262 



GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



September Flowers 



BERTHA BERBERT-HAMMOND 



AFTER the long, tiowerless days ai Winter, even so 

 pallid and inconspicuous a bloom as the Snowdrop, 

 "The first pale blossoms of the unripened year," is 

 enthusiastically welcomed and its praises are sung in 

 poetry and prose. But after a Summer of varied and 

 unrestrained bloom, to gain attention and admiration the 

 late blooming flower must be most generously endowed 

 -with Flora's choicest gifts. In this instance, as in others, 

 Xature has done the work well and has glorified the 

 -Autumnal roadside, field, and garden, with the gayest and 

 fairest of flowers, robed in brilliant reds, royal purples, and 

 golden yellows. Mary Howitt expresses the thought thus : 



"There are flowers enough in the Summer time 



-More flowers than I can remember — 



But none with the purple, gold and red 



That dye the flowers of September. 



The gorgeous flowers of September ! 



And the sun looks through 



A clearer blue 



And the moon at night 



Sheds a clearer light 



On the beautiful flowers of September." 

 Wild flowers and those of the garden, annuals and 

 f)erennials, vie with each other in contributing rich hues 

 to enhance the brilliancy of the floral festival. The French 

 marigolds, and also the taller African sorts with their 

 profusion of gorgeous flowers that display golden yellows, 

 wann browns, and velvety maroons ; the improved zinnias, 

 far removed from the indistinct coloring of the old- 

 fashioned varieties ; and the tall growing Golden Glow 

 with its myriad of bright hued, double flowers nodding 

 on long, graceful stems, effectively carry out a very 

 decorative garden scheme in green and gold. Field and 

 meadow owe their dazzling golden splendor to the yellow 

 daisy, Ritdbcckia hirta; wild sunflower. He! inn thus; Jeru- 

 salem artichoke; Yellow Star, Hcloiiiim autuiiinalc. and 

 numerous other yellow flowers, besides the very numerous 

 sjjecies of the well known and highly conspicuous Golden 

 Rod. Almost hand in hand with the bright Golden Rod 

 comes the starry asters in many varieties and varied colors, 

 giving those charming indescribable touches of lavender 

 and jHirple to hillside and vale, that adds such wealth 

 of color to the radiance of the countryside in Septemlier. 

 In the garden, too, improved sorts of China asters with 

 their profusion of bloom make a wonderful dis[)lay that 

 for beauty and splendor cannot easily be surpassed. 



The graceful Costiios with its feathery foliage and 

 beautiful, long-stemmed flowers is generally classed 

 among the late blooming annuals, but an early flowering 

 strain has been developed, one sort coming into blossom 

 in September and another, an extra early kind, it is 

 claimed, from seeds sown in the open ground in .May will 

 produce bloom in August and sometimes even before then. 

 Though most varieties of chrysanthemums bloom late 

 in the year, there are over a dozen covering a wide color 

 range that are known as September flowering chrysan- 

 themums. 



The hardy Japan anemones both in the single and 

 double flowered kinds lend to the garden a ])leasing light 

 color that extends well into Autumn. The semi-double 

 variety, "Queen Charlotte." that bears flowers of a silvery 

 |)ink color is worthy of special attention. 



.\s mere "weeds" the pickerel weed, Pniitcdcria cordota, 

 and the blue weed, or blue thistle, Echimn vidgare, do not 

 find a warm reception but they possess the blue color 



which is welcome in flowers. The blue of the closed or 

 bottled gentian, Gentiana Andreu;sii, though of a deep 

 shade at the top of the flower is of a lighter color at the 

 base. 'J'his blending seems to render more intense the 

 blue at the tip of the curiously closed, bud-like flowers. 

 It remains, however, for the lovely fringed gentian, 

 Gcntiana crinita, to supply in its modest way the hue that 

 artists claim nearly matches the blue of the sky and of 

 which the poet, William Cullen Bryant wrote : 

 "Blue — blue as if the sky let fall 

 A flower from its cerulean wall.'' 

 The continuous blooming, perennial phlo.x with its im- 

 proved color scale plays an important part and the dahlia, 

 gladiolus, and other flowers join in to make the Septem- 

 ber garden colorful. The gayest of them all is the scarlet 

 sage. Salvia splciidcns, whose numerous spikes of vivid 

 red rise like flaming plumes above the foliage. Only the 

 georgeous Cardinal Flower that lights up moist meadows 

 and the banks of streams eijuals this intensity and bril- 

 liancy of red coloring that crown the September pageant. 



THE ROCK GARDEN 



{Continued from page 261) 

 the W inter. They are rather slow in becoming estab- 

 lished, and the soil should be free from lime. 



Globulaiia. Globe Daisy. The alpine kinds of this genus 

 form ever:;Teen carpets and their pretty blue flowers 

 appear in July and August. They prefer a soil containing 

 limestone, but will thrive in ordinary rock garden com- 

 post. Trichosantlia, native of Syria, is perhaps the best 

 known, while cordifolia, nndicmUe an^l nana, natives of 

 Europe, are also hardy. They come easily from seed, and 

 divisions may be made in the Fall. 



Harbcrlia rJwdopoisis. This is a perfect floral gem, 

 having flowers like miniature Gloxinias. It is native of 

 the Balkans, growing in dense tufts with flower stems only 

 an inch or two tall. It should be placed between rocks, so 

 ihat the latter will aft'ord it some shade. It can be raised 

 from seed and propagated by division in the Spring. 



Iris. Those whose only experience of this genus is of 

 the stately s])ecies native of our own swamps and of other 

 countries will not be likely to think of them as rock plants. 

 There are. however, several choice species which, by 

 reason of their diminutive beauty and rarity can only have 

 a chance to grow without being smothered by coarser 

 things, and have the attention they require and deserve, in 

 a rock garden. Upwards of a score of species are desir- 

 able for this situation, of which the followmg arc the best 

 suited to American conditions : Bakcriana is a little bul- 

 bous sjjecies about six inches tall, with blue and white 

 scented flowers in early S])ring; crislata, an .\merican al- 

 pine from the mountains of Kentucky and Carolina, is one 

 of the choicest gems of this genus, and bears its beautiful 

 flowers in May, their standards -being lilac and the falls 

 blue, crested with yellow: gatcsii is another beauty, native 

 of .\rnK-nia. with silvery flowers in June; liistrio is a bul- 

 lions kind and one of the earliest: the writer has had its 

 pretty blue and yellow flowers push through the snow in 

 i'ebniary ; pnmila, native of the Crimea, has violet flowers 

 with a whit(! beard; this species has many varieties, with 

 flowers of difl'erent shades. Irises can l>e readily grown 

 from seed, and can also be propagated by offsets and by 

 division, according to the character of their roots. 

 (Concluded in October Issue') 



