at a fancy price. It forms a good-sized clump, with finely divided leaves, and many spikes of glistening white flowers with green spot on the under side of each petal and black stamens. It is propagated easily from seed and is self-sowing if the soil is kept mellow. I raise most of mine from self-sown plants that spring up in my walks; strong roots may also be divided. While it is perfectly hardy it is well to give a mulch of coarse grass in winter. Tt grows best in deep rich moist soil, but also thrives in dry sunny situa- tions if well watered in a dry season. If the flower-stalks are cut to the ground after blooming, new growths will spring up a second and even third time. It needs staking because of its brittle growth. All Lark- spurs should be planted with the crown a little above the soil, as they are inclined to rot. Coal ashes over the crowns are said to prevent slugs. For other varieties see Blue, Yel. and Red Per. : LycHNIs. White, White Ragged Robin (L. vespertina, fi. pl.). 2 ft. A double day-blooming variety, which is a perennial, also a single biennial variety known as Evening-blooming L. Both are fragrant, and bloom in loose terminal panicles. Thrive in any good soil and are propagated by seed. Maponna Lity (Lilium candidum). 2-3 ft. One of the most beauti- ful of fragrant white lilies, its name derived from the fact that painters represent the Virgin carrying these lilies. When well established leave it alone, but if it must be transplanted, do it in August after the flower stems die down. It should have a stiff rich loam, no manure next the bulb and full sun; it fails if given a moist shaded location. Propagated by offsets. Mattow. Musk (Malva moschata). 1-2 ft. A showy bushy plant with large white or pink flowers 2 in. across, borne in clusters; leaves heart-shaped below, the upper ones in 5-cleft divisions. Blooms all summer. Give any good soil, sun and moisture, if the season is dry, as drought shortens the bloom. The pink variety is particularly beauti- ful. Both have a faint musky fragrance. Propagate by seed and division. See Pink Per., July. MILLA MULTIFLORA, see Star Flower. MonksHoop (Aconitum Nepallus, var. albus). 3 ft. The Monks- hood in its various colors of white, blue and yellow is one of our stateliest plants with its handsome foliage, much divided, and many tall loose spikes of hood-shaped flowers. If left undisturbed makes a fine clump; White Flowers 189 does well in full sun or under the shade of trees. Propagated by seed or division of the root; but great care should be exercised, for the root is deadly poison and dangerous to cattle if left about. Do not plant it in a kitchen garden as it much resembles horseradish roots. OBEDIENT Piant (Physostegia Virginiana, var. alba). 3-4 ft. Against a green background this plant makes a most beautiful effect with its clustered white blooms borne on tall branching stems. It spreads from the root and can easily be raised from seed. Mine are in a location where the roots are well shaded in a moist situation, but the tops are in full sun. Too much praise cannot be given this plant in either the white or lilac varieties; see Blue Per., July. Pea. Perennial (Lathyrus latifolius, var. alba). 4-6 ft. This is another perennial making a magnificent growth, yet it is but little known in this country, though much prized in England. A single root when well established will send up from six to fifteen stems completely covered with clusters of flowers and buds, larger than the Sweet Pea, but scentless. It should be left undisturbed; nor is it easy to lift an established plant, owing to the enormously long roots that go down a foot or two in the soil. Keep the seed-vessels from forming, give water if the season is dry and it will bloom until frost; flourishes in any good soil in any location. If planted at the base of early blooming shrubs or those with naked stems it will cover the bush with bloom. Propagate by seed, which is self-sowing or by careful division of the root. Give a mulch if in an exposed position. There are pink, pink and white, also red varieties. See Pink and Red Per. Pratycopon. Wahlenbergia (P. grandiflorum, var. album). 2 ft. A low spreading variety of Campanula with showy terminal flowers rather flat and wheel-shaped; also blue varieties. Divide in spring, give a tich well-drained loam. For further culture see Campanula. PorenTILLA (P. alba). 2 ft. A low ornamental plant with grayish- green leaves and white flowers borne in loose cymes. Increased by division of seed; thrives in any good soil. Also red and yellow varieties. Star FLowEr (Triteleia laxa, var. alba). Trade name Milla mulii- flora. 2 ft. A delicately beautiful plant rarely offered, with narrow lily leaves and loose airy clusters of pure-white star-shaped flowers borne on tall branching thread-like stems, the flowers numbering from 8-20 on a single stalk. Cover lightly in the winter, give a sheltered position. Mine has full sun on the plant, but shade on the roots from a southern 190 Classified Lists wall. Spreads slowly by offsets. Let remain when once established. A lovely plant but rare. SNAPDRAGON (Antirrhinum majus, var. Queen Victoria). 3 ft. While this plant is frequently grown as an annual, blooming in August if the seed is sown in April, it is also a hardy perennial, and survives our severe winter with a little mulch. It bears full racemes of showy- lipped flowers and is highly ornamental. Seeds are inclined to sport, also the same plant does not always produce the same color of flowers a second year. The only way to reproduce a true variety is by cuttings. Thrives best in a light well-manured soil in full sun. In England it is grown on tops of walls, but our climate is too dry. SpurcE. Flowering, see Euphorbia corollata. THoroucHWworT, BonEset (Eupatorium perfoliatum). 3 ft. A stout native plant that bears great flat heads of finely-fringed flowers. Under cultivation it becomes a handsome plant for shrubbery effects. Does best in rich moist soil; seeds itself. TRAVELER’S Joy, Vircin’s Bower, Witp CLematis (Clematis Virginiana). 8-25 ft. A most beautiful native vine that does well under cultivation. Bears quantities of white flowers followed by fluffy white seed-vessels. Thrives best in partly shaded locations with moist rich soil. Self-sowing. Do not cut to the ground, as the old stems are often alive in the spring several feet up from the ground, though they may look dead. TRITELEIA LAXA, See Star Flower. Witp Carrot (Daucus carota). 2 ft. A troublesome weed of the most delicate beauty, with fern-like foliage, and lacy heads of minute white flowers, followed by curious seed-vessels that look like a green bird’s nest. Commonly called Queen Anne Lace. If the seed-vessels are not allowed to scatter, this plant can easily be kept within bounds. It is a biennial, and self-sowing. Very attractive planted with blue Larkspur, Rudbeckia, Stokesia, Bergamot, or any showy flowers that bloom through August. Yucca, see Adam’s Needle. White Flowers 1g! AUGUST WHITE SHRUBS ANGELICA TREE, HERCULES CLuB (Aralia spinosa). 6-20 ft. A low shrub or tree with a stout trunk covered with sharp prickles. A secondary growth springs up about the stem making a group of smaller ones on every side. These can be removed if a tree form is desired. When young, in autumn, the large stems, having served as branches, fall off as well as the leaves, and it appears to be more dead than alive. In spring it quickly reclothes itself, sending out compound leaves two feet long and half as broad. These form a cluster at the top of stem that are two feet long in a twice or thrice pinnate arrangement. The flowers are white in compound panicles and these great heads with their clusters of flowers and huge leaves look like a tropical palm in blossom. Give a shaded and sheltered position, as the top is too heavy to stand high winds. A rapid grower, especially in a moist situation. DimvorPHANTHUS ManpscHuricus, a hardy variety of Aralia Chinensis. 3-5 ft. A handsome shrub with horizontal branches, leaves spiny, finely divided, arranged tri-pinnately, giving a fine tropical foliage effect. Flowers white, in many-stemmed broad terminal clusters. Hardy if given a dry porous soil and sunny, sheltered spot. Hyprancea (H. paniculata, var. grandiflora). 4-6 ft. This is one of the showiest of August flowers, and perfectly hardy. It bears great elongated clusters of white blossoms, the fewer the clusters allowed, the larger the size. It needs a deep rich soil and plenty of water. Although pruning may also be done early in the spring, it is advisable to cut almost to the ground in late autumn, then new shoots arise in con- siderable numbers, and each will bear a cluster during the season; otherwise the old wood grows tall and becomes bare. This variety does not turn pink and blue as does H. hortensis, which is a tender greenhouse variety. The color of the latter is very capricious, being secured in many ways, yet none is to be depended upon always. Alum water, sheep’s dung, different soils, common salt, and steel filings at times produce the much desired blue tinge, yet not invariably successful. Propagated by division of root and cuttings taken in August or spring from the tops of the strongest shoots not bearing flowers. SPIREA SORBIFOLIA, known also as Sorbaria sorbijolia. 3-6 ft. Large white flowers in panicles. It may freeze to the ground, but the new 192 Classified Lists spring growth is more vigorous in foliage and bloom than when produced on the old wood of the previous year. Plant with Blue Spirea. AUGUST WHITE PERENNIALS Canna (C. Ehemanni, var. Alsace). While the Canna is not a hardy perennial, the root may be saved from year to year by storing over winter in boxes or pots of earth. It is useful in securing subtropical effects in a garden, but I do not grow it. Propagated by division of the root, if care is taken that each portion has a root bud attached. Divide in spring; place pieces in 4-in. pots and set out in late May or June. It can also be raised from seed, but as its roots when young are brittle, the seed should be sown in single pots so as not to disturb the roots. Give a rich deep soil, a sheltered position with sun and plenty of water. Canna needs coddling to bring it to perfection, and for this reason has no place in a hardy garden. Funxia, JAPAN Day Lity (F. subcordata). 2 ft. An ornamental tuberous-rooted lily making a large clump, bearing many stalks with long white funnel-shaped fragrant flowers. Propagate by cutting roots through with a sharp spade in early spring. None but strong roots should be divided; it takes a long time to get established. Give partial shade, deep rich soil and moisture. GENTIAN. White (Gentiana alba). 2 ft. A native perennial variety that can be naturalized in low wet places or grown in a damp corner of the garden. It bears terminal clusters of yellowish-white flowers. Propagated by division of root, or seed sown as soon as ripe. Rich wet soil is best for it. GuaptoLus (G. Childsti, var. albus). 3 ft. The Gladiolus is not hardy, yet it can be cultivated with so little trouble and is so gorgeous a plant that no garden should be without a few of some color. Leaves are erect and sword-shaped, from which spring stalks bearing from 6-20 lily-shaped flowers often several inches across. It is propagated by offsets or seed. Prepare the bed in the late autumn, dressing it deeply with well-rotted cow manure; apply none in a fresh state when planting. Plant at intervals from May rst for six weeks to secure a succession of bloom. Excellent when set among shrubbery or in rose- White Flowers 193 beds. Set bulbs 3-4 in. deep, in full sun, and stake before flowering. It needs mulch about the roots if the season is dry, and plentiful water- ing. After flowering, cut off the seed-vessels, and lift when the tops are withered, after frosts come. Dry in a cool shed out of the sun and store in a dry, warm place through the winter. For other var. see Yel., Pink and Red Per. Hrsiscus, Marsh Mattow (H. moscheutus, var. Crimson Eye). 4-6 ft. A tall plant bearing white flowers often 4-6 in. across, with a center of rich deep red. It does best in a rich moist soil. Propagated by seed and division of the root. A new variety has been made by hybridizing which claims to be a great improvement on the usual type. Also pink var.; see Pink Per., August. HottywHock (Althea rosea, var. alba). 5-8 ft. One of our finest hardy plants, a biennial in some places, with me a perennial. It forms a thick clump of large leaves from which rise stout stalks bearing enormous wheel-shaped flowers of many colors. The erect growth makes a good background for lower bushy perennials, or they can be grown in broad rows without other plants, or as the foreground of a high hedge or shrubbery. Seeds should be sown in early spring and the young plants removed to a permanent position in August or September. I allow mine to seed themselves, and thus obtain strong plants, each year finding enough to reset in early spring, where they get well estab- lished by another season. Top-dress with manure when about to flower; give plenty of water and full sun. If plants are weak, allow only one stalk to a plant and stake early. If in a locality where they winter- kill, cut back to within 6 in. after flowering, lift the plants and winter in a cold frame. Some recommend a mulch a foot deep of coal ashes as a winter protection. Of late, hollyhocks have been affected with the rust, an orange-colored fungus growth that appears on the lower leaves first, and spreads upward, in time destroying the entire foliage, and injuring the bloom. If discovered early, we are advised to spray with a weak solution of permanganate of potassium; if advanced, spray with a weak solution of Bordeaux mixture, neither of which helped my plants. Try my special remedy, page 130. Remove all infected leaves and burn them carefully, and change the bed; or one can save the seed and let hollyhocks go for a year or two, and try afresh. It is said that the single varieties are less affected than the double ones. Give a deep, rich soil, underdrained with stones if possible. May be also propagated by division of strong roots. 194 Classified Lists ImMORTELLE or PEARLY Evertastinc (Anaphalis margaritacea). 2 ft. A common weed with slender leaves that are cottony on both sides, making a soft gray-green effect. Flowers retain the pearly white scales of their involucre, and grow in large branching terminal clusters. Under cultivation this plant is very attractive, especially as a border to a dry bed where nothing else will grow; try it. If the top is pinched off when the plant is only a few inches high, it will increase the bloom. Propagated by suckers. Lity. Auratum or Golden-banded (Lilium auratum). 3-4 ft. The most splendid and heavy-scented of all white lilies, bearing flowers often 8 in. across with reflexed petals spotted with maroon or carmine, a yellow stripe down the center, and conspicuous maroon anthers. This lily is very capricious, and seldom finds a favorable home. Give a deep rich well-drained soil, plenty of moisture; some say full sun, others partial shade. Under all these conditions it frequently decreases in vigor until it bears but a few small blooms. It is said that this decline is due to the presence of a small white mite that infests the scales, and flourishes more vigorously in American gardens than in its native habitat. The main point is to keep the plant strong and healthy. Some advise removing every year or two, and propagation is generally secured by buying freshly-imported bulbs. In setting them out in late autumn, it is well to surround each bulb with a little sand to prevent rotting; plant from 5-6 in. deep. Never allow any manure directly at the root of this or any other lily. This lily, if freshly imported, usually arrives too late for fall planting unless the ground is prepared in advance and covered deeply with mulch to prevent freezing. It may then be uncovered and the lilies set and well mulched for the winter. Otherwise, set the bulbs inearly spring as soon as the ground is teady. Lity. Plantain, see Funkia. Lity (Lilium speciosum album). 3 ft. This is the most delightful of all lilies for its waxy texture, delicate fragrance and beautiful form which is similar to the Lilium auratum, but smaller. It is pure white with purplish spots on the reflexed petals, and from 3-10 flowers ap- pear on a stalk. Its requirements are similar to those of L. auratum. Tt needs partial shade, but not under overhanging trees. Of late it has been subject to a blight, which causes it to disappear. Plant in autumn. It blooms until late frosts. Mattow. Swamp, see Hibiscus. White Flowers 195 MOouNTAIN FLEECE, see Polygonum. MounTAIN FEATHER FLEECE (Stenanthium robustum). 5-8 ft. A very beautiful hardy perennial with long lily leaves and panicles of feathery, drooping white flowers often 2-3 ft. long. As the flowers ripen they turn to shades of pink and purple. Requires a deep, rich, moist soil; propagate by seeds or offsets. Putox. Perennial (Phlox paniculata, var. F. G. Von Lassburg). 4 ft. Though there are many white varieties, this is said to be the best white Phlox under cultivation, bearing great heads of pure white flowers. It requires a deep, rich soil, sun and much water during the flowering season, also a top-dressing of manure during summer. If the tops are pinched off when plants are about a foot high, they will make a lower more bushy growth, and the flowers will be more numerous, though smaller. They will also be a little later in blooming. By pinch- ing off only a portion of the plants, or the outside stalks, it will retard the bloom of certain ones and thus prolong the season of bloom. Propa- gated by seed or division of the root in spring or autumn. The latter method is the surest way to perpetuate any given strain. It can also be increased by cutting a strong root in pieces and treating it as you would seeds; also cuttings taken from roots of old plants grow easily, and cuttings from shoots that will not bloom that season are used. Seed, if sown early in heat, then hardened and planted out in May, will bloom the first season; by this latter method new varieties are secured, as they cross easily. White Phlox is particularly beautiful planted with Golden Glow, Helianthus or Stokesia Cartesia. Also many shades of pink, red, lilac and blue; see other lists. Potyconum. Mountain Fleece (P. amplexicaule). 2-3 ft. Has a strong, woody rootstock, flowers creamy-white in one or two racemes from 2-6 in. long. Give partial shade and any good soil; inclined to spring up over the garden. Propagate by division; needs a little protec- tion in severe winters. Blooms very late in August or early September. Also a deep red variety. SNAKEROOT. White (Eupatoriwm ageratoides). 3 ft. A native plant in some portions of the North and Middle West, but very desirable under cultivation. It is of erect, leafy growth with thin green leaves and large heads of finely-divided white flowers. Give a rich moist soil; propagated by division of root. 196 Classified Lists SEPTEMBER WHITE SHRUBS ALTHEA, Shrubby. RosE or SHARON. 6-12 ft. Sometimes seen in white, but pink and purple and red are more common colors. See Rose Mallow, Pink Shrubs, Sept. PacopA TREE or JAPANESE SopHoRA (S. Japonica). 10-20 ft. A tree with graceful bluish-green compound foliage, long terminal clusters of creamy-white flowers resembling the Acacia. Very graceful tree. Give a deep rich soil in a sunny sheltered position. It is not hardy far north. PoLYGONUM MULTIFLORUM. A hardy vine with slender, woody, reddish stems in the form of numerous branches from the root, bearing loose clusters of fragrant white flowers. Give a rich loam and full sun, and mulch through a dry season. Root tuberous; protect in winter. SEPTEMBER WHITE PERENNIALS ANEMONE. Japanese (Anemone Japonica, var. Whirlwind). 2-4 ft. One of the best autumn plants. Large white flowers, yellow centers; handsome leaves, growing mostly in a clump at the base. Give a rich moist situation; excellent under trees in partial shade. Leave undis- turbed and protect in winter. Propagate by seed and division. Also a pink variety, see Pink Per., Sept. ASTER. White (A. paniculatus?). 4-8 ft. A native Aster that makes an extraordinary growth under cultivation. It gradually increases at the root, throwing up several erect, leafy stalks, with thin, pointed, entire leaves. The top is much branched and bears flat clusters of white-rayed flowers with yellow centers. The blossoming top often measures more than two feet across. Planted with pink or red Holly- hocks, this Aster makes a magnificent show. Give a rich moist soil and . fullsun. Propagate by seed or division. AsTER. Perennial. 3-4 ft. I have been unable to identify the name of this charming variety, as it was sent to me from Massachusetts, where it is native. It makes a low branching shrubby growth, with White Flowers 197 tiny awl-shaped leaves, and numerous snow-white flowers, borne all along the branching stems making compound panicles eighteen inches across. As it blooms until the heavy frosts and is a mass of feathery white flowers, it makes a valuable addition to the autumn garden. Give a rich moist situation. Propagate by division of root, which spreads extensively. Bottonta (B. asteroides). 5-7 ft. A plant resembling the Aster, of erect, hardy growth, bearing numerous heads of white flowers with yellow centers. Also blue and pink varieties. Propagate by seed and division of the root. It spreads badly, but can be planted among shrubbery. It blooms until late frosts. See Blue and Pink Per. Sept. CLEMATIS. Japanese (C. paniculata). 6-20 ft. The most desirable of all vines, making a vigorous growth of glossy green foliage, and covered through the autumn with loose feathery clusters of fragrant white flowers. Needs a deep rich moist soil, sun and a mulch through the summer. Propagated by cuttings made of half-ripened wood cut up at every eye, or by scraping the bark a little and layering the branches. If well watered, in the course of a year the cuttings will root at the joint covered, which may then be severed and planted before the growth begins in the spring. This vine is infested by two species of large . rapacious beetles in the early autumn. See Minz EnEMmEs, p. 126-7. They should be scraped into a can of water with a little kerosene in it. Dautta (D. variabilis). 3-6 ft. Many varieties of Cactus, Pompon and Peony-flowered in white. While not a hardy plant, Dahlias are a favorite with many, and are easily grown. They are raised from seed or by division of the root, which is a cluster of tubers; but care must be taken that each division has an eye or bud. These are not distributed over the surface as the eyes of a potato, but are in a ring around the collar of the root. In a dry state these are not perceptible, and nursery- men often plant the whole root in a hotbed to start the eyes and then divide it. The blind tubers (those without eyes), while plump and healthy looking, will not start a growth. These are sometimes grafted with a growing shoot of a choice variety, but it is a difficult process. Dahlias should be started in gentle heat and planted out after all danger of frost is over. Give a rich sandy loam, much sun and water. After blooming, or when frost bitten, cut down and, a little later, on a dry day, lift the tubers and dry in a shady airy place. Turn every day and shake off the earth from the root. Store in sand or sawdust in a dry cellar. 198 Classified Lists JUNE WHITE ANNUALS Atyssum. Sweet (A. maritimum, var. Benthami). 1 ft. One of the earliest of annuals, blooming the entire season; is covered with spikes of small white fragrant flowers, and is much used as an edging. Thrives best in sandy or gravelly soil; is self-sowing and transplants easily. Cutting back the bloom prolongs the flowering season. CALLANDRINIA (C. Menziesii). 6 in. A low border plant resembling Portulaca; flowers 1 in. across, opening only in the sunshine. Sow seed where the plants are to remain, for they are difficult to transplant. Give full sun, and a light sandy soil. Also red and yellow varieties. June and September. CanpyturT (Iberis umbellata, var. odorata). 1 ft. A self-sowing annual, bearing long spikes of pure-white fragrant flowers. J., var. Empress, has a more branching habit, like a candelabrum, with still longer spikes. It thrives in any soil and bears transplanting well. June to October. CynocLossumM, NAVELWorT (Omphaloides linifolia). 6-12 in. A delicate plant with loose racemes of white flowers resembling Forget-me- not. By alternating it with Forget-me-not as a border plant, the bloom of the latter may be repeated, as Cynoglossum blooms from June to August. Give any good soil and sun; self-sowing. EscHSCHOLTZIA, CALIFORNIA Poppy (E. Californica, var. alba fi. pl.). r ft. A white variety of this showy plant; has finely-divided leaves and large flowers tinged with pink borne on long stems. Sow the seeds as soon as ripe, else the plants may not flower if sown in the spring. GYPSOPHILA ELEGANS. 1 ft. A low plant bearing little cup-shaped flowers on delicately branching stems; is valuable as a dressing to other cut flowers; self-sowing and bears transplanting well. If seed-vessels are cut off it will bloom again in the autumn. Grows in any good soil or any location. June to October. Nasturtium. Dwarf (Tropeolum minus, var. Pearl). 1 ft. The easiest of all annuals to cultivate, and the one most commonly grown by amateurs. It thrives best in common soil, for if too rich it is inclined to run to leaf. However, if one wants a solid mass of bloom, fertilize White Flowers 199 heavily and keep the leaves picked back and the result is amazing in the size and quantity of bloom. Do not let seed-vessels form. For other varieties see Red and Yellow An., June. Slightly self-sowing, June to October. NEMOPHILA (IV. maculata). 1 ft. A low prostrate plant bearing white wheel-shaped flowers with a violet patch on each petal. Good as an edging plant. Does best in moist soil and partial shade. Self- sowing, June to August. See Blue An., June. Poppy. California, see Eschscholtzia. Porpy. Shirley (Papaver Rheas, var. Shirley). 3 ft. If the seed is fall-sown, the Shirley Poppy blooms in June; if sown as soon as the ground is mellow in the spring, it does not bloom until July. By ob- serving this and by planting a second or third time in the Spring one can have a long succession of these lovely flowers, which range through every tone of pure white, white with pale pink margins, shell pink, rose pink, scarlet and deep red. They last but a day owing to the rough way the bees wallow among the stamens; but if cut very early in the morning, they will last three days in the house. Of all the flowers in the garden none is more satisfactory than the Poppy, and of all Poppies the Shirley is the finest. I have had single plants that bore from 20 to 30 blooms a day for ten weeks. They are difficult to transplant, though I have done it successfully by watering the plant well, taking up some earth about the roots, and making a deep cut hole with a small pointing trowel, then dropping in the root full length. Cover with a Neponset pot for three or four days, removing the pot at night, keeping the plant well watered. Each plant should have at least four to six inches of ground to itself, which is enough if the coarse lower leaves are kept picked off. Save only the first perfect seed-vessel, and cut off all others as they form. Self-sown seeds make the strongest as well as earliest plants. Give full sun and any good soil. ScHIZAPETALON (S. Walkeri). gin. A singular plant with almond- scented white flowers with cut petals, borne in terminal leafy racemes. Transplant very carefully so as not to injure the long tap root; if possible sow where it is to remain. Give a sandy loam. June to September. SWEET SULTAN (Centaurea moschata, var. alba). 1} ft. A plant al- lied to Bachelor’s Button, bearing sweet-scented white fringed flowers on long stems; grows in any soil. June to September. Also yellow and blue varieties. , 200 Classified Lists JULY WHITE ANNUALS ABRONIA, SAND VERBENA (A. /ragrans). 6 in. A low ,prostrate border plant, with large flat heads of fragrant flowers resembling the Verbena, opening at sunset. Give a dry sandy soil in warm situation. Remove the outside papery husk from the seed when planting, else it will not germinate properly. June to August. AGERATUM, PAINTER’s BrusH (A. Mexicanum, var. album). Dwart and tall, 6 in. 2 ft. A self-sowing branching plant bearing many small clusters of close-fringed flowers. A very free bloomer; does well in any soil or situation. Also blue and pink varieties. July to October. AGROSTEMMA, Ros or HEavEN (A. celi-rosa). A species of Lychnis, but this generic name, Agrostemma, is the one now most used). 14 ft. In pink and white this plant makes a beautiful showing with its nu- merous flowers borne on long stems. It is a hardy annual and flourishes in any good soil. July to October. Arctotis, AFRICAN Daisy (A. grandis). 24 ft. A tall rather sprawl- ing plant with very handsome rayed flowers having petals that are white above, lilac beneath, and a golden circle about a steel blue center. It has glaucus grayish leaves. It should be planted apart, as it over- shadows smaller plants because of its branching habit. Give it a rich loam in warm sunny location. It has intermittent ways of closing up its petals. July to October. ARGEMONE, PRicKLy Poppy, MEXICAN Poppy (A. Mexicana, var. alba flora), 2 ft. An ornamental plant with large white flowers like a Poppy. The plant spreads widely and needs a good deal of room; has glaucus leaves and is very showy. July to September. Aster. China (Callistephus Chinensis—many horticultural varie- ties). 1-4 ft. This indispensable plant has been so developed that it does not resemble the old China Aster of our grandmother’s day. There is scarcely any choice in the many varieties offered. Sow the seed as soon as the ground is warm, and transplant, giving a space of from 4-8 in. to each plant. They do best in a light rich soil with plenty of sun and water; but as the roots grow near the surface, they must be mulched if the weather is dry. The Aster has two serious pests; one, the aphis, attacks the root, and wood ashes are recommended as a rem- edy; the other is a jet black beetle about 3 of an inch long that will strip ‘ Arctotis, SourH AFRICAN Dalsy (Arclolis grandis) [P. 200] SWEET SCABIOUS AND Doc FENNEL [P. 207] ™N~ White Flowers 201 the petals to the center in a single night. Hand picking in the morning when the beetles are sluggish, and dropping them into a mixture of water and kerosene is the only sure way of getting rid of them. Look for this beetle also on the Michaelmas Daisy. As the Aster transplants easily, it is well to have a small bed of young plants to fill in any bare spaces made by cutting down early perennials. It comes in every color except yellow. July to October. Batsam (Impatiens Balsamina, var. Perfection). 1-14 ft. A plant of leafy, bushy growth with many showy short-stemmed flowers. Its chief value is in furnishing amusement to children who love to snap the seed-vessels, which burst with a touch when ripe; hence its common name, Touch-me-not. Give plenty of room, sun and moisture. Care- ful growers never use seed until three years old. Other varieties in pink, red and purple. July to September. CATCHFLY, SWEET-WILLIAM (Silene Armeria). 1 ft. The flowers resembling a Pink are borne in flat-topped clusters and open only in the sunshine. Give any good soil and full sun. Also a bright pink variety. July to September. CENTRANTHUS, var. alba (?). 1x ft. A low branching plant with smooth glossy leaves and numerous terminal clusters of slender tubular fragrant white flowers; very hardy; blooming until heavy frosts. Give a moist loam and sun. Is self-sowing. CLaARKIA (C. puchella). 1 ft. A graceful plant bearing several curv- ing racemes of deeply lobed flowers that remain in bloom a long time. It is slightly self-sowing and does well in a moist, partly shaded loca- tion. Also a lilac variety. July to October. CLEOME, SPIDER PLANT (C. pungens). 2 ft. A curious plant bearing large heads of white flowers with conspicuous orange stamens on long filaments, which give it its name, Spider Plant. It has a strong pun- gent unpleasant odor. It requires a rich light soil and full sun; self- sowing. July to October. Also a pink variety. Corn-FLOWER, BACHELOR’s Button (Centaurea Cyanus, var. Mar- garite). 2 ft. A very beautiful variety of this common favorite, with large sweet-scented fringed flowers; thrives in any good soil and blooms for two months if the seed-vessels are picked off as they form. Also pink, lilac and deep blue varieties. Cosmos, Earty (C. bipinnatus, var. Early Hybrid). 3 ft. Unless one lives in a southern latitude, it is well to depend upon this early variety, which begins to bloom when only a few inches high and con- # 202 Classified Lists tinues until frost, if the seed-vessels are picked off as they form. The Anemone-shaped flowers are not so large nor the foliage so handsome as the tall varieties, but the latter are so frequently cut off by early frosts while still in bud that they are hardly worth trying except as a handsome feathery green background to other plants. Does well in moist rich soil and full sun; is self-sowing to a limited degree. Also a pure pink and a magenta red variety. July to October. Datura (D. arborea, known also as D. Burgmansia). 3 ft. A tender perennial grown as an annual if started early in gentle heat. Has a coarse shrubby foliage with large trumpet-shaped fragrant white flow- ers from 6-12 inches long. If housed through the winter it will make a new growth the following spring and will throw out great clusters of flowers as early as July. There are several other varieties to be treated as annuals, but not so handsome. Give a rich moist soil, and a warm sunny situation. Doc-FENNEL, MAYWEED (Anthemis Cotula). 2 ft. This common weed is not native to my region, but under cultivation it makes an enormous growth and its finely divided leaves and numerous white rayed blossoms with golden centers are very effective among pink or red flowers. As a cut flower it is lovely with corn-flower and ferns. It is strongly scented, very branching and must not be allowed to seed itself too freely. July to October. EvucHaripium (E. concinnum, var. album). 1 ft. A low branching plant closely resembling Clarkia puchella, requiring the same culture. ERITRICHIUM NOTHOFULVUM. 6 in. A dainty sweet-scented hardy annual resembling the Forget-me-not. It requires a rich moist soil and partial shade. July to September. EVENING Primrose (CGinothere acaulis). 6 in. A low annual form of Primrose with large silvery white flowers. It thrives in any good soil and is useful as a border plant. Gaur, BUTTERFLY FLOWER (G. Lindheimeri). 2-4 ft. As an an- nual the Gaura grows from 1-2 ft. high; as a perennial it reaches 4 ft. For description and culture see White Per., July. GILLYFLOWER, see Stock. GopETIA, SATIN FLOWER (G. amena, var. Duchess of Albany). This species is often referred to Ginothera. 1-2 ft. One of our showiest and most beautiful annuals, bearing a profusion of large open flowers of satiny texture in many colors besides white. It makes a bushy growth if given space and rich soil when it runs to leaves; but in poor soil it White Flowers 203 produces the most brilliant colors, and is literally covered with bloom though the plant will be smaller and less vigorous. It transplants easily and is self-sowing to a degree. July to October. Ice Prant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum). 4 in. A dwarf fleshy plant covered with glittering papule which make it look as if coated with ice crystals. Give a poor soil made of yellow loam, lime rubbish, sand and manure. Flowers open only on sunny days. Also rose-colored varieties. July to October. Larkspur. Branching (Delphiniwm consolida). 1 ft. A branching form of Larkspur of great beauty. All Larkspurs should have the soil heavily enriched with manure; it should also be moist, in full sun. Sow seeds of annual Larkspur in autumn, as they are late in flowering if sown in spring. Self-sowing; also pink and blue varieties. July to October. Larkspur. Rocket (Delphinium Ajacis). 1 ft. Another form of annual Larkspur with a dense spike of bloom. Also blue and pink varieties. For culture, see preceding paragraph. LAVATERA (L. ivimestris alba). 3 ft. A tall bushy annual bearing large open funnel-shaped white flowers, delicately penciled with pink. It requires rich moist soil and sun. This is not so handsome as the pink variety, L. trimestris rosea, which is one of our most desirable pink annuals. July to October. Lupine (L. mutabalis, var. Snow Queen). 3 ft. A tall smooth plant with palmate foliage, and many spikes of large fragrant pea-shaped flowers. Both the Lupine and Larkspur in annual forms are well worth growing and are good to fill spaces left after earlier flowers are cut back, particularly a pink var. (see Pink An., July) which blooms until heavy frost, but the seed should be sown where the plants are to remain as they do not transplant well. Give any good soil, full sun and moisture. July to the middle of October. Matore (M. trifida, cultivated at M. grandiflora). 3 ft. A very showy annual with open funnel-shaped flowers of beautiful gleaming texture both in white and pink, borne on slender stems. It begins to bloom when the plant is but a few inches high and continues blooming as the plant grows until killed by frost. July to October. MIGNONETTE (Reseda odorata, var. Parson’s White). x ft. A plant of no beauty, but cultivated for the delicious odor of its greenish-white flowers. Sow in light sandy soil, as it loses its fragrance if grown in rich loam. It is better to sow the seed where the plants are to remain, as 204 Classified Lists they do not transplant well. Two or three successive sowings will give bloom until frost; also the bloom is prolonged by free cutting. In dry seasons water thoroughly. MoonFLoweERr (Ipomea Bona-Nox; sold under various names). 15 ft. A fragrant white variety of Morning-Glory opening at nightfall with enormous white fragrant flowers that open so rapidly that their un- folding can be seen. Curious, but of little value because the flowers are faded by early morning. Give good moist soil. Morninc-Giory (Ipomea purpurea, var. alba). 8-12 ft. A lovely variety of this favorite flower. It needs a rich moist soil and the seed- vessels should be removed as fast as they are formed. If planted on the west or north side of a building where the morning sun cannot strike it until noon or later, the flowers will keep open until the sun reaches them. July to October. Nasturtium (Tropeolum majus, var. Pearl). 6 ft. A tall running variety of Nasturtium which is very useful to cover walls, trellises and banks. For culture see Nasturtium. Dwarf, White An., June. Nicotiana (NV. alata, known as N. affinis). 3 ft. A somewhat bushy plant bearing numerous white salver-shaped flowers with long tubes; deliciously fragrant at night. They open toward sunset and close through the day unless it is very dull weather. It requires a rich soil, partial shade, and moisture; and are propagated by seeds or offsets near the root. It is slightly self-sowing. For red variety, see Red. An. July to October. NIGELLA, FENNEL FLOWER, LovE IN A Mist, RaGGEep Lapy, JACK IN THE BusH, LittTLtE MaIpEN IN THE GREEN (N. Damascena, var. alba). 1 ft. From the variety of names given this plant, it is evidently a favorite, with its notched petals fringed about with a feathery green involucre, succeeded by inflated seed-pods. It is particularly beautiful in a sky-blue variety. It grows in any good soil and is slightly self- sowing. For early flowering sow in autumn. July and August. NYCTERINIA (Zaluztanskia selaginoides, sold as N. capensis). 6 in. A sweet-scented white flower, purplish-brown underneath, opening at twilight; not interesting save for its fragrance. July to September. Pansy (Viola tricolor, many varieties in white as well as other colors). 1 ft. Sown in spring, as an annual, the Pansy blooms in July. For culture see White Per., April. Petunia (P. nyctaginiflora); in hybrid form, P. var. grandiflora, double and fringed. 2 ft. An old-fashioned favorite in the single White Flowers 208 form, but scarcely recognizable in the huge ruffled flowers of hybrids now produced. Of easy culture, thriving in common soil and respond- ing wonderfully to any kindly attention. Keep seed-vessels from form- ing, cut back if inclined to grow long and weedy; self-sowing. As a winter house plant I have seen the single fragrant white variety bearing forty blooms at atime. July to October. For pink variety see Pink An., August. Putox (P. Drummondii, var. grandiflora), also a fringed variety. 2 ft. This species of Phlox in the various colors is of great beauty, and planted in masses produces gorgeous effects. It thrives best in rich light soil and partial shade. It is self-sowing to a slight degree. Pinch back the plant if it grows tall and weedy. July to October. PInk (Dianthus Heddewigii fi. pl., var. Double white). 18 in. If sown in spring this variety of Pink blooms late in July; if sown the year before, it blooms early in June as a biennial. For culture see White Per., June. Poppy. Opium (Papaver somnijerum in single and fringed varieties). 3-4 ft. A variety with long recurved glaucus leaves much notched, bearing at most from 4-6 large single blossoms; very beautiful but not so prolific nor so long in season as the Shirley. For culture see Poppy, White An., June. See Blue and Pink An., July. Poppy. Shirley (Papaver Rheas, var. Shirley in single and semi- double varieties). 2 ft. If not sown until spring it blooms early in July. See White An., June. Portutaca, Rose Moss (P. grandiflora). 6 in. A low succulent plant bearing masses of single or double flowers in white, yellow and red. Opens in sunshine, and requires full sun, and a rather poor sandy soil. Do not sow seed until June. July to October. RHODANTHE (Helipterum Manglesii, var. alba. Known also as R. maculata, var.alba). 18in—2 ft. An annual bearing everlasting flowers, which should be cut before fully expanded. If treated in the following manner it attains a marvelous size. Sow seed in April and transplant into tiny pots the first week of May. Shift to increasingly larger pots every two weeks, pinching off flower buds until the middle of August, by which time the plant will have attained a large bushy character, often four feet in circumference, bearing a thousand blossoms. The ordinary treatment is to sow the seed in April in rich light soil in a sunny location. Also a handsome pink variety. June to October. See Pink An., July. 206 Classified Lists SCHIZANTHUS, FRINGE FLOWER (S. pinnatus, var. albus). 1-2 ft. A very handsome branching plant bearing quantities of white, pale lilac and pink-fringed flowers with delicately spotted petals. Be careful in transplanting, as the roots are tender. Give a sheltered position, or tie plants to stakes, for they are brittle and easily broken in high winds. Give a light soil, not too much sun or moisture, as the young plants are liable to die unless conditions are favorable. It is slightly self-sowing with me. July to October. See Blue An., July. SAPONARIA, SOAPWoRT (S. calibrica, var. alba). 1 ft. A white variety of a dainty little bedding plant that literally covers the ground with its prostrate branches, bearing flowers that resemble Phlox sublata. Thrives in any good soil and full sun. Also a pink variety. July to October. See Pink An. ScHIZAPETALON (S. Walkeri). g in. An annual bearing sweet- scented fringed white flowers'that are curiously cut. Sow the seed where plants are to remain, as they have a long tap-root and do not transplant well. Give a deep rich soil, full sun. July to October. SNAPDRAGON (Antirrhinum majus and minor, var. Queen of the North). 1-2 ft. Snapdragon may be treated as an annual sown in early spring in the open ground when it will bloom late in July until frost. With protection it is also grown as a perennial. For culture see White Per., July. Stock. TEN-WEEKS, GILLYFLOWER (Maithiola annua, var. Perpetual Perjection). 1-2 ft. A much prized annual coming into bloom ten weeks after the seed is sown. The flowers are large, fragrant and borne on loose spikes in both single and double varieties. It comes in shades of pink, red, blue, lavender and purple. By sowing seed from February indoors and later in the open ground one can have Stock in bloom during the entire season. Give a rich, light soil, plenty of water and sun; is propagated also by cuttings. The name Gillyflower is a corruption of July-Flower as it usually blooms in July. See other an. lists, July. SWEET CLOVER (Melilotus alba). 3 ft. A biennial cultivated as a bee plant, with sweet-scented foliage, and white pea-shaped flowers borne in loose racemes. Also a blue variety. SweEet-PEa (Lathyrus odoratus, var. Dorothy Eckford). 4-8 ft. This well-known favorite, bearing loose clusters of deliciously sweet flowers, must be deeply rooted to endure the heat and drought of American summers. In sowing seed, dig a trench 6-8 in. deep, fill two inches with well-rotted manure, cover well with good loam, and White Flowers 207 plant seeds, covering them about half an inch. As the young shoots grow, pull in the earth from the sides of the trench until the peas have been rooted at least four inches deep. During the flowering season give plenty of water, and remove seed-vessels as fast as they form. For other varieties see other lists of annuals. July to October. Waittavia (W. grandiflora, var. alba). More correctly known as Phacelia Whitlavia. 1 ft. A low free-blooming annual with clammy, coarsely-toothed foliage and loose racemes of bell-shaped flowers; also a purplish-blue variety. Give a good loam and full sun. July to October. See Blue An., June. AUGUST WHITE ANNUALS ARTEMESIA ANNUA, see Sweet-Fern. CEtosta (C. plumosa, var. spicata). 2} ft. A very beautiful feathery variety of Cockscomb in which the lower part of the rose-pink spikes turn a silvery white. In order to increase the size of blooms sow early and transplant two or three times. Give a light soil and do not crowd, as it tends to a dwarf size if planted closely. July to October. LEprTosiPHon (Gilia androsea). 1 ft. A low California annual with narrowly-divided leaves, and open salver-shaped flowers in clustered heads. It endures cold better than heat, and should not have the hot sun; good as a border plant. Also yellow and lilac varieties. August to October. Poppy. Peony (Papaver somniferum fl. pl.). 4 ft. A double flowered variety resembling the peony, bearing heads often 5 in. across, that remain in bloom several days. This is a particularly hand- some variety though it bears only from 4-8 blooms. It does not trans- plant well, and it is better to sow the seed thinly and thin out the plants. Autumn-sown seed make the strongest plants. Give full sun and rich, light soil. Self-sowing. August. See Blue and Pink An. ScaBrous. Sweet (Scabiosa atropurpurea, var. White Pearl). 2ft. A very beautiful variety of plant with large, handsome, flat heads of small flowers borne on long stems. The seed should be planted early. Fra- grant. Give a rich soil and warm situation. It is also very beautiful in pure deep red, pale pink and lilac. August to October. See other An. lists for August. ” 208 Classified Lists SWEET-FERN (Artemesia annua). 2-4 ft. A tall bushy plant with finely-divided fragrant leaves and flowers; the latter are like tiny balls of greenish color. Very pleasant as a dried herb to place among clothes. Self-sowing. VERBENA (V. teucroides, var. candissima). 1 ft. A low, trailing plant that can be pegged down and made to cover quite an area with its fragrant flat heads of white flowers. If pruned it makes a thicker growth. It transplants easily and the whole species is excellent for house plants. Further south it is hardy with a little covering. It is easily propagated by cuttings, but blooms best from seed. Many other colors, see other An., lists for August. August to October. Zinnia (Z. elegans, var. cristata). Curled and crested varieties. 3 ft. A useful plant in the late autumn when other flowers are gone. Thrives in any good soil and sunny location. In choice varieties the Zinnia is effective, and it is only because of its solferino and magenta tones that it has fallen into disfavor in choice gardens. With selected colors it makes a fine display when the garden most needs it. August to October. See An. lists for August. SEPTEMBER WHITE ANNUALS Cosmos (C. bipinnatus, var. Mammoth). 4-6 ft. A tall variety with an almost shrubby growth of feathery green foliage, but because of its late blooming in the north, it is seldom seen in perfection of bloom be- fore it is killed by frosts. For its foliage alone, as a background to other plants, it is worth growing. The flowers resemble huge Japanese Anemones, and are borne in great profusion. I have known this plant when six feet high to be lifted carefully before the frosts, and placed in tubs and taken indoors, where it bloomed until Christmas. Give a rich, moist soil, a warm, sheltered position and moisture. For pink variety see Pink An., September. STEVIA (S. serrata). 2 ft. This rather tender perennial is sometimes grown in the open as an annual, blooming in September until late frosts. It bears heads of small fragrant white flowers. Give a rich, sandy loam, propagate by seed and careful division of the root. Vinca, PERIWINKLE (V. rosea, var. alba). 1 ft. A low border plant with handsome, almost evergreen, foliage and salver-shaped tubular White Flowers 209 flowers. To make it branch nip off the tips of the plant. Very attractive, but not quite hardy in the north. Give a rich moist soil. To propagate let the branches root at the joints by covering them with a little earth, and when rooted divide from the parent plant. Also pink and blue varieties. See Blue and Pink An., August. BLUE FLOWERS APRIL BLUE SHRUBS—None APRIL BLUE PERENNIALS Crocus (C. vernis, var. Prince Albert). Blue, var. Sir John Frank- lin. Purple, var. Grand Lilas, Lilac. For culture, see Crocus, White Per., April. Heart’s-EAsE, Lapy’s Deticut (Viola tricolor). 6 in. Probably the original of all modern Pansies. A friendly little plant, found bloom- ing at the edge of melting snowbanks, and continuing in bloom all sum- mer. While it makes a charming border plant, if newly set, it must be soon removed, for in rich ground it grows straggly and sows its seeds too widely for garden purposes. It thrives best in a poor dry gravelly soil and full sun. April to October. Hyacinto (Hyacinthus orientalis). Many named varieties in all tones of clear blue, purple, violet and lilac. 1 ft. For culture, see Hya- cinth, White Per., April. LuncworT, BLUEBELLS, VIRGINIAN Cows.iP (Mertensia Virginica). 2 ft. A very lovely plant with many stalks from the root bearing large yellowish-green leaves, and terminal drooping clusters of blue bell- shaped flowers. Do not disturb, as it roots very deeply and does not divide well; but if done, it should be attended to in autumn; it may also be propagated by seed sown as soon as ripe. It is well to place a stake by this plant, for it dies away in summer, and is apt to be uprooted when digging over a bed. Give a rich moist sandy loam in full sun, but shel- tered position. Pansy (Viola tricolor, hybrid varieties in blue, purple and violet). 1 ft. For culture, see White Per., April. 210 Blue Flowers 211 PAsQuE FLOWER (Anemone pulsatilla). 6 in. One of the earliest spring flowers with finely divided leaves and handsome lilac or violet blossoms encircled with a fringe of bracts. It makes a tuft, and thrives best in a warm sheltered situation and dry calcareous soil. May be left in the ground several years without taking up. ScILLA, SQUILL or Witp HyacintH (S. Sibirica). 8 in. Deep sky blue. This variety of Scilla is one of the rich blue flowers of the garden. It bears beautiful blossoms } in. long, slightly drooping. It thrives best in sandy soil and partly shaded situation. Increased by offsets which should be removed and replanted in autumn when too thick: otherwise it should be undisturbed. For pink var., see Pink Per., April. MAY BLUE SHRUBS Lirac. Common (Syringa vulgaris). 6-12 ft. The common va- riety. For culture, see Lilac, White Shrubs, May. Lrzac. Persian (Syringa Persica). Also many budded varieties in lavender, blue and lilac tones. For culture, see Lilac, White Shrubs, May. MAY BLUE PERENNIALS Ancuusa (A. Barrelieri). 3-4 ft. A coarse weedy plant bearing large racemed clusters of deep blue flowers resembling Forget-me-nots. It has great vitality, and once established it will sow its seeds all over the garden, besides increasing by suckers. Though beautiful in color and a free bloomer for many weeks, if cut back, it is only of value in the background or among shrubbery. Thrives in any soil and sunny lo- cation. Also an annual variety; see Blue Per. and An., July. Avsretia (A. deltoides, var. Eyrei). 4 in. A low branching edging plant bearing many clusters of violet-purple flowers resembling Verbena. Propagated by seed or layering the branches, by covering the joints with earth, when they will root freely; the plant may be divided after flowering. It grows in any good soil and is good for rock work. Camass. Giant (Camassia cusicki). 3-4 ft. Bears long rather dense 212 Classified Lists racemes of pale blue flowers numbering 30 to 4o to a stalk. It does best in a sheltered, partly shaded situation. Needs loam, leaf mold and sharp sand; also top-dress with manure each year. Let remain’ when once established; can be divided in autumn. Propagated by seeds or offsets removed when in a dormant condition. CoLuMBINE (Aquilegia cerulea). 3 ft. Sometimes called the Rocky Mountain Columbine, violet, blue and white (A. glandulosa). 1 ft. Lavender and white. CoLuMBINE (A. Olympica). 1% ft. White with delicate lavender spurs. CoLuMBINE (A. vulgaris). 1-3 ft. Purple and deep shining blue. In certain shades this last is particularly beautiful, as the color brings out a gleaming satiny texture. For culture, see Columbine, White Per., May. FoRGET-ME-NOT (Myosotis alpestris, var. Victoria). 1 ft. A lovely sky-blue variety with golden yellow eye. Very hardy; self-sowing. Also pink and white varieties; see Pink and White Per., May. ForGET-ME-NoT (M. palustris grandiflora). 1 ft. Dark blue; not so hardy. ForGET-ME-NoT (M. palustris, var. semperflorens). Bright blue, not so hardy as M. alpestris, but blooms the first season from seed in July, and has a longer season of bloom when established as a perennial. For culture, see Forget-me-not, White Per., May. GuosE Datsy (Globularia tricosantha). 4-1 ft. A hardy plant with globe-shaped light-blue flowers. Leaves become blackish in autumn. Give a moist rich soil. Propagated by seeds or by cuttings. Hovstonta, Biuets (H. cerulea). 6 in. A delicate little plant na- tive to some portions of New England, bearing the daintiest of light- blue flowers with a yellow eye. Generally given as a perennial; Leavitt calls it a biennial. Requires rich moist soil, and is propagated by seeds. I transplanted a clump from Washington when in full flower and it bloomed for two months after. Honesty, SATIN FLOWER (Lunaria biennis). 2 ft. A biennial bear- ing pinkish-purple flowers in terminal racemes. Interesting for its large silvery flat seed-vessels. Thrives best in sandy soil. Propagated by seeds. HyacintH. Grape (Muscari botryoides). 6in. A variety with small deep-blue globular flowers; very pleasing when combined with Arabis albida. For culture, see Hyacinth, White Per., May. Iris. German (I. Germanica). 2-3 ft. A gorgeous variety in rich Blue Flowers 213 deep purple and also lavender. This form of Iris extends itself by running rootstocks on or near the top of the ground, and rots if it is covered too much or is in too moist a place. Give rich soil, full sun, a well-drained but moist situation. Propagated by division of the corms; do not break them too small, else it will take a year or more for them to get reéstablished enough to bloom. Divide early in autumn. Also white, pink and yellow varieties. Jacos’s LappEer (Polemonium ceruleum). 1-2 ft. A desirable border plant with beautiful foliage and many terminal clusters of lav- ender blue flowers. Thrives in rich moist soil. It spreads so widely from the root that it is well to give most of your stock away each year, dividing a few strong plants and resetting them as an edging in the au- tumn. Putox. Creeping (P. sublata atropurpurea). 6 in. A rosy purple variety of this charming border plant. Pxtox (P. sublata, var. G. F. Wilson). A light-blue variety. For culture, see P. sublata, White Per., May. Putox. Virginia (P. divaricata). Sometimes known as Wild Sweet-William. 1 ft. A taller light-blue fragrant variety growing more like Phlox Drummondii. Give rich soil, sun and moisture. Propagated by seeds and division of strong roots. Blooms about two months. Touip (Tulipa, var. Eleonore). A violet variety with a white edge. Ture (T. var. Queen of the Violets). A rich violet variety; also another, T. Van der Mer. For culture, see Tulip, White Per., May. VioLET. English (Viola odorata, var. Princess of Wales). 4 in. Usually grown in hothouses for winter use, but can be grown in the open if given a good soil, partial shade and moisture, though I have also had strong plants that had sown themselves in a sunny exposed situation in dry yellow loam. It is self-sowing to a slight degree. Wistarta. Chinese (W. Chinensis, var. Purple; sometimes called W. sinensis). 10-40 ft. A very beautiful but capricious vine with handsome smooth foliage and great clusters of pea-shaped blossoms during May and June, and bears in some places a smaller crop during August and September. It requires a dry sandy soil, yet it also requires watering during a dry season. It should be left severely alone when once planted, for it takes from three to eight years to feel enough at home to bloom. I have a vigorous specimen that has been planted six years, but shows no sign of flowering. As it branches freely, this variety may be trained to cover a wall or to follow under the eaves of a 214 Classified Lists house or piazza, and the flower clusters allowed to droop, as is the Jap- anese custom; also very effective when allowed to climb trees, and run from one to another. Lovely when used thus over an entrance gateway; or twined about columns, if still in a young leafy state. Propagated by scraping a branch at a joint, covering it during the summer with soil, and separate the following spring. It can also be layered in a tub. The Wistaria is hard to transplant owing to deep roots and few fibers. Wistarta (W. Chinensis multijuga). Often passing under the name of sinensis, grows still longer clusters which are sometimes 3-4 ft. long. Not so vigorous of growth in this country as W. Chinensis. For culture, see preceding paragraph. JUNE BLUE SHRUBS—None JUNE BLUE PERENNIALS Amsonta (A. Tabernemontana). 2-3 ft. A plant with smooth al- ternate leaves resembling the Olive; numerous pale-blue flowers borne in panicles, followed by soft hairy pods. Propagate by seed, division or cuttings. Sun, rich soil. BELLFLOWER, CAMPANULA, many varieties in blue as follows: C. persicifolia, 1-24 ft. with open bell-shaped corolla 2 in. long. C. Carpatica. 6-10 in. high with erect bell-shaped flowers with corolla zr in. long. C. glomerata. 2 ft. Erect stems, bluish violet funnel-shaped flowers in dense terminal heads. Give a rich well-drained soil; propagate by seed and division of root. One of the best of Cam- panulas; also a white variety. C. rapunculoides. A vigorous variety with many erect stalks of deep-blue flowers, coming late in June. For culture, see C. White Per., June. C. turbinata. A dwarf variety also with erect flowers. For culture see Bellflower, White Per., June. BLUE-EvED Grass (Sisyrinchium angustijolium). 1 ft. A pretty native plant, narrow erect leaves, and deep-blue wheel-shaped flowers; makes a good clump under cultivation. Blue Flowers 215 ComMELINA (C. celestis). 1 ft. A half hardy perennial, blooming the first season from seed in August, bearing deep-blue flowers that last but a day. It is not very satisfactory, save for its glorious blue color. The roots are small tubers, and can be kept over winter like Dahlias and planted out in the spring. Give a rich soil and partial shade. If in a sheltered position and roots are heavily mulched, they will stand the winter. I have carried mine over. Gateca, Goat’s RvE (G. officinalis). 3 ft. A blue variety. For de- scription and culture, see Galega, White Per., June. Hesperis, Dame Rocket (H. matronalis). 3 ft. A purplish-lilac variety; for culture, see Hesperis, White Per., June. Iris. Spanish (I. xiphium). 2 ft. Comes in blue, white and yellow; later than German Iris. For culture, see I. Spanish, White Per., June. Tris. English (J. xiphoides). 2 ft. In a rich reddish purple. For culture, see I. English, White Per., June. Iris. Siberian (J. Siberica). 2 ft. One of the best varieties when well established; bears light-blue flowers in great profusion. Culture the same as for other Iris. KNAPWEED. Mountain (Centaurea nigra, var. montana; sold as Centaurea montana or Per. Corn-flower). 3 ft. A coarse weedy plant with large heads, but the ray flowers, though of a rich deep blue are thin and wizened, which makes the bloom of little value. Grows any- where and is self-sowing. Lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus). 3 ft. A magnificent variety of peren- nial Lupine in deep blue, purple and a dull tone of blue, which bears from 10-20 great spikes of pea-shaped blossoms, followed by silvery woolly seed-pods. It blooms a second time if the spikes are cut down as soon as they are done blooming. For culture, see Lupine, White Per., June. Meapow Beauty (Rhexia Virginica). 9-12in. Showy rosy purple flowers with golden anthers. Good in bog or wet place. Propagate by seed or division. Prony (Peonia officinalis, var. Bayard). Clear violet; P. var. Ar- sene Meuret, lilac with violet border; P. var. Cameron, purple violet. For culture, see Peony, White Per., June. PENTSTEMON (P. ovatus). 2-4 ft. An early-flowered variety, bloom- ing in autumn of the first year if seeds are planted by May. It bears open panicles of blue or purple flowers, and needs rich loam with ma- nure, leaf mold and sand; should be watered if the season is dry, but 216 Classified Lists it cannot bear wet and frost in winter. Cover during winter with ashes ‘and mulch. Propagated by seeds, cuttings and division of root. RHEXIA ViRGINICA, see Meadow Beauty. Rocket. Sweet (Hesperis matronalis). A lilac variety, see White Per., June. Scastosa Caucasica. 1 ft. A desirable plant bearing flower heads of pale blue, 3 in. across. I find it somewhat difficult to raise this plant from seed and it is not always hardy. It should be well mulched. S. Caucasica, var. perfecta. A superior variety with larger heads than the preceding variety. Culture the same; give a rich soil, sun and moisture, but not wet ground. VeRBAScUM, Motu MuLLEIN (V. Blattaria, var. Pheniceum). 2 ft. A modest plant making a flat rosette of leaves from which rise branch- ing racemes of flowers in a reddish purple, lilac pink and white z in. across. Pretty, rather than showy. Increased by seeds and division of the plant. Give any good soil. JULY BLUE SHRUBS Bourninc Busn, WaaHoo (Euonymous atropurpureus). 6-14 ft. Flowers in fours of dark purple; leaves bright green; fruit becomes a brilliant scarlet and covers the bush in autumn. Inpico. False (Amorpha jruticosa). 6-8 ft. A stocky bush sending up numerous shoots. Flowers small, deep indigo blue or purple, borne in clustered spikes, two or three in a bunch at the ends of the branches, thus covering the bush with bloom. Give a sunny sheltered position and any good soil. Propagate by layering suckers or cuttings. See Lead Plant (Amorpha canescens), Blue Shrubs, Aug. SMOKE TREE, VENETIAN SumAcH (Rhus cotinus). 5-9 ft. A very ornamental shrub that turns a beautiful color in the autumn. The light purple flowers are insignificant, but after blossoming the flower stems lengthen, bearing long plumy hairs which make a reddish feathery mist over the whole bush, and are mistaken for bloom. Foliage in autumn is a warm rosy crimson. It thrives in a dry situation, with good rich loam and is propagated by layering. Give plenty of room. Blue Flowers 217 JULY BLUE PERENNIALS AconITE. Wild, Crimpinc MonxsHoop (Aconitum unciatum). 3-5 ft. A pale blue variety with a slender weak stem inclined to climb. Flowers borne in loose panicles. Give a rich moist soil, sun and a sup- port. Propagated by division of the root. With me this variety does not bloom until early September because the tips are eaten off, prob- ably by grasshoppers, just as they are beginning to bud, but continues until hard frosts. AconitE (A. Storkianum). 3-4 ft. A rich blue variety. ADENOPHORA POTANINI. 2 ft. A plant bearing slender spikes of light-blue bell-shaped flowers resembling Campanula. Give a rich, light soil in a sunny dry situation. Do not disturb when established. Plant seeds as soon as ripe, or divide the roots. July and August. AncuHusa ItTatica var. Dropmore. 3-4ft. A rich gentian blue variety with prolonged bloom. Propagated by seed. See A. Blue Per. May. Baptista, Fatse Inpico (B. australis). 3 ft. A vigorous plant bearing racemes of large purplish-blue pea-shaped flowers; rather a shy bloomer. Grows in any good soil; give sun; divide the root to in- crease the stock. BELLFLOWER. Japanese, see Platycodon. CauimeErIs. Cut-leaved (Calimeris incisa also known as Aster in- cisa). 1-2ft. An early variety of pale purple aster-like flower; bloom of long duration. Rich soil, sun. Propagate by seed or division. CANTERBURY BELL (Campanula medium). 2 ft. Both double and single varieties in deep blue, pink and white. For culture see Canter- bury Bell, White Per., July. CATANANCHE, BLuE Succory (C. c@rulea). 2 ft. A slender plant bearing pale-blue daisy-shaped solitary flowers, 2 in. across, on long stems. It grows best in poor gravelly soil; also a white variety. Propa- gate by seeds. CATANANCHE (C. bicolor). A blue and white variety of the above, quoted by some as a perennial, others call it a biennial; culture the same as above. Crematis (C. Jackmanni). A hybrid derived from C. languidosa of China and C. viticella from Europe. 4-10 ft. A desirable climber bearing large, handsome deep-blue, pale-blue or white flowers. Though 218 Classified Lists it is killed to the ground by frost, it makes a vigorous new growth each . year if the roots are mulched in winter. Give a rich light soil, and plenty of water during the blooming season. It is effective to train over a lattice or by the side of a piazza. Propagate by cuttings of young wood or by seeds. For culture see Clematis, White Per., July. Crematis (C. heracleajolia, var. Davidiana; closely allied to C. tubulosa). 3-4 ft. An herbaceous plant with erect stem almost woody, bearing pale-blue nodding flowers resembling hyacinths, with orange- blossom fragrance, large leaves; needs a support. Culture the same as for other varieties. Ciematis (C. integrifolic). 2 ft. An earlier herbaceous species forming an erect bush; large single drooping blue flowers are borne at the ends of leafy stalks. Give rich, deep soil and sun. Propagate by seed and cuttings. DRACOCEPHALUM, Dracon’s HEAD (D. Ruyschianum). 2 ft. Bears dark violet-lipped flowers, 1 in. long, in whorls on erect stems. Re- quires a cool situation, moist and partly shaded; propagated by division of root and seeds, or by cuttings taken in May. EUPATORIUM COELESTINUM. 1-2 ft. A blue variety, bearing small flat heads of light-blue flowers. For culture see Eupatorium, White Per., July. FatsE Inp1co, see Baptisia australis; also Amorpha fruticosa, Blue Shrubs, July. GENTIAN. Closed (Gentiana Andrewsii). 2 ft. A plant bearing large closed dark purplish-blue flowers. The reticence of this flower offends me, much as a too silent person embarrasses one. Grows natively in moist, shaded places. GENTIAN. Fringed (Gentiana crinata). 2it. A plant bearing erect bell-shaped fringed flowers of a wonderful blue color. It is a biennial, requiring moist, sandy soil, most difficult to raise from seed, and given to strange disappearances even in its native haunts. I am still trying to raise it after futile efforts for several years. It is recommended to sow seed in large pots in which smaller pots, corked at the bottom and filled with water, are placed. This insures an even moisture without direct spraying. Where it is native the young seedlings may be trans- planted for the second year of bloom. The seed is said to come up in about a week under favorable conditions, and when the plant has reached the third pair of leaves it is ready to be transplanted in a cool, shady location. Blue Flowers 219 HAREBELL, BLUE BELLS OF SCOTLAND (Campanula rotundifolia). 2 ft. A truly lovable plant with small, narrow leaves, slender branching stems and deep blue bell-shaped flowers. Its true name is “‘air-bell,” whether because of its tender blue, or because of its elastic stem, that rises again when trodden upon, is not known. Does well in a rich, moist soil and partly shaded location. Spreads from the root. HEDGE-NETTILE, see Stachys lantana. Iris. Japanese (2. levigata or I. Kempjeri). 2 ft. Many named varieties in deep, rich blue, lavender, violet, purple, white and yellow. For culture see I. Jap., White Per., July. Larkspur. Bee (Delphinium elatum). 3-6 ft. A tall variety with deep-blue flowers and yellowish beard, borne in straight racemes, slightly branching; leaves 5-7 cleft with wedge-shaped lobes; spurs curved. Larkspur. Great-Flowered, Chinese Larkspur (Delphinium grandi- florum). Known also as D. Chinense and D. sinense. 1-2 ft. Deep- blue flowers, 1$ in. across, on spreading racemes; leaves palmately parted with many linear lobes; also a double-flowered variety. LarxsPur. Showy (Delphinium formosum, a hybrid form of D. cheilanthum). 2-3 ft. A deep-blue variety shaded with indigo; leaves alternate, downy, or grayish-green. Larkspur (D. formosum, var. celestina). 3-6 ft. A lovely azure-blue form of D. formosum with yellow-bearded throat, leaves lobed and notched, but not cleft. If when done blooming, the stalks are cut down, and dressing applied at the roots, the plant will bloom in autumn. Divide every three years. For further culture of all the above varieties see Larkspur, White Per., July. LAVENDER (Lavendula vera). 2 ft. A deliciously-scented herb bearing spikes of small bluish flowers. Requires a dry, calcareous soil and open situation. Propagated by seeds and cuttings taken in autumn. This plant is not hardy with me. Liatris, BLazinc Star (L. pycnostachya). 3-4 ft. A very showy plant bearing numerous dense cylindrical spikes of rosy purple-fringed flowers, springing from a low tuft of narrow leaves. Propagated by division of root or seeds sown in autumn or spring. Does well in a dry soil where few other plants will live. LinarrA, ALPINE SNAPDRAGON (L. alpina). 6 in. Forms dense tufts of whorled leaves and bears bluish-violet flowers with a yellow throat. Does well in stiff, poor soil, and a sunny, exposed situation. 220 Classified Lists OBEDIENT Piant (Physostegia Virginiana). 3 ft. A very beautiful plant with glossy, thick leaves, square stem and long, branching racemes of rosy lilac flowers. Also a variety (P. imbricata or P. speciosa) that | grows 5 ft. high is of even greater beauty and vigor; has larger flowers and broader leaves. The White variety is one of the most effective of all garden flowers; does well in full sun if soil is rich and moist. See Obedient Plant, White Per., July. PENTSTEMON, BEARD-TONGUE (P. acuminatus). 2 ft. Bears a long, pointed raceme of lilac or pale-violet flowers. Suffers in a damp loca- tion, particularly from the wet and cold of winter. PENTSTEMON (P. grandiflorus). 2-3{t. The finest of all Pentstemons, bearing showy purple flowers. For culture see Pentstemon, Blue Per., June. PHYSOSTEGIA, see Obedient Plant. PLaTYCODON, WAHLENBERGIA, CHINESE BELLFLOWER (P. grandi- florum). 2 ft. A variety of Campanula bearing very large, showy blue flowers either solitary or but few at the top of branches. For culture see Platycodon, White Per., July. PLATYCODON, var. Maresi. Shorter variety with even larger flowers; also a light-blue dwarf variety, P. Maresi, var. nana. For culture see paragraph above. PERIWINKLE (Vinca minor, var. cerulea). 1 ft. Many horticultural varieties, and sometimes erroneously called Myrtle. A trailing plant with shining leaves and sky-blue flowers 1 in. across. As the flowers are borne on the new stock, nip the branches to make a bushy growth. Propagated by layering, when roots will be thrown out at the joints, and can be separated from the parent stock. To make it seed the plant must be grown in a pot, and all lateral branches cut off. Requires loose, rich soil and moisture. Does well in shaded places. Sometimes treated as an annual, blooming in August. Sea Hotty (Eryngium amethystinum). 3 ft. Bears dense heads of amethyst-blue flowers on blue stalks; deeply cut, spiny foliage. Should be given a very sandy soil and sun. As it spreads badly from seeds, the seed-vessels should not be allowed to form. Propagated also by division. SEA LAVENDER (Statice Limonium; also known as S. latifolia). 2 ft. The blue flowers are borne in a cloud on large, spreading panicles. It makes a deep root and needs space as it is killed out if crowded. Thrives in a deep, moist, sandy loam and leaf mold in a sunny situation; but Blue Flowers 221 the plant suffers in a dry exposed place. Propagated by division of the root and seeds in spring. SPEEDWELL, VERONICA (Veronica spicata). 2-4 ft. A vigorous plant bearing numerous tapering spikes of small, bright blue flowers. While it is thrifty and handsome and excellent for cutting it is also a nuisance, for a seedling will establish itself in a few years so completely that one cannot uproot it without tearing up a large area; and it sows itself all over the garden. It needs no attention; any garden soil is sufficient. Stacuys, HEDGE NETTLE (S. lantana). 1-14 ft. Bears purple- striped flowers in whorls, the upper ones forming almost a spike of bloom; forms a low tuft of leaves, thick, soft and covered with silvery- white wool, as is also the stem. Give a light, rich soil; propagate by seeds, cuttings or division of the root. STOKESIA or STOKES’ ASTER (S. cyanea, known also as S. Cartesia). 2 ft. An erect, branching perennial bearing solitary terminal flowers of lavender blue, often 4-5 in. across. Give a rich soil, mixed with sand, sunny location; propagate by seeds or division of the root. Protect in winter. VERONICA, see Speedwell, also Blue Per. Aug. AUGUST BLUE SHRUBS BupDLEYA LINDLEYANA. 3-6 ft. Bears terminal racemes of reddish- purple flowers. Authorities say do not prune, as it reduces the number and size of flowers; but mine dies to the ground every winter, and makes a new three-foot growth each year, blooming late in August. It grows in any good soil in a sunny sheltered position and is propagated by cuttings. When not killed back, it blooms in June or July. Several other varieties I have not tried. Cuaste TREE (Vitex agnus-castus). 3-6 ft. Flowers a bright blue or lilac, rising above a small, neat bush; foliage grayish beneath; gives off an aromatic fragrance. Some varieties are not hardy. Give a heavy mulch, cutting back the plant nearly to the ground, and the shoots that start vigorously in the spring from the base yield finer flowers than they would otherwise. This blue variety is claimed to be more hardy than others; recently introduced from China. LEAD Pant (Amorpha canescens). 1-3 ft A shrub with deep 222 Classified Lists purple flowers in clustered terminal spikes several inches long. Foliage and stems whitish or lead-colored. Give a sheltered sunny position and deep rich soil; late in August. SprrEa. Blue (Caryopteris mastacanthus). Shrub bearing conical spikes of lavender-blue flowers resembling blue larkspur. Can be cut down like an herbaceous herb and mulched over winter without injuring the next season’s flowers. August and September. ‘Flourishes by the seacoast. Plant with Sorbaria sorbifolia. AUGUST BLUE PERENNIALS Day Livy. Blue (Funkia ovata, var. cerulea). 2 ft. A variety bearing light lilac-blue funnel-shaped flowers, not so large as F. sub- cordata, nor is it fragrant. For culture see Day Lily, White Per., August. FLEABANE (Erigeron glaucus). 4-1 ft. A plant with pale foliage in a tuft, bearing large solitary terminal flowers, purple in color, resembling the China aster. In some places this variety is not quite hardy, and should either be lifted and placed in a cold frame, or covered deep with ashes. Propagate by seed or division; partial shade, any soil. Loseua. Great (Lobelia syphilitica). 2 ft. A hardy variety of Lobelia, bearing large pale-blue tubular flowers both axillary and ter- minal, forming a long raceme. It requires rich, moist soil and mois- ture; propagated by seeds and cuttings. My experience is that it is most difficult to raise from seed, and probably requires special condi- tions, as I have tried vainly for three years to get seedlings. Puiox. Perennial (P. paniculata, often called P. decussaia, var. A. A. McKimmon). 3-4 {t. A purplish-lilac variety. Puiox (P. paniculata, var. Eugene Danzanvilliers). A light-blue variety. Patox (P. paniculata, var. Le Mahdi). A steel-blue variety of great beauty. For general culture of the above varieties see Phlox, White Per., August. Veronica. Long-leaved (V. longifolia subsessilis). 2ft. A bright blue variety of long bloom, especially recommended; see Speedwell, Blue Per. .» July. Blue Flowers 223 SEPTEMBER BLUE SHRUBS DESMODIUM PENDULIFLORUM, see Lespedeza Sieboldi. LESPEDEZA SIEBOLDI (or Desmodium penduliflorum). 3-6 ft. Shrub with long pendulous branches covered with long racemes of pink or rosy-purple flowers continuing until frost. Plant in a sheltered situa- tion, and give protection in winter; also cut back almost to the ground, and the roots will be uninjured, and vigorous shoots will be thrown up in the spring. Thrives in any good soil. SEPTEMBER BLUE PERENNIALS AsTER, MicHartmas Datsy (A. tradescanti). 4 ft. A very beautiful free-flowering variety with branching clusters of rayed amethyst flowers, the petals often forming a thick double row about a golden center. It spreads badly at the root, and must be continually divided and reset. It is also liable to mildew, for which, see remedy for mildew, p. 131. The Michaelmas Daisy comes in many named varieties, and is one of our most valued late flowers. Do not plant in very conspicuous places for it is only a green bush until autumn. Thrives in any good soil and any location. Is sometimes infested during the blooming season with a small black beetle that must be scraped off into kerosene. Aster (A. Alpinus speciosus). 2 ft. Another species sometimes called Michaelmas Daisy, with large purple flowers blooming occasion- ally as early as June. AsTER (A. Nove-Anglie). 4 ft. A rosy-purple variety. Aster (A. grandiflorus). 3 ft. A violet-purple variety. ASTER (A. Nova-Belgii). 3 ft. Mauve with golden center. All the above varieties require the same culture. Bortonta (B. latisquima). 4-6 ft. A clear lavender-blue variety with flowers in large terminal panicles. Also a white and a pink variety. For culture, see Boltonia, White Per., September. Lrarris (L. spicate). 1-2 ft. A smaller and less showy variety than L. pycnostachya with rosy lilac flowers in spikes from 6-15 in. long; 224 Classified’ Lists blooms several weeks later than the other variety. For culture, see Liatris, Blue Per., July. Leapwort, PLumpaco (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides—trade name Plumbago Larpente). 1 ft. A half-shrubby perennial with zigzag stem and close terminal heads of deep blue flowers changing to violet. It requires a light rich soil and is propagated by seed or division of root. Give a warm sheltered situation, and mulch in winter. JUNE BLUE ANNUALS ASPERULA (A. azurea setosa). 1 ft. A tender perennial treated as an annual, bearing terminal clusters of small tubular lavender-blue flowers. It thrives in any good soil and is self-sowing. June to September. BACHELOR’s BuTron, CoRN-FLOWER (Centaurea cyanus, var. Em- peror William). 2-3 ft. Bears deep-blue flowers in the greatest pro- fusion if the seed-vessels are picked off as they form; self-sowing. Autumn-sown seed produce the strongest plants and bloom in June, while spring-sown seed come a month later. For culture, see Bachelor’s Button, White An., July. CrarxiA (C. puchella). 1 ft. A low-growing variety bearing single _deeply-lobed lilac flowers of great beauty; also a semi-double variety, and one in pink; self-sowing. Autumn-sown seed bloom in June; spring- sown seed in July. Allow from 6-9 in. to each plant. Give a rich moist soil. June to September. Convotvutus. Dwarf (C. tricolor, also called C. minor). 1 ft. A dwarf variety with ascending branching stems and large showy flowers with rich blue corolla and white throat and yellow tube. Closely re- sembles Nolana. Opens only in sunshine. Culture the same as Morn- ing-Glory. Cynoctossum (Omphaloides linifolia, var. celestina, commonly called C. celestinum). 1 ft. A sky-blue variety bearing flowers that resemble Forget-me-nots. See Cynoglossum, White An., June. Eutoca (E. viscida, known also as Phacelia viscida). 8in. A rather coarse variety of Phacelia, clammy all over, bearing terminal racemes of deep-blue flowers less than an inch across, similar in flower but not so handsome as Phacelia. For culture, see Phacelia, White An., June. Blue Flowers 225 FRAGRANT EvENING Stock (Matthiola odoratissima, erroneously called M. bicornis). 1 ft. A curious plant with stems much branched and inconspicuous leaves and deliciously fragrant flowers of a lilac- white opening at sunset, but closed tightly during the day. It should be in every garden for the sake of its rich perfume, but should not be given a prominent place because through the day it is an awkward looking plant, apparently all stem. It grows in any good soil and is self-sowing. June to October. Morninc-Giory (Ipomea purpurea). 6-12 ft. A variety with rich deep purple or blue flowers. For culture, see Morning-Glory, White An., June. Morninc-Gtory. Japanese ([pomea Imperialis). In a great va- riety of colors, white, pink, blue, purple, some fringed, others margined with another color. A much more tender variety than the preceding, but far more beautiful. Seeds are slow to germinate and it is well to file one side to hasten them, care being taken, however, not to injure the germ. Should have a rich soil and very sheltered situation, as it is hurt by early frost. NemopHita (N. insignis). Sometimes endearingly called Baby Blue Eyes. 8 in. A variety with lovely sky-blue flowers with white center. Self-sowing. Give a moist rich soil, partial shade. White variety, see White An., June. Norana (N. atriplicifolia). 1} ft. A rather fleshy-leaved plant, trailing and spreading, with handsome sky-blue wheel-shaped flowers 2 in. across with yellow centers and white throat. Closely resembles Convolvulus minor, and like it, opens only in sunshine. Sow seed in April or early May. PHAcELIA (P. campanularia). 1 ft. A pure deep-blue variety with open wheel-shaped corolla an inch across, borne on one-sided curving terminal clusters. Thrives in any good soil and partial shade; a most desirable plant. June to September. SWEET SULTAN (Centaurea moschata). t} ft. A blue sweet-scented variety. For culture, see Sweet Sultan, White An., June. Warttavia (Phacelia Whitlavia; also known as Whitlavia grandi- flora). 1 ft. Resembles P. viscida in foliage and growth, but bears small bell-shaped flowers with violet blue corolla and white bell throat; self-sowing. For culture, see Whitlavia, White An., June to October. 226 Classified Lists JULY BLUE ANNUALS AcEratum (A. conyzoides, known as A. Mexicanum). 1-1} ft. Many named varieties in light and dark blue. A very useful plant for cutting, blooming continuously until frost. Self sowing. For culture, see Ag- eratum, White An., July. AncuHusa (A. capensis). 14 ft. An annual variety resembling the perennial forms, bearing scattering azure-blue flowers all summer. Not of much value, however. It is a biennial if protected in winter. Give a good soil and sun. July to September. ASTER (Callistephus). In many named varieties of light and deep blue, lavender and purple. For culture, see Aster, White An., July. | BEAN, HyactntH, EcyptiaAn BEAN (Dolichos lablab). 10 ft. A smooth twiner with long racemes of showy violet, purple or white flow- ers an inch long. Give a sandy loam and sun. Canpyturt (Iberis umbellata). 1 ft. A lilac purple variety of Candy- tuft. For culture, see C., White An., July. Cortinsta (C. bicolor). 1 ft. A stout plant with handsome lipped flowers of blue and white. Give a rich light loam and sun. Gita (G. achilleefolia). 2 ft. A plant with ornamental cut foliage and clusters of deep-blue flowers on long stems. It is useful as it is one of the earliest flowers to bloom and does not die away and leave spaces as so many annuals do. Sow seeds in either autumn or spring in any good soil. Self-sowing. June to September. Gitta (G. capitata). 2 ft. Bears dense round heads of steel-blue flowers; foliage consists of almost thread-like divisions; very attractive flower for cutting. Gita (G. tricolor). 1 ft. Is a free bloomer used as a border with smaller flowers; has a light purple margin, a deeper purple band inside, separating the margin from the canary-colored throat. Culture the same for all. FORGET-ME-NOT (Myosostis sempervirens). 8in. A perennial variety blooming the first season from seed so that it can be used as an an- nual; sky-blue in color. For culture, see Forget-me-not, White Per., May. : Linaria, TOADFLAX (L. maroccana). 1 ft. A plucky little annual blooming continuously from June until late frosts if cut freely; self- Blue Flowers 22.7 sowing; bears an enormous number of long racemes covered with rosy- purple spurred flowers. Thrives in full sun in stiff poor soil. Lupine (Lupinus affinis). An annual variety with deep-blue flowers. Sow seed where the plants are to grow as they do not transplant very well. Lupine (L. manus). A bluish-purple variety. Lupine (L. mutabilis). 2 ft. A sweet-scented violet-purple variety. Give a rich light soil, full sun and water. Martynia, UNIcoRN PLant (M. jragrans). 3 ft. A coarse shrubby plant with large foliage and vanilla-scented violet-purple or mauve tub- ular flowers with beautiful yellow lyre-shaped markings in the throat. Grows in any good soil. Seed-vessels used for pickling. Nasturtium. Tall (Tropeolum majus, var. regelianum). A violet- purple variety of this common favorite. Nasturtium (T. Lobbianum, var. Lacombe Mercier). A purplish- violet variety of Lobb’s Nasturtium which is considered the best species for rich coloring. For culture, see Nasturtium, White An., July. NIGELLA, FENNEL FLower (N. Damascena). 1 ft. A sky-blue variety of this charming annual. Autumn-sown seed make the strong- est plants. Make successive sowings in the spring to get flowers through- out the summer; does not transplant well; thrives in almost any situa- tion in any good soil. For culture see Nigella, White An., July. Pansy (Viola tricolor). Many hybrid varieties in rich tones of lav- ender, purple, violet and blue; blooms as an annual in six to eight weeks from seed, and continues as a perennial the second year. For culture see Pansy, White Per., April. Perunta (P. violacea, var. Ruffled Giants). 2 ft. A purple-violet variety with enormous flowers with ruffled margins; also many hybrid varieties, both single and double, and fringed. See Petunia, White An., July. Paiox (P. Drummondii, var. grandiflora). Many named varieties in lavender and violet shades. For culture see Phlox, White An., July. Poppy. Opium (Papaver somniferum). 3 ft. A single variety that comes in rich purple, lavender and a soft grayish-lavender with ex- quisite pale green stamens. Poppy. Pony (P. somnijerum, var. paeonieflorum). 3 ft. Comes in clear tones of pinkish-lilac and purple; a magnificent plant to grow at the edge of a vegetable garden where there is plenty of room, and makes no gap when done blooming. Bloom lasts two weeks. For cul- ture see Poppy, White An., June. 228 Classified Lists ScHizaNTHus (S. pinnatus, var. lilac). 1 ft. A lilac variety with violet spots. Sow in April in rich soil. For culture see Schizanthus, White An., June. Stock, GILLYFLOWER (Maithiola annua). 1-2 ft. Many hybrid varieties in dark and light and purple. For culture see Stock, White An., July. SWEET CLOVER (Melilotus cerula). 2 ft. A sky-blue variety with fragrant flowers. See Sweet Clover, White An., July. SwEET-PEA (Lathyrus odoratus). 4-6 ft. Many hybrid varieties in all shades of blue, violet and lavender. See Sweet-Pea, White An., July. Venus’ Looxinc-Giass (Sfecularia speculum). 1 ft. An annual variety of Campanula of curious beauty, with deep-blue flowers having silvery veining that gives a strange metallic effect; stems branch, and the branches bear three-flowered clusters. Grows in any good soil with sun and moisture. July to October. VERBENA (V. aubletia). 1-14 ft. In many hybrid varieties of lav- ender, purple and blue; for culture see Verbena, White An., July. ViscaRIA. Blue-Eyed (Lychnis oculata, var. cerulea, a form of L. celi-rosa or Agrostemma, as it is known commonly). 1 ft. A bluish- lavender variety; see Agrostemma, White An., July. AUGUST BLUE ANNUALS ANacaLtis (A. cerulea, var. grandiflora). 1 ft. A low plant of spreading habit bearing a succession of intense blue wheel-shaped flowers an inch across. Give rich moist soil and partial shade; opens only in the sun. Browattia (B. demissa, var. speciosa major [B. elata]). 2 ft. An erect plant with almost woody stems, bearing bright-blue flowers that somewhat resemble the violet. Give a rich soil and liquid manure when the buds appear. It should be picked back to promote a bushy growth. It is particularly desirable for a winter house plant, and should be taken up early in September before frost. CommeEtina (C. erecta). 14 ft. Can be treated as an annual, but blooms better if grown as a tender perennial; bears flowers of a very lovely blue. For culture see Commelina, Blue Per., June. Blue Flowers 229 Commetina (C. calestis). A half-hardy perennial variety, which should be covered with ashes or sand and heavily mulched in winter. Culture the same as above. _ LARKSPUR (Delphinium consolida). 1-2 ft. A deep-blue branching variety in both tall and dwarf forms. Larkspur. Rocket (Delphinium Ajacis). 2 ft. A deep-blue va- riety with flowers borne in close racemes. For culture of both varieties see Larkspur, White An., August. ; Losetia (L. erinus, grown under many trade names). 3 in.-1 ft. A dainty little plant used largely for edgings, baskets or vases, with lipped flowers ranging from dark to very light blue, mostly with a white throat. It requires rich moist soil. Rocket, see Larkspur. Satvia (S. patens). 2 ft. One of the best blue flowers grown; a tender perennial blooming the first year from seed, with a showy deep- blue corolla over two inches long. Like all Salvias S. patens should have rich light soil, sun and much moisture. SALVIA (S. farinacea). 2 ft. A light-blue variety with hoary white leaves, spikes and calyxes. For culture see preceding paragraph. SCABIOUS, MouRNING BRIDE (Scabiosa atropurpurea, var. grandi- flora). 1-3 ft. Both tall and dwarf varieties in deep purple, lavender and light blue. One of our most beautiful annuals in any color. See Scabious, White An., August. Vinca, PERIWINKLE (Vinca minor cerulea). A blue variety, that in sheltered places North may be treated as a perennial. As an annual it blooms in August, as a perennial it flowers in June or early July. See Periwinkle. Blue Per., July. Zinnia (Z. elegans, var. cristata). 2-3 ft. Grows in purple, lilac and violet tones; see Zinnia, White An., August. YELLOW FLOWERS APRIL YELLOW SHRUBS—None in my climate APRIL YELLOW PERENNIALS Crocus. Cloth of Gold (C. susianus). The earliest yellow variety. Crocus. Dutch (C. mesiacus—C. aureus). A later variety. For culture see Crocus, White Per., April. Pansy (Viola tricolor). Hybrid variety Golden Sun. For culture see Pansy, White Per., April. MAY YELLOW SHRUBS ForsytHia. Golden Bell (Ff. viridissima). 3 ft. An erect vigorous shrub with bright yellow solitary drooping flowers distributed along the branches so as almost to cover the bush. ForsyTHia. We ping, Golden Bell (F. suspensa, known also as F. Fortuni). An earlier variety than the former, with long drooping slen- der branches, and is often treated as a climber; is less common. Give both varieties deep rich soil, and prune severely just after flowering to secure new growth, as flowers are borne on previous year’s wood. If pruned in autumn or early spring the flowering wood is lost. This variety may be kept to a single stem and then allowed to spread over a trellis or trained over a doorway. Increased by layering the branches and division of the root. The drooping branches root easily at the tip if buried in earth. Bus Honeysuck1e (Diervilla sessilijolia). 5-8 ft. Of strong bushy growth, foliage rather downy of grayish green; many inconspic- uous flowers of a pale yellow resembling the honeysuckle, but not fragrant. Thrives in any soil; throws up suckers. 230 Yellow Flowers peal MAY YELLOW PERENNIALS Aponis. Spring (A. vernalis). 6-12 in. Bears large showy yellow flowers, leaves finely divided. Needs a rich moist soil well drained; can be propagated by seeds or division of root. Atyssum. Rock (A. saxtile, var. compacta). 6-12 in. An excellent border plant making a close spreading growth with its woolly leaves, and bears many clusters of fragrant bright yellow flowers. It thrives best in a sandy gravelly soil, as a wet soil is not adapted to it; yet if too dry the roots wither. It is well to renew every three or four years; propagated by seed, division of the root and cuttings. AQUILEGIA, see Columbine. CotumBine. Golden-spurred (Aquilegia chrysantha). 3 ft. Bright yellow variety, stems many flowered; one of the best. CoLumBine. Wild or Rock (Aquilegia Canadensis). 1-1} ft. Yel- low and scarlet; foliage tinted with red. Thrives in its native haunts among rocks and on ledges. CoLUMBINE (A. Calijornica hybrida). 3-4 ft. Flowers yellow or orange-yellow with long slender orange spurs, leaves bluish green, stems red. A hybrid variety of A. formosa; one of the most beautiful kinds. CoLUMBINE (A. Jaetschui). 3 ft. A very choice variety with yellow flowers and old rose spurs; handsome glaucus leaves. For general culture of the above varieties see Columbine, White Per., May. DAFFODIL, see Narcissus. Erysmuum, Hepce Mustarp (E. puchellum). 1 ft. Makes a very compact growth, and from the dense tuft of foliage rise many-flowered terminal racemes of yellow blossoms. Thrives in a sandy loam; propa- gated by seed or division of the root. Hyacinta (Hyacinthus orientalis). 1 ft. Single varieties—Ida and King oj the Yellows. Double varieties—Goethe and Jaune Supréme. For culture, see Hyacinth, White Per., May. Icetanp Poppy (Papaver nudicaule). 1 ft. Single and double va- rieties in bright yellow. See Iceland P., White Per., May. Irts. German (Iris Germanica, var. flavescens). A creamy yellow variety—also other named varieties—see Iris, Ger., White and Blue Per., May. 232 Classified Lists Jonquit (Narcissus Jonquilla, var. Rugulosus and N. var. Cam- pernelle). 14 ft. A bright yellow; fragrant; crown shallow and saucer- shaped; 2-6 flowers on a scape. For culture, see Narcissus, White Per., May. Narcissus, Darropit (N. pseudo-narcissus, var. Golden Spur and Princeps). Flowers solitary, sulphur-yellow with deep trumpet-shaped crowns. For culture, see N. poeticus, White Per., May. Porry. Alpine (Papaver alpinum). 6 in. Is practically the same as Iceland Poppy (P. nudicaule) only dwarfer in form. It is generally yellow, but there are also white and pink varieties. See Pink Per., May. Culture the same. Poppy. Iceland, see Iceland Poppy. Tuuip (Tulipa—many hybrid varieties). Early single—Goldjfinch, Chrysolora and Mon Trésor. Early double—Crown of Gold. Late double—Yellow Rose. Tu. Parrot (Tulipa Dracontia, var. lutea major). For general culture, see Tulip, White Per., May. JUNE YELLOW SHRUBS BARBERRY. Common (Berberis vulgaris). 3-6 ft. Bright yellow flowers followed by tart red berries that are used for jelly. When fa- vorably planted in full sun it spreads extensively. BARBERRY. Japanese (Berberis Thunbergii). 3~-6 ft. A low spread- ing bush with yellow flowers often tinged with red; berries a bright red, and in autumn the foliage becomes a glowing scarlet, orange or bronze, thrives in any good soil, and in the sun. BARBERRY. Purple-leaved (Berberis vulgaris, var. atropurpurea). 4-6 ft. Flowers inconspicuous, foliage a rich purple; give full sun and rather dry soil. Broom. Scotch (Cytisus scoparius). 3-5 ft. A shrub barely hardy in the North, with solitary showy yellow flowers in the axils of the leaves. Propagated by division and cuttings. Requires a gravelly soil and a warm sheltered position. Broom. Dyer’s Greenwood (Genista tinctoria). 1-2 ft. A half shrubby species, flowering in spring and autumn; blossoms yellow in Yellow Flowers 233 close racemes; the whole plant—particularly the flowers—yield a fine yellow dye. Requires a poor gravelly soil. Rose. Austrian Brier (R. Eglanteria). 2-4 {t. Resembles the Sweet- Brier in its prickly stem and small leaves; flowers clear yellow semi- double, not very large. Rose. Golden Sun (R. Eglanteria, var. Soleil d’Or). A new French variety of rich golden yellow shaded with orange. Very choice. Rose. Persian Yellow (Rosa Eglanteria, var. lutea). 3-5 ft. A very hardy variety with handsome double bright yellow flowers in clusters and very small leaves; vigorous in growth, and hardy. Rose. Scotch (Rosa spinosissima). 1-2 ft. A low very prickly variety with small smooth green leaves, single or semi-double small early flowers; very hardy. For white var., see White Per., June. Rose. Wichuriana (Rosa Wichuriana, var. Gardenia). A variety of trailing Rose very useful for covering trellises, walls or banks, bearing deliciously-scented flowers 3 in. across that are yellow in the bud, but turn a cream color when open. Rose. Yellow Rambler. A hybrid variety, vigorous and free- blooming; flowers double, yellow and fragrant, borne in great clusters; very hardy. For culture of the above varieties, see Rose, White Per., June. JUNE YELLOW PERENNIALS AsPHODEL. Yellow (Asphodeline lutea, known commonly as Aspho- delus luteus). 2~3 ft. Bears yellow fragrant flowers in spikes x ft. long, leaves grass-like attached to the flower-stalk. Requires a deep sandy loam and is easily propagated by suckers which it makes freely, or by seed. Bepstraw. Lady’s (Galium verum). 1-3 ft. A spreading variety bearing tiny yellow flowers that resemble goldenrod; foliage finely cut and feathery. Propagate by division of root and seed; any soil and sunny location. A wild variety that repays cultivation. June to Sep- tember. See white varieties, White Per., July. BrrrERswEEt (Celastrus scandens), 8-20 ft! A smooth climber bearing yellow flowers in terminal racemes in late June or early July, followed by handsome orange-red three-cornered berries. Propagated 234 Classified Lists by layering the branches or cuttings of young wood in early autumn. Give a rich soil and full sun. Burtercup, Bursovus, Cuckoo Bups, Gotp Cup (Renunculus bulbosus). 2 ft. A plant native to New England that thrives well un- der cultivation; bears very showy bright yellow flowers; needs a rich moist soil. Butrercup. Tall (Ranunculus acris pl. fl.). 2-3 ft. A cultivated garden variety bearing golden yellow balls or buttons on long branch- ing stems. Give sun and moist soil. CALLIOPsIS, see Coreopsis. Coreopsis, TICKWEED (C. lanceolata, var. grandiflora). 2-3 ft. Forms a broad low tuft of leaves and stems that branch from the base; usually one-flowered; heads yellow with rayed petals are from 2~3 in. across. Propagated by seed or division of root in autumn or spring. Give sun and any good soil. Day Lity. Yellow (Hemerocallis flave). 3 ft. One of our most desirable lilies bearing clusters of 3-8 pale golden yellow funnel-shaped flowers of delicious fragrance. It spreads freely from the root and is propagated by division. Give a sunny location with deep rich soil, but no manure must come in contact with the roots. Water freely through the blooming season. Doronicum Caucasicum, see Leopard’s Bane. Frax. Golden (Linum flavum). 1 ft. Bears transparent golden yellow flowers numerously produced in branched heads. Give a well- drained sandy loam in a warm sheltered position. Propagated by seeds, sometimes by division of root in spring. GLOBE-FLOWER (Trollius Asiaticus pl. fl.). 1 ft. Very handsome dark yellow flowers from 1-1} in. across; plant very compact and many- flowered. Requires a heavy moist soil; propagated by seeds which do not germinate until the second year; or by division of root in September. HELIANTHEMUM, see Sun Rose. Iris. German (I. Germanica, var. aurea and I. flavescens). 2-3 ft. Yellow varieties of this most desirable plant. For culture, see Iris, White Per., June. Tris. Spanish (I. Xiphiwm, var. Bella Chinoise). 2 ft. A variety of extraordinary beauty which looks like an orchid of clear mandarin yellow with long strap-shaped petals bearing heart-shaped appendages at the tips. Leaves slender, disappearing when the bulb is ripe. Di- Yellow Flowers 235 vide often, give sheltered position. For culture, see I. Spanish, White Per., June. LEOPARD’S BANE (Doronicum Caucasicum). x ft. A showy plant with dark yellow flowers 3 in. across; root leaves heart-shaped; thrives in any common soil. Propagated by seed or division of the root. Lity. Flava, see Day Lily, Yellow. Linvy, see Flax. Golden. Lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus aureus). 3 ft. A yellow variety of this delightful plant; for culture, see Lupine, White Per., June. MutteEIn. Italian, see Verbascum pannosum. Prony (Peonia officinalis, var. Golden Harvest; also Candidissima). For culture, see Peony, White Per., June. PoTENTILLA (P. recta). 2 ft. Hybrid varieties both single and double in yellow; for culture, see P. White Per., June. RANUNCcULUS (R. Asiaticus, double hybrid, var. Merveilleuse). Erect plant with stems branching at the base; bears large double flowers on long stems. It should have moist rich loam and shade during the heat of the day. Plant 2 in. deep in November, and give protection. When the plant flowers, the leaves wither and the roots should be taken up, dried in the shade and kept in a dry place until wanted for replanting. They grow easily from seed, also by offsets. Full sun makes a defi- ciency both in size and color. If left in the ground mulch through the summer. The Turban variety is coarser but hardier than the Persian. Rocket. Yellow, or Wintercress (Barbarea vulgaris). 2 ft. I am not sure of this identification of a plant, found in Maryland and trans- planted to my garden, where it flourished amazingly and bloomed for amonth or more. Long glaucus leaves resemble the poppy, surmounted by a leafy stalk which bears a large branching terminal cluster of bright golden yellow flowers, almost an inch across, followed by slender upright pods enclosing little oval seeds. The flowers are showy enough to merit a place among shrubbery. Sun Rose (Helianthemum alpestre). 6 in. A yellow variety of this hardy evergreen plant which bears numerous racemes of flowers open- ing only in the sun. It makes a bushy growth, but seedlings are slow to get established. Give a rich moist soil and sun. Propagated by’ seed. Needs a little protection in the winter. Tuermopsis (T. Caroliniana). 3-6 ft. An erect herb with hand- some smooth yellow-green foliage and many terminal spikes of bright yellow pea-shaped flowers. Give a rich deep well-drained soil. It is 236 Classified Lists difficult to preserve; for when the root is divided, the plant often dies. Raise from spring or autumn-sown seed when possible; or divide only strong roots. A very striking plant when well grown; needs staking because the stems are brittle. Versascum, MuLLEIN (V. nigrum). 2 ft. A cultivated form with woolly stems and leaves woolly beneath, flowers yellow borne on a long simply-branched stem; will bloom a second time if cut down, early. VERBASCUM (V. pannosum).