286 



GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



Conius Xiiltallii. — This is une of its native places, and it grows 

 here to a good-sized tree 30 feet to 40 feet high and in the 

 Spring is a mass of bloom. The average size across the bracts 

 here is 4 inches to Ayi inches, and often they run to 5 inches or 

 more, and it is easy to pick branches 4 feet or 5 feet long with 

 a spread of 2 feet or 3 feet with twenty to thirty llowers open on 

 it. It often flowers again in the Autumn, and is then at its best. 

 The leaves are turning red and pink; the bunches of scarlet 

 berries from the first flowering and the white flowers of the sec- 

 ond crop with a cushion of emerald green in the center (these 

 flowers are sterile) make a perfect picture. It resents bemg 

 moved except w^hen very young, and I hnd it is best grown from 

 seed and transplanted at a year old. It does not like too much 

 cultivation about its roots, but stands its branches being cut 

 when wanted for decoration. If planted in poor gravelly soil its 

 leaves color best, but it grows slowly. It likes partial shade, and 

 grows well here in mixed woods among Douglas Firs, Hemlocks 

 and Maples, and when near streams with Maples and Alders. It 

 grows taller in moist and good soil, but the leaves do not color 

 so well. Calvpso grows wild here, loo, and the flowers can be 

 picked by the hundred. At one of the Royal Horticuhural So- 

 ciety's shows in the spring of 1917 I was shown one in Mr. 

 Reu'the's exhibit, but it looked very lonely after the woods 

 out here. It grows with the bulb just under the moss with 

 its roots in decaying wood and Fir needles, in woods of Fir 

 with a sprinkling of Maple and where a little sunshine can 

 penetrate. Its scent is fresh and sharp, if one can use that 

 word with reference to a scent. British Columbia is a wonderful 

 place for wild flowers and Ferns, some of the latter, especially 

 Adiantum pcdatum. being very beautiful and range from a few- 

 inches to 3 feet or 4 feet in height.— C. T. Hilton, Port Alberm, 

 British Calnmbia, in The Cardcn. 



The Welsh Poppy in Shade.— The Welsh Poppy {Mcconopsxs 

 canibrica) is so prolific that in many places it becomes a weed if 

 allow-ed to seed and sow itself; yet there are positions where it 

 is exceedinglv valuable, such as under deciduous trees, where it 

 seems to flourish and flow'er with freedom. For an odd corner 

 under trees or a semi-wild place it does not come amiss and 

 renders such a situation cheerful and bright in May and June, 

 and longer if the seed pods are removed in good time. The 

 shade appears to give a greater softness to the yellow of the 

 flowers and to bring them even more into harmony with the fresh 

 green leaves than w^here the plants are in sun. Nor does it seem 

 to require much moisture. I have a bank in a dull corner where 

 there is but little moisture and a good deal of shade, and here 

 there are a good many hundred plants which make the corner 

 quite beautiful in its time. It also supplies flowers for cutting, 

 and if taken in the bud stage they last a wonderfully long tune 

 in water. Those who do not possess the Welsh Poppy can easily 

 raise it from seeds, sown where the plants have to bloom or in 

 boxes and the seedlings transplanted when small. They will 

 flower next year if sown by early July.— T/u' Garden. 



Exotie IK(?c-(/i.— Native weeds, c. g.. Couch Grass, Dandelions, 

 Rishon weed. Groundsel. Sorrel (which in Scotland we call 

 Sooro'cks"), and Plantain are quite enough trial to temper and 

 industry without the addition of exotics, .\fflicted as I am by 

 the consequence of having in bygone years of much ardor^ and 

 less experience introduced certain plants to the garden, either 

 purchased from nurserymen or received as gifts from friends, it 

 occurs to me that a word of timely warning may save incipient 

 amateurs from trouble in the future. The subject has been 

 brought painfully home to me by the destruction wrought on a 

 colony of Lady's Slipper (Cyripediunt calceolus) which has oc- 

 cupied a sheltered bay in a border of shrubs for more than thirty 

 years. There were about a score of clumps which threw up 

 magnificent trusses of bloom May after May until this year, when 

 to my dismay I found not a score of flow^enng stems all told. 

 Taking advantage of the disturbed state of Europe. Lily of the 

 Valley has invaded the sanctuarv and strangled with its matted 

 roots' the precious Orchid, .\nvone who has striven to remove 

 I ily of the Vallev from a place whereof it has taken possession 

 must know that it is no light labor, and that it is well nigh im- 

 possible to deliver unhurt such plants as have been caught in the 

 dcadlv embrace. Some mav consider Lily of the Valley as good a 

 Ihing'as Ladv's Slipper. Perhaps it is; but my point is that you 

 cannot have ix)th in the same border. The best place for Lily of 

 the J'alley is in the tvoods; if you have no woods, then give if 

 an isolated border to itself. , , ,■ 



I will now name two beautiful destroyers— CaHi/'nimm wen- 

 tlora and the Welsh Poppy (Meconopsis cambrica). Woe worth 

 the dav when I first planted them with exceeding care, chi^rtling 

 in my innocence at having secured such desirable prizes. Now it 

 1 had the last bit of eilber of them before me in the garden and 

 a ■'ood fork in mv hand, out it should go. The woodland again 

 is "the place for them; in the borders they arc as one ot the 



plagues of Egypt, scattering their seed far and wide. When the 

 seed lands in the middle of some treasure, the seedling produces 

 such long fanlike roots that it becomes impossible to eradicate 

 the robber without uprooting the choice plant also. 



The Oriental Poppy is another tyrant that requires strict 

 discipline. We cannot forego its flaming splendor; but it must 

 be kept scrupulously within bounds, else many a fair flower of 

 humbler stature will lie crushed out of existence. Montbretia 

 and the commoner Alstroemerias are terrible spreaders, and 

 should never be planted in a mixed border. I am told that the 

 Indians of Soutii .America eat largely of the succulent tubers 

 which Alstroemeria produces in such abundance, but when I 

 asked one who had traveled much m that land whether he had 

 tried them as an esculent, he replied that he had not. and so 

 long as he could get a decent potato he did not intend to do so. 

 Sir Walter Raleigh was more enterprising. 



.'\nother South American plant. Erigcron miicronatus, also 

 known as I'ittadonia triloba, has established itself as a weed in 

 Europe. The roadside walls at Cintra. near Lisbon, are covered 

 with it. and very gay it makes them with its myriad daisy 

 flowers ; but I have cause to rue the day when I inserted a root 

 of it in the wall garden here, for it has spread far, roots so 

 deeply that it cannot be eradicated without pulling down the 

 wall, and goodness knows how many feebler things it has suf- 

 focated. Arenaria balearica is also an irrepressible little thug, 

 and should never be admitted to select company. 



As for the Knot weeds, the robust members of that most Pro- 

 tean family are enough to drive one to despair. It is fairly im- 

 possible to get rid of Polygonum cuspidatum and saclialinense. 

 .-Ml that ca.i b^ done is to hack down the shoots as fast as they 

 appear above ground. 



So much for herbaceous weeds, .\mong shrubs I have ex- 

 perienced difiiculty with two only, which I recommend amateurs 

 not to place among other garden plants. One is a beautiful Rose 

 w-hich came to us under the name of Pink Arches. Nothing 

 could be fairer than its bending sprays laden with shell pink 

 blocm. but it sends subterranean suckers to an amazing distance, 

 to spring up in the midst of things quite unfit to fight with it. 

 The other is I'eronica parviflora whereof T believe there are two 

 forms, a dwarf and a tall kind. In itself the latter is a very 

 desirable shrub, but it ripens vast quantities of seed. Seedlings 

 spring up in all sorts of places where they are not wanted, and 

 give trouble unless removed while still quite small. — The Garden. 



The following true story may interest and amuse readers of 

 .Sir Herbert Maxwell's note on exotic weeds : Some years ago 

 part of a Rhododendron garden was overrun by Bambusa pal- 

 niata. It took a very strong man. armed with pick and crowbar, 

 just seven days to get rid of it. I asked a very nice clergyman 

 who was going round the garden whether it was right to say 

 "Damn." alter the manner of Lord Fisher. "That depends on 

 what you refer to?" "Bambusa palmata." "Oh, then I think 

 you are quite justified!' Eriseron niucronatns is certainly a 

 weed, but here it never seeds itself except within a short distance 

 of where it has been planted. .\lso my kind friends always ask 

 for seedlings. The orange variety of Meconopsis cambrica never 

 becomes a nuisance : seedlings alw-ays come up near the parent 

 plants, which grow under an east wall w'here nothing else can 

 thrive. 



.\ plant which we designate a weed is. of course, not neces- 

 sarily a worthless plant ("the Poppies in the corn are lovely"), 

 but it is a plant in the wrong place. My first complaint is against 

 Helianthus rigidiis, perhaps the most beautiful of the perennial 

 Sunflowers, but a fugitive and a vagabond, ramifying in all di- 

 rections with its fleshy roots. Another offender is Thalictrum 

 adianttfotium. or Poor Man's Maidenhair, very useful for mix- 

 ing with cut flowers, but an inveterate trespasser. Then there 

 is the common Musk, an old-time favorite as a scented flower 

 but popular opinion has condemned it. — The Garden. 



The Woodland Tulip.— Grown among the wild Hyacinths and 

 other plants of the w-oodland, Tulipa syhcstris is pretty and 

 graceful without being gorgeous: indeed, it might almost be con- 

 sidered the very embodiment of refinement and grace, with its 

 long and slender stem and deep yellcw flowers, so narrowly 

 segmented and sharplv pointed at the tips. Instead of the bud 

 of this Tulip being thrust stiftly upright, after the manner of 

 its resplendent relations of garden origin, it droops over with a 

 Poppy-like elesance. the stem gradually assuming the perpen- 

 dicular as the flower expands. The latter, unlike most of its race, 

 has a pleasant frasrance. T. sxkestris appears to enjoy a well- 

 drained soil, and it will do satisfactorily under deciduous trees. 

 In some places it has a bad name for being a shy bloomer, but 

 this is a failing which can doubtless be remedied by a better 

 understanding of the plant's requirements. It is apt to die out 

 or disappear, but those plants which survive — usually in the driest 

 places — bloom every season. — The Garden. 



