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MAKING A GARDEN
OFPERENNIALS

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MAKING A

GARDEN OF

PERENNIALS

THE

HOUSE & GARDEN
MAKING

BOOKS

IT is the intention of the publishers to make
this series of little volumes, of which Making
a Garden of Perennials is one, a complete library
of authoritative and well illustrated handbooks
dealing with the activities of the home-maker
and amateur gardener. Text, pictures and
diagrams will, in each respective book, aim to
make perfectly clear the possibility of having,
and the means of having, some of the more
important features of a modern country or
suburban home. Among the titles already
issued or planned for early publication are the
following : Making a Rose Garden; Making a
Lawn; Making a Tennis Court; Making a Fire-
place; Making Paths and Driveways; Making
a Rock Garden; Making a Garden with Hotbed
and Coldframe; Making Built-in Bookcases,
Shelves and Seats; Making a Garden to Bloom
This Tear; Making a Water Garden; Making
a Poultry House; Making the Grounds Attractive
with Shrubbery; Making a Naturalized Bulb
Garden; with others to be announced later.

Making a Garden
of Perennials

By W. C. EGAN

NEW YORK

McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY
1912

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
McBRIDE, NAST & CO.

Published June, 1912

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PREPARING THE BEDS .

WINTER MULCHING . . . .20

SUMMER MULCHING . . . .23

PLANT COMBINATIONS . . . .30

WEEDING 34

LISTS OF DEPENDABLE PERENNIALS:

OF GENERAL EXCELLENCE . . 36

FOR SHADY POSITIONS . . .49

FOR DRY SOILS . . . .50

FOR WET SOILS . . . .51

ALPINES, OR ROCK PLANTS . .51

250671

THE ILLUSTRATIONS

A GARDEN OF PERENNIALS . Frontispiece

PAGE

A COLONY OP GERMAN IRIS 4

SWEET ROCKET AGAINST A FOLIAGE
BACKGROUND 12

PEONIES 24

CANTERBURY BELLS AND FOXGLOVE . 30
ANEMONE JAPONICA . . . .38
PHLOX PANIC ULATA . . . .46

SWAMP MALLOW, GAILLARDIA AND
CAMPANULA PEESICIFOLIA . 50

MAKING A

GARDEN OF

PERENNIALS

INTRODUCTION

HE successful garden has a permanent
•*• basis. There must be some flowers
that appear year after year, whose posi-
tion is fixed and whose appearance can be
counted on. The group classed as peren-
nials occupies this position and about flow-
ers of this class is arranged all the various
array of annuals and bulbs. These last act
as reinforcements in rounding out the gar-
den scheme.

Perennials are plants that live on year
after year if the conditions surrounding
them are congenial.

Trees and shrubs are perennials, of
course; in these the stems are woody, but
we are considering only those known as
herbaceous perennials, having stems of a
more or less soft texture that, with the
exception of a few evergreen species, die

2 Introduction

back each fall, new ones appearing the fol-
lowing spring.

Quite a number of them are too tender
to be generally grown as hardy perennials,
but those that bloom freely the first year
— like the snapdragon — are treated as an-
nuals, discarding them when the season is
ended.

Some biennials-— those that do not bloom
until the second year, and then die— may
be placed among the perennials and con-
sidered of their class, because they seed
so freely at the base of the parent plant
and bloom the following year, that their
presence in the border is nearly always
assured. The only thing necessary to do
is to transplant those not in the situation
you desire them to bloom in. RudbecJcia
triloba, one of the Black-eyed Susan type,
is not only a good example of this class,
but a charming plant that all should grow,
and, moreover, it is a very accommodating
one, doing splendidly in semi-shady places,
such as north of buildings or under weep-

Introduction 3

ing trees like the rose-flowered Japanese
weeping cherry. It is at home in full sun-
shine where it will form a broadly rounded,
bushy plant about three feet in diameter
and, when in full bloom, with its myriad
of black-eyed flowers, it can dispel the
worst case of melancholia a dyspeptic ever
enjoyed. It requires a good open, rather
light soil to do itself justice. If lifted
when in full bloom, put into a ten-inch
pot, well soaked at the roots, and set
aside for a few hours away from sun and
wind, it will last for two weeks as a porch
or house plant.

We hear a good deal about the gardens
of our grandmothers, perennial gardens,
in which the plants outlived the flagstones
at the house door.

With a few exceptions, perennials are
not long-lived. The gas plant, peonies,
some of the iris, day lilies, and a few others,
seem permanent.

The usual run require to be taken up
about every two or three years and divided.

4 Introduction

There are two reasons for this. In the
first place, the roots have exhausted all the
food within reach and, again, the main
crown, from which spring the blooming
shoots, dies from exhaustion. At the outer
edge of this decay is generally a fringe
of " live matter " which, if taken up, sep-
arate from the decayed center, divided, and
reset in good soil, will rejuvenate itself,
and soon form a new plant.

In unfavorable sections the Texas gail-
lardia will lose its crown during winter,
and the anxious novice watches impatiently
in the spring for its reappearance, and
finally digs it up only to find that while the
crown is decayed the roots are alive, and
here and there, on these, new plant buds
are forming which, if not disturbed, would
soon make good plants, probably not
placed, however, just where wanted. Nurs-
erymen often avail themselves of this pe-
culiarity and increase their stock by tak-
ing up a plant, cutting the roots into small
sections, and growing them separately.

The German iris is one of the most beautiful
forms in the flower world and it will flourish
in practically any moderately good soil

Introduction 5

We must remember that nine-tenths of
the plants we grow are exotic — natives of
distant parts and climes — coming from
various atmospheric conditions, and from
all kinds of soil. We bring them into our
garden and grow them all under one cli-
matic influence and in the one kind of soil
we happen to possess. Certainly we cannot
expect uniform success with all of them.
You might as well bring into one room
unlettered natives of distant climes and
expect them all to enter into a general
conversation. Even in gardens quite near
each other, their permanence varies. I
cannot grow, successfully, any of the bol-
tonias, while within a quarter of a mile of
me, in a friend's garden, they grow like
weeds. Our soil is the same, and one would
suppose that the climatic conditions were,
still the fact remains. I merely mention
this so that any novice finding that he
cannot grow some plants as well as others
near him, may not feel lonesome in his
grief. It is, however, a good plan, when

6 Introduction

a plant supposedly easy to grow, fails to
materialize, to try it in another part of
your own garden, and if it does not do well
there, discard and forget it — the world is
full of good things.

Due to the fact of the perennial's habit
of annual recurrence the cultural direc-
tions are different from the flowers of but
a season's bloom. There are some vital
fundamentals that every gardener should
know and some short cuts to success that
every one may know. Since perennials,
then, form the very kernel of the garden
these are things of first importance in the
growing of flowers and will be here elab-
orated sufficiently to give the reader an
impetus that will carry him at a bound
into the inner circle of the garden mys-
teries.

Making a Garden of Perennials
PREPARING THE BEDS

TPVO we want a successful flower bed —
•*— ' one that our neighbors will envy — •
or one in which the plants are struggling
to exist? If we want the former — and who
does not? — we must give our plants good
pasturage. They are as fond of the fat
of the land as we are, and, since they
gladden our hearts with their radiant
blooms, we should treat them fairly. And
how? By giving them a good, deep soil
for their root-run, not only rich in food,
but loose and friable.

Most all virgin soils contain ample plant
food, but the deeper part lacks the result
of the action of air, sun and frost, and
the natural humus of decayed leaves and
grasses. The plant food it contains is
7

8 Making a Garden of Perennials

" uncooked " — that is, not ready for plant
assimilation. Therefore, the beds to con-
tain your perennials should be dug at least
two feet deep — three is better — and good
garden soil, or soil from a corn-field or
any hoed crop where the weeds have been
kept down, used to supplement all but the
top layer one foot in depth. All of this
applies to tree and shrub holes also. This
top layer of one foot in depth is apt to
be in fair condition for immediate use and
may be applied in the bottom of the bed,
mixed with either fresh or rotted manure.
The soil brought in may be mixed with old
manure and placed on top.

A word about " old manure " is oppor-
tune here. Any manure that has been
piled up for a year or more in a weed-
infested corner and used on your grounds,
especially on your lawn, is the best pro-
moter of exercise I know of, and can keep
you busy all summer dislodging the weeds
that spring from the seed its bosom pro-
tected.

Preparing the Beds 9

Of course, in a few sections where the
soil is three feet deep — as I am told it is
in the Illinois corn belt — all that is needed
is to loosen up the soil to the depth men-
tioned, and add old manure. If the re-
moval and bringing in of so much new
soil is too harsh on the pocketbook we must
proceed in a more economical way. If the
soil is clayey in texture, mix with it sifted
coal ashes or sand, and the coarser part of
the ashes may be incorporated with the soil
in the lower foot of bed. Remove the top
one-foot layer, and set it aside ; throw out
the bottom soil to the remaining depth.
Break it up finely and, in replacing it,
beside* the coal ashes or sand, add fresh
strong manure, placing it in horizontal
layers — say three inches of soil, and then
a layer of manure four inches thick, when
gently tamped down; or make the layers
slantingly — say at an angle of about
forty-five degrees. This will add humus
to the soil, and allow air and moisture to
penetrate it. Then put in the original

io Making a Garden of Perennials

top layer, mixing it with old manure. No
fresh manure should touch the root of a
plant. The fresh manure at the bottom
of the bed will be well rotted by the time
the roots reach it. After the top layer is
put on you will find the bed raised up six to
eight inches above the lawn, which is all
right ; it will settle enough in time. At all
times break up the soil into fine particles,
otherwise a lump of clay will remain a
lump, and is of little value for plant use.

In making beds or shrub holes close to
buildings having a cellar, one generally
has to remove entirely all the soil, as that
present usually consists of the deeper soil
from the cellar excavation, mixed with
bricks and mortar — few flowers root well
in brick.

Place your flower beds along the walks,
at the house, or along the lot lines, but
do not clutter the center of your lawn
with them. An open grass plot adds ap-
parent size and dignity to any place. Give
as much open sunlight as possible. Only

Preparing the Beds n

early spring bloomers, like the hepaticas
and trilliums, grow in what we call shade
— though at the time of their growth and
bloom they have the sunlight through the
leafless tree branches. Do not make a bed
where the drainage is bad or where water
will stand in it during the winter. Tile
draining will improve the bed under almost
any circumstances.

Keep away from large trees. A vigor-
ous elm, and a perennial cannot eat and
drink out of the same dish and both grow
fat. The perennial will be the one to
suffer, mostly from lack of moisture. If
you have planted near a tree or lack of
space compels you to do so, take a sharp
spade and, each spring, cut deeply all
along the edge of the flower bed nearest
the tree, and pull out from the bed all the
small roots you can without disturbing
the plants. This will help it for a time,
but the elm will invade the bed again and
the operation must be repeated. This ap-
plies to beds within eight or ten feet of a

12 Making a Garden of Perennials

tree. For any bed much nearer, the cut-
ting would be apt to injure the tree, and
the growth in the bed would be a poor one.

Where the grounds are large and there
is ample room for large beds at the bor-
ders, with an open lawn in front, flowering
shrubs may be used as a background for
perennials, but the growth of the shrubs
requires frequent removals of the peren-
nials further forward, and a frequent re-
newal of the plant food which the shrub
is sharing. This method requires more
watering on account of the double duty
required of the soil.

Avoid fancy or geometrical shapes.
They belong, when allowable, to formal
gardens where tender bedding plants are
used. Along walks, rectangular beds may
be made, but against buildings or bound-
ary lines, while the rear line may be com-
paratively straight, the front should be
undulating, having long sweeping bays
and promontories. No short curves should
exist. They interfere with the lawn-

Preparing the Beds 13

mower. When it is desirable to face a
boundary border with a walk, then, of
course, the front line of a bed should be
straight.

Some perennials require to be planted
two feet apart, and in some, like peonies,
three feet is close enough, for in time their
tops will meet. Eighteen inches apart is
enough to allow for the majority and some
slender ones require but one foot. All this
should be taken into consideration when
determining the width of the bed.

Starting with the proposition that the
average plant requires eighteen inches
headroom, and that the first row may be
planted six inches within the bed at the
front — nine to twelve is better — and the
second one back eighteen inches, and six
from the back, we find that with rows two
plants deep it requires a bed two feet and
a half in width. This should be the nar-
rowest allowance you should make. In a
four-foot bed you can place them three
deep, and one five and a half takes four

14 Making a Garden of Perennials

plants. In other words, you increase your
width in jumps of eighteen inches at a
time. While this is not actually necessary,
it is best and applies only to the widest
and narrowest points. The intervening
curved lines will vary from this measure-
ment but it makes no difference, because
you do not plant in straight rows from
back to front as one would cabbages.

In planting at boundary lines or at
buildings, the taller ones should be used
at the back, but the semi-tall ones — say
three feet in height — should occasionally
be brought well toward the front in order
.to avoid stiffness and to add irregularity
to the general effect. If a house or fence
is at the back, flowering vines like the
Clematis paniculata, or C. flammida, or
any annual flowering vine, may be used
here and there. In detached beds which
may be seen from all sides, the taller plants
are set in the middle.

The effect is much better if you plant in
groups of four, six, or more of one kind.

Preparing the Beds 15

It relieves the effect of spottiness. Plant in
an irregular manner so as to avoid stiffness
or lumpiness, and let one group run in be-
hind another. If you plant, large groups
in a pear-shaped form with the narrow
stem end slightly curved and let the larger
end of the adjoining pear-shaped group
run up to the narrow stem of its neighbor,
you will produce the effect I suggest. The
plants you buy, being small, if planted as
suggested will not occupy all the ground
the first year. These spaces may be car-
peted with annuals for a year or so, or
planted with gladioli, lilies or Hyacinth
candicans.

I will not attempt to discuss the fighting
and clashing of colors sometimes seen in
plantings. The acknowledged head of the
house — she who is probably the one who
desires the flower border — is generally an
authority on pleasing color combinations.

Securely staking tall-growing plants is
necessary if one desires neatness and ef-
fectiveness in the garden. We care for

1 6 Making a Garden of Perennials

a plant twelve months in the year for the
benefit we derive from its short season of
bloom, and to allow it, then, to be sprawled
upon the ground by passing storms seems
cruel. Broom handles and ash rods, half
an inch in diameter, used by basket makers,
may be obtained from dealers in broom
material. Bamboo canes are useful, as
well as the painted stakes sold by seed
houses. The stakes should be forced well
down into the soil. Often, in dry weather
when the ground is hard, they are not
driven down far enough and the first hard
rain softens the soil around them, and, if
a strong wind exists, the plant may topple
over and carry the stake with it. In tying
them don't hug them as you would a long-
lost brother; give them some natural free-
dom. In large groups, place the stakes
around them, three or four feet apart,
and string from stake to stake, running
cross strings through the plants or be-
tween them. A single large plant gen-
erally requires at least three stakes. Do

Preparing the Beds 17

it before they are broken down by storms,
for once broken it is hard to make a good
job of it, especially if left down for some
time. Then the growing ends turn up for
light and harden in that bent condition.

If you raise the perennials yourself it
is best to grow them one year in a re-
serve bed, say in the vegetable garden, be-
cause but very few will bloom the first
year from seed. Purchased plants should
have blossoms the first year, as they are
supposed to be one-year-old seedlings or
are divisions of old plants. These may
be set out in the first position upon ar-
rival. Seedlings in the reserve bed may
be planted in rows, each row a foot apart,
and the plants six inches apart in the
rows ; thus planted, they take up but little
room and in the early fall or next spring
they may be removed to their permanent
quarters.

In transplanting, be sure to expose the
roots as little as possible to the sun or
drying winds. When plants arrive with

1 8 Making a Garden of Perennials

the started foliage looking wilted, sprinkle
them overhead and set them in a shady
sheltered position for a while — say an hour.
This will generally revive them enough
to go on with your planting. If you have
reason to suppose the plants were frosted
in transit, set the box in a cool cellar over
night. A gradual thawing out may re-
juvenate them, while a sudden thawing is
dangerous.

In planting, it often helps an amateur
to take a few stakes and place one at each
point he desires to set a plant. If you
set six or more stakes, plant six or more
plants, pulling up the stakes as you pro-
ceed to set out more. Make the holes in
the bed wide enough to allow the roots to
go in without crowding, and after filling
in the soil, press it down firmly around the
neck of the plant, and over the roots, and
water well when all the bed is planted.

When dry, hot weather comes, and you
think artificial watering necessary, soak
the bed well and then let it alone for some

Preparing the Beds 19

time, although, in the evening, after a hot
sunny day accompanied by a strong, dry-
ing wind, if the foliage looks wilted some-
what, a showering overhead is beneficial.
The day after a good soaking it is well to
go lightly over the bed with a hoe or rake
and stir up the soil, breaking the crust
produced by the watering. This makes a
mulch that will conserve the moisture and
protect the roots from the hot sun. Fre-
quent slight waterings keep the moisture at
the top and the roots are then inclined to
grow upwards to meet it. If you then
neglect to water, the soil soon becomes dry
and the roots suffer.

WINTER MULCHING

WHEN winter approaches, if you de-
sire tidiness, cut the tops down
(except evergreen-foliaged plants) even
if the frost has not already done this
work for you, and cover the bed with
well-rotted manure, but it is really better
to allow the tops to remain all winter,
especially in the case of hollow-stemmed
plants. Well-decayed manure needs but
little going over in the spring, requir-
ing only the removal of the foreign
material and the straw chaff it may con-
tain. What remains is generally the color
of the soil, thus unnoticeable and acts as
a mulch during the summer. Fresh
manure may be used — in fact it is better,
because the plants receive the benefit of
the teachings, which is pretty well spent
in old manure. In large grounds there is,
however, considerable labor attached to the

20

Winter Mulching 21

removal of this fertilizer in the spring, aa
it must be taken away for neatness5 sake.
While this manure has the greater part of
its strength leached out, it is well worth
saving for the humus still in it, and it
may be dug in in the vegetable garden, or
placed in a large flat pile about two feet
high while still loosely spread. Melons,
squash, pumpkins or similar sprawling
vines may be grown in it. For each plant
dump about one-half a wheelbarrow of
good soil on the top, level and sow in it,
or set out plants, if the seedlings are
started elsewhere. The roots of these
plants like the loose run the open manure
allows. In extreme dry weather the grow-
ing squash or pumpkins should be well wa-
tered. In the fall this manure has become
fine in texture and makes a splendid win-
ter's mulch for snowdrops, crocus, etc.

Do not be in a hurry about removing the
winter's covering when the first warm days
of spring appear. More damage is done
in early spring than in settled cold weather.

22 Making a Garden of Perennials

It is the alternate freezing and thawing
that does the most damage, and the surface
water lying over the crowns of plants,
which the frozen ground underneath does
not allow to go down. I have seen roots of
shallow-rooted plants, Lobelia cardinalis
for instance, growing in clayey soil, lying
on the surface of the ground in spring —
pried out by soil expansion. Part of the
covering may be removed quite early but
enough should remain to shade the ground.

SUMMER MULCHING

^HALLOW-ROOTED plants like the

^ cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis)
and the tall, fall-flowering hardy phloxes,
dislike the hot sun beating down on their
roots. Being surface rooters, and at the
same time fond of moisture, they suffer
when the surface soil is dried out. They
should have a summer mulch to intercept
the radiation of moisture from the soil.

The spent manure I mentioned as fine
for covering bulbs, is splendid for this pur-
pose and as it is of the same color as the
soil, its presence is hardly noticeable; be-
sides it adds humus. Almost any open
material may be used, that will not offend
our ideas of tidiness in appearance. Grass
clippings from the lawn-mower may be
used.

Some plants are late in appearing above

ground in the spring, Platycodons for
23

24 Making a Garden of Perennials

instance, and there is danger of their
being dug up by impatient amateurs
who have either forgotten their pres-
ence or imagined they were dead and the
ground vacant. It is well, therefore, to
place in the fall some cane stakes at each
plant or in a row around a group of this
class to indicate their presence. I also
place stakes at each lily as they generally
occupy open spaces between perennials,
and I seldom wish to disturb them if it
becomes necessary to remove one of the
perennials.

With few exceptions — peonies and the
gas plant, for instance — perennials need
dividing and resetting every two or three
years, which should be done in the early
fall or early spring, but never when the
soil is very wet, because in the subsequent
manipulation of the soil to replenishing its
food supply, it should be dry enough to
break up into fine particles. The Japa-
nese anemone should be replanted only in
the spring. It is in bloom and in active

Summer Mulching 25

life in the fall. The best way to proceed
is to work one section at a time — say a
ten-foot strip. Cut back the foliage, take
up the plants and lay them aside, covering
with burlap or some material to keep the
sun and wind from their roots. Then dig
the bed up, deeply, and add some well-
rotted manure, rake smoothly and replant.
While it is probably best not to set the
same plants back in the same position oc-
cupied before, it may be done, for if the
soil has been well worked up it is apt to
have changed its position. Then take up
another section and do the same. In the
meantime all large roots are divided.
Some may be pulled apart, but more often
they have to be cut through with a sharp
spade or a butcher knife. Discard all evi-
dence of decay and use only the healthy
outer rim, possessing well-developed roots.
They generally show the stalk buds for
next year's growth. Three to five of these
buds will make a good plant. Sometimes,
in the case, perhaps, of a cherished but

26 Making a Garden of Perennials

not over-robust larkspur, you find part
of the original root decayed, but if it has
a few good roots attached to it, dust pow-
dered sulphur on the decayed part — it
often checks decay — and you may eventu-
ally restore your pet to a healthy con-
dition.

If you want a delightful recreation and
lots of fun, and would like to possess some
plant producing a flower entirely new in
color or form, and, certainly in your esti-
mation finer than any your rival neigh-
bors have ever seen, make a reserve bed in
some sunny spot and raise hybrid delphini-
ums. In fact any one possessing a good
collection of perennials should have a re-
serve plantation to draw from in order to
fill up gaps that will be found in the main
bed after any hard winter. It is especially
useful for keeping up a stock of that
charming but short-lived perennial, the
columbine (Aquilegia), which seldom can
be depended upon after the second year. I
am speaking of the finer forms.

Summer Mulching 27

These hybrid delphiniums, or garden
larkspur, possess the blood of two or more
species and as a result are inclined to
" sport," producing flowers of various
forms and colors, entirely different from
those of the parents. The word " sport "
as used by gardeners is applied to any
plant that displays a marked contrast in
foliage, flower, form or habit of growth,
from the type or normal aspect of the
original species. The well-known golden
glow is a good example, being a double
form of the single-flowered Rudbeckia
lacimafa, a tall member of the Black-eyed
Susan family, and known as one of the
coneflowers. The flower head of the type
is composed of two parts — the outer row
of yellow " ray florets," which is not a
part of the flower proper, except that it
might be likened to the fringe that borders
a curtain, and the dark brown cone in the
center, which is composed of numerous mi-
nute, individual flowers like the dandelion,
each perfect and capable of producing

28 Making a Garden of Perennials

seed. Nature is slyly freakish at times,
and in this instance she changed the in-
dividual flowers into ray florets. Fortu-
nately some observing flower lover saw this
one original plant, for undoubtedly the
freak occurred in one plant only, and
transplanting it to his garden, eventually
gave to the floral world the now common
golden glow. If not noticed by some one,
the plant would have lived its allotted
term and died unknown to the world, for
it produces no seed.

The delphinium sports into various
forms of flower, color and shape — the
tones of color being a mingling of blues,
pinks and mauve, some in the most lovely
combinations imaginable. They will all
bloom the first year from seed if sown in
February or March in a greenhouse or hot-
bed, but will not all bloom at once, so that
for at least a period of one month, new
blooms are opening each day. One's main
pleasure is in expectancy. You are al-
ways looking and hoping for something

Summer Mulching 29

better, and you generally get it. It is
best, when a plant does not produce a
flower up to grade, to dig it up and dis-
card it, but those that are good should be
marked in some manner to identify them.
A label placed at their side will do, but the
better way is to get some small sheet-lead
tags, bearing stamped-in numbers or let-
ters. Attach to wire pegs ten inches long
and force down near the plant, recording
its number in your " Garden Book " with
a description of the flower. This enables
you at any planting time — spring is the
best for delphiniums — to plant in groups
of light blues, dark blues, etc. You may
be undecided sometimes as to whether you
consider a plant good enough to keep or
not. In this case keep it, but mark it a
" hold-over." Some plants do better the
second season. They may be sown out-
doors in May, but will hardly bloom the
same year.

PLANT COMBINATIONS

combinations may be used
whereby a certain area may be made
to produce a double crop of bloom, and
thus prolong the flowering season within
that area. Peonies, which are planted two
and a half to three feet apart, may have
the Lilium superbum, the later varieties of
gladiolus, or Hyacinth candicans planted
in between them; the last two should be
taken up each fall as they are not hardy
in all sections. The lilies will require re-
setting every few years, as they travel
around in their new growth, and may in-
vade the peony roots. These will flower
above the peony foliage. Fall is the best
time to plant any lily.

The shooting star (Dodecatheon media)
may be planted between the spreading
dwarf plants of that admirable bell flower
30

There are interesting combinations of flowers
not only for succession of bloom but for sim-
ultaneous bloom, as Canterbury bells (Campanula,
medium} and foxglove (Digitalis)

Plant Combinations 31

{Campanula Carpatica). The bell flow-
ers may be planted eighteen inches apart
and, in the spring, when the shooting stars
are up and in bloom, the foliage of the
campanula is hardly in evidence, but dur-
ing the summer it occupies all the space
between them.

After flowering, all that part of the
shooting star above ground turns brown,
dies back and disappears to return again
next spring.

The Virginia bluebell (Mertensia Vir-
ginica) is another charming plant of the
same habit, and as it is worthy of cultiva-
tion in groups, it often becomes a question
where to place it so that the bare ground
it leaves behind is not an eye-sore. Besides
colonies I have established in my ravine,
where the overhanging underbrush hides
its absence later on, I grow it under large
bushes of forsythia. Both bloom at the
same time and the pink buds and open
blue bells of the Mertensia, when seen
through the fleecy mass of the golden bells

32 Making a Garden of Perennials

of the forsythia, make a charming picture.
After flowering, the forsythia hides the
disrobing Mertensia with its heavy sheet
of foliage.

Some perennials — the bleeding heart and
the perennial poppy — have ragged foliage
after blooming and require some tall bushy
plant to be placed in front and around
them to hide their shabbiness. Strong-
growing perennials, asters or the biennial
Rudbeckia triloba, are good for this pur-
pose.

Some instances occur where a low hedge
of perennials might look well, for instance
in a small yard where all the lines are
formal and a straight walk leads from gate
to house. A floral hedge might be placed
at each side of the walk by making beds
eighteen inches to two feet wide and deep.
The best perennial hardy plant I know for
this purpose is the gas plant (Dictamnus
fraxinella), which, when once established,
remains a joy, almost forever. Some peo-
ple are still enjoying the blooms of plants

Plant Combinations 33

set out by their great-grandmothers. This
plant is slow in increasing its size, but a
row planted twelve inches apart will in
time make a compact hedge with a dark
green, lustrous foliage, over two feet tall
and fully as broad. The flower spikes are
borne well above the foliage, some pink,
deeply veined a darker hue, and some white.
A mixture of the colors is desirable. On
account of the slow habit of its increase,
the bed will look scantily furnished for a
few years. This can be remedied by grow-
ing at each side of the row of plants any
spring-flowering bulb, or by carpeting in
summer with sweet alyssum, sowing seeds
in the bed. Any low-growing annual will
do, but it must be low-growing or it may
injure the Fraxinella.

WEEDING

PARADOXICAL as it may seem, the
weed is the best friend the farmer has
because it compels him to cultivate his land
in order to exterminate the intruder. Cul-
tivation keeps the soil open to air and
moisture and conserves the latter. It is
best, therefore, to go over lightly with a
hoe the day after a heavy rain or a good
watering.

The time to weed is before you see the
weeds, but if they do appear, don't run
away from them. When none are in sight,
the chances are that upon microscopic ex-
amination, a velvety fuzz of green would
be discovered. These are minute weed
seedlings, but yet slightly rooted, and
easily treated by simple dislodgment. A
hot, windy day is a good time to hoe be-
tween your plants, because the wind and
34

Weeding 35

sun kill the uprooted weeds in a short time.
They dry up, and there is but little to re-
move. On a damp cloudy day if a dis-
turbed bit — no matter how small — of the
pestiferous couch grass rolls near the base
of a plant and remains there, it will send
down its roots among those of the plant,
and it is almost impossible to get them out
without taking the plant up.

LISTS OF DEPENDABLE PEREN-
NIALS

T T is useless to attempt to name and de-
••• scribe all the good perennials that may
be grown, but there are some that seem to
do well in all sections and it may be well
to call attention to some of them.

Anchusia Italic a — Italian Alknet

One should grow the Dropmore variety,
or possibly Perry's variety, a new form
just introduced. I would not have in-
cluded this plant in the list, because it
does not winter well and a stock of seed-
ling plants should be grown each year and
wintered in a coldframe, did it not present
such an airy, open-headed plant covered
with its gentian-blue flowers for a long
time. A good blue is a rare color in the
garden. A group of these should be
36

Lists of Dependable Perennials 37

planted about two and a half feet apart
and at the rear, as they grow five to six
feet in height.

Asters (hardy)

The so-called aster, grown by florists,
and in general gardens, is not a true aster,
but is known botanically as Callistephus
Chinensis, introduced from China in 1731,
and is a hardy annual. Why it received
the common name of aster I have never
been able to find out. The true aster is
named from its star shape, and in Eng-
land is much prized and is called the
Michaelmas Daisy, because they are in full
bloom at the time of the feast of St.
Michael. As they grow wild nearly every-
where in the States, they are not grown so
much in gardens here. All good cata-
logues list quite a number of good varieties
for one to choose from. Being tall they
should be planted at the rear.

Aconitum — Monk's-hood, Helmet Flower
This plant, the roots of which are poi-

38 Making a Garden of Perennials

sonous, should not be grown where children
are apt to get at its roots, and when trans-
planted care should be taken not to allow
any of its small, beet-like tubers to lie
around, the surplus being burned. They
grow about four feet high, blooming in
the latter part of summer. A. autumnale
and A. Napellus are among the best.

Anemones — Wind Flower

Anemone Pennsylvania is a native,
growing a little over a foot in height, pro-
ducing in profusion fairly large white flow-
ers in July and August. Having a
" woodsy " look, it seems at home in semi-
shaded positions, where it does well, but
will thrive in full sun. The king of the
tribe, however, is the Japanese variety, A.
Japonic a, especially the variety Alba, with
large, showy, pure white flowers, blooming
late in the fall, often after the first slight
frost, and at a time when all others are
gone. For this reason they should be
planted where they may be seen from some

One of the brightest stars of the garden in late
fall is the Japanese anemone

Lists of Dependable Perennials 39

house window, and thus be enjoyed when it
is too chilly to be out-of-doors. If planted
eighteen inches apart, cup and saucer Can-
terbury bells may be planted in be-
tween them and removed when through
blooming. The anemones do not require
the room before that.

Arabis Alpina — Rock Cress

Rock cress is an early spring, white-
flowering plant. Its low-growing habit
makes it suitable for edging. In the fall
plant Chionodoxa Lucilice in between them.
This is a blue-flowering bulb, hardy, cheap
and in flower at the same time the rock
cress is.

Aquilegia — Columbine

These have been mentioned in connection
with the article on reserve beds. The
Rocky Mountain columbine (A. ccerulea),
a bright blue form, is probably the hand-
somest one of the family, but it seldom
lasts long. The golden columbine (A.

4O Making a Garden of Perennials

cTirysantha) seems to be the sturdiest of
the group and lasts several years. It be-
longs to the long-spurred class, all of
which are good.

Bocconia cordata — Plume Poppy

The plume poppy is a stately plant, at-
taining a height of seven to eight feet,
bearing in July and August terminal pani-
cles of creamy white flowers having large,
indented glaucous foliage. It has one
fault, however; it spreads rapidly and
soon takes possession of the whole bed,
and therefore should be in an individual
hole of its own. The plantings are some-
times made in large bottomless tubs, sunk
in the ground.

Campanula — Bell Flower

Nearly all of this family, as well as the
allied Platycodons, are good. They are
slender, upright growers, as a rule, but
C. Carpatica, already mentioned in the
text, grows but eight inches tall. The

Lists of Dependable Perennials 41

species macrantha persicifolia, rotundi-
folia (Blue Bells of Scotland) and Tra-
chelium, are the most reliable among the
group. The cup-and-saucer, and the
chimney bell flower, are biennials, bloom-
ing but once, and have to be wintered the
year prior in a coldframe.

Centaureas — Hard-heads

Like an open sunny position. C. ma-
crocephala is the best, bearing thistle-like
golden yellow flowers.

Coreopsis

The species lanceolata, and C. grandi-
flora, have rich golden flowers of pleasing
form, splendid for cutting. They grow
about two feet high and bloom all summer
if not allowed to go to seed, but seldom
last over the third year.

Delphiniums

Have already been discussed. All the
named varieties are good, especially Bel-
ladonna. See page #6.

42 Making a Garden of Perennials

Dlctamnus — Gas Plant

Fully described on page 32.

Digi i alis — Foxglo ve

The form usually grown is treated as a
biennial, and with me, must be coldf ramed
the first year. Ambigua or grandiflora is
a perennial having pleasing pale yellow
flowers, and is a comparatively long-lived
plant.

Ecliinops — Globe Thistle

This is a tall, interesting plant with
foliage somewhat like a thistle. E. Ritro
is the best. Its peculiar flower head con-
sists of a ball about an inch and a half
in diameter, from which spring, in close
array all over the ball, minute flowers of
a deep metallic blue.

Eryngium — Sea Holly

A plant somewhat similar in appearance
to the Echinops, but smaller in all its

Lists of Dependable Perennials 43

parts. E. amethystinum is the best, hav-
ing small globular flower heads of an
amethystine blue color, this color also ex-
tending quite a way down the flower stems.

Eupatorium — Thoroughwort

Two forms are in the market — E. agera-
toides, bearing numerous small white flow-
ers in late summer, and E. ccelestinum,
with light blue flowers similar to the
ageratum. Both are good.

Funkia — Plantain Lily — Broad-leaf Day
Lily

I consider F. subcordata grandiflora the
best of this group. In time a single plant,
if not crowded, will make a mound of green
foliage, looking as if an inverted bushel
basket were shingled with broad overlap-
ping foliage, above which, in August,
spring pure white, sweet-scented lily-like
flowers. It will stand partial shade. If
planted in groups they should be placed

44 Making a Garden of Perennials

two and a half to three feet apart. Tulips
may be planted between them.

Gaillardia — Blanket Flower

The perennial forms produce much
handsomer flowers than do the annuals.
All of our garden perennial forms, includ-
ing grandiflora, are varieties of G. aris-
tata, and, being natives of Texas, are
not always hardy in the Northern States.
— See page 4 in the text. It is a rather
sprawling plant, growing naturally some
two feet high, and hard to stake, but may
be pegged down. Use common long hair-
pins. It requires an open situation in
full sun, and thrives best in a sandy soil,
well drained.

Geum — Avens

Quite a hardy border plant, rather low
in its foliage, but throwing its flower stems
up fully eighteen inches, blooming more or
less all summer. G. coccineum, with scar-

Lists of Dependable Perennials 45

let flowers, and G. Hederichi, are both
good.

Hes peris matronalis — Rocket

An admirable plant for use where most
other plants would fail. It does fairly
well in semi-shady places, at base of shrubs
and in between them in open spots. Plants
grow three to four feet tall, of bushy
form when treated well, bearing pinkish
flowers in June and July. There is a white
form.

Hemerocalis — Yellow Day Lily

All are good, strong growers with nar-
row iris-like foliage, producing flowers in
tones of yellow. H. flava, the sweet-
scented, deep lemon-yellow-flowered form,
is the best and must not be confounded
with the coarser-flowered H. fulva, the
tawny day lily.

Hibiscus — Mallow

All the mallows are good, from the
" crimson eye " to the new mallow mar-

46 Making a Garden of Perennials

vels, moderately late, upright-growing
and hardy. The colors run from pure
white to pinks and reds.

Inula ensifolia

A low-growing very hardy plant bear-
ing freely yellow daisy-like flowers, always
presenting a neat appearance.

Hollyhocks

On account of the prevailing hollyhock
disease — a disease of the foliage hard to
combat — it is best to grow one-year-old
plants, as they are less affected than the
older ones. The singles are the most
charming.

Iris — Fleur-de-lis

This is a large group, from the bulbous
Spanish and English iris, which bloom in
June and then die down to reappear next
season, and may therefore be planted in
open spaces between other plants, to the

The tall-growing hardy phlox (^Phlox panicttlata}
is a garden mainstay through August, Septem-
ber and October. Beware of the magenta
colorings

Lists of Dependable Perennials 47

magnificent Japanese iris, I. Kcempferi.
This latter one is somewhat fickle and does
not last long. The best for general plant-
ing are the German, cristata, pumilla and
Sibirica varieties. Pallida Dalmatica is
exceedingly fine.

LysimacTiia cletJiroides — Loose-strife
An excellent plant in damp soils.

Pceonia — Peony

Every one should have them, including
the early-flowering red P. officinalis, and
the later ones. Try a few tree peonies — P.
Moutan. They are grafted on the ordi-
nary form, so destroy all suckers that
come from below the union.

Phlox

The tall-growing hardy phlox should be
in all gardens. It is permanent if taken
up every three years and divided. Strong
" cutting " plants give the finest blooms.
Avoid magenta colors. The new salmon-

48 Making a Garden of Perennials

pink Elizabeth Campbell is fine; on light
soils, well drained, the creeping forms are
desirable.

Pyrethrum

The hybrids of P. roseum have hand-
some, daisy-like flowers in white and vari-
ous shades of pink, up to red, in single
and semi-double forms, but they seldom
live long. A raised bed suits them best.
P. uliginosum, the giant white daisy, is
fine in damp situations.

Rudbeclcia

This genus includes the well-known
golden glow and R. nitida var. Autumn
Sun, growing five feet high. It bears at-
tractive primrose yellow flowers. The
giant purple coneflower, often classed as
a rudbeckia, is really an Echinacea, grow-
ing three or more feet tall, bearing reddish
purple flowers and is very attractive in
groups bordering a woods or shrubbery

Lists of Dependable Perennials 49

belt, presenting a rustic aspect and re-
maining a long time in bloom.

Thalictrwm — Meadow Rue

The white form of T. aquilegifolium is
a very handsome plant, doing fairly well
in open shade, flowering in fluffy masses
of white.

Veronica — Speedwell

These are all good, but V. longifolia
subsessilis is by far the finest of the taller
growers, reaching a height of three feet,
and bearing long slender spikes of deep
blue flowers.

SOME OF THE BEST PLANTS FOR SHADY
POSITIONS

A conitum — Monk's-hood

Actcea s pic at a — Baneberry

Amsonia

Anemone Pennsylvanica — Wind Flower

Convallaria — Lily-of-the-valley ,

50 Making a Garden of Perennials

Dielytra — Bleeding-heart

Ferns

Funkia — Plantain Lily

Hepaticas — Liver Leaf

Thalictrum — Meadow Rue

Trillium— Wake Robin

Mertensia Virginica — Virginia Blue Bells

FOR DRY SOILS

Asclepias tuberosa — Butterfly Weed
A quilegia Canadensis — Canadian Colum-
bine

Aquilegia alpina — Alpine Columbine
Gypsophila paniculata — Baby's Breath
Gaillardia — Blanket Flower
Geranium sanguineum — Cranes-bill
Helianthus multiflorus, fl. pi.— Double

Mexican Sunflower
Inula granctiflora — Flea Bane
Inula ensifolia
Satfifraga crassi folia
Sedums — Stonecrop
Tunica saxtfraga

Lists of

POR WET SOILS

Hibiscus Moscheutos — Swamp Mallow,

and all Mallows
Iris pseudacorus

66 Sibirica — Siberian Iris

" Icevigata — Japanese Iris

" prismatica

Lilium superbum — Turk's-cap Lily
Lobelia cardinalis — Cardinal Flower
Monarda — Bergamot — in variety, Rose
Lythrum Salicaria — Loose-strife
Lysimachia clethroides — Loose-strife
Polygonum cuspidatum — Giant Knot-weed
Spircea — dwarf herbaceous form in variety

ALPINES, OR ROCK PLANTS

Achillea tomontosa — Wooly Yarrow
Arabis albida — ^Rock Cress
Campanula Carpatica — Carpathian Hare-
bell

Coronilla varia — Crown Vetch
Geum coccineum — ^Avens

52 <\\(tg{Aren-of Perennials

Gypsophila repens — Baby's Breath

Inula ensifolia — Flea Bane

Phlox amoena, in variety — Creeping Phlox

Sedum, in variety — Stonecrop

Tunica saxifraga

Veronica circceoictes — Speedwell

Yucca filamentosa — Adam's Needle

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