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“TYve Hanna Rion) Y re,
DECORATIONS BY
Neg York , 19]2 , Pebrde. Nast & Company
Copyright, 1912, by McBrine, Nast & Co.
Published, March, 1912
; eg
G*
Sent si ate
TO MY GARDEN PARTNER
PREFACE
Several of the chapters in this book have appeared, essentially in their present form, in The Craftsman, The Ladies’ World, Suburban Life and House and Garden. To the editors of these magazines the au- thor’s thanks are due for permission to use this ma-
terial again.
eo a - aoe
CO NTE NES
INTRODUCTION
Tue First YEAR
ANNUALS
BIENNIALS AND PERENNIALS .
aries, WRis: AN PEOMIES (50) !6 le fe
LATS Se Se Sepa A&C Es ASSES A CPM LOSES I Pets sits. acu leoeea tects EET Sal phic oh WC UR SRL Rae RR Ea TOY UR ASE
Tue WiLp FLowers
SHRUBS AND VINES .
Tue Horsep anp TRANSPLANTING
THe TRANSIENT EDEN... AY Nee GARDEN FURNITURE : Tue GaArRvEN OF LURE .
Tue GARDEN IN WINTER .
CaRE OF THE GARDEN Birps .
Wuat My Garpen Means to ME .
PAGE
Pera ew eer RAT. 1 ONS
Perhaps I plagiarized a bit from the Japanese in design-
qe omy carches 0.28) eek eo Prontisptece FACING ‘ é PAGE
Blossoms which lure to the garden birds I would never EME EWES, BERT Bo Eyl cS Si a Une ntl cath Mobb aan Riad PERT ALES OSS Hitec ys ale haste Ane Valeriy CRN PORSRR tT aeta tePRAP e
Nothing is so absolutely entrancing as a clump of nicotiana Bie Ui CY MOO CLOW +00) 3))) sy dactbna veh af 8 tape IN aed (Loon OEE ri URS ESET SN QR EE AMR RS Eh Ot RMP LE Ra ORE AVRO ESO
The Canterbury Bells add a delicacy and ida to every bedsin, which they chime. 5.) 92 0° 2°. Adak 42 Hardy chrysanphemums) 5.) os 3h eu Cann Seam eh abe et baiel eae The most decorative form in all the flower world. . . 58 LU Sra LE} ON Bh ae aes ee ean ei Woh nt ARP OM RRL aaa S| ENG VMGESE-DIbems. ROSE 2° ns are Gan atay Soe a ras oa hal de aia OCNes . FORES f°). 2K) SNR Oae eh snail! Unie) aaa ta Tall single tulips and the eccentric parrots. . . . . 106 5 rg 5,5) 1s MR GPRM MOA SR. Uhr ee) a eR ea CRC Oi In its ghost stage the dandelion reaches the spiritual . . 114
SELES PRONE OER Ur St SS bre uaPge Min AO ad eR
THE ILLUSTRATION S—continued
FACING PAGE Arch and trellis are painted a soft gray green. . . . 130 WER Peas ee ele eek UR ee a ee We transplant our Shirley poppies and thereby have them just where\we want them ..)..))..)%.2 a ee Dhitley pPOppies | 326.92 ee ice hie oe ie er Anmannual hollyhock (2020 oe CobraZseandens 85 os 8) 0 a er A bench alone Dutch lines :).02°. >.) 4. oe rr Lady, Gay:roses.about the sundial: . 2... 22) eee The public bath where members of the orchestra bathe and LEU A ek sy de Veo as hk be oe. Soi, el lat rr AYbuecaneer butterfly 3) 030. 0. os ee A brook breaking ice barriers in spring. . . . . . 180 008 01 01ch (5 Ge ee AP eRe NACE 4 The poor English sparrow does not deserve the continuous persecution that he suffers under: :.°. |.) 2) 938883 The imsatiable Tobia i050 09 Saks ake Gee pee The: uardian of ‘the vearden® .4) 0 \s"0. 1. ey . ae
1 2 em ee EO Le arin Sau ee MC ROMER RE LT oo
Int roduction
Mates en Bay
ite SiG
NA eT Pa ea Si
4
SMA
ALU i
HERE are some phrases which carry magic in
their sound, a magic which cannot be explained
by mere logic, and the greatest of these phrases is,
* Let’s make a garden.” It has a “ Merry Christ-
mas,” * Hurrah for the Fourth of July ” tinkle of joy.
The instinct to mingle with the soil evidences itself
in the mud pie stage of childhood; as we grow older.
we merely make many more, and much more beauti-
ful mud pies with frosting of perfumed color, and call it Garden.
No one ever entirely grows up who lives in a gar- den. I feel sure almost all gardeners still believe in Santa Claus; and as for fairies, was it not in Kensington Gardens that Mr. Barrie discovered all the wonderful facts about Peter Pan? Perhaps it is the help of the Little People that makes gardening so easy for mortals.
I know many professionals try to scare one with all
1
IRs Make Q oWer Chemdeg
sorts of bugaboo theories of the difficulties of flower culture; but to refute this, we only have to take a drive through the outlying districts of the town where the workmen and washerwomen — the so-called hum- bler citizens — live, and the prodigality of bloom sur- rounding each busy doorstep will soon show us what wealth even the supposed poor may own, without adding extra burden to their tired backs.
We have to learn to cook, to sew, to paint, to write, but there is scarcely the littlest child who does not naturally grasp a hoe, and use it as if he were born a graduate in the science. This is probably an inherited instinct, for all of us are descended from some original tiller of the soil. It is the oldest pro- fession in the world.
As Plutarch says, ‘There is no exercise nor oc- cupation which so certainly bringeth a man to love and desire quietness as doth husbandry and _till- age.”
In the springtime the sap of enthusiasm and new life begins to stir in mortals just as it does in trees; this fact, noted by the Romans, was expressed in the name given by them to the first spring month, which they called Aprilis, “because then is the chiefest force and strength.” June (from juniores, mean-
2
Ids Melee a lofer ee
ing young men) was so called because it was as the youth of the year.
As far back as the 8th century, B.C., there lived one Hesiodus who was a poet, and being one, his thoughts derived their inspiration and sustenance from the earth. So great an authority did he be- come on flowers, on all growing things, the influence of the moon on plants, and lucky and unlucky days for sowing, that he constantly spoke in proverbs con- cerning these things. One can easily fancy all friends pressing Hesiodus to put his thoughts into enduring form. This he eventually did, becoming the father of all garden books, and the author of a volume entitled ‘Works and Days,” which con- tained practical maxims and directions for hus- bandry in all its phases. Nearly three thousand years have passed since that old book was written, yet to-day the subject is still as fresh and inexhausti- ble as the spring itself.
Even the seed catalogues come absolutely new to the mind each season. I shall never forget the day in my childhood when I discovered the first floral cata- logue. It was an epoch. It opened the gate to the land of heart’s desire, the vineyard of dreams.
Catalogues haven’t changed much since my child-
3
Kets Malce Q Flower Coe
hood; I should hate to think they could. Ive read every description, every promise, thousands of times, yet never has my imagination felt jaded, never have I failed to experience the old-new thrill. In all the world’s literary classics, none contain for me the in- exhaustible lure, the enchantment, the dream material, to be found in the seed catalogue.
The making of a garden is much like the forma- tion of character — the loveliest mature characters are often the result of many early mistakes. But the very fact that the garden is a matter of growth makes it worth while, and there is no art in which there are such compensations in the primary grade. If you have brought one flower to perfection you have not failed. When a day has been hard indoors and full of defeat, a walk through the garden dis- pels all the mists of gloom. It is the consolation of flowers which is the real tie between them and mankind. And there is never strife among the blossoms; they exhale peace as they breathe per- fume. |
The only time a garden is disappointing is when we are taking strangers through it, and I think that is perhaps because flowers are so like love. It is when you walk alone, or with someone dear to you,
4
Ids Q Flower Croeilen
among your flower-children, that they tell you all their secrets of joy.
I sometimes wonder just when I am happiest in the garden. Is it when I am working with garden tool in spring, my inner vision abloom with dreams of future loveliness, made possible by my labor; or is it when I later on go forth in the early summer mornings with scissors and basket, gathering hun- dreds of roses, and great golden bunches of double sunflowers, and blue bouquets of cornflower and lark- spur? Then again I think it is most restful when I walk about after mealtime, stooping to inquire about the health of some frail plant, hunting ex- pected buds in another, gathering a few ripening seeds here and there, putting a rose branch in place, and then lingering and looking and gloating over the beauty of everything. Again I seem happiest when, the day’s work done, I lie in a hammock in the gloam- ing shadows of the pines, enjoying the sunset glint- ing through stencilled leaf form and reflected in dis- tant flower groups, while blackbirds, gathered in the boughs overhead, give that strange cry which thrills the imagination with its wildness, breaking the shackles of domesticated thought.
But when the moon comes over the eastern turrets
. 5
Neds Make Q FloWer Ce
of cedars, and I sit at the threshold of my rose gar- den silently with one to whom words are unnecessary, my eyes resting now on the garden of stars above, now on the rose stars below, then indeed the garden brings a brooding sense of completeness, content and blessing — and I ask no more of life.
I have never resented being told I was made out of dust, which really means soil, for to have the same origin as the flowers and trees is a very fine thing indeed, and makes us cousins to the violet and sisters of the oak.
The flowers give us a truer sense of values; we do not envy the dwellers in the money-mart; we have a wealth which pays its hourly dividends in beauty and happiness, and to add to our wealth we do not need to rob or hurt any other fellow mortal. We do not desire extraneous excitement, for a garden ban- ishes boredom; no hour is empty, no day is futile.
Each year that passes brings another spring in which to grow young, another fall in which to harvest our riper dreams,
“The Firs? Yeor—
ess ‘ Negus
Oe hier
NCE upon a time two people, who were very
world-fagged, came to their senses and realized
that the cure for their mind sickness lay beyond the
clank of business chains, the sight of sky-scrapers and the whir of elevated trains.
Their apparent quarrel with life was really only hunger for the song of wild birds, the nearness of great fields of pasture, the friendship of hills, the sight of a brook breaking ice barriers in spring, the artillery of forest limbs snapping in icy grip, the lowing of cattle at eventide, the elbow touch with simple, kindly folk, and above all to own a slice of this great birthday cake of earth.
When you buy a piece of land, remember — you own all above it; you own that far reach of ether in which the stars drift over your land, the moon as it hangs above your trees, the sun as it passes
9
eds Melee @ Flower GAEIES
through your sky-claim; and best of all you possess all the dreams which lie between you and infinity.
And you own down, down, down to the centre of the earth’s axis, and this is why owning land gives one such a sense of anchorage and solidity.
When we came to our senses (for my humbler half and I are the people of whom I spoke so mysteri- ously in my opening sentence) we sought the coun- try and became the proud possessors of a slice of land and a real home. On our original plot — be- fore we bought the adjoining two acres of wilder- ness — there stood two apple trees, three peaches, two cherries, white and purple lilacs, a deutzia, and a flowermg almond,— nothing else. Now, after a few years, to tell all our tree and flower possessions would necessitate nine volumes of very fine print, and then I’d have to leave out all the intangible things we have come to own, things which have no name but? which make one terribly happy in the private possession thereof. |
The first autumn we spent so much time in con- gratulating each other on our emancipation from the city, marveling at the sunsets, rediscovering the night sky, that we were really too stunned by the seventy and seven wonders of the world revealed
10
Kets Hake a Power Garden
each day to think about gardening. So it was not until we had had a whole winter in which to catch our breath, that we even discussed flowers. When I look back on that time I find we really didn’t know the A, B, C’s of gardening (though we both thought ourselves very wise), and that is why we’ve had such a joyful, growing time of it, blundering along, learn- ing bit by bit through a hundred mistakes; and even after all these years we know there are equally many surprises ahead and that six years hence, to- day will be called blind and ignorant.
When the thought of garden dawned we began very modestly, thinking of attempting only the eas- iest, simplest things. When we pored over the cata- logues, we paused only at the familiar names and the ones we could pronounce; we both shied dread- fully at botanical titles.
Then in our spring rambles of discovery we came across many deserted farms and gaunt, ghostly houses with weed choked gardens. With fine moral scruples we rescued many plants which would other- wise have died of neglect, pining for human love. Of course some people might call this procedure hard names, but it depends wholly on the point of view. I’m sure it’s a very fine kind of missionary work to
tt
Mets Meke Q FloWer Ca
relieve an old forgotten hollyhock of its poor little children who are being choked to death by weeds and haven’t a chance in the world. ‘Then, too, a scraggly old lilac will be very grateful if you help yourself to the dozens of suckers which are needlessly drain- ing its health.
It was by means of such salvage that we started a lilac hedge and were blessed by a row of blooming hollyhocks from the piazza to the road, the summer after their rescue.
There is no shorter route to country neighbors’ hearts than a love of flowers. Country people are not specialists, carefully guarding rare flower treas- ures; they are, on the contrary, big-hearted owners of nice old-fashioned plants which they got through earlier neighbors’ giving, and which they in turn pass on to flower-loving newcomers.
So it happened I soon found each call from a neighbor meant the enriching of our garden by iris, rockets or hardy phlox clumps, while a return call meant being the recipient of dozens of slips and roots. I never before found it so easy and pleasant to remember my social duties.
The really permanent things which found place in our garden the first spring were therefore gotten
12
BLOSSOMS WHICH LURE TO THE GARDEN BIRDS I WOULD NEVER OTHERWISE SEE
ets Make a Flower é en
either by loot or by gift; the remaining plants were annuals, and wild things borrowed from fields, woods and swamps.
For the sake of other beginners who want to do the thing gradually and make a modest beginning in gardening, I can’t do better than tell them of our annuals that first season, and how much beauty we surrounded ourselves with by sowing only the best- known seed.
To start with, we found an old chicken yard on the place; and as we couldn’t undertake chickens we removed the chicken houses and stored the lum- ber for the making of toolhouse and hotbed the fol- lowing spring, reserving one long stretch of the chicken wire for the support of sweet peas.
The rich soil of the former fowl yard made an ideal place to start our seedbeds, and here we sowed in May, blue ageratum, Marguerite carnations, cos- mos, asters, marigolds, mignonette and pansies. We planted at each column of the front porch wild clematis found in a brush tangle near a brookside. The clematis is a long-legged vine which remains as bare about the knees as a Highlander, so we planted nasturtiums to cover the lower part of these vines; and sweet alyssum plants were invited to do the same
13
Keds Male a Flower Coorden favor for the nasturtiums, as they grew tall and given to yellow leaves about the feet.
From the porch to the road the aforesaid holly- hocks were permitted to fulfill their prim mission by being placed in a straight row next to the walk. At their backs, adjoining the lawn, we placed alternate clumps of gift iris and hardy phlox, with a gen- erous sowing of opium poppies to insure midsummer gayety. Then we removed the few lonesome and purposeless shrubs dotted about the lawn to the other boundary of our grass plot, and by leaving an un- broken lawn we greatly improved the appearance of our frontage. To surround these shrubs and to keep them from feeling hurt, we made a long irreg- ular bed, which ran between an apple and a cherry tree, holding a very indiscriminate lot of plants and a perfect kaleidoscope of color; we had not grown fastidious then and we wanted flowers, no matter whether they were intended for bedfellows or not.
Here California poppies, marigolds and calliopsis made a blaze of gold; cornflowers, larkspurs and ageratum equaled the sky in blueness; and Phlox Drummondi of every shade of salmon pink, white and red, were rivaled by the motley colors of the varie- gated pansy border. It was beautiful chaos, and
14
eds Mabe 2 Power Garden
taught us much of the extent to which nature can combine colors without jarring the eye.
At the rear we transformed a spinster-looking out- building by draping its straight front with morning glories, cunningly lured by strings tacked to the very pinnacle of the roof. On the other side of the building, in the shade, we planted in our blissful ignorance a long row of sunflowers; in effort to see their god, the sun, they were forced to grow to an unheard-of height, their shining faces smiling fully sixteen feet from the ground.
Bordering the path leading to the seed yard, we made a hedge of four-o’clocks. In a long bed at the side of the back yard were planted candytuft, di- anthus, Marguerite carnations, asters and cosmos. Well, you should have seen the bloom and riot of color in the midst of which we had our happy being that season! It began with the May snowdrift of candytuft, and lasted through the midsummer blare of marigolds, larkspur and poppies to the asters in early fall, and the tall cosmos which bloomed long into October, as the frost was late that year.
We had no problems at that time; there were no roses to spray and carry over winter, no perennials to mulch in the fall,— just a season of irresponsible
15
PES a Boker Coeeren
joy, color and fragrance, with nothing to do but eradicate weeds and pick flowers. But, being hu- man, we were not content; we had drunk of the wine of lure, and we secretly conspired to add to our prob- lems next season by entering further into the land of flowers, and acquiring an adjoining wilderness of two and a half acres to hold all our planned-for treasures.
All winter long we pored over new catalogues, mouthing the strange names of biennials and peren- nials, the married and single names of roses, and the hieroglyphic-like titles of lilies.
From a modest beginning that first year we have become flower gourmands and experimentalists, just as you, too, are sure to be, once you enter the boundaries of that realm whose enchantments know
no limitations.
16
Rode
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T would seem wisest for the new garden enthusiast to purchase mixed seed of everything at first, for this gives so much wider range from which to make
an eventual choice of favorites.
Shirley Poppies
Our greatest discovery the second season was the Shirley poppy, which ever since has held our hearts enslaved. If I had to make a choice between owning roses and Shirleys, ’d have to choose the latter.
No day can be wholly desolate which holds a Shirley poppy. From May to October a breakfast without them would seem tasteless. In the early morning I always go straight from my own bed to that of the poppies, and there, in the midst of intoxicated bees, stand as bewitched as they by
19
‘Lets Hake Bae Crooden
the dewy beauty of the silken flowers swaying in the morning breeze.
If picked before the lover-bees have sapped their strength and: loosened their petals, and the stems placed at once in water, the Shirleys will last for two or three days indoors.
Manure is generally fatal to members of the poppy family, should they come in immediate contact; therefore it is best to enrich by trenching the spots which are to hold poppies, lining the bottom of the excavation with manure; then for future fertilization use commercial fertilizer worked in cautiously be- tween the plants.
All bores can prove things, so I am content merely to disprove. I take particular delight in having shattered the truth of the statement made that poppies cannot be transplanted. We transplant the majority of our poppies, both Shirley and opium, and thereby have them just where we want them, and also assure their having plenty of space to spread their branches. The secret lies in taking them up when they are young, on a cloudy day or late in the afternoon, digging so deep beneath that not one of the tender hairlike roots is maimed. At first we re- moved them in small clumps, then, when firmly estab-
20
eds Make Q Flower Crcden
lished, pulled up the four or five superfluous plants in each group leaving only the strongest to develop. -But now we have become such experts we plant them singly with perfect success.
One of the dearest things about the Shirleys is the sweet surprises they bring, by conspiring with the breezes which aeroplane them to all sorts of odd places, transforming neglected corners into domains of beauty. The owner of an old country garden near by supplied us with a variety we have never found duplicated in any of the packages purchased — white, pink and red beauties wearing nine ruffled silk petticoats. The improved Shirleys are gener- ally single or only slightly double. It is generally conceded that the single form of any flower holds the highest perfection of line, yet these old crinolined Shirleys maintained their own, even when planted side by side with the new poppies wearing the very latest in plain gored skirts.
It is odd that when rare and strangely beautiful tints are produced in a member of a flower family, the plant itself is often puny. One year we pos- sessed a single Shirley poppy plant of tuberculous appearance, which coughed up one blue blossom; al- though we sat up nights to save the seed, and appar-
21
es Hele a ater CE
ently secured a goodly number, yet the next season only one or two sickly plants appeared to wanly smile at us through a few blossoms, then passed forever from our garden.
There was another poppy bearing flowers the shade of a gray-blue twilight sky; fortunately, this un- healthy Shirley maid was wedded by a bee priest, to a stalwart Captain Kidd of a scarlet poppy, with the result that the children were dusk gray with a flash of flame about their middles —a variety which, thank goodness, inherited the constitution of their lusty father and still flourish, the loveliest of all our present poppy inhabitants.
Shirleys are very particular creatures (except when they become vagabonds), demanding rich soil and lots of sunshine. =
Sow, sow, sow, sow in May, June, July up to fall, and then sow more plentifully than ever for it is the autumn-sown seed which will give the sturdiest plants; attending to their own business of cheerful existence through winter snows, they will bloom early the following spring. While you are sowing dili- gently all season for a succession of bloom, the pop- pies will be sowing as hard as they can themselves,
so with their collaboration you may possibly get 99
[Sets Hake Q Floer Caden
enough to satisfy an ever increasing desire and love for them.
Nicotiana Next to these poppies our greatest dependence is put in the nicotiana or night-blooming tobacco.
After trying,:as was our duty, all the shades ad- vertised, we decided to cling only to the white affinis variety. This is the flower paramount for your night beauty. Grant Allen tells of its incandescent property, a phosphorescence which makes it a beacon light for the buccaneers of the night.
Nothing is so absolutely entrancing as a corner of these starry blossoms in the moon glow, with their ever hovering, devoted swains, the moths. Their fra- grance satisfies every craving of the human nose.
By trimming back behind the seed pods, the nico- tiana’s blooming can be continued up to frost. Do plant a mass of them near the veranda so you may
see them and whiff them every night of summer.
Annual Coreopsis We simply couldn’t live without the gayety of the annual coreopsis — called “ calliopsis” by the seedsmen, but fortunately flowers don’t mind being
nicknamed.
23
[ets Make @ EloSer Crates
No other flower can so disguise its connection with earth. The coreopsis stems are so fragile and incon- spicuous that the flowers are constellations suspended in space. ‘The wine-red variety cannot be surpassed for velvety richness. Once given the freedom of your garden, you need never bother your head again about the coreopsis, but permit them to spring up where they will, making gold frames for all your flower pictures.
Sweet Peas
Because of the wire netting almost universally used for sweet peas, it is wise to make very sure of the spot whereon you desire them to abide before putting up their permanent supports; for if anything can disrupt a family’s peace and love it is trying to re- move a stretch of chicken wire which has been tightly nailed to posts.
If the spot is heavily enriched each year to replace the drain on the earth’s strength, sweet peas really do better where they have once grown than in entirely new ground. No doubt there is some scientific rea- son for this, but I’m not a scientist — only an ob- server and recorder.
We make the trench very deep so that when the
Q4
ts Mabe a Hotes Gorden
peas come up they must grow six inches before they can look the landscape over; this trench is gradually filled as the vines grow, and having been forced to deep roots they forgive us for not watering and survive even prolonged droughts. As in the case of almost all other flowers, we have only bought sweet pea seed once, and the stock from our own seed in- creases in bloom and variety each year. ‘The only thing I don’t like about them is the way they bull- doze you into picking their flowers every day whether you want to or not, so I always solve this on the first day of June by sweetly making a gift of the peas
to some member of the family.
Salpiglossis For rich, glowing, unusual tones plant salpig- lossis, a native of Chili, and a distant relative of the
petunia.
Petunias
Speaking of the petunias, I’ve changed my former opinion of them since [’ve seen the wonders wrought by that inspired hybridizer, Myrtle Francis of California, the woman to whose tireless studies we owe the extraordinary ruffled beauties, measuring six
25
| ets Blake a ower Crnccan
and a half inches across, in rose, blue, white, va- riegated and red. One of the meekest moments of my life was when Mrs. Francis asked me: “ Have you ever put a ruffle on a flower?” I could only shake my head negatively and make amends by my homage to the woman who had.
Cornflowers
Of course we can never reflect the sky too often in our garden, so all blue flowers are to be grown profusely. Of these the king is the cornflower, frankly claiming its royalty by its title of Kaiser blumen. It is at its best in masses where it does not need, nor make you desire, any other flower to perfect the beauty. Then sprinkled throughout the garden, preferably near the white and golden flowers, it is also a harmonizer; I am not yet patriotic enough to enjoy the cornflower in close proximity to red blos- soms.
Sweet Sultans
The other variety of cornflowers dubs itself sweet sultan, denoting an evidently unique virtue in Turkish royalty. The sultans pretend to a greater aristocracy than their blue German kindred, by being
26
NOTHING IS SO ABSOLUTELY ENTRANCING AS A CLUMP OF NICOTIANA IN THE MOON GLOW
(ts Make a Mower Garden
fastidious about their location and snobbishly bloom- ing less. But I bow the knee to their white and lavender crowns and carefully save the seed, of which they are rather sparing, acknowledging in my heart their really imperial loveliness.
Mourning Bride | When I was a child I thought the mourning bride the most romantic of flowers, because of the name and our not having any in our own home gar- dens ; in order to see them I had to make a pilgrimage across the railroad tracks to visit an old bride who had been mourning her husband for about fifty years. (Another reason I enjoyed going to visit this ancient gardener was because she was the only perfectly bald lady I had ever seen or heard of, but I think raising the flowers had nothing to do with this peculiarity.) Since I’ve grown up, the flowering mourning brides’ sorrow has been mitigated; they have put on half-mourning of lavender, and sometimes appear garbed in white and pink like unwedded young girls. I love the new widows who are perking up and taking notice again, yet I still save my greatest admiration for those inconsolable blossoms which remain true to
their memories while robed in funeral dress.
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Cosmos
In localities where frost is apt to steal upon the garden prematurely, it is almost futile to attempt to raise the splendid tall cosmos of dilatory habits, for just about the time they are laden with buds, and the plants have reached the height of eight feet, we go forth some morning to find them blackened ruins, which wrings the feelings unnecessarily.
Fortunately, however, there is a varicty of early blooming cosmos which can get ahead of frosts. It never attains the height of the lazy, more beautiful, late kind, nor are the flowers as large. The foliage of the cosmos is so light and airy it adds poetry of background to any other flower, and I would grow it for its foliage beauty even if it never flowered at all. It is wise to tie the plants to firm stakes early in the season, lest the first storm leaves them standing all awry.
Phlox Drummondi For reckless happy-go-lucky beauty sow gay little Phlox Drummondi any and everywhere. Buy mixed seed, then save with particular care the seed of those of the rare tints of pale yellow and deeper tan. By eradicating the plants of the magenta ones 28
ly Hake Moter Cramton
as soon as the blossoms dare to show their faces, you may prevent their reappearance; all the other va- rieties are exquisite and remind one of the quaint, dainty old dresses of our grandmother found in gar- ret trunks.
Each year we let some part of our vegetable gar- den enjoy a rest cure, and sow it in clover which is plowed under in the fall, making that portion of the garden particularly rich the following season. With the clover we once sowed all our superfluous phlox seed, making a wonderfully pretty field. Another year we combined the clover seed with Shirley pop- pies — the result was wonderful.
When the early strawberries are through, give them a deep spading between rows, then sow gay little phlox to take the place of weeds which other- wise are sure to come; the strawberries will be grate- ful for the shade of the phlox, and the phlox will add to your happiness every day of vegetable-pick-
ing during the summer.
Yellow Flowers
Before our grapevines had attained sufficient size to require a trellis, we utilized a stretch of about ten fect in width between the twenty vines to make a
29
Keds Hake Q lores Creelen
path of gold. On a line with the small vines we planted the double sunflowers which look like monster quilled dahlias; in front of these were the large African marigolds, and next to the centre path there was a border, three feet each side, of California poppies of the glowing yellow and copper tints. The path was of such dazzling brilliance that it quite dazed the eye and took the breath away.
Dwarf Marigolds
The dear little marigolds of velvet rosettes make the most fascinating dwarf hedges. ‘There is no more pungent, charming odor than that of their leaves crushed in the hand. In planting the hedge, give it great richness and a space of eight inches between
plants.
Mignonette
Mignonette is seldom praised except for its fra- grance, but if grown in rich soil, from seed of the giant varieties, the flower heads will be fully eight inches long and really beautiful in their greenish- white and reddish tones. For mingling in vases with other flowers they are ideal, harmonizing with every- thing and lending a fragrance to an entire room.
30
ery Pele et Moder Crerden
Annual Mallow
The annual mallow is a most important factor of summer beauty; its luscious, pink, hibiscus-like
flowers are borne in greatest profusion.
Nasturtiums
I think no one can have too many nasturtiums ; they grow so easily they are taken for granted and are not half as much appreciated as they would be if perverse in their habits. There is not a more beautiful form in the flower kingdom, and in color the nasturtium blossoms reproduce flame and sun- light.
We have obtained through accident a tint which I’ve never seen in any other flower, that of old gold with an actual gilt glistening over its surface.
The nasturtium vine, sad to say, is mentally idiotic ; instead of using nice wire netting provided for its climbing, it will unfailingly sneak off under the porch, wasting its life in trying to pretend it is a ghost in the cellar; or if planted by the side of the house it will stupidly run against a crack in the wood, and grow snub-nosed in an attempt to go through a cranny two sizes too small.
But just as some mothers dote most on the child
31
het Poke a FloQee Gomes
which outsiders think intellectually inferior to her others, so the very fact of a nasturtium’s not being “right bright ” makes me very tender toward it, and without apologies I declare it to be my favorite flower-child. |
32
Diennakex Perennials
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GARDENER lives in the future; he is planting
for years to come, and what dear conspirators
the flowers are to make him forget the aging face of Time.
Many people do not have perennials in their gar- dens because of a mistaken idea of the slowness of their growth. There is really only one year of over- ture and waiting when biennials and perennials are planted, and a garden once begun continues itself in- definitely, by self-seeding and root doubling; so in a few years it is not a question of enlarging one’s flower possessions but of finding space enough to accommo- date the ever increasing floral army.
It is a fortunate sign when anyone mingles the ephemeral sphere of annuals with the abiding one of perennials, roses, shrubs and fruit, for it means they have taken root themselves in the new home soil, hav-
35
eds Mekce @Q FloWer Coa
ing become human perennials who wish to surround
themselves with appropriate life companions.
Oriental Poppy
The most gorgeous of all perennials is the Oriental poppy, the scarlet variety of which grows readily from seed. J have never succeeded in raising the shrimp pink and other delicate shades, except by purchasing roots.
These poppies should be transplanted to their permanent location when quite infantile, for they throw down roots to the very centre of the earth if left to develop fully in the seedbed; there is then no implement that is long enough to transplant them without amputating most of their rat-tail roots. Planted so they may have a background of pine or other evergreen, they are dazzlingly gorgeous in May. Their splendor almost necessitates having the field undisputed, for they are so exclamatory you would not notice any other flower, and few blossoms can stand the challenge of the poppies’ riotous color.
Dying down to the earth in midsummer they then give an opportunity of using the space between them for asters, which can be transplanted to the poppy bed as soon as they have developed the third leaf.
36
bere Palas wo ote Gooden
Moles are the Oriental poppy’s only enemies, and I know of no way to stop their destruction except al- ways to have plenty of new roots, raised from one’s own seed, to take the place of those devoured. I have heard that planting castor oil beans will dis-
courage moles, but I have not tested it.
Foagloves
The foxglove, which once had the sweet name of fairyglove, is one of the most dependable and dec- orative of all biennials, and is always willing to pretend a return to the wild state by blooming happily in the most shady bits of the wood-garden. Once buy a ten-cent package of mixed digitalis (as the seed catalogues call them), and you are provided for life with foxgloves, for they seed themselves, scattering to all parts of the premises. ‘These self- sown foxgloves generally make the largest and most florescent plants.
The white variety is our favorite; at night it seems
like a miniature campanile hung with a hundred elfin
bells. Delphinium The delphinium is a prime favorite in English
gardens. It is larkspur elevated to a perennial and
37
ts Hoke @ Flower an Ea
more fashionable state. Purchased seed will not succeed, for the delphiniwm seed seem to lose their vitality unless planted a short time after maturing. Therefore it is best to begin by purchasing roots of the different shades at fifteen cents a root, then to increase your stock it will be well to permit the per- fection of seed in late July so you can plant them early enough to have well established roots by autumn. In succeeding years, however, by cutting the flower stalks back after the first blooming period, you may enjoy a second harvest of flowers. The delphinium needs much richness of soil, which can be made by digging into the ground the winter mulch- ing of manure after the plants have begun to sprout
in early spring.
Hardy Phlox The hardy phloxes are the very backbone of a
permanent garden. Purchasing roots of the pretti-
est shades, by saving your own seed and sowing at
once, you will have multiplied your stock in two
years to tremendous proportions. ‘The seed of the
hardy phlox, like that of the delphinium, will not
grow if not sown promptly, yet seed men persist in 38
Its Make. a Hover Creten
offering to the ever hopeful gardeners seed that is years old.
After the plants have been established two years, root division should begin. From that time on it is necessary to be generous and begin giving plants away to friends.
The salmon-pink phlox is beyond compare, and is too beautiful to be mitigated by any combination un- less it be with the pure white Miss Lingard. One of the richest effects Pve seen was wrought by a long hedgelike border of the red phloxes alone. We have found that the hardy phloxes require moisture to do their best, therefore we changed them frequently un- til we discovered the most naturally moist, yet sun-
shiny portion of the garden.
Sweet Wiliam For stability and a fine tone of time there is the Sweet William, without which no garden seems a real garden. Growing readily from seed they are prac- tically immortal, for, although called biennials, such is their habit of reseeding their own beds, if a plant ever perishes there are so many children to take
its place, one never thinks of the departed mother.
39
Kets Hake a Power Gorden
It is well, however, to remove all the plants from the bed about every five years, redigging deeply, refertil- izing, then replanting, leaving about ten inches be- tween the roots so the clumps may have plenty of space to spread. Personally I love the single variety best and the more multi-colored the effect the better I like it, for some old-timey flowers are like patch quilts — the more indiscriminate the mingling of color the more consistently traditional they seem.
Canterbury Bells
I have never owned enough Canterbury bells, yet I plant the seed every spring and always have hun- dreds of big crowns to set out in the early fall.
They are the most witching plants, their bell-like flowers of such loveliness I am always thankful they did not add extreme perfume to their already perfect sorcery.
The single ones seem far more beautiful than the double or cup-and-saucer variety, but it is well to try seed of every kind, then mark with tape the favorites as they bloom, saving only the seed of the loveliest for future association.
Coming in all delicate shades of lavender, blue, pink and white, they add a delicacy and poetry to
4.0
>
Kets Makce @ Flower Garden every bed in which their bells chime. As the plants die after fulfilling their mission of beauty it is of course necessary to keep a new supply on hand, which becomes a simple matter once you have formed the habit of seed gathering. Like all biennials they do not bloom for a year from the time of seed plant- ing, therefore they must be carried over the winter; to do this successfully a covering of evergreens is
best, as manure mulching is apt to rot the crowns.
Hollyhocks
I could scarcely wait all these pages to rave over the incomparable hollyhock, for there is nothing that adds such dignity and picturesqueness to a garden as these old, but ever improved, favorites. As sentinels to guard entrances, as escorts down winding paths, they have no rivals, and as impromptu stars they are often our greatest teachers in unpremeditated composition. Massing is a fine law and as a general rule is to be observed, but it is wonderful how a Richard Strauss of a hollyhock can spring up in some unlooked-for spot, shattering all preconceived laws of harmony, transforming all our theories of arrangement.
One hollyhock removed from its brethren and standing tall and stately in a bed of other plants is 41
IQs Melce a Power Creodee
starred preéminently. There is no limit to their tones, ranging through the whole palette from white to black with the exception of blue, but the lavender varieties approach even that color.
There are now offered hollyhock seed which bloom the first season, and from these we have obtained some of our rarest shades of salmon. Our annual hollyhocks have also proven to be perennials, as they flower even better the second and third season.
Unfortunately the hollyhock has of late years been subject to a blight or scale, and although we have had some success in keeping this in check by use of a spray of permanganate of potash on the underside of the leaves, yet on the whole I think it is better to sacrifice the plant affected and try rais- ing new ones from new seed.
One florist grows all his hollyhocks in Ohio, al- though his nursery is in the Fast, as it has been found that for some reason hollyhocks there grown are free from the blight.
_Forget-me-not | I often wonder how people find it so easy to do without the forget-me-not, when I cannot conceive
of a spring without them. Planted on a bank wind- AQ
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THE CANTERBURY BEI.LS ADD A DELICACY AND POETRY TO EVERY BED IN WHICH THEY CHIME
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ing along the uneven boundary of our celery marsh, they make a sheet of blue in May. They are also ideal plants for bordering shady beds, but they thrive best in moist locations and scatter their seed
to the four winds.
Creeping Phiox For early spring glory in the covering of bank sides or bordering of beds, there is nothing better than the creeping phlox subulata, or moss pink. It is necessary to purchase a few clumps of the pink and white, then by root division you may in two years repeat them throughout the garden.
Perennial Alyssum The perennial alyssum, saxatile compactum, is also a very obliging flower for bank covering. It is hardy and its small yellow flowers often bloom the
first season after seed planting.
Gaillardia The gaillardia is so well known and so uni- versally planted, it would probably resent any addi- tional praise from me, especially as I, not particu- larly admiring its peculiar tone of red, could only
give moderate praise. 43
Ios Moke a lower Garden Red Sunflower
One of our most unique perennials we bought under the name of “ hardy red sunflower,” but a friend informs us it is the wild cone flower of Kansas. Whatever it is, we consider it one of our treasures. In color it is a pinkish red and has the single sun- flower’s petals, with a high brown centre like a peaked hat. The plant grows to four feet and the flowers are about the size of the largest dwarf sunflowers. Having very long stems, they are extremely beauti-
ful in a tall vase.
Feverfew
We can never have enough white flowers for general harmonizers and creators of night beauty, so we must be sure to include the old-fashioned white feverfew which resembles the small button chrysan-
themum.
Hardy Coreopsis
For the Sahara parts of your garden — and in every garden there are sure to be dry, desertlike places — plant the hardy coreopsis. ‘There is no flower so long-suffering, which will put up with such poverty of soil and dearth of moisture, as this
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coreopsis, and there isn’t a lovelier flower, even among the denizens of the field.
Speaking of moisture, it may be enlightening and soothing to many to know that we never water our flowers. Those which absolutely need moisture are planted where nature has thoughtfully provided some ; the others, from not being watered, throw their roots down very deep and consequently learn to do with- out artificial moisture. Watering undoubtedly in- duces superficial root development and that is never to be encouraged. ‘The fact that we lose so few plants by freezing — and we live in a cold zone — I attribute to the deep root our flowers have been forced to make. Leave the watering to Providence and both you and your plants will be better off.
Bamboo
The bamboos scarcely come under the title of perennials, yet I want to mention them here and beg you to try some if you do not live too far north; you cannot imagine a more fascinating addition to a garden. When wind-swept they kowtow with the grace of court bows, and at night the crunching and grinding of their poles against each other is weirdly wonderful. The bambusa japonica—the “ me-
AB
Pets Make a Mower Garden
take of gardens ” — grows to fifteen feet, and will thrive in a drier locality than the other varieties. It is perfectly hardy as far north as New York City,
if protected from the east wind.
Lily-of-the-Valley There are some flowers which make me feel par- ticularly queer and blissfully unreal, and the greatest _ of these is the lily-of-the-valley. It is so peculiarly suggestive of fairies, while its odor wafts the senses beyond the border land of memory. The lhes spread rapidly and from a few pips to start with, you may make every damp spot in your garden quite heavenly with them in a couple of sea-
sons.
Hardy Chrysanthemums
With a small root capital of chrysanthemums in a few years you can be a regular chrysanthemum Creesus. They should be scattered in every portion of the garden, for that means all pervading beauty far into November. The best time to separate the chrysanthemum is in the spring. In the large varieties there are the white, cream, red, wine red, yellow, orange and pink, besides
46
ets Make a lo®er ae Oe
the yellow and white daisy-like ones. With the fringy larger ones and the exquisite little button va- rieties of white, yellow, old gold and maroon, we surely do not need to regret the impossibility of suc- cessfully growing in our Northern gardens the large show and Japanese varieties. When the branches have grown to over a foot in height pinch out the centre of each crown; these will then send out three or four branches, giving many more flower tips in the autumn. After the frost has blackened them, cut down to the ground and mulch with old manure.
Plan so that no part of your garden is without bloom for nine months in the year. This is easily managed by taking a little forethought.
In one of our vaudeville beds, leading out to the rose garden, the regular head-liners are snowdrops, tulips, hyacinths, bluebells of Scotland, oriental poppy dancers, then several midsummer performing annuals — Shirley poppies, marigold and ten-weeks stocks, followed by those autumn artists, the Japan- ese anemones, cosmos and hardy chrysanthemums. Take another spot; spring opens with scillas and narcissi, continues with columbines, which are tagged by foxgloves; then iris, Shasta daisies and larkspur
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eek Eek a Boer Conecen
continue until the hollyhocks’ great steeples of bloom eclipse all that has gone before. Then lilies absorb the admiration, until hardy phlox leads once more to the inevitable chrysanthemum climax.
Near the house, huddled about a motherly lilac, is another bed in which the crocuses, tucked all about, first awaken in March; the jonquils then sing an April solo, to the accompaniment of hardy primroses, while the forget-me-nots lead up to the Sweet William, followed by coreopsis and delphinium; asters, hardy phlox and chrysanthemums bring the season to a close.
Perennials need particularly rich homes, and as they are supposed to remain for some time in one spot, the greatest chance for deep digging is before they are planted.
A good way is to wait until you are very mad about something, then it is remarkable with what violence you can wield a garden tool and make the dirt fly —it serves the double purpose of deep cul- ture and relieving your own feelings.
I am accused of moving my entire garden each fall, and I have to swallow the accusation, for there is a perfect house-cleaning inaugurated each autumn because of mentally recorded mistakes in arrange- ment which I could not realize until the actual bloom-
48
IQs Make Q Mover Garden
ing season. It is only by means of constant shifting and rearrangement that we can come nearer, or even keep pace with, an ever-growing ideal of perfection.
As time goes on the perennials will gravitate to their own inevitable niche- amid appropriate sur- roundings, so don’t ask a professional landscape gardener to solve your problems beforehand, for you would thereby rob yourself of half the fun. A gar- den planned for you by someone else would as little fit your needs as a friend’s advice would solve our own private life-riddles.
To produce by our own physical efforts all the beauty to feed the soul, all the vegetables and fruit to feed the body, would seem the natural ideal of life. And to reach this ideal is happily possible even if we do it merely as a byplay of our real life work. The more exacting the profession, the more nerve straining the daily occupation of the mind, the greater is the respite and relaxation of the garden — it above all else mends the ravelled threads of nerves and keeps the mental balance true. Life is so full of duties —the things we ought to do but don’t like to —— and so full of imperfect professions, which require us to do many unnatural things every day, that gardening is the revolt, the reflex, the re-
; AQ
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laxation. We can do in a garden the thing for which all of us were intended, and that is create beauty.
Above all we have a right to be frankly ourselves in our own home surroundings, and the less the per- sonal garden suggests the professional perfection, the more does it hold of loving intimacy. Leave the public parks to attain the “icily regular, splendidly null.” T’ve seen many things in famous gardens which I could admire tremendously as belonging to someone else yet never covet for myself. There is one garden I know that has all the paths made of grass — grass so perfect a dandelion would not dare creep in. The effect is beautiful and makes the walk- ing very comfortable and soft to the feet, but I could never have grass paths because I am the gardener, and the perpetual use of the lawn mower required is prohibitive.
Then, too, our garden is not at all a show place, it is merely a happiness garden, and to keep it so I must never introduce features which would shortly transform it into a burden.
There are many parts of our wilderness which can only claim accidental charm, for I have a foolish habit of being grateful for any and every kind of
50
ey Make a Flower roeaen
flower, and if cornflowers, annual coreopsis, larkspur, candytuft and Shirley poppies, foxgloves and holly- hocks have taken their welcome for granted, I haven’t the heart to weed them out. So it chances much of my gardening is haphazard and entirely outside of all law and order.
51
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T needed much strategy for me to procure space
=
for my lilies, iris and peonies, for my garden partner’s specialty is vegetables, and as he has a lusty appetite it happens that he considers it most important to retain the greater part of the back gar- den — especially the richer parts—for his vege- tables.
While he applauds and admires my efforts in the flower domain, he does not care to lessen his spiritual enjoyment of flowers by too great a corporeal labor, or shattering intimacy. I never disputed in words his natural right to the best parts of the back garden.
Always outwardly agree with a man —that is the wisest thing I’ve thought so far in this book. —
I agreed and then racked my brain as to how I could win by force of tact a certain tract of land
59
Ids Hale Q Flower Cen
abutting against the rear and sides of my rose garden —a tract devoted to tomatoes and sweet potatoes, both very pretty members of the vegetable family and not in the least objectionable to my roses; but, womanlike, I just coveted those two spaces. So IL surreptitiously sent off for thirty roses and had them shipped to him with my card. When they arrived there was no place left im my own rose garden to offer him, and after much indifference on my part as to their fate, and many attempts on his to find rent room in other crowded flower tenements, he finally sighed: ‘I don’t see anything to do but remove those sweet potatoes and place my rose garden on your south side, then all the roses will be together.”
I demurred and raised a thousand objections to spoiling so fine a potato patch, and in short so dramatized my real sentiments he became quite abusive of sweet potatoes and even peevishly insistent on having his own rose garden where he pleased.
Having one victory to my credit, I planned a cam- paign for my lilies the following season. |
It had always been his wily habit to present me his tomato patch just when the weeds began to thrive, generously permitting me the picking of his “ spoils of labor,” as he picturesquely termed it. This sea-
56
frets eke @ Moter Crenden
son I callously refused his generosity, shamelessly ignored the weed swamped condition, and always hap- pened to be terribly busy elsewhere when the tiresome picking of fruit took place.
After a tremendous tomato crop, which no one un- assisted could handle properly, and a glutted market, I was apparently amazed in the early autumn when I was one day presented with the tomato patch to do anything with I desired.
Now in my most fanciful reckoning I had not hoped for such speedy reward of my virtues; be- fore I knew it I had called the spot “ Kingdom Come,” and so the land, to which the lilies, iris and peonies were translated, has remained named from that time.
Now that I’ve given sage advice as to one way in which to obtain room for these aristocrats, I’ll beg you to buy plenty of lilies, even if it bankrupts you.
Auratums of every kind are marvelous, the red- banded and golden striped auratum pictum, the vittatum rubrum twelve inches across with a wide crimson band through each petal, and the Witte with gold streaked petals. One would think these lilies would have a hard job to live up to their
57
ers Pleke o Rlower toceden
tongue-twisting names, but they even overdo it. And their fragrance! It’s like I hope to smell in Paradise.
There is the Brownii, a Japanese lily which is much like the Bermuda lily of Easter fame only it has an under side of petal which looks like a brown suede glove. Other Nippon wonders are the Henryt which has rare orange-colored blossoms (which is, sad to say, $1.10 a bulb, but it’s worth it), and the Leichtlini Red, an orange red with crimson spots.
The speciosum Melpomene is particularly lovely, but unlike the proud awratums it hangs its head most demurely, and you have to lie on the ground to look up into its face.
The dear old-fashioned candidum, the Madonna or Annunciation lily, is one of my prime favorites.
The fine old tiger lily, with its honest freckled face, must not be forgotten. It is known to the growers as tigrinum simplex but it is the same reli- able lily in spite of its alias.
By saving all those black peas which appear se the flower stem above ground, and planting them in a spot well marked so you won’t forget and dig them up by mistake as I once did, you will after three
58
THE MOST DECORATIVE FORM IN
ALL THE FLOWER WORLD
ets Hobe Mover Garden
years have enough bulbs to start a nursery of tiger lilies.
I dig and move my auratums every fall. Perhaps it’s because I’m a nervous gardener, but I think it’s really because I once heard that auratums had a - habit of disappearing in the ground and I’m always consumed with curiosity to see if mine have done it. Thereby I discovered they have children (little girls all named Lily, I suppose), along their stems under ground. ‘These children I snatch as ruthlessly from their mothers as if they were chickens, placing them in the incubator ground about three inches deep. In two years they grow up, so in addition to the old mothers I have all the juvenile bulbs I want. It is most important never to permit manure to come in contact with the lily bulbs, so always place sand above and below them in planting.
Our lilies which are fall planted do better and bloom more freely than the spring planted ones. We place a winter mulching of rather fresh manure on the ground which is left undisturbed until after the noses are well above ground in the spring, when it is worked in only a few inches deep between the stems. The winter freezing robs the manure of its burning quality.
59
es Make @ FloSer Paces
Now for the Japanese iris; if you want to get those which are named Gekla-no-Nami, Sofu-no-Koi, Momijii-no-Taki, Ho-o-Jo, you may pay forty cents apiece for them; but if you are content to get mixed American grown roots, and shuffle the alphabet, naming them yourself, say, “ frost-on-landscape,”
* petulant sea,” you
** moon-dancing-on-milky-way, may obtain them for six dollars a hundred. We have the latter variety, personally christened. The only drawbacks to the Japanese irises are the misera- ble little heart worms (which really belong in corn), that insist on hiding in the sheaths of the buds, gnawing internally. The only thing to do for them is to watch and pray and murder. These irises will not do their best unless planted in a moist situation. Fortunately for me, “* Kingdom Come” has that celestial quality.
I hear that in Japan they actually flush water over the entire iris field just before flowering time, treating them almost as they do rice, but of course we can’t emulate this; and not even to obtain the Japanese perfection would I go to the trouble of watering.
The Spanish irises are much grown in England for cut flowers. They are the most poetical of all.
60
oy Toke co Hotere Gorden
Weird tones of bronze, barbaric gold, black, yellow, white and all shades of lavender and purple, give them an almost limitless palette.
I hesitate to tell you their price for fear they will decline in your estimation — unless you are like me; I always think, when I get anything at a great bar- gain, that I’ve accidentally found a treasure and that the poor dear salesman is being cheated, which gives an exquisite tinge of joy to the transaction. These irises are to be had in mixture for ten cents a dozen, thirty cents a hundred, two dollars and fifty cents a thousand — a thousand — think of that!
They are small bulbs which should be planted superficially — three or four inches deep. 'Tucked between and around the other irises they make all June lovely, then die down, effacing themselves until the following fall when they spring up, prematurely making ready for the next season.
The iris called ** German ”
is, strange to say, the model of the French design of fleur-de-lis. Though of very old lineage, many modern frills have been added to the original white and purple “flags ” of our grandfathers. I love them even more than the aristocratic hypenated Japanese ones, because they are not proud but will flourish all over the garden,
61
[Sts Make a FloSer Cymer
and they haven’t any “ varmints”; and above all, they have the most decorative form in all the flower world. |
I have often wondered why these irises are called “ flags.”” In wondering aloud to a Frenchman the other day I accidentally found why. It seems that in Normandy the chaumiére or thatched cottage is given a finish, a foot wide, of clay, extending the entire length of roof peak. This is primarily for the purpose of preventing leaks, but it serves, generally, the more charming purpose of making a roof garden, for along the entire length of this ridgepole of clay sod, over the thatch, are planted these irises. From the pinnacle of roof the flowers float in the breeze like flags. |
During my girlhood, in the south, I remember that many people pushed these flags out of their gardens, forcing the poor things to take up their neglected life on the edge of the dirt pavements in the dusty atmosphere of the big road. As I came home from school I would stop to gather a_ bunch lof their frosted, ethereally-scented, peculiarly feminine flowers, feeling a childish misgiving as to my taste in secretly adoring these despised and so-called com- mon things. Now that they may be had in lavender
62
heats Falce Ke) lower Keren
suffused with rose, yellow and maroon, white with lavender edge, and all shades of yellow and purple, they are prized and gloated over by gardeners. But for celestial purity, the white ones have never been surpassed.
These German irises increase so rapidly in root they must be given plenty of space in which to multi- ply. As they have a tendency toward pushing their roots to the surface of the ground, it is well to cover all exposed roots with extra soil. Divide every fourth year.
Owning peonies makes one feel very opulent be- cause the nurserymen charge so much for the roots one can never really afford them; a true sense. of wealth comes only through possessing things beyond our incomes, such as automobiles, rare editions of books and peonies. ‘Therefore, in view of their ex- pensiveness, I should advise as a first step toward peony possession, to make friends with somebody al- ready owning a lot, then do her some great service, such as saving her little dog’s life; and when the owner is pouring forth gratitude and exclaiming, * Oh! what can I ever do to show my appreciation? ” cast an eye on her peony stock, and say, ** Those
clumps need separating dreadfully. Jl come over p p g
63
Inds Make Q Flower Cows
to-morrow and help you do it, and perhaps you’ll give me a few.”
I’ve never owned a peony of the tree variety, but I’ve coveted all those which I’ve seen growing in other people’s gardens and I hope some day some of these good people will die and bequeath me one. They are by far the most magnificent of the peony family and grow to the size of shrubs.
When I get rich I’m going to own a Boule de Niege peony at $1.50 a root, and an Eduard André at $3 per root, and a Festiva Maxima, and feel just as its name sounds, for $2. But at present I only own many unchristened clumps of mysterious single and double ones, some of which I obtained for $6 a dozen, others for $7.50, and I had to borrow from my lord and master to own even these.
Peonies should always be planted in the fall. I believe many people do not know that they may be multiplied by very carefully bending down the new shoots after they have grown to a fair height in spring, covering the middle of shoot with earth and confining it in place with pegs. ‘The earth covered part will make a root of its own; the following fall cut the child from the mother plant and reset else-
where.
64
lore Eleke. @ Power Craeden
A heavy mulching of manure should be given the peonies in December, and this must not be disturbed until spring when all the inebriate-looking noses are far out of the ground; then draw the manure away carefully and work into the ground between clumps.
About every five years separate the clumps, or their roots will grow to look like Medusa’s hair, and if not separated the blooming will lessen until, after long neglect, it ceases entirely. The country method of putting down four stakes encased in an old barrel hoop is the best support for peonies, preventing the heavy flower heads from becoming earth soiled.
65
RSo*s
ha
Sa a BN
NANO vey vy Na
Nea Monae!
VO
VER since I was a little girl I’ve hoped each spring some nice old uncle from India would send me fifty dollars accompanied by a gruesome threat, such as: ‘‘ If you use one cent of this money for anything but roses, the first night the east wind blows, a blackbird will come along and nip off your nose!” But as it hasn’t really happened yet, Ii. have to pretend along the last part of April or first of May that it is about to happen, and start to work with pencil and greediness to select the fifty dollars’ worth. As the days go by, merging joyous make- believe into saddening reality, my list is lopped, rose by rose, until some desperate night I finally make a neat list of the can’t-possibly-be-lived-without roses (numbering perhaps only fifteen) and meekly send it off to the rosarian. Tt is so hard to advise another just what roses to
69
Lets Make w Hlo@er Coerden
get, because my list of irresistible ones grows each year; and then the rose growers have been so gener- ous in sending me unlabelled gift roses. It so hap- pens now some of my loveliest roses’? real names are unknown to me; they’ve had to attain names as best they might. For instance, that delicate pinky- white climber with the great loose clusters, having the odor of frankincense and myrrh, is known to us as the “ horse-bitten rose,” but to you that name would not be enlightening.
And the men who label the roses — surely the per- fume goes to their heads, for how often they mix the labels!) ‘There was that Viscountess Folkestone I ordered for the sake of “ Elizabeth of the German ~Garden.”” When it bloomed the flowers were of the most tantalizing shades of orange, shell pink, gold and flame —in short, compressed sunsets.
Prizing her so highly I of course smothered her to death with winter flannels and in my anxiety un- dressed her first of all in the spring. She did look rather haggard, still I hoped to love her back to health, but by May she was a wizened mummy. I immediately ordered another Viscountess Folkestone in memory of the deceased. The new one grew, thrived, and bloomed — bloomed a well-bred, insipid
70
[ets Heke @ Flower eden
pink and white, showing not one trace of relationship with the dazzling dead dowager. Of course we all have reminiscent reasons for wanting certain roses, and, if you are like me, you'll keep on trying Marechal Niel and Fortune’s Yellow, even though geography prohibits, and zero browbeats you.
One of my rose prides is the Cherokee which I have teased through three winters now, because of the great wild hedges I remember along the highways in the south. Each winter I lighten its protection, as I have a theory that if you can persuade a delicate rose to survive several northern winters it grows hardier, following out nature’s old law of adaptation to circumstance.
Suppose we pretend together that the old uncle from India has stingily sent us only $9.25 instead of the expected $50 to spend on roses, and make the best of it. Out of that amount we'll have to get hybrid perpetuals, hybrid teas, plain teas, and climb- ers — and feel thankful all at the same time.
The hybrid perpetuals, you know, are the per- fectly hardy, stand-any-old-sort-of-thing roses, and are supposed to only bloom in June, though mine bloom spasmodically all through the following months, because after each flowering I cut the branch
ye
[ets Make @Q Flower Crerden
that has flowered almost back to the original stalk; then it puts out new shoots which generally blos- som. |
The hybrid teas are teas which have a hybrid per- petual ancestor on one side, and will stand through a northern winter, with protection. They are per- petual joys, blooming constantly until November. We'll have to blow ourselves to the hybrid teas even if it means economizing on the hybrid perpetuals. The tea roses —if you live in the north—are the ones you'll keep on trying for sentimental reasons, association, or sheer bravado, because they are not hardy here. But they are the most florescent and are very beautiful, so we'll have to indulge in a few for luxury; and by getting two-year-old plants we shall be generously rewarded this season anyway. The climbers we shall purchase will be of the rambler and wichuraiana varicties.
Now that we know all about the kinds we shall have, here goes for the choosing.
If we could have only one hybrid perpetual, I’d beg for Gloire Lyonnaise. Its blossoms are sumptu- ously beautiful in form, and of a golden-white shade. The foliage is very distinguished and is unpopular with insects.
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[dss Make Q FloWer CAGE es
Soliel d’Or is the most spectacular rose
au mingling of peach, marigold and flame. Given great richness of fare, the bush will grow to prodigious size.
A splendid velvety, reddish-black rose is the Prince Camille de Rohan.
With Mrs. John Laing — that exquisite pink — we shall have a white, a pink, a red and a yellow. And hurrah! we haven’t a Jacqueminot — which is a good enough rose, but so ubiquitous it reminds me of a rebuke my old negro mammy gave me on a visit up north, when I directed her gaze skyward one night. ‘*Go ’long, chile; I kin see dat ole moon at
home any time I wants to,”
she grumbled.
If you know roses at all, and I said, “‘ Guess which hybrid tea I’ll mention first,” I wager you'd say, ** Killarney.”
Well, you’re right. It’s the Irish queen I’d be pining for first of all. In bud it is perfection; when open, it “*spreads and spreads till its heart lies bare.” Even each fallen petal is a poem — a deep, pink shallop with prow of gold.
Bessie Brown is so dignified, pallid and austere that she is known as Elizabeth in my garden.
The Kaiserin Augusta Victoria has a Teutonic
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Kets Moke a Mover Crarden
hardiness, and carries her cream-white flower head high and regally.
Souvenir de President Carnot has a feminine blush, but a masculine lustiness of vigor.
Wellesley gives us a delicious shade of pink. Here we have two pinks, and we haven’t any red at all; how could I have forgotten that giant J. B. Clark, when he has grown to nine feet in height try- ing to woo my Dorothy Perkins? He is the reddest, healthiest, tallest man-rose in my garden.
For yellow we will choose the Maman Cochet of that color.
Now that we have reached the plain tea roses, I’m glad to begin with one that has proved almost as hardy with me as a hybrid tea — that is the Coquette de Lyon, which is a lemon yellow and _ positively wears itself out blooming.
The Souvenir de Malmaison is, strictly speaking, a Bourbon, but we'll let it be a tea for our purposes. Shall we try it? It is so lovely with its shell pink tones; with especial care we may: be able to winter tt.
Of course we can’t possibly do without that fragile creature, the Duchess de Brabant. Such silky tex-
rc:
“THE HORSE-BITTEN ROSE ”’
Ids Hake Q loSer Cacden
ture and delicate pinkness of cheek has she, I some- times find myself kissing her before [I think.
* Citron red with amber and fawn shading,” says the rose catalogue of Souvenir de Victor Hugo — nobody could resist that. It is all that is sung of it and more, for they did not mention its fragrance.
Isabelle Sprunt is another yellow lady of great florescence. Strange, it is so much easier to get yel- lows in the teas, and yellow seems to go with frail- ness of constitution. But I’ve chosen only the teas which have proven hardiest with me, and those I can brag of having wintered a few times.
For pure recklessness, let’s buy the Golden Gate, simply because we can’t resist its adorable blending of pale gold and rose.
Another extravagance will be the Sunset, which we will be satisfied to entertain this one summer for its topaz and ruby beauty.
Here we are to climbers, and I find Lynch’s hybrid first at the tip of my pen. Wherever you live, you may one day see a strange rose branch looking over your fence, and I'll just tell you now, so you will know, it will be my Lynch’s hybrid. Not content with spreading in every direction, over all neighbor-
75
Weds Flake @Q lower a es
ing roses, I’m sure it will soon ignore garden bounds and become a wandering minstrel. I permit: its branches to grow six or ten feet, then drape them over to adjacent arches and neighboring rose poles. This has happened so often now that when the Lynch’s hybrid blooms, there are ropes and ropes of roses swinging in every direction from the original trellis, and like the lady’s elbow in the “ Mikado ”— “people come ‘miles to. see it.” Tt is) \ofmene wichuratana family and blooms only in June, but it blooms all of June. Its clusters are composed of many perfect, fairylike roses of pink, paling to white.
Of the wichuraianas my next favorite is the Ever- green Gem. Its blossoms are not in clusters, but each rose comes in an edition-de-luxe. Of a pale yellow with apricot tones, the color of the flower is enough to recommend it, but shut your eyes and whiff its perfume and [ll wager you'll say: “ Ripe apple.” The Evergreen Gem prefers to sprawl on the ground, and delights in covering stone terraces, though it can be trained up, just as a monkey can be taught manshines,— but what’s the use?
Manda’s ‘Triumph (white) and Lady Gay (cherry pink) we must have. Of course I can’t re-
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Rs Make a Flower Gorden
sist ending with Dorothy Perkins, but to praise its well-known charms would use up needless type. I'll only say, save all the cuttings of the first Dorothy you plant, so you will have at least a thousand to comfort you, when you’ve grown old.
Now we'll count up our list and put the roses down sensibly in line, so we may see both what we have
and what we have spent.
HYBRID PERPETUALS
Gloire Lyonnaisé,, larger size......-..4.....- $ .20 Bevel) Or, bwoO-year-Old cc im. o.. oie es eas .60 Prince Camille de Rohan, larger size......... .20 Mrs. John Tame, larger size.)s ii... 2 2/2. 4 20
HYBRID TEAS
iSdlarney, Vareer ‘size... 5 se a eM IA 30 Bessie ‘Brown, larger size 7/2/66 bsj0ies= Hie oss = a. Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, larger size........ 20 Souvenir de President Carnot, larger size..... 20 Riretlestey, \deurmer Sizes 7 iy areca te. Ashe tel ape clans 30 probe lerlc, ear erer SIZE feo cr aye AL ono) Ua daisp so eae 2 40 Yellow Maman Cochet, larger size........... 25
T7
[ets Make a Hover Craden
TEAS
Coquette: de Iiyon, two-year-old... 0). ..!. ot
Souvenir de Malmaison (Bourbon) two-year-old
Duchess de Brabant, two-year-old........... Souvenir de Victor Hugo, two-year-old...... Isabelle Sprunt, two-year-old. . (2). 0. 22) ae
Golden Gate, Be Na Termin cogtek hau ee alr one ee
Sunset, SME GRRE ME ay calye ieal SBiese 9h
CLIMBERS
Lynch’s Hybrid (Wichuraiana) two-year-old. . Evergreen Gem, i ? Foc
Manda’s Triumph ~” ‘i app eaale eae Lady Gay (Rambler) two-year-old..........
Dorothy Perkins (Rambler) two-year-old....
$7.50
So after all we haven’t used up all the $9.25; you
may either change “ larger size” to “* two-year-old ”
or you may spend the surplus on that dream-shat-
terer I see advertised on the back of the last year’s
rose catalogues.
The discovery of the North Pole was the most
78
eee Hale Mla ter Crarden
awful blow ever dealt the human imagination; it left poor disillusionized mortals but one realm to dream about —** The Blue-Rose Country.”
And now, alas! and alas! they’ve robbed us even of that. With the accompaniment of brass band and fireworks the rosarians announced the greatest achievement of the centuries, the materialization of the long sought blue rose. And that it should have happened so soon after the polar calamity and the advent of the sky prowlers — Oh! it is too much to bear with fortitude.
As I said, you may spend that surplus on the blue rose if you feel so disposed, but I— no; far be it from me to erase a time-honored phrase from litera- ture, and destroy that haleyon land where my fancy may stray when jaded by the banality of man’s dis- coveries. ,
But to go back to the subject of our expenditures ; just think, an ordinary bunch of roses you’d buy at the florist’s to send your sweetheart (if you’re a man), or your sweetheart would send you (if you’re a woman) might cost more than all our old miserly uncle has sent us — and the bouquet from the florist’s would be withered and thrown out in a week, while
here we’re starting a rose garden for the grandchil-
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(ols Fabs a Ploter (den
dren of that sweetheart to enjoy years and years from now.
And when we begin our rose garden we'll begin it right —no superficial digging, and sticking in any old way, of these precious plants. No; we'll lay our garden out first with a ball of twine tied to a stick, either informally or improvising as we go, in some private, original design which expresses us, not our neighbor.
Then we will have it all dug as deep as we, by strategy and beguilement, can lure some man to dig and yet live after. When it is all dug, then mark out the individual holes, leaving generous space be- tween the hybrid perpetuals because they grow to be such big fellows, and don’t forget to give Mr. J. B. Clark plenty of courting room.
The hybrid teas need less space, generally speak- ing, while the teas may be planted about a foot apart.
Save a climber to cover the arch (designed by yourself, not a store bought one) at the entrance to your rose garden, and trail the others over your paths in spots, where one will perhaps have to stoop a little when passing under blossoming branches, to find new beauty on the other side.
80
ets Malce Q Mloter Carlen
Each hole must be twenty inches deep; take out all the old every-day soil, and put a little coal ashes in the bottom for drainage. If you have a compost pile, mix compost and well rotted cow manure, filling half the hole with the mixture. Sprinkle this with the plain soil, then place the sacred bush in the hole, spreading the roots in the direction they naturally take. Cover the roots with more bed soil, then press gently, gently, until the plant is firm; now pour in water from which the chill has been taken, until the hole is almost full, letting it soak in gradually ; then put compost and cow manure until it is higher than surrounding ground. Plant your feet firmly but not disrespectfully on the sur- face of the hole, packing it down around the rose bush, which you meantime hold in upright position.
As a finality draw the bed soil up loosely about the stem of the rose, leaving the surface quite dry so the sun may have no chance to bake or broil.
If you’ve done properly all this simple yet seem- ingly complex business, you need never water your rose again!
When the bushes are in the blooming stage, trim back severely all branches which have flowered, al- ways trimming so as to leave an eye on the outside
81
Inds Moke mo HloWer Ceara:
of the branch. Don’t be afraid of cutting too much. The courageous rose surgeon is the one who gets the largest fees in flowers.
If you have done enough trimming along through the summer blooming months, there will be no neces- sity for any trimming in the fall, except to cut out dead branches. ‘Then, too, when you think of the cold that’s coming, and the struggle the poor things will have to go through during the winter, to trim them at this perilous time would be as mean as to strike a man when he’s down. In mid-April prune all blackened ends and weak branches.
Some of your hybrid teas may look absolutely dead, but don’t hold funeral services over them yet. Trim these apparently defunct bushes down to within two inches of the ground, and shortly you will be rejoiced to see red nosed sprouts peeping through the ground — shoots from the rose-roots which gen- erally survive.
If you don’t own a compost pile do begin one to- day. Even a weed becomes valuable when pulled up and thrown on the compost pile. Contribute all dead blossoms, weedings, trimmings, garden rubbish, Jeaves, manure rakings, and even some garbage and dish water, if you can persuade the kitchen queen
82
[dss Hake @Q loGer aeden
to donate these valuables to your pile. Place the compost far enough from the house, so you won’t bother about the sanitary problem, and every few weeks spade a few shovelfuls of earth over the whole pile. After a year’s mellowing you will have some- thing more valuable than manure to work into your rose beds. )
Dig continually about the roses, with pronged spade, being careful not to tear the roots. The soil should always be kept loose if you would be spared the bugbear of watering. Mulch with lawn clip- pings, spading old supply under when the fresh is ready. Spray once a week with a water made foamy by tobacco and sulphur soap. You will not van- quish the insects — no, not in this world, but even abating them is a human triumph.
About the middle of November purchase rye straw in bundles and after tying your rose bushes gently to a firm stake, sheathe the straw about the hybrid teas and plain teas, not too tightly, tying in about three places. The hybrid perpetuals may go nude all winter. ‘Take a trip to the West Indies or Sicily about the middle of March so you may avoid the un- conquerable temptation to uncover your roses too soon. Return about the second week of April, dis-
83
le *s Make a lower Cracden
robe your plants and — live happily ever after all summer.
You will realize, of course, that raising roses is not eating ice cream and cake. Believe me, the rose grower cannot be either a fool man or a lazy lady.
It’s so hard to write plain, practical facts about roses. ‘l’o write of them properly one would irresist- ibly commit a sonnet. When you pick your first great basketful some very dewy morning next June, please place them in an old blue bowl, for my sake (and the sake of our Indian uncle, whom we had al- most forgotten).
Cher POose@)
7 h
Tt a ne NAAT PACHA ye" yy Ararat lh
eet
OSES more than any other flower excuse the
formal garden; in fact by their stateliness and pride, they seem to demand an exclusive spot laid out in beds of beautiful line.
A rose garden enclosed by a hedge really seems the ideal, yet a hedge is such a hungry thing it gen- erally eats all the richness of the neighboring soil, and roses need all the undivided food there is to be had.
If you desire a hedge, though, you can have the most beautiful, appropriate and impenetrable one made of rugosa roses—the Sir Thomas Lipton (white), Rosa Rugosa (red) and New Century (pink). )
These planted a foot apart will by their vigor- ous growth in two years make a hedge which neither small boy nor animal can penetrate. ‘They are per-
87
Fey Make a Clever Cola
fectly hardy, needing no winter protection; their single blossoms are rarely beautiful and their red pips look very gay in winter.
For the design of the rose garden it always seems safe to begin with a centre circle, then one can hardly go wrong; paths leading from the circle at right and left angles suggest themselves readily, cutting the re- maining spaces into attractive slices of earth pie, both narrow and fat. —
At the top of my rose garden, facing east, I placed the red bed on the right, the white one on the left; at the bottom of the garden, the yellow bed on the right, the pink on the left. The centre circular bed is not planted with roses at all, but filled with tulips, hyacinths, narcissi, and crocuses to divert the eye in spring while the roses are getting their June trousseaus ready. Later on this bed is filled with an all-summer bloom by gay little Phlox Drummondi, bordered by the blue dwarf ageratwm.
The rose garden extension belonging to the garden partner has now grown to greater dimensions than my original rose kingdom —a proof of the wiles of woman.
This annex consists of two long outer beds the length of the entire rose domain, with two shorter
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inner beds flanked by short crosswise beds at each end. Thus our rose garden has a very hybrid com- position which really looks much prettier on ground than it does on paper.
The chief advantage of the plan is not so much in its unique landscape gardening as in the many chances it gives for arches at the meeting of paths; at each of these places we have climbing roses which make an almost continuous canopy over the head when one strolls around.
There are places for thirty-six climbers and these quite hide the design of the kingdom except when we stand on the tree-covered hill to the east of the - garden. ‘These trees give a partial shade which pro- tects the roses from the sun’s greatest heat, while they are still far enough removed so their roots can- not rob the garden of its strength.
For the white climbers there are the White Rambler and White Star; for the pink, Lynch’s hybrid, Dorothy Perkins, Baltimore Belle (an old-fashioned rose), Lady Gay and Débutante.
There are fortunately several beautiful yellow climbers including Keystone, Evergreen Gem (which will climb if forced to) and Aglaia (the yellow rambler). The red is supplied by the Empress of
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China (generally known as the Apple-blossom rose), and red Memorial Queen and Hiawatha (a beautiful single crimson with pure white eye).
To have a blooming success with climbers neces- sitates careful pruning, which means first owning a pair of thorn-proof gloves, the sharpest of pruning shears, and a stepladder.
Immediately after the blooming season of such climbers as Dorothy Perkins, White Rambler, etc., which only have their one great yearly fling, it is important to cut away all the old wood on which this wealth of bloom has occurred; this is no small job and requires much callousness of heart, for it often means taking away over half the vine.
We are, however, soon repaid by the prodigious new growth which immediately shoots up from the roots, more than taking the place of all removed. It is on these new branches that next season’s blos- soms will appear. We save all we can from the trim- mings for cuttings.
From one thriving Dorothy Perkins you may in two years get enough sons to have a standing army of Perkins guarding your entire dynasty.
As to the best mode of treating cuttings I am go- ing to quote from my mother’s old garden book,
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“The Southern Florist,’ published way back in 1860.
“The cuttings should be from four to six inches long according to the thickness of stem. Cut with a very sharp knife below the lower bud (or eye), commencing on the side opposite that bud, and slant- ing downward. In choosing a situation for the cut- ting plantation select the north side of house or fence. Make the soil, as far as the cuttings reach, of pure sand, the cleaner the better. Thrust a garden trowel down slanting, in order that the cut- ting may lean toward the south; insert the cutting so that the bud next to the top bud will be just under the surface of soil, turning the upper bud to the north.
* Holding the cutting with left hand, thrust in the trowel on the north of cutting, and prize it while in the ground against the cutting; this will pack the sand tightly against cutting. Withdrawing the trowel, fill in gap with ordinary earth.
* Plant the row of cuttings from east to west, six inches apart. Scatter charcoal dust around them, then cover with short straw being careful to leave the ends of cuttings uncovered. Water every _ evening after sundown until the cuttings show signs
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of growth. After they begin to send out shoots, se- lect the one of most vigorous growth cutting off all other shoots as they appear. Transplant when one year old.”
There is another way in which you may also greatly multiply your roses; take one of the new long shocts of either climber or bush rose, and bend down care- fully ; at mid-length the branch, scrape away about an inch of the green bark on the under side of branch; bury this under three inches of soil, then place a stone on top to hold the branch firmly under ground. This will leave about a foot or more of branch be- yond the stone. ‘The scraped portion will send down roots of its own, and as the branch still draws its nourishment from the parent bush, it does not have to depend on its own tender roots for sustenance.
When the new roots are firmly established, cut with sharp knife immediately beyond them on the mother end of branch, and you then have a new vine of even larger size and greater vigor than two-year- old purchased roses.
So many people have said to me, “* We would like to have rose gardens but we don’t know what kind of roses to order, nor which ones to choose from the thousands offered in catalogues.”
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As in the case of all the rest of this book, I am not writing for the professional who knows much more than I, but for other garden lovers and strug- gling amateurs like myself whom I hope to help a little by what I have found out by my own personal association with the flowers. The names of roses which I give are those which I have grown success- fully and found beautiful.
The hybrid perpetuals are hardy in any reason- able latitude and need no protection whatever.
The hybrid teas which I shall mention we have managed to save through our severe winters by straw covering, sheath-gown style, permitting the air to circulate about the limbs.
Of the hybrid teas, there are Betty (a relative of the Killarney), which is copper and rose; Joseph Hill, salmon gold and pink; the scarlet Richmond, so popular as a cut flower; Peggy, a yellow with red- dish blush; Queen Beatrice, a wonderful pink, and a rose for the control of which one rosarian paid thirty thousand dollars; Dean Hole, a salmon shaded with carmine; Virginia R. Coxe, one of the best crimsons; an entire set of the Cochet roses; Etoile | de France, crimson; Franz Deegan, a rich orange; La France, which of course everyone knows; the
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White La France (Augustine Guinoisseau ) ; Madame Abel Chateney, a carmine which is unusually hardy ; Madame Jules Grolez, cherry red.
The hybrid perpetuals are: Baroness Rothschilds, pink; Anne de Diesbach, carmine; Captain Christy, pink; Glory of the Exposition of Brussels, blackish red; Jean Liabaud, another deep red; Giant of Bat- tles, a light crimson of peculiarly old timey fra- grance; Mrs. R. G. Sharman Crawford, a_ gold- medalled pink; Margaret Dickson, a white of loveliest form; the reliable old white Madame Plantier; the well-known pink Paul Neyron; Ulrich Brunner, red (of great beauty of bud); and last of all Gloire Lyonnaise, the most beautiful rose in our garden.
Our one garden extravagance is ordering new two- year-old teas each spring to take the place of winter- killed ones, for the tea is not hardy north of New York.
The most beautiful ones we have tried so far are: Enfant de Lyon, rosy cream with copper tints; Devoniensis, cream with pinkish centre (a great fa- vorite in the south); Souvenir de Pierre Notting, apricot blended with rose; Helen Good, pale yellow and rose; Marie Lambert, cream white; Marie van Houtte, cream tinged with lemon; Papa Gontier,
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crimson; Safrano, yellow, with shadings of orange and fawn; Sunrise, which has all the tones of its name; the Bride, one of the purest white roses; Bridesmaid, dark pink; Duchess de Brabant, which I have lauded in the preceding chapter; and For- tune’s Yellow, sulphur which shows copper tints as the days grow chilly in fall.
Almost all rose catalogues warn one against pur- chasing the monster dormant roses offered for $1.25 a dozen by many department stores, as they declare them to be worn-out roses which have been forced by florists for cut flowers and then thrown out by them when superannuated. The catalogues also further declare these cheap roses to be budded on Holland stock, the budded part of which will in a short time die, while only suckers from the original stock will be left on your hands. In justice to those rose phi- lanthropists, the department store keepers, I feel it is only fair I should refute the catalogue scandal. The majority of the large dormant bushes offered are hybrid perpetuals and these roses are seldom, if ever, used by florists for cut flowers — teas and hy- brid teas furnish the roses handled by them.
With three dozen department store roses I started my original stock of hybrid perpetuals and they have
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positively proven the largest, healthiest, most re- lable roses in my garden.
They were purchased and planted in early spring and bloomed heavily the first summer. In the four years since their planting only one bush has shown signs of suckering, and after amputating those shoots a few times they grew discouraged and ceased to appear.
It is very important to soak these dormant roses in a tub of water for a few days, as they are apt to be a bit dry from long continuance out of ground. Then trim with sharp knife all bruised, wilted, or torn portions of roots, and all darkened ends of branches.
For quick results I most gleefully recommend them to all beginners who wish their rose garden to look fully grown the first season, and to be filled with bloom all June. The only thing I can say against them is that they do not always turn out to be what their labels declare; but so long as they are beautiful IT don’t mind. When a dozen women, all having rose hysteria at once, begin to claw and dispute over clumps of roses in a department store’s damp cellar, it would be a miracle indeed if the poor roses could hang on to their own names.
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At present we have altogether over three hundred roses of all. kinds, but we are by no means satisfied ; once started on the downward path of rose idolatry there is no limit to one’s excesses. I keep on inviting to my garden new roses to which T’ve never been formally. introduced, thereby making new friends each season.
I suppose you have noticed that in all these pages I have not mentioned the Crimson Rambler. I hope you hate it as I do. It is the most diseased, bug- infested, shabby, mildewed, common rose in the world. Our one Crimson Rambler has been sent to our “ penal colony.”
It’s a good scheme to have a penal colony in the garden; take some miserable spot — not the Sahara desert, but first cousin to it, and there deport flowers which misbehave, cause scandals, are hopelessly dis- eased, or persist in dressing in magenta. It’s a soul satisfying way of committing euthanasia. I’m such a floral coward I can’t kill a flower outright, but if I put it in the penal colony and it dies — well, I’m not to blame, and the flower is probably happier. At present we have banished to this spot a very snarly rose brought me by a neighbor, some disorderly rockets, magenta hardy phlox, orange day lilies, a
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hideous green rose some mistaken rosarian sent me (I suppose as a curiosity), and our abhorred Crim- son Rambler.
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Bulls.
CURIOUS quality of flowers is that whichever
one you are talking about, planting, or holding
in your hand, that flower for the time being seems the sweetest in the world.
When I was writing of roses at such happy length I thought, “ Surely this is the loveliest of all sub- jects,” yet here I am thinking the same of bulbs, and I haven’t the decency to even feel disloyal or fickle.
When we plant the bulbs in autumn we are a bit gorged with the fanfare of annuals and perennials, and it’s such an utter change to turn the thoughts to crocuses and hyacinths.
Then later on, in March, when the mind is thaw- ing after winter chill, we are so flower hungry and
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impatient we feel we can never wait for the days to grow warm enough to remove our roses’ winter flannels — then all of a sudden one day we stumble on the white cup of a crocus, and straightway we forget the roses and our impatience, and spend each day hunting for another and another crocus, until all of a sudden the whole lawn is dappled with lavender, white and gold.
Then still a little later, our hearts are chiming in tune to the hyacinth bells, we sip mental nectar from the tulip chalice, and whiff the fragrance of the nar- cissus, and fall in love with life all over again.
For the overture preceding the real opera of spring we must engage thousands of crocus musicians, and in order to be ahead of other garden impresarios we should get our order in before July 1st, for these and all other bulbs.
We can afford many crocuses for in mixed colors they are to be had for three dollars and fifty cents a thousand. (I always like to think in thousands, es- pecially where flowers are concerned.) To insure having lots of early spring sunshine scattered over the lawn we should have a generous supply of the giant yellow ones.
As soon as they arrive in the fall we will shave
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the lawn so we may start with a clear field, then taking an apronful of crocuses stand in the centre of the lawn and make believe we are merry-go-rounds, spinning about in circles, tossing the bulbs as we whirl. This distributes them in a more impromptu, artistic and natural manner than we could ever delib- erately plan.
The grass being clipped close it is easy to see the small bulbs; then it is only a matter of sharpening a stick with which to punch the holes. Starting at one end of the lawn go back and forth on all fours, making a jab in the grass three inches deep with stick, then push the crocuses in just where they have fallen. But do be sure to notice first which is the head and which the tail of the crocus, for it would be horrible to make them stand on their heads all winter.
If you have a few dozen left over, use them to border a bed of tulips or hyacinths, then save out a few, say fourteen, and walk into the garden, shut your eyes and stick them in any old place, just for a private surprise next spring.
I am a great believer in getting mixed things, be- cause one can always get them cheaper, and besides, one thereby chances to get many beautiful varieties
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one would otherwise miss; therefore I always get mixed hyacinths, which are to be had for three dollars a hundred (single) and four dollars a hundred (dou- ble). For some especially fine place, say the cen- tre circular bed of the rose garden, please get a dozen single light blue Lord Byron, which have the most gigantic spikes of flowers. Next in beauty is the salmon pink Cavaignac.
For spirituelle beauty there are the precious little Roman hyacinths. Other remarkably beautiful kinds are the Buff Beauty; La Plaie d’Or, a pale yellow; Daylight, an orange; Maria Cornelia, the earliest light pink; Hein Roozen, a very large white; La Vic- toire, the most brilliant red, and Sir Henry Barclay, which is so dark it might almost be called the black hyacinth.
These in addition to the many colors to be found in the cheaper mixed ones will give a wonderful col- lection. After the third year dig and separate the bulbs, then make the bulb beds exceedingly rich with fully decayed manure. }
Have plenty of sand ready for the replanting, for in the case of all bulbs it is most necessary to incase them in sand, both for drainage and to prevent the manure rotting them by accidental contact.
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Replant the larger bulbs in the beds made ready in the garden proper, then take all the wee children to an especial nursery prepared for them in the vege- table garden; by the following season they will be sufficiently grown to be permitted to make their dé- but, when they should bloom, even though modestly.
The most exciting of all tulips is the Gesneriana spathulata — not because of its spectacular name, but because of its history and its transcendent beauty. This is the tulip which turned the Holland- ers quite mad — for all those phlegmatic eaters of three hundred and sixty-five cold, hard-boiled eggs a year, sold or mortgaged all their terrestrial posses- sions to gamble in the Gesneriana stock.
One bulb sometimes brought —I forget just what, but it went way up into the thousand dollars some- where ; and Gesneriana was even quoted regularly on the London stock exchange, as if it were a gold mine, or transcontinental railroad.
When the corner in Gesneriana broke, thousands of
Dutchmen ‘
‘went broke ” too, and as great a panic spread through the land as if the dikes had all broken. No wonder the spathulata holds its head so high with such a history as this. It stands on a stem twenty-four inches high, and is of the clearest
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scarlet, with a glittering eye of peacock blue. To look at it in the midday sun makes the head reel. From thousands of dollars for a single bulb, in the heyday of their infancy, they have become so reason- able anyone may have them to-day for the meek sum of one dollar and seventy-five cents a hundred. And yet they speak of the good old days! There are also other Gesnerianas, including a yellow, and a white edged with pink.
For the “dead queer” tulips, take the Bizarres, which look as if they were Easter eggs colored by a freakish child who dribbed the color on instead of dipping the egg in the dye. Of these the prettiest are the Violettes, which are marbled purple and white.
The Parrot tulips are equally strange, if not more queer than the Bizarres. ‘They are most appropri- ately named, for their color is plagiarized from the parrot’s own feathers. Not content with possessing such weird, birdlike tints, these tulips grow just as queerly as they can, flinging their blossoms at every grotesque angle, never standing upright like any other sensible tulip. But although they are as lack- ing in mentality as the parrot itself, they are yet among the most desirous of all their family, and
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AND THE
LIPS Cre
TALL SINGLE TU
ARROTS
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their fantastic beauty may be added to the garden | for a very modest sum.
The double tulips of long ago were despised, and perhaps rightly so, but such improvements have been made in them, that now many quite rival the peony in beauty and size.
The Boule de Neige is the largest double white; other fine types are Brimstone Beauty, a rosy yellow; the Tournesol, a wonderful yellow; Raphael, largest pink; and Vuurbaak, vermilion; these are all early blooming.
Of the late double ones, blooming in May, the best we've tried are Yellow Rose, gold colored; La Belle Alliance, a feathery white and blue; and Blue Flag, purplish-blue.
If you are a greedy lover of tulips, you will prob- ably want a hundred of the extra fine single ones, which can make you feel like a multi-millionaire at an outlay of only one dollar. It is well to order an equal quantity of both late and early kinds to extend the tulip festival even into early June.
The tulips form their progeny under the old bulb, and if these children are not removed every third year the old bulb becomes so weakened the bloom will
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often cease. The small bulbs should be treated just hike the hyacinth juniors.
It is best to make all bulb beds higher in the mid- dle, so the water is easily shed and does not stand to freeze too much in winter. We mulch with ma- nure in December, then cover with litter such as the lopped-off stalks of chrysanthemums and the other perennials.
Of all the narcissus family my favorite is the Poet’s, with its pheasant eye.
One pleasant thing about the narcissi is that they do not positively need redigging so often as other bulbs, yet to obtain greatest florescence I remove those in beds every five years. If they are naturalized on the banks of lawn or stream, they should of course remain undisturbed. The imperative thing, as in the case of all other bulbs, is not to cut them down before the foliage is quite yellow which denotes the full ma- turity of the bulb.
The Paper White narcissus, so popular as a cut flower, is not considered hardy for outdoor culture in cold climates, yet I have succeeded in growing them in the garden by covering very deep with manure, then putting evergreens over that and placing boards tight together over the boughs. The boards are not
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removed until April, and the evergreens not until I find the noses are above ground.
As you’ve probably often heard, it is not the freez- ing which kills things but the thawing, so all winter covering and mulching is for the purpose of protec- tion from the sun, not the snow and ice.
Other beautiful narcissi are the double Poet’s, alba plena odorata; orange Phoenix, double white and orange; Barri Maurice Vilmorin, cream white with red cup; and Burbidgii Falstaff, white with lemon yellow cup.
The Emperor daffodil, Von Sion and Welsh daffo- dil (the Incomparabilis Sir Watkins) are the best we have grown. Of the smaller bulbs, Chionodowxa gi- gantea and Scilla campanulata caerulea furnish us with light and dark tones of blue. The Scilla Si- birica (sky-blue) blooms at the same time as that lovely forerunner of the spring, the snowdrop.
Some hoar March morning we will be awakened by the wee groping chirp of a robin threading the darkness; though the thermometer may have regis- tered only twenty degrees above zero the day before, all material proofs of winter are forgotten. It had not occurred to us the day before to search for a flower in the hostile out-of-doors, but to-day, with
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a note of gold still sounding in the ear and heart, we dance over the snow, stoop, and confidently brush it aside, expecting not a miracle — only the fulfil- ment of the robin’s prophecy. Sure enough, there before us, awakening from its bed of white, is the still drowsy head of the snowdrop — small bell-like head, whose tinkle is only to be heard by the fairies and the friends of the fairies.
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“Thewild Tesees
We t
Ne
<e $8
ee
e re
ld Flowers
CAN never be thankful enough that nature be-
gan the trees of our Wilderness garden annex
= SS
so many years before we ourselves were planned. Here we found, ready-made, great pines, large and small hemlocks, Italian-like cedars, birches draped with wild grapevine, poplars, sumach and _bitter- sweet. Under these were treasures of columbine, hepatica, violets and bloodroot. It seems almost a necessity to have a natural stage setting of matured and half-grown trees for a garden, for perfunctory beds of casual flowers do not constitute a garden. Then, too, the arrangement, composition of Nature, is almost infallible — Whistler to the contrary. Study a bit of wild brushwood or sequestered forest, then go home in chastened spirit to try to humbly follow out the natural. Notice how the goldenrod and purple aster intermingle. Could anything be better art? 113
Kets Moke a Flo®er Garden
In the middle break in our Wilderness — the Inter- mezzo, so to speak — we have made a great irregular mass of dozens of goldenrod, dozens of wild purple asters, sneeze-weeds, black-eyed Susans and ferns, with a border of hepatica for early spring praise. It is our greatest gardening achievement. Purple and gold, gold and purple—even the words are magical.
With the blue-green pines before and behind, the blue sky overhead, and the green grass and pine- needled ground leading up to the purple and gold, it is sheer poetry.
Then take the bank near it, sloping from pine, birch and poplars down to the country road, what more appropriate flower for this spot than the dande- lion? Pick a dandelion reverently, study it care- fully — was there ever greater perfection of form, more embodied sunlight? In its ghost stage it reaches the spiritual.
Walk through a shadow-dim forest and arrive sud- denly upon a clump of blooming rhododendron, it takes the breath away with its unpremeditated won- der. That is the element we need to achieve through- out all our garden, the unexpected. A dear old lady trailed after me through our Wilderness and after
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DANDELION
THE
TiES
i= DM _ ~— — _— rh \—
IN ITS
SPIRITUAL
‘
THE
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she had breathed ** Oh!” innumerable times over sud- denly revealed beauty, she said, “ Your garden is the Garden of Surprise.” If you have a clump of evergreens, let the path wind sinuously through, bringing you out suddenly on, say, a clump of shim- mering white mountain laurel, and I assure you it will make you gasp with delight.
A very little girl once visited our garden and afterward begged her mother to take her back to “the place of the many little paths.”
We haven’t a broad walk in the Wilderness, be- cause to begin with we only had trails, half-hidden paths where we had to push through tangles to find some beautiful spot; so the paths remain as irregular and winding as if we were cows. Then, too, I don’t want strangers to know how to get about my garden alone. The stranger’s feet step on things. I pre- fer to lead, and have the path so narrow visitors are prohibited from walking abreast, having no choice but to humbly follow the gardener.
Paths mean intimacy, not publicity. The path is a trail in which to wander, leading the imagination eropingly with promise of mystery. And a garden must have material for mystery. We felt this so convincingly we refused to discover all our Wil-
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Kets Make 0 over Garden
derness the first year of possession. There is a rocky promontory near the ravine, crowned by a great hemlock, secreted by wild’ grapevines and wild roses, and dotted over by hundreds of cedars; this do- main we selected to be our “‘ forbidden land.’”? We were placed on our honor not to put foot on it for a year, and I assure you its mysteries grew ever greater until I came to believe it to be the strong- hold of trolls and other magical creatures. When the year passed, the habit of not intruding had grown upon us to such a degree we no longer cared to trespass but preferred to leave its secrets to the trolls, rabbits and birds.
We can well afford to spare this bit of nature for the imagination to dwell on unsated by exploration, for there are many other equally wild portions of the garden in which we may feel as unfettered as Pan himself. There is the birchwood tangle where we never work disturbingly with garden tool, but only go to sit quietly on the ground in the shadows, to attend the song services of our birds.
We guard as heirlooms the precious bits of wild beauty which were our legacy from nature.
Every ramble in the neighboring woods adds more treasures to our horde. By always carrying a trowel
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Inds ma Klower Crorlen
and basket we are prepared to invite any beauti- ful thing we see to make its home with us. Thus we have carpeted with wild violets all the damp, sun- less ground on the north side of the house where grass would not grow. I know of a beautiful place in the south where the many large trees in front of the house made it impossible to have a lawn; wild violets solved the problem there. They were planted so as to cover the entire ground right up to the tree roots; even when not blooming the violets make a rich, dark, velvety surface, which never needs mow- ing.
The fall is the ideal time to remove wild things, and it is then that the garden itself demands less, the days are cooler and the world so full of color one feels a greater inclination to take long tramps; the fields are aflame with goldenrod, the roadsides glowing with sumach, each fence and old post trans- figured by the crimson creepers, and deep in the forest shadows shines the beacon light of the dog- wood.
Poring over catalogues and the ordering of seed is indeed an exciting and alluring phase of gardening, but it seems prosaic indeed compared to the delight- ful circumstances under which we become the pos-
AG
ee 4 eke’ a Moteur Crecden
sessors of wild flowers. Money alone never seems to make a thing ours. ‘The clothes we buy do not wholly become ours until we have worn them often and they have assumed the wrinkles indicative of our habits of work and rest.
The plants and seed we purchase do not seem ours until we have made them so by our loving service and care. I do not love flowers in the abstract; I love only those flowers which I have guarded and brought to fulfilment. Roses displayed in a shop window seldom interest me beyond a passing glance, for they are not my roses — I have contributed noth- ing to their life.
It is particularly because we do not exchange coin for the wild flowers that they hold such a peculiar significance. It is as though Nature held them out in her arms, a gift to all who seek her lovingly.
So when I pass near my wild things there is ever a reminiscence connected with them, such as the day we tramped miles through a great hemlock forest, un- devastated by axe or fire, following along an erratic little brook until it opened out into a pool where muskrats made their home, guarded by gnarled old willows. Here, spread over a sweet, wide meadow, were thousands of wild irises making the ground as
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richly beautiful as a queen’s royal robe; and here, too, we found our buttercups.
Another tramp up the precipitous sides of a fire- scorched mountain side, brought us to the secluded home of the arbutus, and a sight of “the fox’s den O!”
Every quest of bloodroot and Solomon’s seal means an adventure — the glimpse of shy hunted creatures, the happy comradeship of squirrels, the song of the Bobwhite.
If you have ever been in the country near Wash- ington you know the beauty of the Judas trees col- oring all the landscape on the wooded banks of the Potomac with their purplish-pink boughs. An April jaunt to the Potomac’s shores procured several of these trees for our garden, and they have proven quite hardy in the more northern clime.
Some of our beautiful mountain laurels (the na- tive kalmia) were brought home by us from the Berk- shire Hills and I never pass them without reliving a day when we were invited to take a “little walk” by a friend who had a vague memory of a trout stream where he had delightedly fished out of season in youth’s lawless days.
We started immediately after breakfast with per- ,
bats
(ets Make a” MoRer Gorden
fect faith in his memory. Soon we were far from any human trail, battling through impenetrable brush, going knee-deep in the trunks of fallen trees which looked intact until stepped upon, rolling on hidden loose stones, down mountain sides jagged with ice snapped limbs. On we plodded for hoary hours and not one of the party threw that brook up to our friend — no, we were too busy just keep- ing alive. About the time I wanly thought, “ Per- haps the sun is setting on civilization,” then won- dered if perchance we had really walked through the night and maybe it was to-morrow, I caught the one good leg I had left in a vine and rolled several miles, mostly head down; suddenly I came to and felt some- thing damp — lo and behold! I had Ponce de Leon-ed the long lost trout brook of our friend’s guilty youth!
The rest of the party arrived by various acrobatic feats, and then we really began to work; the hours before were mere teething rings compared to the hours which followed. It ceased to be walking — it was hopping and leaping when we weren’t being hauled out of the stream.
But to tell the truth that trout brook was all our friend had said, and more. It is worth your start- 120
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ing off to-day to find — find as we did by walking toward nowhere, ignoring the compass and trusting in fate.
It was the wildest trout brook that ever flowed from a man’s memory ; it dashed, swirled, laughed and sobbed through a mountain whose echoes had hitherto answered only the voices of wildest creatures. Across the stream, felled by some Titanic storm of fifty or more years before, were giant tree trunks. On all sides every trace of ground was hidden by a tan- gle of millions of mountain laurel. And in the twi- light shadows under great stones flashed the speckled trout. In the far forest cracked a bough, and the unknown voice of some animal came to us on the wind. On, on, on we followed the brook, and when the light was dying and we were too, there suddenly loomed the ruins of an old mill; by its si- lent gray wheel stood two boys with the eyes of startled fauns. They gave one frightened look and disappeared in the brush, but we followed with a rush and came out upon a little clearmg where stood an unpainted cabin whose walls were almost covered with the drying skins of wild animals. A sad-eyed woman sat on the rude porch, three frightened children cling- ing to her. If we had been bears she would probably
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have felt no surprise, but she had long given up ex- pecting human beings.
At last she broke her silence and gave us directions for our return, leading us through a cornfield which the deer had trampled down the night before, to an old abandoned road, by following which we finally reached our own farmhouse, pumpkin pie and bed.
If I had not held on to my laurel all day perhaps I wouldn’t have fallen into the stream so often, but the falls are past and the kalmia will make me happy — every spring of my life.
The few closed gentians which now live on the banks of our marsh were brought home from Con- necticut after a wonderful visit to another friend with whom we followed another brook, a quiet, Puri- tanical, gentle brook which meandered through pen- sive New England hills, on whose banks one could walk at ease and meditatively, sitting down to rest in the embrace of a watery arm on a lawnlike bank. And we sat down frequently, for the friend chanced to be a great author who had chosen this idyllic way of reading to us the manuscript of a just finished book.
A chapter read aloud, then a mile of brook; an- other chapter, then baked beans served on autumn
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leaves ; another chapter, then more brook, until just as the sun was setting and we turned our faces homeward to read the last chapters before the great fireplace of the “ House of Low Ceilings,” I espied the clump of closed gentians and made them mine, mine along with the memories of a book heard under circum- stances which made it seem the greatest pastoral ever written. And as I dug the gentians the author remembered an old legend which told of their bloom- ing on a certain ancient hill where there was enacted the greatest of all human tragedies, when men put to death the gentlest of all men. The flowers gazed with sadness on that Crucifixion, then closed their eyes forever more.
So beyond all other flowers of the garden, the wild ones are those most haloed by associations — asso- ciations which can even make a Lord Bishop of a mere “ Jack-in-the-pulpit.”
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HE spring flowering shrubs such as lilacs, sy- ringas, deutzias and spireas should be trimmed immediately after their blooming period.
Prune the lilac branches where the flower heads have been, back to main limb, and take out all branches which rub each other. All shrubs do bet- ter if not permitted to bush too thickly, so trim out congested parts that sun may permeate and the air circulate freely. eh are
We always leave the lilac root suckers alone in the spring, permitting them to develop during the summer; then in fall they are removed by pulling up violently (not digging); the torn ends of root are then trimmed, and we thus have many new lilacs to transplant to all parts of the garden.
One can never have too many lilacs; somehow they create a home feeling more than does any other shrub.
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Didn’t you envy the German Elizabeth her mile long lilac hedge? What a wondrous sight it must be in spring!
In trimming spireas, take out all the old wood which has held bloom; the new growth will then spring up with tremendous rapidity and many more flowers next season will be your reward.
The herbaceous blue spirea is very pretty, grow- ing to about two feet in height. It is quite hardy if given a winter mulch. (This spirea of course needs no trimming, as it dies down to the ground each fall.)
I clip the white deutzia (gracilis) with the hedge shears, as it is too great a job to trim the millions of dried flower heads individually. Each summer a fourth of the old wood is cut away.
The pink deutzia, to be at its best, needs to have every bit of its old wood removed after its midsummer blooming.
There is a beautiful treelike shrub much grown in the middle south which will also thrive even where there is a moderate amount of snow and frost; in South Carolina it is called Crépe Myrtle, in the island of Saba, Queen of the Garden, in Bermuda,
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Queen of the Shrubs. I have never seen it listed in catalogues under any recognizable title, and I am ig- norant of its botanical name.
In July it is a mass of crépe flowers of the tone of the heart of a watermelon, and has a mellow per- fume. ‘There are also other varieties having ugly shades of magenta flowers, as well as a few rare ones of exquisite white. In the autumn its leaves turn orange and carmine.
For the new home, where you desire the quick ef- fect of shrubs while waiting for the real shrubs of slower growth to develop, there is the herbaceous hibiscus. The loveliest variety has pale pink blos- soms with lemon yellow centres, the flowers being as large as a tea-plate.
Altheas make wonderful hedges, though slow of growth and needing much early trimming to produce thickness about the roots. Growing singly, if pruned to one trunk they will attain great height. In an old country garden near me there is a pink althea reaching the second story window. The Jeanne d’Arc is a very fine new strain bearing dou- ble flowers of perfect whiteness.
Nothing is more beautiful than the hardy azaleas.
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Of course in the north we must be satisfied with more or less miniature bushes, for we cannot have the variety which grows to tree height in the south, The most wonderful flower spectacle in our whole country is the azaleas in full bloom in “ Magnolia Gardens,” near Charleston, exceeding even the cherry blossom festival in Japan. Here miles of avenues bordered with very old and gigantic azaleas of every hue, make a gorgeousness of color bewildering to the senses.
In the north we may grow several varieties out- doors by covering with straw in winter, as for rose protection. ‘These are the native arborescens; the Ghent, growing to eighteen inches; mollis, a rather dwarf species, and Vaseyi. ‘They are to be had in white, orange, rosy purple, shrimp pink, cerise, light pink and salmon.
All gardens should include the old-fashioned * sweet shrub,” called ‘* calycanthus ” by the nursery- men, apparently to confuse us. The bush bearing snuff-brown flowers is the best known, but there is another rarer, much lovelier kind called the banana shrub, which has blossoms of a pale cream yellow and of a sweetness beyond description. Gathered and placed in a thin muslin bag and put among one’s
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handkerchiefs, they will retain their sweetness for weeks.
The Cydonia Japonica or Japan quince, known familiarly as burning bush, is a most brilliant ac- quisition to any garden. ‘There is another variety bearing white blossoms tinged with pink which are almost identical with apple blossoms in form and color.
Golden bells (Forsythia) should always be given a trellis support, for it is such a feminine plant it needs a strong arm to sustain its willowy branches. It is sometimes made to pretend it is a vine, but grown in this way it is seldom satisfactory, as it must be constantly tied, having no tendrils to clasp with, and it is apt to look thin and gawky.
The Scotch broom has all the hardiness of its na- tive bleak hills and is as gorgeous as the tender genista, so much sold in the florist shops. Genista is one of the few golden flowered shrubs, and is val- uable for that alone.
The dwarf Chinese plum having double red flow- ers is well worth growing, as are also the dwarf peach, crab apple and cherry. |
For sweetness we must have syringa, or mock orange.’
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All weigelas are splendid shrubs, especially the Conquete, which has unusually large, deep, rose flow- ers; and also the white candida.
For evergreen shrubs we may get the Daphne Cneorum, a very dwarf trailing plant with pretty pink flowers ; Leucothde Catesbaei, a shrub with bell- shaped white blossoms; the American holly; Andro- meda Japonica, an evergreen from Japan, and Berberis stenophylla, which has leaves suggesting the holly. (Don’t you wish they had named _ plants plain, sensible names, such as Sally, Bill and Bea- trice?)
I have left my very heart’s love to the last — the rhododendron. ‘There is no shrub which can ap- proach it in beauty, either when blooming or bare, for its leaves, radiating starlike from branches, are of a richness and glossiness which would make it worth growing even if it never flowered. And the blossoms — their beauty is overpowering! Deepest purple, lavender, reddish-purple, white — it would be hard to say which is loveliest. |
It is best to get them by the dozen, for to begin with one would never satisfy anybody, and they are much cheaper in quantity, ranging in price from five to ten dollars a dozen. For large estates they
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can be obtained by carload at a still smaller figure per thousand. ‘The rhododendron cannot stand the sun, therefore it may be planted in the spot so often difficult to fill— the north side of the house. Wher- ever located take the precaution to protect it in win- ter by making a wigwam of evergreens or straw about the separate clumps.
For true splendor rhododendrons should be grown in great masses, and on protected hillsides one can reproduce in miniature the marvelous effect of the North Carolina mountains when covered with blooms of the Rhododendron Catawbiense.
There is nothing which adds such poetry and cozi- ness to a garden as vines. What is home without a honeysuckle!
There is no easier way in literature to make the residing place of the heroine instantly fascinating, intimate and cosy than to drape the porch with honeysuckle. The immortal “ vine-clad cottage ” which plays so great a part in every girl’s romantic dreams, has, nine cases out of ten, the honeysuckle to do the cladding.
This vine grows so readily and is so multifarious it is taken entirely too much for granted. I have
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never become accustomed to its fragrance; each sum- mer it revives within me the positive thrill of sur- prise. There is no sweeter vine to grow near the house, especially where it may embower a window, sending its perfume through all the room.
Next to the honeysuckle the vine richest in senti- ment is the wistaria. I hope sometime to have a heroine worthy of a home draped before with wis- taria and behind with honeysuckle; then her literary popularity would be insured, especially if I add a York and Lancaster rose to peep in her latticed case- ment betimes o’ the morning.
We have been blarneyed by the catalogued descrip- tions of the multijuga wistaria’s racemes of flowers three feet long, into purchasing one root, and it is a fine healthy-looking vine, but as it has not yet bloomed I cannot swear to its marvels. The frutescens va- riety has the additional charm of blooming at inter- vals all summer long.
The Clematis paniculata is the loveliest of its fam- ily, and is amenable to all sorts of uses. In one gar- den I know, there is a long bamboo arbor spanning a walk fifty feet long; this in summer is completely covered with the paniculata, making a unique effect of pleached alley.
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Another pretty mode of using it is to take one centre pole and at about the height of nine feet, nail spokes running out from main pole in wheel shape. When the clematis blooms it makes a perfect giant umbrella of white, an ideal spot under which to place a seat.
The akebia is not as generally grown as it would be if people really knew its beauty and the fragrance ‘of its odd, chocolate brown, rubberlike flowers. The leaf is rarely beautiful, being an enlarged edition of the clover form.
Bignonia grandiflora is the largest of the trumpet flowers, having a salmon bloom of great magnificence. It will, if given time, cover anything from an hum- ble cot to a cathedral.
For the first summer in a new home, gourd vines will help out wonderfully. The flower is really ex- quisite, the leaf form artistic, and the gourds will provide one with lots of “ bird bungalettes ” to hang through the garden the following spring, to rent for a song to bluebirds and wrens.
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The Motbed & Tronsplanting,
Oe personal idiosyncrasies are irresistibly carried into gardening, therefore directions given by others serve only as a basis or theme for one’s own variations. My hotbed is probably unlike any other in looks, and yours — even if you are good enough to read about mine and try to follow my example — will probably be just as distinctive.
I always love a dress more if it is the reincarna- tion of some one or two defunct gowns. The rem- nant counter is a response to a fundamental need in human nature, feminine human nature — the desire to make something useful out of odds and ends. So with my inherent love of remnants of course my hot- bed was made of odds and ends of old planks saved from the wreckage of a chicken house, and in shape and size the bed had to conform to the erratic ma- terial. The planks were nice thick ones, two-inch
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lumber, and there were enough planks to make a bed twelve by eight feet; this proved to be all the space we could possibly have used.
The inside pit was dug four feet deep and all! the excavated soil was thrown to one side in a pile. When the side plank walls were finally made solid to the four corner posts, they were given a generous coat of tar to prevent rotting under the soil which would eventually cover them. While this tar was soaking in, we had the earth dug away four feet in depth on the outside of the walls, and after the outer planks had been given another coating of tar we then brought many barrow loads of pine needles and dumped them in the outside trench, trampling the needles down as firmly as possible. ‘This was to pre- vent the frost forming close to the outer walls of the hotbed. After the needles had settled, the pile of excavated soil was banked over them and up to the very top of the hotbed, the sides of which extended, two feet at the top and one foot at the bottom, above the original surface of earth. The clay subsoil made this bank almost as hard and impervious to rain washing as if it had been cement.
The bed must be built with a slope to the south, with a drop of about a foot, so the glass may shed
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the rain and the sun rays reach the seed better. The sliding glass frames are a great nuisance and when drawn from the bed they are a positive magnet to the human foot, and a lure to losing one’s equilib- rium. Our four sashes lift on hinges. <A centre board running from north to south divides the bed and on each side of this division are two sashes. The upper ones lift to the north and are hooked to the side of the toolhouse. The lower sashes lift from the east and west, are hooked back to back to a pole rising from the centre dividing board of original framework. This leaves the approach to the bed free to the foot when the sashes are raised, so there is no way in which the glass can possibly be broken, unless, of course, one should be unexpectedly seized with an epileptic fit. _
The hotbed proper cost nothing but the mental and physical labor involved in making a patch work quilt of the old lumber, so the glass frames were the only expense. This glass is not puttied lke ordinary glass windows; the panes are fitted to lap over each other — why, I can’t imagine, unless the frost loosens putty.
It is best to make your hotbed in the fall even though you are not to use it until the following
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spring, just as an opera must have an overture, and one should fall in love before getting married. If it is made in the fall then you can be forearmed by saving several barrels of fully rotted compost mixed with one-fourth sand; these barrels must be kept in a toolhouse or cellar out of the reach of freezing. If you’ve ever tried the heart-breaking method of thawing frozen earth in the hotbed with manure, and found in the end that you had only mud in whieh to plant your seed, you'll then appreciate the wis- dom of the fall saving of soil.
In the early spring have two feet of steaming manure placed in the bottom of the bed, and let it steam for several days; then empty the barrels of compost and sand on top of manure, shut the sashes and ‘let her bile.” It will steam tremendously for four or five days, then it gets down to regular busi- ness of more or less even heat.
There are nice thermometers to be had to take the bed’s temperature, and find out when its fever has dropped below 90 degrees; then you know it’s time to go ahead and plant. But as no one ever gave me one of these thermometers I have to keep sticking my finger down in the soil, and when it feels about blood heat I plant; that is generally on or
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about the tenth day after the manure and soil are put in.
It is really unnecessary for the amateur gardener to sow the hotbed sooner than six weeks before the end of frost time, for if it is sown earlier, the plants grow so spindling before they can be set out that they are really weakened in constitution and ruined in figure. I sow every flower seed (perennial as well as annual) I have room for, as I like to get ahead of the calendar as much as possible. I’m allowed only one-half of the bed for my flowers; the rest goes for sensible things like tomatoes, peppers, cauliflowers, cabbage and lettuce.
On cold nights I throw an old piece of sailcloth over the frames for additional protection. A mar- ket gardener I know has made very fine comfortables for his seedbed out of old crocus sacks stuffed four inches thick with excelsior. His beds, however, need more protection than mine, for he must start his vegetable seed betimes in February or March.
On warm, sunny days give the little plants an air bath; even on any kind of day it is well to put a small stone under one of the sashes for an hour’s ventilation. After the days become quite gentle in late April it is still a wise precaution to put the
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glass down and say good night to the baby plants at about 4 p. mM.
When the soil seems drying, sprinkle with luke- warm water, using the finest nozzle on watering pot; keep soil loosened about seedlings, and weed every day. (I know that sounds like brutal advice, for only natural born acrobats can, with comfort, perform weeding in a hotbed. )
In the late autumn when we dig the celery we leave a lot of soil on the roots and replant, thick as sardines, in the hotbed. The plants never wilt and if they know they have been moved they don’t let on. The rest of the celery is put out in the garden in a deep grave, covered with boards and soil. ‘The celery in the hotbed keeps us supplied up to the end of December, when we spade all the old soil and manure out of the bed and pile it to one side, leaving the hotbed clean and ready for early spring operations. The sashes are merely hooked to toolhouse and centre stake, and there they remain perfectly safe all winter — much safer than if we ran the chance of breaking them by removal to in- terior of toolhouse.
The pile of last year’s discarded richness is per- fect to use for roses or any other flowers, so each
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spring the manure and compost remnants of last year’s hotbed may be made over into glowing blos- som-garments of lavender, pink, blue and gold.
Transplanting
I have bragged once before in print about my success in transplanting, but hoping you were lucky enough not to have read it, Pll say it all over: I have yet to lose a plant because of transplanting!
The majority of gardeners set out plants immedi- ately after a rain when the ground is quite wet. This is probably a nice habit for lazy people who don’t want to lug the watering pot ‘around. Dur- ing a lazy spell I tried it myself, and had hard work to save my plants. Many authorities advise ‘* trans- planting just before a rain.” Unfortunately I have never personally known any wizards who could pre- dict with a certainty when it is going to rain. Even the weather bureau’s guessing is seldom corroborated by showers on time. So this fine advice has been useless to me.
I always transplant on dry days after the sun has gone down. When the hole is dug the full depth of the plant’s root length, I place the plant in hole, fill hole half full of water, throwing in dirt to make a
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soft mud about the roots, then the upper half of hole is filled with perfectly dry soil. The plant does not wilt at all, and that is owing to the fact that © there is no moisture on the surface of ground for the sun to bake or steam. There is no interruption in the growth as the moisture about the roots evap- orates so slowly. This first watering is the only one the plant ever gets.
When transplanting shrubs or trees it is well to tie a little piece of tape on the southern side of the plant before removing it, then when replanting, place it in the same relation it formerly had to the sun. If you forget the tape you can generally tell the relation it held with the compass by its leaves — the leaf face is turned to the south, the back to the north. After proceeding as I’ve already told, when the hole is entirely filled about the tree or shrub, raise a circular ridge about the stem, forming a basin to catch the first rain which falls.
If ants proceed to build their “ castles in Spain” about the trunk of a transplanted tree, try mixing Paris green with sugar and sprinkle it mercilessly about their turrets. There is a time to be kind and a time to kill. I’m not a murderer by nature and I’m generally tender-hearted toward all humble
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things as long as they behave humbly. I once almost bought a two-dollar book on ‘‘ The Wonder- ful Ants,” but I’ve suffered so much at their hands and I’ve had such ample opportunity to study their wonders, and I’ve been so licked to a standstill by them, that I could now write a $4.98 book myself on “ Ants’? Strategy in Warfare.”
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“The “Tran a) Eden
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UPPOSE you are by nature a home-making genius but by some strange whimsy of fate you are exiled for a time in a breakfast-food-box, made- for-discomfort house, or doing spiritual penance in a furnished home of somebody else’s, or staying for the season in a country place; suppose any antithesis of a permanent abiding place; why not add one touch of reality by a small garden of flowers? Don’t be like two migratory birds I once knew, possessed by a perpetual spirit of unrest; seeking ever the perfect condition in a delightfully imperfect world, they shuffled from one desolate place to an- other. They ‘ weren’t going to stay there long,” what was the use of making any improvements? So these two malcontents existed in one Sahara after another, seeing no beauty, making no beauty, leay- ing no legacy of beauty behind. ey ae
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They once read a nature book by mistake, and in an obsession of temporary enthusiasm purchased a farm. ‘They planted one field of corn, and the man was so discouraged because unhoed weeds won the battle in the survival of the stronger that he never planted another rod. |
He fretted hour after hour over weeds; weeds choked his very thoughts. One day in desperation he exclaimed: “Id give half of all I own to any- body who’d tell me how to get rid of weeds.”
‘I know the solution,” I replied, modestly making a bid for half his kingdom. ‘ Asphalt your whole blame farm.”
But to return to-our transient garden; because of its very nature we must perforce select seed which will develop quickly and give almost gratuitous re- turns for casual trouble. Then, too, I presume we shall have but a small piece of ground, so we must concentrate as much as possible.
Naturally the choice of flowers must be made from annuals. Our first desire in a transient home is for
“¢ sunshine bed”? where it
cheer, so we'll plan our can be seen from the dining or living room windows. All along the back of this bed plant double sun- flowers; about a foot in front of these sow the
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largest varieties of lemon and orange colored mari- golds; in front of these calliopsis, then yellow Cali- fornia poppies (Eschscholzia), bordering the entire bed with dwarf marigolds. I would sow broadcast both calliopsis and California poppies.
Next we will compose a symphony in blue; be- ginning at the rear sow giant larkspurs, then broad- cast Kaiser-blumen (cornflowers), and border the en- tire mass with dwarf blue ageratum. I once planned a little blue garden like this for a very little girl, and she called it her “ fairyland.”
Now that we’ve planned flowers for day beauty, blossoms which reflect both sunlight and sky, we must arrange another bed which we will call our night garden.
Here sow great masses of nicotiana affinis, then in front broadcast with candytuft, using sweet alyssum for the border.
Everyone loves hedges; we associate them with old gardens and long loved homes, yet the very thought of a hedge seems intimidating, as we naturally think of the years of continuous growth they generally represent.
However, even in our transient home we may have imitation hedges; they will not be as high as our
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heads, but they will help, more than anything else, to give a visual delusion of permanency.
Take some path which you traverse daily and sow a, line on each side with Kochia Trihophylla or Sum- mer Cypress. This will make a hedge about two and a half feet high of the most exquisite green, filmy foliage, which changes to a ruddy glow as the sum- mer wanes and the seeds appear.
Another hedge which I plant each summer is made from the old-fashioned four-o’clocks. Get mixed seed, and have a quaint patch-quilt effect of varie- gated colors. The fragrance of the blossoms will inake every evening and early morning walk down the path a delight.
If the porch is full of glare and devoid of vines, so long as we can’t all be Jack and have his beanstalk, we must get the best substitute obtainable for miracu- lous results.
Cobea scandens is a vine of phenomenal qualities, growing twenty feet in a season. It has beautiful foliage and bell-like flowers of a weird blue-green.
In transient homes there are sure to be eyesores, ugly, ill-kept spots which we will want to hide from our own eyes and the knowledge of others. Morning glories and nasturtiums will rapidly respond to our
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eds e Lower Gerden
call for help and under draperies of loveliness dis- guise the secrets of sordidness.
Of course the ground must be put in condition if good and quick results are to be obtained. Unless it is hopelessly hard soil, even if you are a woman there is no reason why you can’t enjoy the prepara- tion of the ground yourself, using one of those claw forks or potato diggers.
Beg, buy or steal some old manure and work in well, leaving the beds to mellow for a few days, then rake and sow. All seed should be planted shallow ex- cept the sunflowers and nasturtiums, which you press into the ground with your finger. The smallest seed
just sprinkle on top of the soil, then take a few hand- _fuls of earth and dust over them.
After everything is planted get a board, put it down and tramp back and forth over the seed, press- ing them firmly into the earth; this insures quick germination and keeps the seed in place.
The entire monetary cost of effecting a transfor- mation from barrenness to beauty in this temporary home will be one dollar and twenty-five cents — fifty cents for the yellow bed, twenty-five for the blue, fif- teen for the white, fifteen for the hedges and twenty for the vines.
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Blossoms which we buy from the florist’s shop and bring home half blown, to quickly wilt, satisfy but poorly a flower-yearning heart. Bought flowers are never really ours, they are extraneous things without one touch of personality. The poorest little stunted blossom, the seed of which we ourselves sow, weed and watch from day to day becomes a part of our lives and dreams, and is worth more spiritually than a dozen American Beauties purchased at a bull market price.
If you happen to be some rare variety of altruist who not only wishes to paint the landscape of your temporary home with beauty, but would strew the path of your successor with welcoming posies, per- haps you will add a few abiding perennials to the list I have suggested.
But even with the garden you now plant, the flow- ers will sow their own seed sufficiently to carry a post- script of loveliness to the stranger who follows you. Although it takes a peculiar selflessness to think hap- pily of another’s enjoyment of the thing we have lost, wouldn’t anyone be glad if it could be said of her, as someone said of Ellen Terry, ‘“ Wherever she passed, flowers grew ”’?
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N the early spring we are too busy planning, plant- ing, dreaming and digging to ever think of sit- ting down, but when our plans have reached fruition and the garden is full of bloom, then the mind takes on a contemplative turn and there is an ever growing tendency to happy inaction. It is well to provide for this stage by having garden seats placed at spots commanding the prettiest vistas; then one is saved the danger of rheumatism by squatting Orientally on damp grass.
It is amazing what poor provision the stores have made for the gardener’s rest and enjoyment. The inexplicable, popular ‘‘ rustic ” benches are inquisi- tional in their uncomfortableness. ‘The only other choice are the slatted affairs always painted a fiery red, which kills any color scheme of flowers.
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After much futile searching for ready-made benches we were forced to the conclusion that we would have to design our own.
The handy man and general genius of the village was sought to materialize our sketches. Good clear pine with no knots was chosen for the wood; the end supports had to be milled at a planing mill. Two of the seats were planned along Dutch lines, and these had an under bar for extra support, locked on out- side by square wooden pins. ‘The other two benches are of an Italian character and are without under bar, but have extra braces under the seat nailed to end. supports. [The Dutch benches were stained a soft neutral green, for these seats were to be placed among the pines and cedars.
The Italian benches were painted white, as they were to reside respectively at head of rose garden and moon garden. After remaining outdoors in every vicissitude of all-year-round weather they have not cracked nor shown any deterioration, only needing a fresh coat of stain and paint each spring for general looks and preservation. They are five feet long, six- teen inches high, and fifteen inches wide.
The entire cost of the four benches was as fol- lows:
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A BENCH ALONG DUTCH LINES
ets Make a ower Gorden
UGTIN crag fe Gist 1 rc cae pee ae aoe coe $ 6.02 Rail for under support of two benches....... 35 Greenstein, paint, oil-and: dryer... 4... 5%:.:.- 40 Labor, making and painting............ fear aes
SLl.ed
Thus for less than twelve dollars we have benches which are as solid as the trees themselves and far more decorative than any to be had ready-made at exorbitant prices.
Our venture in seats having turned out so satisfac- torily, we next planned arches and rose trellises. The rounded arch,-while beautiful, we decided against on account of its expense. Perhaps I plagiarized a bit from the Japanese; at any rate the design suggests their simple methods.
The photograph will give their form; the wide lat- tice is composed of common laths smoothed by the plane. The legs or stilts extending below arches should be eighteen inches long to give firm root in the ground, and they must be coated liberally with coal tar to prevent rotting.
Of course in placing the arches it is necessary to employ a carpenter’s level to get them perfectly plumb.
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When it came to painting the arches we pendu- lumed between green and white, then settled at last on a compromise between the two; we desired a color which would be starred at night yet not be glaring during the day, and one that would harmonize with white, pink, yellow and red roses; so we selected a soft gray green, exactly the shade of the poplar tree trunk, a color that sank into the landscape, yet gleamed in the moonlight.
In designing the fan trellises, a sudden exuberance of feeling caused my pencil to make an extra flourish and the accident produced such a happy effect I hailed it as the permanent. Consequently instead of a conventional fan shape of equal proportions, our fans have an almost vertical effect on one side and curve almost to the ground on the other. These were painted the same tone as the arches.
The cost of arches and trellises was as follows:
Mabernal forsoliarches iio tide oa) wee ae $ 2.85 Material: for 4 ‘trellises. .o 35) gh Sa be ee 2.66 Petting jand “pamime Uys calle. eee ates TA5
$12.96
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ely Fale a Moiee Crovden
The birds are the natural orchestra of the garden, and the members of the orchestra like to bathe and drink just like all other musicians ; so we next planned a little bowl to be kept filled with very fresh water.
A wooden chopping bowl of largest proportions was procured; three squat legs were then fitted to the curved bottom, and nailed firmly; then the entire thing was treated to several coats of gray-green paint, giving each coat plenty of time to dry. A last coat was applied and while still wet some very fine sand was sprinkled over the surface of the entire bowl, which suddenly transformed the wood into an ap- pearance of stone. When finished it was beautiful, and as queer and ancient looking as if we had acci- dentally discovered it in Egypt. The entire cost of this bathing and drinking bowl was _ seventy-five cents!
A flat round stone was then placed in the centre on which the birds could stand. Pouring the water so as to leave top of stone exposed, we retired to the studio to see who would be its first patron. In less than fifteen minutes here came the curious catbird, mewing excitedly ; he made several swoops toward it, not being thoroughly convinced of its safety, then suddenly lighted on the centre stone and drank and
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delightedly performed his bath. Having set the stamp of his approval on the public bath, the other birds accepted it without question.
It affords us constant amusement to watch the antics of the various bathers; mother birds fre- quently bring their little broods which with nervous timidity of quivering wing dare not brave the terrors of the sea, until emboldened by watching their mother’s ablutions. |
About the drinking bowl we daily throw handfuls of chicken feed and old bread to add to its allure- ments. In winter we keep the spot popular, after the bowl has been retired to the cellar, by hanging many pieces of suet on strings to the boughs of the apple tree which shades the bowl in summer. The suet is for the especial cheer of the chickadees, who blithely hang upside down, feasting, swinging and singing between mouthfuls in the wintry gusts of
wind.
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‘The Gorden of Isure
Ait)
H LR eh i jh
()* E of the greatest compensations of gardening
is the sense of partnership which grows between the birds and ourselves. We do not grow visible wings, but if we have the inner sense of them, the birds will recognize us as kindred.
Greater than riches, more precious than fame is the trust of one wild bird.
I feel sure the creatures of wing have a great ap- preciation of beauty, and if you surround your home with color and perfume and trees you may count on the presence of birds.
And if you are watchful of eye and open of heart, and have a true longing for their friendship, you will find each year adding to your knowledge of allure- ments to bring them in ever greater number.
If you can make your garden a beautiful spot for their love, a safe sanctuary for their domestic life,
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and a larder for their appetite, they will spread the news far and wide, and your fame will soar through the skies.
Of course most of the valuable knowledge a gar- dener accumulates comes by the great law of accident. I’ve learned to value the apple, cherry, peach and pear trees not for their fruit alone. They lure to the garden birds I would never otherwise see, small jewel- like creatures who appear during blossom time and are as fleeting as the blossoms, disappearing into the infinite as the petals are blown earthward.
On one thirteenth of May, when the air was so thronging with birds that I did not have time to lunch at all, I sat at a window which looked out on two fruit trees and counted thirty-three different kinds of birds. And of this number eleven were the will- o’-the-wisps of blossom time, flitting into my life and out again — only flashes of cerulean, gold and green, but painting indelibly the tapestry of memory with their magical hues.
Then, too, the fruit trees insure us the company of that feathered embodiment of spring, the oriole. All through May his fife will startle the most sluggish thought from the commonplace to a sudden realiza- tion of the festival season. He gilds the air in his
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ets Make a FloWer Carden quick swoops, darting like thought. If we are for- tunate in winning his favor during the period of love- making we may behold him swinging a bassinet in our pear tree to hold his downy souvenirs of blossom time.
Most gardeners grow to be such delightful idiots they are glad to share their fruit with the birds, and the right sort of garden should have enough of every- thing to feed both the family indoors and the family outside.
Still, if we have an indisposition to such generos- ity, we can divert the birds from the forbidden fruit by planting many mulberry trees, the fruit of which they generally prefer to all others.
We all know the fasciation of the drone of the bees in the flowering fruit trees. We can prolong this hypnotic music from May until late autumn by _ planting many Shirley poppies.
The Kansas gayfeather is not a very beautiful flower in itself, but a gardener learns to love it be- cause the butterflies do.
I have always adored the Kaiser-blumen cornflow- ers for their silver-green foliage, and flowers of tight laced bodice with ruff of blue silk. A great mass of them, when rippled by the breeze, makes one think of
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the sea. But I love them now for a finer reason, which dates from the ripening of the seed of the earlier flowers. With the first seed came the gold- finches, who darted and poised on the blue-tipped cernuous branches, chirping and feasting while they unconsciously made part of a poem of blue, green, gold and black.
I bordered all my rose garden with old-fashioned Scotch pinks, because my mother’s garden had them, and because their leaf tone harmonizes with every rose color. But they have become glorified since I’ve found their lover to be the ruby-throated humming bird. He also loves the nasturtiums which garland the porch, and the morning glories which cover the trunk of a tall dead cedar ; but if I really want to have a long opportunity for studying this miracle of beauty and motion, I take a small stool and sit for an hour half hidden among the pinks.
One of the most ecstatic, breathless moments of my life was when a humming bird sat to rest on a rose branch within two inches of my hand.
The cedars bring cheer to the garden in winter and they add mystery at night; then when their blue berries ripen they may bring us an unexpected visit
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[et Make Q HoSer Caan
from that most exquisite of wanderers, the Bohemian wax wing.
When we left a great row of elderberry bushes along the back of our garden we did so because they reminded us of hedgerows, and banks of old brooks where we once went a-fishing back in childhood’s ‘country. When the bushes were covered with great clusters of white flowers the garden was filled with memory-thrilling perfume. When the blossoms de- veloped into masses of dark jewels we planned to make wine, but we changed our minds when we found the fruit attracted every catbird and robin in the countryside.
The sunflowers planted for decorative purposes were appropriated by the buccaneer bumblebees, who wallowed about the flower centres until they emerged clothed in golden pollen.
When the sunflower seed ripens it is an invitation to every chickadee, goldfinch and nuthatch for miles about.
The most beautiful garden in the world would be utterly barren without birds, bees and butterflies.
The butterflies and bees need little luring, but the birds confer their presence and fellowship with royal
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discrimination. After we have charmed them into our lives we must devise means of holding them, study their needs, never lessen their faith in us, keep a watchful eye for neighbors’ cats, grow soft of foot, and sweeter of soul.
And for our service and love, one hermit thrush alone can repay us a thousandfold by his celestial song in the hush of a twilight in June.
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‘The (Garden in \Winter—
ge mn eat ha ( eh
a4
“The Garde yon \Winter—
| a friend who had spent some time with us dur-
ing the summer when the garden was in its pop- pied, rosy heyday, writes to me when December snows arrive: ‘ Now that winter is here I suppose your friends may expect to hear from you once in awhile as you will certainly be forced willy nilly to lay down your rake and hoe.”
It is the second of December when I quizzically smile over this letter and wonder if this city moth will believe me if I tell her I look forward to one of my busiest months in the garden; that there will not be a day’s cessation of the labor and joy in the out- of-doors. This is a blessed provision of necessity for with the first brittle taste of December and the crisping of energy, the very frost in the nostrils whets the muscles to toil, and with every breath of the chilling air there is the message to hurry, to
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achieve, before the ice bound days of January are upon us.
So on this second of December I toss aside the grey artificially scented letter, and sally forth with my garden partner, arms laden with our precious horde of freshly arrived Japanese lilies, making our way toward Kingdom Come. ‘Then from the cellar is fetched the great box of sand which we had care- fully stored away one warm, scarlet splashed autumn day, in expectation of this exciting December morn- ing.
The few inches of snow are lifted with a spade and the earth proves to be frozen only a little over an inch! Holes twelve inches deep are dug, then the good old wheelbarrow is squeaked upon the scene laden with a rich compost of old manure and decayed sod and weeds. The holes are given two inches of compost in the bottom, then a heaping trowel of sand is thrown in to make a bed for the great, luscious auratum bulbs to lie in, with a counterpane of the same sand to cover them. We then fill the hole with the mingled compost and original soil.
Leaves which we have prudently saved in gunny sacks for this purpose, are then piled over the hole, while over them moderately fresh manure is laid for
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the triple purpose of holding the leaves in place, warmth and spring fertilization.
We always have great difficulty to avoid coming to blows over the subject of depth in planting.
Taven’t you met the variety of gardener who would, if left to himself, always plant everything in the centre of the earth’s axis if he could dig that deep? Well then, you know what I have to contend with, and what spirited discussions and stilted dignity occur before a compromise is reached.
The larger awratum bulbs should be planted ten inches deep; the speciosum Melpomene and smaller lily bulbs about six inches.
All told we plant twenty-six lilies among the peonies ; the latter will give the bulbs shade about the stalks in summer, conserving the moisture, while the foliage of the peonies will make leafy vases for the bouquets of lilies to rise from.
With tired backs but gleeful hearts we trudge toward the house, and on the way I stoop and brush the snow from a border, finding a quantity of very fresh sweet alyssum smiling happily under its glitter- ing cover. Across the path, in a nook under the white lilac, are several clumps of brave purple stocks look- ing like monster double violets.
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The hardy chrysanthemums are reluctantly cut down, for they still display touches of yellow, red, pink and white in the centre, within the brownish edges of the frosted outer petals. The stalks are cut close to the new growth already courageously making haste for the next season. The plants are then mulched with leaves and manure.
Between labors we sit on the garden bench under the pines where the chickadees come and sass us, while a redheaded woodpecker drums on the tree trunk above our heads.
The green and white benches, as I’ve said before, are left out all winter, for why should we not enjoy a peaceful, comfortable hour in the out-of-doors when it is in its most beautiful white, winter stage?
There are only three months in the year when I cannot gather flowers daily from the garden, and even during those months the garden is still magical in its loveliness because of its bitter-sweet vines gleaming with red berries, the scarlet fruited sumachs, evergreen cedars, pines and hemlocks. The white birch gains in spiritual beauty during its winter bare-
ness when frail limbs make a tracery against sunset
sky — the last note of poetic suggestion. ‘The pop- lars (not Lombardy, but that variety having silver
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aspenlike leaves which quiver at the touch of summer wind) have a beauty scarce earthly when their pale jade trunks rise from the white surface of snow.
The morning after a great icy rain we awaken to find the pines wearing a million diamonds, the birches shimmering in sunlight with every tint of the rain- bow.
Then when the snow covers all the ground there are a thousand new beauties in things we accepted casually throughout summer. The white earth be- comes a canvas on which each crooked limb, humble weed, straggling vine, may paint a masterpiece in blue and purple shadow.
A certain proportion of winter severity is a blessing to both gardener and garden. I have lived in south- ern and northern states, and the West Indies, and of course have made gardens wherever I lived; and I assure you, if your garden is situated in a cold clime you may feel well content, even if you can’t have royal ponceanas, bougainvilleas, palms, camel- lias and gardenias growing out-of-doors, you may have three-fourths of all the loveliest flowers in the world.
Where there is no winter freezing to partially kill the insects a gardener’s battle is fearful. Ants,
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Ids Moke @ oGer feed Cl
sowbugs, wireworms, can, in the warmer climes, almost fret the soul to hopelessness. The flowers which are native in the tropics have a hardihood which can resist the insects and the heat; it is true they keep a cycle of bloom the year round, but they are apt to be limited in number and consequently are repeated endlessly in all gardens, producing in a foreigner the sensation of living amid set stage scenes of undeni- able beauty, but a beauty which eventually palls on the mind to an unendurable degree.
The great contrast of our snowy winters gives the eye a change and rest, and breeds a new zest for the next season’s pageant of flowers. And how imper- ceptibly nature reintroduces us to color; the earliest spring flowers are all demure and modest in form and tint; from the snowdrop and crocus we are led by scillas, hyacinths and narcissi to the bolder tones of the tulips.
The winter severities weld our hearts closer to the creatures of the out-of-doors. There are the traces of Br’er Rabbit to be seen each morning after a snow. I always feel a thrill when I see the pathetic track of his hunted feet. I wish there were some way to con- vey a general invitation to his race to make their winter quarters in the safe refuge of our garden,
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G
BARRIERS IN SPRIN
bees tke er Matter Crarden
where many borders of Scotch pinks will feed them generously and save me trimming next spring. They can also make a midnight feast from the frozen apples and nibble the Brussels sprouts.
On the twenty-fourth of December the Christmas
tree 1s cut— always with a qualm, for it seems so cruel to end its life in the woods for a brief, gay existence indoors.
We save enough sand from the lily planting to use for the Christmas tree. The trunk is placed in a bucket and the sand filled in about it, making the firmest, neatest and simplest arrangement possible.
For the Christmas table decoration there is nothing prettier than cyclamen. No other flower will’stand the hardships of indoor winter life as well as this. It needs but little sun and will continue to bloom under the most vacillating conditions of heat and cold, light and darkness.
It seems only fair, though, that between meals it should be given a chance at some bright window to enjoy a more natural existence. These plants can be raised from seed and in this way one may obtain a great variety and by having many plants let them take turn in brightening the dining table.
With the first of January approaching we look
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forward to the arrival of the catalogues from seeds- men and rosarians, then the search for novelties begins, the glad renewal of acquaintance with beloved old flower friends, and the ever new delight in the never varying pictures.
Then, although the gardening hands will perhaps be folded for a time, losing their freckles, tan and callous spots, the gardening brain is working harder than ever, planning the spring campaign of beauty; dreaming at night of the fall planted bulbs; forswear- ing during the day the dress planned for Easter, that one may purchase those marvelous azaleas which smile from the cover of a particularly enticing new catalogue.
Soythe season merges from one dream to another, an endless circle of hope and work, always garlanded with ‘blossoms, which only bloom the more in the mind’s eye when the trees bow earthward with snow and the plant children lie tucked in their white beds, perhaps dreaming as we dream of the great Spring
Pantomime.
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Care ot the Gorden Dirds
TAK the Getle
HE winter care of the birds really begins during
the summer before. For then it is that we plant
great quantities of sunflowers, planting so many we
may leave at least half the seed heads untouched for
the autumn birds to help themselves to, the remainder
being stored away in crates carefully protected from rats for the bird hard times in midwinter.
- There is also a large patch of peanuts planted for the chickadees and nuthatches. The chickadees eventually become so tame they permit us to offer them peanuts in the fingers, perching on the hand when nibbling. The peanuts (crushed) are daily spread on a shelf extending beyond the studio win- dow in full sight, where we may enjoy the merry feasting of the chickadees and the sly thief-like snatching of the hatches.
During the autumn little bird hotels are erected in 185
eds tale w Mo@er Crneune
sheltered spots, in trees near the house, out of cat reach, for the universally and unjustly despised Eng- lish sparrows. We take ordinary wooden boxes and by adding partitions form various little apartments, for even sparrows like private rooms and, having once appropriated them, hold and defend their prop- erty against all intruders.
After five years of intimacy and unprejudiced, careful investigation of the English sparrow, I have not found to be true one thing their detractors say. And they do not chase other birds away.
I have attracted all the sparrows I can to my garden and I have more robins, juncos, thrushes, catbirds, chickadees, nuthatches, hermit thrushes, Pheebes, orioles and song sparrows than can be found anywhere else within miles of the Wilderness. The sparrows live on terms of greatest amity with all the other birds — their quarrels being confined to their own family.
And as for quarrelsomeness, the nearest approach to actual dueling I’ve ever witnessed was between two robins. For sheer peevishness and peckingness, none surpass the white-striped headed sparrows of high degree, while even the dear chickadee is remarkably quick of temper and snippety.
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The poor English sparrow has been so persecuted and talked about he is very sensitive and espe- cially grateful for kindness, showing actual devotion to a human friend. When I go out under the apple trees and call, “ Come on, little children, come on,” they flock to me from all directions, fluttering about my head like tame pigeons. The morning after a snowstorm I find the embroidery of little feet all over the front porch up to the very door, where I suppose they would knock if they were stronger. There they sit or flutter about the bare vines, knowing they can count on us for food supplies during this stormy time.
The sparrows suffer so much during the winter; we always have a few cripples in our flock — poor birds who perhaps perched for the night on a bare bough and woke in the morning to find their feet frozen to the limb.
For two winters we entertained a one-legged junco who, I’m sorry to say, was much persecuted by his kindred, but perhaps it was for some individual unpleasant trait that I didn’t know about. He even- tually waited until dusk to come alone for his meal under the studio window, stumping about most piti- fully, using one wing as a sort of crutch.
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elie Phalen vel eto der Cracden
The birds learn to look on us as protectors and it is a proud position to fill. Id even rather be a bird protector than a policeman on Broadway.
When we are awakened, before the workman’s whistle, by a hullabaloo at our window, and rush out in nebulous garments just in time to save our spar- row colony from.a hawk, it is indeed a proud moment.
During last summer we noticed that the sparrows deserted the drinking bowl for days and kept raucously trying to tell us some scandal about it, but it was only by a chance glance out one evening that we discovered the trouble. It was a rat who sneaked out to the bowl from the cellar, stealing the bird bread and perhaps pouncing on sparrow orphans and widows.
A small child’s rifle aimed nervously and amateur- ishly fired, only served to wound the rat, and then there was a frolic. All the family rushed at the rat with various nice weapons, such as a chafing dish, brass poker and Samurai sword, and when the spar- rows saw their enemy wounded, and our efforts to slaughter him, they joined us with all fear departed, diving down between our weapons, getting in the way of blows, pecking the rat’s back until somehow some- body — sparrows or we —killed the enemy. ‘There
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was a general festival and a grand funeral which all the birds attended.
Of course, taking the responsibility for the birds can be carried too far, if the birds begin to shirk responsibility themselves and expect you to look after the children who desert the nest too soon, the parents demanding, ‘“‘ Where is -my wandering boy?” every time you go into the garden, instead of feeding the little bawlers themselves.
Then, too, it’s a terrible responsibility to have to assist in the general pandemonium when an entire brood of post wrens fly the coop at once.
There was “ Spilly Willy,” the post wren, and his little wife, ‘“ Tildy.”? He came to the back porch, _ then to the front porch, searching and begging for a home, having been unexpectedly accepted by Tildy the day before. We hurried and found a little stunted failure of a gourd that looked about the size of his necessity, broke a fine knife making a round door, and mashed a favorite finger nailing it up to the veranda post. Spilly Willy accepted it in three hours, and he and Tildy nearly killed themselves spilling over with song-joy while trying to fit four- inch twigs of wood cross-ways in an inch door hole. Then we found another gourd a size larger, with a
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dried, crooked stem (which would make a beautiful balcony), and in this one we made two doors, front and back, and nailed it to another post in case Spilly Willy had a cousin or college chum who also wanted to go to hurried housekeeping. We had scarcely gotten it in place when Tildy — curiosity beset woman — flitted over to investigate the new house and went in the back door and out of the front door and sat on the balcony and went indoors again and squatted down to try its hatching qualities; and then out she came and called to Spilly Willy (who was still trying, manlike, to do an impossible mathe- matical problem with twigs) to come over and behold this model abode with all the modern improvements. After much feminine argument Tildy had her way, of course, and Spilly Willy reluctantly gave up the rustic cottage he’d set his heart on and began all over again the task of bringing twigs for the furnish- ing. I never saw such work as those two accom- plished in the next few days— and I never heard such rapturous singing as they kept up perpetually, perfect cataracts of music tumbling from their little throats.
Then the laying started and poor Spilly Willy was
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completely left out of it — didn’t know what to do with himself, didn’t even have a pipe to smoke — so he just sat on the balcony while Tildy laid the eggs as fast as she could, and sang his very heart out serenading and encouraging her. Spilly Willy no longer had the freedom of the home as he had when there was house furnishing to do; Tildy treated him as if he were a bull in a china shop and wouldn’t let him do more than peek in at the precious fragile eggs, so Spilly Willy, having no club to go to, formed a habit of going to the first gourd cottage, sitting contemplatively therein.
Tildy sat and sat and sat, and Spilly Willy sang and sang and sang and brought all the delicacies to be found in the universe to his little wife, until at last the first son and heir emerged from his shell.
After little Billee arrived, other little brothers and sisters appeared, until there were in all six hungry, cavernous mouths to feed. Tildy and Spilly Willy nearly worked themselves to feathers and bone pro- viding for that family, until I was afraid the world’s store of grubs and spiders would be exhausted. And Tildy kept reminding him what a blessing it was they moved to the model house, for now she could go in
1
Ids Fede a PloGer Gerden
at the back door and feed the children and out of the front, when he arrived at the back door with more food. |
Then came a day when Spilly Willy summoned me with piercing shrieks of alarm. I rushed out and sat long before I understood. 'Tildy, it seemed, had gone off as usual for a spider and, alack and alas, had not returned. ‘There was no use to hunt —I didn’t know where to go —TI could only say all the comforting things I could think of and keep a vigil over the little flock while the disconsolate husband sought far, and near, coming back every now and again with food which he hastily and silently deliv- ered only to be off again, desperately calling in heart- breaking tones, through the Tildyless distance.
Toward the end of the third hour, what with his heartache and double duty of feeding the children, Spilly Willy was nigh dead, and I never saw a sadder thing than when he went over to their first little home and crawled inside, his back turned to the world, alone with his memories and his sorrow.
We had both given up hope —TI believed a cat had gotten her or she had become entangled in a wire fence— when suddenly a Niagara of song sounded near.
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Spilly Willy sprang forth from his retreat as one electrified, and gave a cry of joyous relief that gripped my throat. It was Tildy in the flesh, Tildy safe, Tildy back home again to her lover and her brood! She gave Spilly Willy one gleeful greeting and song of explanation, then sped within the back door to her crying children.
Spilly sat on the balcony stem outside; his vigil, his labor, his heartaches suddenly relieved, his little head drooped and nodded in the exhaustion of sleep.
As the children grew older they would hang out the front and back doors squawking for food, and almost tumble out before their parents could bring it. This nearly frightened Tildy to death but I really believe Spilly Willy took pride in it, for one day while Tildy was off foraging he deliberately sat on the baleony and dared little Billee to come clean out. Billee did and so did Sally and Tildy, Jr., and Beatrice and Harold and little Pearl — all six just fluttered, fell and spilled out front and back doors and made off for inaccessible foreign parts.
Then Tildy returned and was flabbergasted; she accused Spilly Willy; he denied it and I didn’t tell on him. There was pandemonium, wifely shrieks and flutterings, then all of a sudden both laid all the
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blame on me, and I was made to understand that as long as I was responsible for the breaking up of their home it was up to me to search for the children.
Of course, they had gotten under our porch and neighboring porches, down cellar and in every other difficult place, where I bumped my head and nearly skinned my back reaching them, only to have the wretched little things flutter farther away. After an hour’s ceaseless pursuit I eventually landed the entire six babies, placed them unhurt on the boughs of a sumach, and delivered myself of an oration to the parents, in which I forthwith washed my hands of the entire business.
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What “Ay arden Means toMe
HE greatest gift of a garden is the restoration of the five senses.
During the first year in the country I noticed but few birds, the second year I saw a few more, but by the fourth year the air, the tree tops, the thickets and _ ground seemed teeming with bird life. ‘‘ Where did they all suddenly come from?” I asked myself. The birds had always been there, but I hadn’t the power to see; I had been made purblind by the city and only gradually regained my power of sight.
My ears, deafened by the ceaseless whir and din of commerce, had lost the keenness which catches the nuances of bird melody, and it was long before I was aware of distinguishing the varying tones that afterward meant joy, sorrow, loss or love, to me. That hearing has now become so keen, there is no bond of sleep so strong that the note of a strange
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bird will not pierce to the unsleeping, subconscious ear and arouse me instantly to alertness in every fibre of my being. I wonder if even death will make me insensate to the first chirp of a vanguard robin in March. |
During that half-awake first year of country life I was walking with a nature-wise man and as we passed by a field where the cut hay lay wilting, he whiffed and said, “ There’s a good deal of rag weed in that hay.” I gazed on him with the admiration I’ve saved all my life for wizards and wondered what peculiar brand of nose he had.
Then the heart, the poor jaded heart, that must etherize itself to endure the grimness of city life at all, how subtly it begins throbbing again in unison with the great symphony of the natural. The awak- ened heart can sense spring in the air when there is no visible suggestion in calendar or frosted earth, and knowing the songful secret, the heart can cause the feet to dance through a day that would only mean winter to an urbanite. ;
The sense of taste can only be restored by a con- stant diet of unwilted vegetables and freshly picked fruit.
The delicacy of touch comes back gradually by
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tending injured birdlings, by the handling of fragile infant plants, and by the acquaintance with different leaf textures, which finally makes one able to distin- guish a plant, even in the dark, by its Irish tweed, silken or fur finish.
And the foot, how intangibly it becomes sensi- tized; how instinctively it avoids a plant even when the eye is busy elsewhere. On the darkest night I can traverse the rocky ravine, the thickets, the sinu- ous paths through overgrown patches, and never stumble, scratch myself or crush a leaf. My foot knows every unevenness of each individual bit of garden, and adjusts itself lovingly without conscious thought of brain.
To the ears that have learned to catch the first tentative lute of a marsh frog in spring, orchestras are no longer necessary. To the eyes that have regained their sight, more wonder lies in the crafts- manship of a tiny leaf-form of inconsequential weed, than is to be found in a bombastic arras. To the resuscitated nose is revealed the illimitable secrets of earth incense, the whole gamut of flower perfume, and other fragrant odors too intangible to be classed, odors which wing the spirit to realms our bodies are as yet too clumsy to inhabit.
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ets Make @ Ko@er Creden
To the awakened mind there is nothing so lowly in the things below and above ground but can com- mand respect and study. Darwin spent only thirty years on the study of the humble earthworm.
To get the greatest good from a garden we should not undertake more than we can personally take care of. I have not had a gardener since the first year when outside help was necessary for the translation of the sumach and briar patches of our Wilderness into arable land. A gardener is only helpful for the preliminary work of spading, after that his very presence is a profanation. :
Garden making is creative work, just as much as painting or writing a poem. It is a personal ex- pression of self, an individual conception of beauty. I should as soon think of asking a secretary to write my book, or the cook to assist in a water color painting, as to permit a gardener to plant or dig among my flowers. For in even the most unimportant parts of my garden are little secret treasures — a stray cornflower that a Bedouin wind lured from its home bed; a shy wild violet that strayed from the woods, being tired of blushing unseen; a bloodroot which must have been brought some night by a fairy; where is the gardener whose
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Kets Make a Plover Garden eye and heart have been trained to respect these chance visitors?
The ancients had a delightful way of commemo- rating events and people by marble and other endur- ing things. I can see why we should hesitate to borrow from friends, but I don’t see why we should not borrow from dead Greeks; therefore I’ve made my garden largely commemorative and memorial.
For instance, there’s that hedge on the north boundary; it’s true we needed a wind-break there, but it was much sweeter to forget necessity and let its planting become an epic; therefore, after one especially delightful honeymoon (we have them an- nually and sometimes accidentally) we came home with the new enthusiasm bred of a short absence from home, and set out ninety-something hemlocks and ealled it ‘* The Honeymoon Hedge.”
Then there is the terrace planned in honor of the advent of two dearly loved friends who had a weak- ness for breakfasting outdoors. I made my garden partner haul stones for days like an Italian laborer, and we both behaved like ground moles tunnelling out earth for many other days; and then a great christening rain descended prematurely and we only achieved a mud hole in a stone quarry by the time
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the friends arrived. But they had the prophetic eyes of poets, and when shod with galoshes they plowed through the mud of their future terrace and could imagine all the beauty we had intended; they almost wept with gratitude and were perfectly docile about breakfasting indoors!
The terrace was eventually finished. I ought to know because [I laid thirty feet of stone wall (which I find out by the dictionary should be called a “ Ha-Ha,” though I never suspected it had such a mirthful name at that skinned thumb time); and we planted it with hundreds of tulips, thousands of hyacinths, a million crocuses, a trillion grass seed and six Dorothy Perkins. ‘The next year when the dear friends came again, the terrace was too beautiful to breakfast upon; they could only stand at a respect- ful distance, with bared heads, while it was formally dedicated.
There also is the rose-garden annex surprise, planned for the aforesaid partner’s birthday, he being prohibited for days from taking his “ consti- tutional” in that portion of our realm. When the first of June arrived there stood — well, I won’t say exactly the number, but if I had been a prosaic person I would have purchased just the same number
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THE GUARDIAN OF THE GARDEN
ee. ae eal.
of candles to stick in a short-lived birthday cake, as I planted roses in the abiding chocolate cake of the ground.
Of course every true gardener saves his own seed, thereby gradually bringing all the different varieties to greater perfection; incidentally he may name these self-developed brands after otherwise unfamed friends.
Whenever there is a particularly eccentric or beautiful color shown in a blossom I tie a tape about it, and write its praise on the tape, so when the seed is harvested a fickle memory need not be relied upon. By saving each year the very darkest hollyhock of the blackish variety, I finally achieved the actually black flowers and had a chance to evidence my admi- ration of a certain friend’s hair (not her character) by bestowing her name on the hollyhock.
If a man has an extravagant wife who cannot resist Irish lace robes when displayed on a lay-lady in a department store window, he should just gently lead her to the country, present her with two acres of ground, or one and a half, introduce her to flower catalogues and teach her to dig. She'll soon forget even manicurists. It’s the simplest general cure I know for all feminine weaknesses.
No woman once demoralized into a gardener ever
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[ets Hales a’ Plover Creede
hesitated when confronted with a choice between a
new gown and—well, say the same amount spent in peonies, peach trees, roses and rhubarb plants. No wonder the first woman gardener could only afford the fig leaf; all her clothes money went for anemones and more apple trees.
One can only measure change by retrospection; when a backward glance produces a finer content with one’s present state, then surely the spirit is not retrograding. I’m sure I’m a reconstructed being in more ways than one since I moved to the country, especially in my attitude toward vegetables. Dur- ing the first year I ignored the “ sass patch,” treated it as a snob does the real toilers of this world. But gradually lured by the sheer beauty of bejeweled- by-dew cabbage, the fragance of the onion, I now expend as much muscle on the vegetable kingdom as I do on my roses, and, incidentally, I have become a vegetarian. That’s the only way to become one — just because there are so many good vegetables, one ‘doesn’t need to encourage the slaughter of beasts.
And this kind of vegetarian, the accidental kind, is not afflicted with anemia; it is only the theories of the professional vegetarian that makes him look so bloodless.
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Keds Male nh Melia (reprlen
Once when we were without a maid, and very busy in the studio, we didn’t have time to prepare course dinners, so we chucked thirteen different kinds of vegetables in a big aluminum preserving kettle and went off about our business of being great. After several hours we came to, and remembering the pot a-boiling, gave a yell of dismay; we were so sure it was burnt I think we had no time to use the stairs — the banisters were more expedite.
Now if that pot had contained a chicken it would have gone to glory; but lo and behold! there were our faithful vegetables philosophically stewing away, sending forth a fragrance that was like a patch quilt of odors. And when we sat down to sample the thirteen courses compressed into one we found a dish delectable enough to make Lucullus and Sulla resur- rect before their time.
Of course we had so much left over, after we’d gorged ourselves, the next day was provided for too; and by merely adding a preponderance of tomato, the stew was metamorphosed on ‘Tuesday (we'll say it was Monday when this kitchen vaudeville began), so on Tuesday the meal was quite different. On Wednesday, by the addition of much cabbage and little disks of bacon, still another culinary
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Kets Male a Plover C@orden
enigma was achieved. On Thursday a heavy hand with celery made a new avatar of the dish. On Fri- day carrots recklessly donated caused a_ strange masquerade of flavor. On Saturday cauliflower gave the departing a reprieve. And on Sunday we held a wake over all the ghosts of thirteen vanishing vege- tables.
The gardener is an explorer, an experimentalist, an idealist, and best of all he becomes inevitably a humanitarian. If he is an artist, he can satisfy all the cravings of his soul for color and pictures; if a musician he can find expression for all the harmony in his being. Music, painting and gardening are based on the same laws of color, harmony, compo- sition.
Take if you will a long path that is bordered by hollyhocks on each side, ranging from white through pink, lilac, salmon, red, yellow, climaxing with black ; the path leads curvingly, luringly to a point of ex- ceeding loveliness, an open vista commanding a gen- eral view of the garden, and the distant hills and countryside. Who will say that it is not lke the gradual crescendo of a passage of music developing through tones of ever increasing richness to the final magnificent chord?
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[ets Fake a Mower Crerden
A gardener lives in the present and future; if he has a sad past, he forgets it.
A garden is ageless and the gardener becomes age- less too, as ageless as the wind, the rain, the sun, summer and winter, for he becomes one with them all.
I believe no living creature could remain bad if associated daily with flowers, for flowers have such an Irish way of seducing, with the blarney of beauty, to the simple, real and only abiding things of life.
Finding contentment, the gardener exhales it.
Tucked away in a dim corner of the curiosity shop of my brain is a fragment heard, read or dreamed some time in the nebulous past; it runs:
** A weary traveler was passing along and noticed in his path a dry, shriveled leaf. Picking it up, he was amazed at the perfume it exhaled. ‘Oh! thou poor withered leaf, whence comest this exquisite perfume? ’
“ The leaf replied: ‘I have lain for a time in the
company of a rose.’ ”
Once a gardener, always a gardener; there is no happier creature than the soil and flower lover.
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Ils Make. a PloGer Crepes
Make friends with the shy things of the woods, the winged creatures of air, the sun and the rain, and there is no poverty that can reach you, no world weariness which will not be effaced. The birds bring their sorrows to you and you forget your own; they bring you their joy and brim your heart with song.
The flowers know you for their sweetheart, the bees buzz fraternally about you, even the wasps let you share the secrets of their households, saving their stings for their enemies.
The twilight restores all your childhood’s dreams, the moon gilds your present hopes, and the seasons take you by the hand, leading so gently along the pathway. of the years that there is no age to fear, only a vista opening ever wider to the clearer eye, the keener ear, the vibrant heart.
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