344 



GARDENING. 



Aug. 



into beds; thej' are just as good as if you 

 raised them in the greenhouse. 



Lots of early sown annuals, as Drum- 

 mond phlox, mignonette, Drummond 

 coreopsis, candytuft and the like, will 

 now be nearl.v over, but if we made pro- 

 vision with zinnias, China asters, nastur- 

 tiums and marigolds to fill their places 

 we can keep our ),ardens gay till frost 

 comes. 



FLOWER GARDEN NOTES. 



EcHiNOPS COMMUTATUS {exaltatus). 

 This giant thistle is more curious than 

 showy or handsome. A loot planted in 

 April has grown some five or six feet, 

 with a bunch of some twelve or fifteen 

 round balls of small lavender flowers at 

 the top. The leaves are exactly those ot 

 a thistle, and the plant attracts attention 

 because it is seldom seen in gardens (at 

 least out my way). It is not troubled 

 with insects, but what is worse the 

 leaves gradually get yellow from the bot- 

 tom up. Is this usual or is it because the 

 treatment has not been right? [Yes, it is 

 the rule, especially after the plants begin 

 blooming —Ed.] Does it need moisture 

 or dryness? [We have found that it does 

 very well in common garden soil, deep, 

 rich, and not overmoist. — Ed.] I had an 

 Echinops Kitro, but be'ng received irom 

 the nursery when the thermometer was 

 94°, it died "on me," as our Hibernian 

 friends say. I am told that it is finer 

 than B. exaltatus. 



Strobilanthes Dverianus I had in- 

 tended pi nting this in quantities, with 

 other things, in a show bed, but was in- 

 formed by floral experts that it soon be- 

 came washy and fady looking. I am glad 

 I did not use them lor a show bed, as the 

 plant is rather sombre lookin/, in ray es- 

 timation, for such a purpose, but the few 

 plants I have scattered about have not 

 failed to elicit admiration on account of 

 the exceeding richness of coloring and the 

 metallic lustre, which is something rarely 

 met with. Neither do I find that so far 

 they have become at all weedy or washy 

 looking. Insects do not bother them, and 

 they seem to do well under almost any 

 ordinary conditions. 



Sweet Pea Cupid again. A writer in 

 the American Florist says, "this is likely 

 to be a useful plant and bears out in 

 every respect the descriptionsgivenof it." 

 1 am glad lo hear that somebody has 

 succeeded with it, as I had begun to con- 

 sider it one of the worst "fakes" ever 

 practiced upon a too confiding floral pub- 

 lic. Many I know have failed to get seed 

 to germinate under any conditions, in 

 pots or open ground, in dry or moist soil. 

 Soms have got a lew seeds to germinate, 

 only to find that the plants had no vital- 

 ity, and gradually gave up the ghost. 

 My six plants out of 30 seeds are coming 

 along slowly, oh, so slowly. One plant 

 has attained a length ( i cannot say 

 height,) of at least 3 or 4- inches, and has 

 some buds on it. Instead of growing up- 

 right and bushy, the plant has three 

 stalks, which spread out just like crab 

 grass, flat on the ground. And yet the3 

 have had the most delicate care, coddlin'. 

 and judicious feeding. 



SwEKT Pea Bride of Niagara. If thi- 

 is the result of trying to improve, by 

 doubling, the unimprovable, better would 

 it have been to leave the graceful single 

 sweet peaalone. [Youarcright, doubling 

 the sweet pea is spoiling it, so isdoubling 

 the pansy. Doubling flowers is some- 

 times an advantage so far as their use- 

 fulness as cut flowers goes, the double 

 flower lasting much longer that thcsingle 

 one, but in the case of the sweet i)c;i, this 



does not hold, for the single flower lasts 

 as long as the color keeps pure; besides, 

 doubling butchers the beauty of the blos- 

 som. — Ed.] Still, an3'thing goes, as long 

 as it is a "novelty." 



Roots ok Trees. After a large tree is 

 ^ut di wn.howlongdothe roots continue 

 to feed? I had a large maple cut down 

 some three years ago, and yet this year 

 some sprouts are coming up around the 

 base of the trunk. And how about the 

 roots ol an arbor-vitje hedge cut down in 

 April? Are they feeding still? [Although 

 the arbor-vit;e roots are alive their mis- 

 sion in life is over. Latent eyes on the 

 stout roots will not burst into upright 

 growth, they'll i ie at the end of the sea- 

 son. In the caseof many deciduous trees, 

 however, the roots will continue to live 

 and persistently throw up sprouts for 

 two or three years or more after the old 

 tree has been cut down; common exam- 

 ples of this may be found in the yellow 

 locust and the trumpet creeper, from old 

 plants of either, cut to the ground, suck- 

 ers or root sprouts, will continue to 

 spring upforsomeyears afterward. — Ed ] 

 L. C. L.Jordan. 



Bergen Point, N.J. July 10, '96. 



NOTES FROM AN lOWfl GARDBN. 



Srn-IRRIGATION FOR NEWLY PLA.NTED 

 TREES. 



The last few years were very dry here 

 and we found difficulty in transplanting 

 large trees and shrubs in safety and keep- 

 ing them alive. In 1893 we lost a num- 

 ber notwithstanding the fact that they 

 were well watered from the surface of the 

 ground and mulched as well. In the 

 spring of '94 we planted 35 quite large 

 trees and shrubs in clay land, and when 

 we were planting them we set from one 

 to three 4-inch drain tiles on end and 

 with upper end on surface of the ground, 

 in each hole, and these tiles were filled full 

 with water every evening, we also 

 sprayed the trees all over twice a day 

 from a hose. The surface of the soil was 

 dry and kept loose, and no mulching was 

 used. Every tree so treated lived and 

 made some growth. 



Iron VASES, how to treat them —One 

 of the lessons taught me by the past 

 three dry summers is that when we fill 

 vases made of iron for outdoor decora- 

 tion we must line them with thin wood, 

 if not the sun shining on the iron will 

 make it so hot that it will bake the soil 

 and bum the roots. The difference be- 

 tween the plants as grown in bned and 

 unlined vases is so great and so much in 

 favor of the lined vases, that we line 

 every iron vase we now fill with plants. 



Hydrangea and Salvia in one bed. — 

 Although I don't like mixing up shrub- 

 bery and bedding plants together in 

 formal beds I was very well pleased with 

 the effect produced by the above combi- 

 nation a year ago. We had a 20 foot 

 wide circular bed filled with Hydrangea 

 paniculata granditiora and bordered with 

 dwarf form of Salvia splendens pinched 

 back, and it was a fine sight. The 

 hydrangea plants were cut back to two 

 eyes, and the ground was heavily enriched 

 with manure in spring, and abundantly 

 watered in fummer, and the heads ol 

 bloom they made were immense. 



A BED OF DWARF SPIR.UA.— One of the 

 most novel flower beds I saw last je r 

 was a large circular one planted with 

 Spiriea liunialda and b rdered with 

 Spirwa callosa alba. Both are dwarf 

 shrubs and perfectly', hardy here. The 

 mass of pink flowtrs in the middle and 

 the border of white had a very pleasing 

 effect, the i)1ants were so full of bloom 



one could hardly see the foliage, and they 

 last long in flower. 



A COLORED SHRUBBERY BED. — I have a 



24 foot wide bed filled with a few Elseag- 

 nus hortensis (silvery) in the center, 

 outside of that the crimson-purple Pranus 

 Pissardii, and bordered with Buist's 

 variegated althiea, the plants are set out 

 2V2 feet apart, and kept cut down to 2 to 

 2V2 feet. To relieve the stiff even effect, I 

 planted some of the white flowered 

 Cleonie pungens among them, and its 

 graceful white flowers waving over the 

 solid bed of color relieves it greatly. I 

 am afraid that my good friends William 

 MacMillan, Warren Manning, and the 

 editor may discipline me for violating the 

 landscape laws of ethics in color, but the 

 people must have novelty. 



Gaura Lindheimeri is a herbaceous 

 perennial plant indigenous in Texas, 

 hardy in sheltered sandy lands as far 

 north as New York, but not hardy here 

 in Iowa. It is very easily grown from 

 seed, however, or Irom cuttings, indeed 

 we usually raise it from seed every year, 

 treating it as an annual in much the same 

 way as we do vinca, nierembergia, and 

 othir perennials that come into bloom 

 early in the first season. The principal 

 use we make of it is to plant in geranium 

 beds to relieve their glare, and in coleus 

 beds to lighten their stiffness and monot- 

 ony. The gaura grows twelve to fifteen 

 inches high and throws up long, slender 

 arching wands scattered over with light 

 airy, blush or white blossoms that flutter 

 over the coleuses or geraniums like hover- 

 ing butterflies. It has an elegant effect. 

 We also use it in (juantity in filling vases. 



Euphorbia corollata, commonly 

 called creeping milkweed, is another 

 hardy herbaceous perennial that answers 

 admirably for the same end for which we 

 use the gaura. It is perfectly hardy here, 

 indeed it grows wild hereabout, and over 

 a wide range of the northern states, but 

 its habit is stiffer than that of the gaura. 

 It can be increased by division, or from 

 seed, or we can gather a lot of the wild 

 plants. John T. Temple. 



Davenport, Iowa. 



DISEASED GfllNA ASTERS. 



For the last two years the China asters 

 in my garden are curiously aftected. 

 After transplanting, the plants seem to 

 g ow well for a few weeks, and then sud- 

 denly a considerable proportion arc 

 stricken wit 11 a kind ot blight, which 

 results first in the witheringof tl e leaves, 

 and soon afterwards, say in the course of 

 a week, the absolute destruction of the 

 plant. I have raised asttrs in the same 

 place for several successive years. Last 

 year I suspected that when 1 fertilized the 

 soil I might perhaps have introduced 

 some destructive element and that my 

 plants suffered in consequence. I there- 

 fore removed the original soil and filled 

 up the space with fresh earth from the 

 prairies. This summer the aster plants 

 are aflected quite as unfavorably as they 

 were last year, hence I conclude that the 

 manure which I used is not the cause of 

 the difliculty. Possibly the difficulty may 

 result from a pear tree that is located in 

 one corner ot the bed in which the aster 

 plants are placed. This tree showed signs 

 of blight last year, and the blighted por- 

 tions were removed. The tree, however, 

 now seems to be healthy and no further 

 occasion fur removal has existed. 



Chicago. F. P. C. 



The pear tree blight has nothing to do, 

 we believe, with the aster disease; too 

 much shade, and dryness andanimpover- 



