The practical flower garden

Front matter

MACMILLAN & CO.. Limitkd

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd,

TORONTO

Preface

TTN this little book are given the results of my experience in practical work in the flower garden during the last five years, in caring for the grass and evergreens, arranging flowers to secure constant color effects, raising plants and trees from seeds, and the use of fertihzers most suited to the needs of the various plants and productive of the best results.

The chapter on the Wild Garden owes its being to the maker of the " Connecticut Garden," who has given me frequent opportunities of watching its development, and much of the information contained in the chapter. To him also I am indebted for the beautiful photographs which may serve as an inspiration to those who would find deHght in creating a similar garden of native plants and shrubs.

March, 1911

vii

Table Of Contents

PAGE

I. Color Ai'rangements of Flowers . . 1

II. Some Green Things of the Earth . . 39

Chapter I

^HOULD those winter town-dwellers who are lovers of nature, and whose thoughts during the ice-bound months continually wander to their own gardens or to trees and green places which they know and love, chance to take a short trip into the near country in mid-March, a brightness and touch of warmth in the sunshine, and certain awakenings of nature, will bring to them a thrill of delight in the knowledge that " the winter is past."

Snowbanks may be lingering in dark nooks; there may still be a fringe of ice upon the brooks that wander through the woods; but in marshy places the skunk cabbage is unfolding its broad leaves; the downy buds are expanding upon the willows; many maples show a tinge of the red of coming blossoms; grass that has been properly cared for is already emerald-green; crocuses and snowdrops are bravely blooming in sheltered places, and, if one gently lifts the covering of the beds where daffodils have slept through the winter, their slender green tips will be seen pushing through the brown earth. Frogs in sunny ponds are beginning to pipe their shrill song, the robins have come back, and the town-dweller returns to the noisy city of brick and stone possessed by the longing that spring calls forth, to be at work among the growing things and to watch nature as she comes to life again.

The happy owners of gardens know that now no day should be lost. With every new sun, the buds on ' trees and shrubs expand and the plants awaken, one by one. The ground must be prepared, seeds sown, and, in fact, the most delightful season in the gardener's life has come, for now she is inspired by hope. The many misfortunes that may overtake her garden in later months have now no place in her thoughts. Rose bugs, mildew, cut-worm, rust, and the dreadful summer drought, have for her, as yet, no existence. Every seed will germinate and become a sturdy plant which will blossom the season through. All the color arrangements planned will satisfy her anticipations; the spring, summer and early autumn are to bring her ample fruition for her present labors; for the blessed new birth of imagination and hope, which comes to the naturelover in the youth of the year, makes all things seem possible.

Even an experienced gardener is often led away by the fascinating descriptions in the plant and seedsmen's catalogues, whose pictures both fire and bewilder the imagination. And what could be more heavenly for a woman gardener than to be able to grow all these flowers and plants, and to attain the marvelous results pictured in the catalogues; to have all the space she wanted in which to grow them, to have all the men she needed — really good and efficient men— to cultivate them, and a husband who never grumbled about the amount of manure or fertilizer she used !

We who have borne the stress of many years of gardening are now generally able, when making our spring and autumn lists, to harden our hearts to the temptations offered us in the pages of the catalogues. Of course, we often want everything we see, but are able to keep ourselves within limits. We can sympathize with and understand, however, the difficulty of the young woman who is making her first garden, and know well how she often spends time and money, only to reap disappointment. When she reads in catalogues such descriptions as "Magnificent flowers, strong and robust," " A new type of phenomenally robust growth," "Magnificent and indispensable flowering plants," we know how easily she may be misled.

It is not necessary to have in her garden every plant that any one else has had, but we should endeavor to achieve our results by growing those flowers which are best suited to the locality where we live, and which give us the most remuneration for our trouble, and then, as our experience grows, gradually increase the varieties.

Of course, one often tries a new plant, from a desire to experiment or from curiosity, just as one chooses a " salad Marguerite " or a " coupe San Jacques," or other dish with a strange name, from a restaurant menu, and returns again to the old flowers, as to the simple dishes.

There will often be a visitor come to see the garden, generally a woman, who will look about critically and then remark, " I do not see such and such a flower ;" when you must acknowledge that you not only have not grown it but have never heard of it. But do not be discouraged, as such inquiries are not meant unkindly, and even the largest garden has not space for every flower that can be grown.

Enough cannot be said upon the advantages of close planting, which produces not only a more even effect of color, but also an appearance of greater luxuriance. The flowers really do better when closely set, as the ground is thus shaded by the foliage, and does not become so dry as where the planting is sparse.

We should also practice intensive gardening, which provides successive crops of flowers in the same bed or border, and better utilizes every inch of space, arranging so that one flower will promptly follow another in the same place. The asters should be fine plants ready to take the places of the Canterbury bells; gladioli should be planted to bloom where the foxgloves stood; cosmos should be raised to spread its feathery branches where the tall hollyhocks have been cut down; tuberous-rooted begonias should be planted to fill later the places in the border where tulips welcomed the spring; and seedlings of annuals should be set everywhere, — not one or two of a kind planted indiscriminately, but so that each border will have masses in colors that blend.

All of this work requires much thought and experiment, opens a wide and fascinating field to the amateur, and gives an added zest to the joys of gardening.

Even before the frost has entirely left the ground, shrubs, hedges, vines, and climbing roses should be fertilized, so that the spring rains may carry the tonic directly to the roots of the plants. Manure (it no longer can be called " barnyard," since in no selfrespecting barn-yard can manure be gathered today), mixed with bone meal in the proportion of five shovels to the wheelbarrow of manure, is best for the purpose.

As soon as the ground can be dug, shrubs and hardy vines should be transplanted, or set out. All soft-wooded trees, such as poplars, willows, catalpas, tulips, magnolias, as well as both purple and copper beech and the larch, must also be set out in the early spring before growth begins.

Attractive plantings, made in the autumn, of shrubs and bulbs which bloom at the same time in the spring, are:

Early daffodils, which have been covered during the winter to bring them forward sooner, may be grown under and around the forsythia bushes.

The pink-flowered crab apples, of which Bechtel's, Parkman's, and Siberian are good varieties, may be planted with the longstemmed May -flowering rose-pink tulips, mingled with crimson and white bybloem tulips and a few clumps of the pale lavender German iris springing from the grass around them, will make a lovely corner about May 15th.

Gesneriana tulips bloom at the same time as the Spircea Van Houttei, and are effective together.

Columbines, with lavender and white rockets grown in quantities, together with lateblooming white lilacs, such as Mme. Casimir- Perier, and Marie Legraye, have been very nice in my garden.

Azalea mollis, with late yellow tulips, together with Deutzia rosea and the deliciously scented daphne, make satisfactory combinations.

Late yellow or pink tulips may be planted around a clump of pink double-flowering almond; and, as the German iris blooms at the same time with the syringa, of which Grandiflorus is the best variety, a quantity of this iris, in many varieties, is lovely when grown in a bed surrounding the syringa.

A beautiful shrubbery can be composed by using weigelia, varieties Rosea and Eva Rathke, the golden-leaved syringa, both pink and white deutzia, Japanese snowballs, both the golden and the variegated elder, some Japanese maples both red and yellow-leaved, two or three purple-leaved plums, a few cedars, and a few retinisporas, with an occasional Lombardy poplar at the back.

Such a shrubbery, now about seven years old, probably two hundred feet in length, grows along the front of a beautiful place on Long Island, and forms a lovely screen between the house and the highway, which is thus entirely shut out. The syringas, weigelias and Japanese snowballs are in full bloom at the same time, and their blossoms, together with the golden and silvery foliage of the alders and elders, the purple of the plums, and the dark green evergreens adding strength to the whole, make it a most remarkable shrubbery. It is interesting to know that this was planned unaided by a woman, although she has an excellent gardener.

During- the last week of May and the first ten days of June, the gardener finds his busiest time. All the annuals must now be lifted from the seed-bed and transplanted to the places where they are to grow. The young plants must also be taken out of the hotbeds at this time, which is a work that can be done only late in the afternoon, between four and six o'clock, as the seedhngs should have the cool night in which to recover from the operation of transplanting. The gladioli and tuberoses must be set out; the weeds which grow over night must have attention; the grass must be cut every three or four days; fresh crops of vegetables must be put in the vegetable garden; and then, on some fine day, when everything seems to need attention, the gardener insists that the potatoes must be cultivated, and there come moments when one wishes that there was no such thing as a vegetable or potato crop on the place.

The most interesting of all gardening is in the cultivation of herbaceous plants. These hardy perennials bloom luxuriantly, give a wide range of color, and are of varied heights. A great landscape architect recently told me that in his opinion it required more intelligence and ability, even with the assistance of annuals, to keep an herbaceous border effective in color, and in good condition, than to run an orchid house; he added the remark that, after trying new plants every year, he had found that the Hst of really desirable perennials and annuals did not greatly increase.

In making an herbaceous border where many diifferent - colored plants are to be grown, the effect will be more beautiful if white flowers in quantity are planted between each of the different colors, care being taken to allow a few plants of the palest shade of each color to drift among the white, so that the transition may be less abrupt. If a plan of the planting be made in advance, the work will be easier and more successful. Heterogeneous planting is often painful. Pink and blue flowers, red, purple, and yellow, must be arranged to produce artistic effect.

Larkspurs, for instance, are far more beautiful when grown in great masses of each different shade, or with white Japanese iris and Lilium candidum, than in smaller clumps in a border where many other colored flowers are planted. Pale blue larkspur with the dark variety, Formosum, behind it, and pale yellow coreopsis and pale yellow calendula in the foreground, make an attractive planting.

Early one July, my baby grandson was christened in our quaint little church in the country. Larkspur, and candidum lilies, with which I have at last been able to succeed, — both of which flowers are so exquisite in the garden, and so perishable when gathered that one should always cut them judiciously, — were in their prime in wonderful quantity. And, on this great day, we were able to fill a large clothes-basket with the stalks of the lilies and the branches of the pale blue Del- 'phinium ccelestinum, and take them to make the little church beautiful, without missing any from the garden.

Since there have been herbaceous borders of only one or two colors in my garden, the effect has been more beautiful and the arrangement simplified; and this plan is likely to be adhered to for some time to come. But one must always keep an eagle eye upon the borders, to be sure that plants are not allowed to go to seed; for the best of gardeners often fail to realize that all flowers will bloom much longer if seed-pods are kept from forming. One of the men does e verymorning what I call " giving a fatherlytouch to the garden." He begins at one end of the place when he first comes on duty, and with shears and basket goes through the entire garden, taking off every withered flower or leaf, thus preserving not only the neatness of the place but the perfection of the plants. This, being done regularly, is done easily, and takes hardly an hour a day.

The white border is my greatest delight; the flowers grown in it are exquisite at night as well as in the daytime.

At the back of the border are Bocconia cordata, the spireas, Aruncus and Gigantea, and white hollyhocks. These tall plants are followed in September by the mammoth cosmos, which is started under glass to insure its blooming before frost. Then there are Lilium auratum, L. alburn^ and L. candidum, which bloom from June until frost, and, if planted from fifteen to eighteen inches deep, seem to succeed far better than with shallower planting. Tall spikes of Hyacinthus candicans, Physostegia Virginica alboy flowering in July for a month, Achillea, which generously blooms the whole summer through, white phlox, both early and late, white lupins and dictamnus, both of which bloom for a month from the middle of May, foxgloves, Lysimachia clethroides. Campanula medium, some clumps of white Japanese iris, and the old-time valerian, filling the air with its delicious perfume in May.

For annuals, there are stocks, sweet sultan, the white cornflower, Cyanus alhus. Empress candytuft, snapdragons, asters and gladioli.

The pink border, or indeed an entire garden of pink flowers, is not difficult of attainment. Pink hollyhocks and cosmos, many shades 17 of phlox, Lilium ruhrum^ L. rubellum, and L. magnificum, pink lupins which are more beautiful than either the white or blue varieties and easy to raise from seed, Incarvillea Delavayi, Sedum spectabile, Canterbury bells, and some pink columbines, Spircea elegans and pink dictamnus, should be planted for May blooming.

Then the pink annual larkspurs, camellia-flowered balsams, which in rich soil are wonderful plants. Phlox Drummondiy which flowers all summer if not allowed to seed, tuberous-rooted begonias, each plant of which is a mass of blossoms for three months, verbenas — glorified editions of the old-time verbena — which should be started under glass with the cosmos, and, if there is place for them, gladioli, so necessary for bloom in September.

The blue border is more unusual, and, although I have visited many gardens in many countries, I have never seen a plantation of blue flowers only.

Larkspurs, monkshood in early and late varieties, including the light blue variety, Aconitum Wilsoni, Veronica grandiflora, platycodon, the campanulas, varieties Persicifolia, Glomerata and Pyramidalis, and the lupins, are six perennials which would alone keep a blue border pronounced in color for three months; but when you add columbines, eupatorium, Anchusa Italica, Baptisia Australis, Scabiosa Caucasica, blue salvia. Salvia azurea and Centaurea Cyanus, the wonderful new blue gladioli, large-flowering ageratum and lobelia, which are always in bloom, and the faithful asters which, however, have a violet tinge, the blue border becomes a source of great interest.

A few white flowers, such as white platycodon, the feathery Bocconia cordata, Lilium album, L. candidum, and achillea, rather add to the beauty of the blue border and seem to make its color more lovely.

In the red border are red hollyhocks, scarlet lychnis. Phlox Coquelicot, Tritoma

Pfitzerii, the old-time monarda or bee balm, Pentstemon barbatus Torreyii about which many continually ask, " What is that beautiful flower?" scarlet Phlox Drummondi, the scarlet Gladiolus Brenchleyensis, salvia Bonfire, and cannas, and geraniums which may be added to carry out the color scheme.

There are, of course, many other beautiful flowers in these four colors; but, after several years of experiment, these lists have been found to comprise the most satisfactory plants in simplicity of culture and the amount of flowers they yield for use in the one-color border. As such borders are for effect, flowers can be gathered from them but sparingly; elsewhere in the garden should be grown both perennials and annuals in rows like vegetables, to supply flowers for cutting.

Stocks, both white and pink, gladioli in the same two colors, snapdragons, Lilium rubellum and L, speciosum magniflcum can be successfully planted together, and if the stocks and snapdragons are started under glass, they can, by proper feeding, be made to bloom continually from early in June until ice forms. The lilies continue to unfold their buds for over a month, and the gladioli, if two plantings of them are made, will blossom for a long time; last summer, when grown with other flowers in my garden, the stalks of gladioli were over five feet in height, evidencing the effect of rich soil. This height also gave much beauty to the plantation.

White Japanese anemones, white tuberous-rooted begonias and tuberoses, are satisfactory when grown together; and if white Mayflowering tulips be added, and the begonias started under glass in March, they will begin to bloom in June, so that this white corner will be a constant delight.

Poppies and sweet peas are the first flower seeds to be sown in the spring. It is difficult to sow the poppy thinly enough, as every seed seems to germinate, and the plants should be three inches apart, not only in order to develop and produce more flowers, but that they may continue in bloom for a longer period. Sown in large masses in all the many varieties, poppies make a wonderful show for three weeks. When the last petals have fallen, if the soil be enriched and cultivated, the poppy bed can again be made beautiful by transplanting into it young aster plants either of all shades of pink with white in the many varieties, or of purple and lavender shading through the delicate tones to white. The poppy bed in my garden is fifty feet long and eighteen feet wide, giving opportunity for a fine mass of color.

Asters, in the catalogues of annuals, are what phlox and larkspur are in the perennial family. Early in September, when the asters were really wonderful in my garden, and there seemed to be no end to them, I asked one of the gardeners how many had been transplanted. His reply was, '* about ten thousand." As I rather doubted this statement, he showed me a bed of young Canterbury bells transplanted for blooming next summer, saying that he had counted them that morning, that there were nine hundred plants in the bed, and that it could be seen at a glance that there were ten times as many asters then blooming in the gardens.

For those who care for yellow and orange flowers, a border of splendid color may be made by planting the hardy perennial sunflowers, both single and double, helenium or sneeze weed, gaillardia, coreopsis and calliopsis, the marigolds and calendulas both orange and yellow, the different varieties of yellow day lilies, the tritomas, the trollius or globe flower, the California poppies, and the faithful nasturtiums. A beautiful combination with the yellow and orange is made by adding purple and magenta flowers, such as the tall liatrus or Kansas gay feather, magenta dahlias, the Verbena venosa, the giant ruffled magenta petunias and dark magenta phlox.

This magenta phlox, by the way, is quite a different color from that which we find in our gardens grown from self-sown seed, which is of a light purplish color. The new magenta phloxes have large heads of bloom, as well as large individual blossoms, and grow quite four feet in height.

A very effective color-planting can be made by growing dark crimson snapdragons with a tall variety of ageratum and edging the plantation with dwarf ageratum, the combination of blue and rich crimson being unusual.

There is one flower, the petunia, of which I must speak with apology because of the things I have written and said about it. The very name petunia calls to mind the ugly white and purple varieties that flourished in our mothers' gardens; but, through the skill of the hybridizer, the petunias today are among the most beautiful of all annuals, particularly the great giant ruffled and frilled varieties. The Snowstorm, a flower with a golden heart, is a continual mass of blossoms, as is also the Rosy Morn, which is pale pink as its name would indicate. There is an infinite number of other varieties, and they help us out immensely with our color effects.

Last summer, a bed of heliotrope surrounded with giant ruffled petunias in shades of lilac with golden centers was continually beautiful for nearly five months; and a carpet of Rosy Morn petunias, growing in a bed where Lilium auratum and L. magnificum raised their great stalks of lilies, entirely concealing the earth, added greatly to the effect.

The hybridizer has worked wonders, also, with the verbenas. The new varieties form trusses nearly as large as the top of a tea-cup, and give a continuous mass of color in white or pale rose until quite late in the fall, as they stand considerable frost.

The Celosia plumosa, or cockscomb, has become, through the skill of the growers, a wonderful flower in many colors besides the old crimson variety. It grows about three feet in height, with plumes a foot in length. A brilHant yellow and a flame color are perhaps the finest. The seeds should be started in the hotbeds, to prolong the period of bloom, and the seedhngs transplanted several times before being set, either in the ground, where the plants should be a foot apart, or in six-inch pots. When a foot high, they will be glad of a Httle bone meal, and during all their blooming period should be fed with doses of liquid manure, at least every two weeks.

The annual larkspurs, too, are greatly improved in variety, and are useful for cutting; if the seed-pods are not allowed to "form, they bloom continuously all summer.

A bed of pale pink and delicate lavender annual larkspur is a lovely color combination.

Godetia, a low-growing plant about a foot in height, will thrive in poor soil, in a sunny location, and is covered with flowers — pink, white, crimson, and of every color, splashed with white.

Salpiglossis, in its many colors, also blooms continually. It does rather better if started in a hotbed, and the plants should be set about eight inches apart.

Schizanthus, which also has flowers of pink, white, rose and crimson, is continually in blossom. It is a delicate, dainty plant, and perhaps best suited for pot-culture. By sowing the seeds in March, frequently transplanting until they are finally set in an eightinch pot, these plants will reward one for the trouble given them, and, as they are yet but little grown, excite much interest.

As we live with our gardens, plantings which once were entirely satisfactory cease in time to be all that we could wish; and we experiment and devise other arrangements, and generally find the changes make for improvement. Such a radical change was made in my little rose garden, where formerly the beds were carpeted with pansies, and a border which surrounded it was edged with pink and white sweet william. Back of this border, and surrounding the whole garden, is a hedge of pink and white altheas, which has now grown so high that the garden is quite hidden from view. The rich soil used for the roses, with the frequent watering, stimulated both pansies and sweet william to great effort. Their blossoms added to the color of the garden, and I was secretly much pleased with the effect.

One day in mid-June, when the little rose garden was in perfection' of bloom, my daughter critically remarked at luncheon, "I do not like those pansies and other things in the rose-garden; everything there should grow up straight and neatly, and it is not bad if the earth is seen between the plants." Criticisms made by one's children are trying, but sometimes appropriate. Most of that afternoon I spent in the rose garden, visited it again in the evening, and slept little during that night thinking the matter over. It seemed cruel to drag out all those beautiful blooming plants. But by morning

I had decided to make the change; so, coming down very early, I found the gardener, went with him to the garden, and gave directions that every pansy and sweet wiUiam be pulled up, the beds and borders edged, and that all must be done neatly and immaculately before the men went to dinner.

Then I fled, to return only after my orders had been carried out. At first the little garden seemed bare and shorn of much beauty. But the daughter's criticism proved to be right, and now only gladioli grow among the roses, while all along the edge of the border is a row of tall tuberoses, which grow three feet in height with heads of bloom a foot in length, and perfume the night air deliciously. Every one approves the change.

We often reproach ourselves for fickleness when we find that we regard with aversion people whom we have long known and liked, because, in the lapse of years, they seem to have acquired unpleasant peculiarities, forgetting that we may ourselves have changed. May we not reproach ourselves equally when ceasing to care for plants which once we prized? Three flowers dear to me ten years ago I now entirely dislike; the crimson rambler rose, rudbeckia and Hydrangea grandiflora. The rudbeckia has been cast out of the garden. Nearly all of the crimson rambler roses have been taken up, leaving only a few arches and a short trellis of them, and the Pink Dorothy Perkins has been substituted; but a long hedge of hydrangeas still remain, although I now exclude them from my vision, and regard them as if they did not exist. These brave plants are so hardy and free-blooming that they have found a place from one end of the country to the other, and are grown everywhere, yet, because of their very merits which made them so universally groTSTi, they have become distasteful to many.

A beautiful plantation for August and September is of pink and white summer-flower-

SO ing cosmos, pink and white Japanese anemones, and pink and white asters ; such a border, in the garden of a relative, was, for quite six weeks, beautiful beyond my power to describe. The same flowers could be used, either all white or all pink, and would be an equally good arrangement.

This same relative makes a specialty of her spring garden. Living all the year in the country, she has the great joy of watching the wonderful phases of nature, — clouds, sunlight and shadow, — and knows the magic of the changing seasons. For six weeks in the spring her garden seems as if touched by a fairy wand, so exquisite are its colors.

It is not large, and much of the work is done by her own hands. She is indefatigable in having her borders made over at the proper intervals and in keeping the soil in good condition. Whei., in the autumn, a border is re-made and the perennials planted, the bulbs are then set and remain until the border is again taken up. The bulbs are planted from four to six inches deep, and, at the end of May or first of June, annuals are planted over and about them. The planting is so close that it remains a mystery to me how a trowel can ever be put into the soil without cutting a bulb.

In the border where, later, larkspur, valerian, Anchusa Italica and blue annuals bloom, there are, in early spring, the large white crocus and the lovely blue scilla.

In a yellow border, the daffodils, Emperor and Empress, are followed by early single yellow tulips and late double yellow tulips.

The borders on either side of a path are filled with early white tulips, to be followed by the Cottage Maid, which is pale pink. As the petals of the pale pink tulip fall, the lateblooming Isabella, a large, double pink tulip almost as large as a peony, comes into flower, and is in turn followed by the exquisite Picotee, which remains in bloom for nearly three weeks, and is, at first, white faintly tinged with pink, becoming at last almost a light American Beauty rose color. Along the edge of this border Narcissus alhus plenus odoratus and N. poeticus odoratus are grown in two rows.