1882. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



229 



hardier that A olympica and pyrenaica. I ex- 

 pect them to blossom this year. Dr. Palmer tells 

 me the flowers are white and yellow, tinged with 

 pink, and the spurs from six to eight inches long 

 and very narrow. Indeed, judging from the 

 lierbarium specimens, it will hold as striking a 

 rank among Columbines as Cypripedium cauda- 

 tum does among Lady's Slippers — Falconer in 

 Garden. 



The English Bird Cherry as a Street Tree. 

 — Among the interesting things noted at Allen- 

 town was the employment of the English Bird 

 Cherry, Cerasus padus, as a street tree. People 

 from the South often wish they could have the 

 Carolina Cherry (Cerasus Carolinianus) as they 

 see it South, but, except the Evergreen foliage, 

 they have something quite as pretty in this. 

 The trees were loaded with long racemes of 

 white flowers, giving to the surrounding atmos- 

 phere a Hawthorn-like fragrance. It has an ad- 

 vantage in never getting too large, as so many 

 street trees do. 



Forks and Spades.— There are innumerable 

 cases in gardening where the spade must be 

 used. It is perhaps the most essential of all gar- 

 den implements. But there are also innumera- 

 ble cases where the digging fork could be used 

 to great advantage. It is remarkable, however, 

 how difficult it is to get a laborer to use the dig- 

 ging fork in these cases. He sticks to the spade 

 through thick and thin, though the ''thin " can 

 be done in double the time and with half the 

 labor the spade implies. Even the contemned 

 monkey will learn faster than some men. 



Golden Evergreens. — These do not differ 

 very much from the normal green form in win- 

 ter or early spring; it is in early summer that 

 they show their grand character. Among Golden 

 Evergreens few excel the George Peabody arbor- 

 vitae in striking beauty. In June and July it is 

 the prince of golden evergreens. 



PiCEA alcoquiana. — This promises to be very 

 popular among the rarer evergreens. The new 

 spring growth has a reddish tinge, which gives 

 them the appearance of being large flowers. It 

 is a very hardy kind. 



Old FASHIONED Shrubf.— Germantown, settled 

 even before Philadelphia was, though finally 

 swallowed up by her younger sister, still retains 

 in its old-fashioned gardens many grand speci- 

 mens of old-fashioned flowers, which the old- 



fashioned people from the land of the Rhine 

 were so fond of planting. Some of these have 

 been particularly fine this year. Let the folks 

 in newer spots imagine Snowballs twenty feet 

 high and as much broad, or Mock Oranges of the 

 same size, with thousands of flowers, and they 

 will have some idea of how June looks in old- 

 fashioned Germantown. 



A Honeysuckle Ornament. — One of the pret- 

 tiest cheap garden ornaments we saw recently 

 in a ride through AUentown. It was in a very 

 poor person's garden, to judge by surroundings, 

 but worth}^ of imitation in a place of more pre- 

 tentions. A piece of old terra cotta pipe with a 

 flange had been planted over a Honeysuckle 

 and the plant drawn up through it ; the next 

 year another piece of pipe had been fastened 

 into the flange, and the plant led up again. 

 The Honeysuckle had for some years been grow- 

 ing in this way, drooping over some five feet of 

 pipe. Possibly it would do as well trained up to 

 a stake, but somehow we do not think it would 

 look as well as this did. At any rate, this was » 

 stake that would never rot away. 



Single Dahlias. — There are changes in the 

 fashions of flowers as in the fashions of dress. 

 But who would have thought that after the 

 rage for Double Dahlias, and double all sorts of 

 things, that improved Single Dahlias should be 

 the proper thing just now? But there is a great 

 deal of beauty in many single flowers, and we 

 are glad that single Dahlias, like single Roses, 

 should have attention. We should not be sur- 

 prised if even " single-blessedness " came to be 

 something more than a facetious expression. 



Early Rhododendrons.— There is care re- 

 quired in selecting Rhododendrons as regards 

 hardiness. The garden kinds are hybrids be- 

 tween R. catawbiense, R. maximum and R. 

 ponticum. Those which retain much of the 

 constitution of the last named usually get killed 

 in American winters. 



Another feature, not often noted, and attention 

 to which would give more interest, is the selec- 

 tions of kinds as regards a succession of flowers. 

 By due regard to this the Rhododendron season 

 may be made to cover six weeks. Of well known 

 hardy kinds one might take Chancellor for an 

 early kind ; Everestianum for a medium and 

 Cyaneum for a late purple and Oculatum for a 

 late white. Do our readers know of earlier or 

 later ones than these ? 



