■i8g6. 



GARDENING. 



229 



CLEMATIS PANICULATA. 



low wet ground, as many trees grow 

 most plentilul in such places for the simple 

 reason that their seeds will not germinate 

 in dry ground. In preparing the holes 

 for the trees use the pick axe or grub hoe 

 very freely and break up the clay for 

 some distance from where the roots will 

 reach when planted to hold the rain and 

 moisture in the surroundings. To give 

 the trees a good start some rich soil will 

 be required to intermix around the roots, 

 and leaves or any trash in the vicinity 

 should be used as a mulch which can be 

 held in place by a few stones or lumps of 

 clay. It is essential that each tree or 

 plant should be tramped firmly to 

 exclude the air from the roots before the 

 mulching is put on. Nearly all the hardy 

 evergreens can be made to grow in such 

 land, but it would be better to delay that 

 until another year, having the ground 

 dug up to lie loosely over winter. 



Black walnut, hickories in variety, 

 butternuts, black and yellow locust, 

 honey locust, American thorn trees, 

 Kentucky coffee trees, native crab, white, 

 red and black oaks, black cherry (Prunus 

 serotina), red cherrj- (P. Pennsylvanica), 

 ironwood, hop hornbeam, sugar maple, 

 ash-leaved maple, striped maple and 

 mountain maples, green ash, American 

 mountain ash, and paper and canoe birch. 

 Among lesser growth or shrubs I have 

 found snowberry,calycanthus, Juneberry, 

 witch hazel, barberry, sumach, American 

 and European euonymus, nine-bark 

 spira-a, and any other strong deep root- 

 ing shrubs, especially those having tap 

 roots and which root deeply in their 



natural state. To these I would add 

 lilacs, high bush cranberry, Japan honey- 

 suckle, Virginia creeper and bittersweet. 



The red maples and poplars would do 

 well for twenty years, maybe, after that, 

 however, they would fail. 



Waukegan, 111. Robert Douglas. 



CLEMATIS AND SHRUBS IN MY GARDEN. 



I send you a photo of a Clematis pani- 

 culata, which made a remarkable bloom 

 for its age. It was a 25 cent plant set 

 out in October, 1894, mulched with leaves 

 through the winter, and is now (Septem- 

 bec, 1895) as you see it, though the pho- 

 tograph does not really give one a fair 

 idea of the extent of the bloom. Those 

 pillars support a porch built over the cel- 

 lar door, are 12 feet high, and the space 

 between them is 10 feet. A piece of wide 

 meshed wire was put up and folded back 

 to the pillar as one drapes a curtain, but 

 there was not enough room for this 

 ambitious vine, so some simple wires were 

 strung across to the next post to help 

 out. There were a half dozen of these. 



Clematis plants set out in the neighbor- 

 hood at the same time with similar care, 

 which only means mulching and watering 

 in dry times, but none has done so well 

 as this one, and we give the credit to the 

 location on the east side of the house. 

 There are also fine thrifty blooming 

 plants of C Henn-ii and Jackmanni near 

 by; the leaves of the Jackmann's are at 

 the edge of the photo. Our town pos- 

 sesses several large ten-year-old plants of 

 Jackmann's that bloom in masses every 

 season and seem to know nothing of any 



disease, but young plants frequently turn 

 brown and die down in few days after 

 blooming. In this latitude we sigh to 

 think that houses cannot be sheds, run- 

 ning north and south, so that there can 

 be more of the "east side" to plant 

 against. 



Grouped round our clematis are very 

 fine plants of Wiegelia rosea and Spirwa 

 prunifolia ff. pA, both of which are difii- 

 cult to have in good form unless thus pro- 

 tected by the house from our cutting west 

 wind. Spiraeas are the feature of this 

 garden. Ten years ago all of the white 

 spiraeas in Ellwanger& Barry's catalogue 

 were set out and we wonder that they 

 are not more extensively grown, as they 

 need only ordinary care and soil, are 

 mostly perfectly hardy, and they never 

 become overgrown. Every spring they 

 giveus a successionof thedaintiestsprays 

 for cutting, to say nothing of the orna- 

 mentation of thegrounds. Van Hou te's 

 makes a fountain of bloom, bemg natu- 

 rally of a superior habit, but when 

 exposed to west winds should be wrapped 

 with straw until established. Trilobata, 

 cratxgifolia, luxuriosa and crenata are 

 perhaps the best and much alike, but 

 slightly succeed each other and prolong 

 tne blooming season. The beautiful 

 double Reevesi is more tender and has to 

 be tucked into sheltered spots, and no 

 wonder, for I found it doing well in the 

 Nassau Bahamas. The various forms of 

 S. callosa, though not quite so showy, 

 are longer in bloom and later and quite 

 indispensable to any shrub lover. This 

 garden also contains the largest Hydran- 

 gea panicalata grandiHora in the" town. 

 Some years ago a piano box fell upon it, 

 breaking all the wood short off, and thus 

 it was we learned the secret to cut it back. 

 For years we boasted of our Japan snow- 

 ball, but last winter it was killed to the 

 ground and now refuses to make good 

 young growth, but we feel that we have 

 a permanent thing in the spiraeas. 



Crown Point, Indiana. F. N. B. 



SOME SELECT flflRDY SHRUBS. 



Several of the hypericunis are profuse 

 and beautiful garden shrubs of small size. 

 H. multifforum grows about 2 feet high, 

 and is quite bushy, and is in bloom from 

 July to September. It dies down to the 

 ground every winter like a hei-baceous 

 plant, but comes up the following spring 

 stronger than before. .\11 hypericums 

 have yellow blossoms. H. aureum and 

 //. proli/icum are both small shrubs and 

 very free blooming, and H. Moserianum 

 is a dwarf almost herbaceous form of 

 recent introduction that has large, showy 

 blossoms all summer long. 



Itea virginica is a little gem among 

 native shrubs. It bears a large crop of 

 small racemes of white flowers in summer, 

 and its foliage colors up splendidly in fall. 

 It likes moist ground to grow in." 



The California privet {Ligustrum oval- 

 ifolium) is indispensable either as a hedge 

 plant or a specimen individual; its leaves 

 are almost evergreen, and large plants 

 bear a good crop of panicles of white, 

 scented blossoms. 



Among the bush honeysuckles be sure to 

 get Lonicera fragrantissima, the fragrant 

 bush honeysuckle, which comes into 

 bloom in earliest spring and before the 

 leaves appear; and the alba and the rubra 

 grandiflora forms of the Tartarian bush 

 honeysuckles. 



The mock oranges or syringas (Pi/'/a- 

 delphus) contain many desirable sorts, 

 but for general purposes the large white- 

 flowered one called grandiSorus and the 

 fragrant one, coronarius, and its yellow 

 leaved form, are the ones we cannotomit. 



