Flowers for the Hardy Garden 



By Bertrand H. Farr, Pennsylvania. 



The thought of a garden instantly suggests to us a 

 place of quiet seclusion, away irom the stress of the 

 outer world, a retreat in which the cares of everjday 

 life fade away into forgetfulness. If it is an old, old 

 garden that comes to my mind, we picture it filled with 

 the old-fashioned garden perennials that still flourish, 

 though so far back as we can remember they have 

 alwa_vs existed there ; and that is why the hardy plants 

 have always appealed to me. They are permanent 

 features of the ganlen. and there seems to be a sort of 

 personality about them that makes them seem like old 

 friends as season after season we see that they are 

 safely tucked away for their long sleep under their 

 snowy blanket. 



With the first mild days of spring how eagerly we 

 watch for their awakening, how it thrills us as we dis- 

 cover the first to apjiear. the dainty snowdrops, chiono- 

 do.vas. and the little clwarf irises, followed in c|uick suc- 

 cession by the tulips and daffodils, their golden cups 

 standing out in bold relief against those sluggards, the 

 pseonies, which are just awakening and beginning to 

 push up their long crimson stems. 



Everywhere the garden teems with new life, and our 

 perennial companions have Ijegun another cycle of 

 their existence which will hold us entranced again until 

 the last of the p(}nip(nis >uccuinb to the killing Novem- 

 ber frost. 



This description could Ije broadened to describe the 

 average hardy garden by saying that it is made up of 

 but little more than a dozen standard species varied by 

 the odds and ends that each individual adds accord- 

 ing to their own taste and fancy. The principal motifs 

 of this cycle of the hardy garden, then, are almost en- 

 tirely made up of the following: 



First, and perhaps the mcjst nnpnrtant of all, are the 



irises, the passing of which through the spring and 

 summer months is like that of a grand procession, the 

 first glimpse of which may be had when, in the shel- 

 tered places in February, such gems as Iris Reticulata 

 and Sindarensis first appear. Then come the dainty 

 Pumilas in March, followed by the various dwarf 

 furms in April and Alay in ever-increasing boldness of 

 form and color, until June ushers in the great German- 

 ica family, the bearded irises with their broad masses 

 of color. 



In quick succession come the tall Sihericas and the 

 still taller .Spuria \arieties of Aurea, Monniere, and 

 Gigantea, until with a great burst of splendor, comes 

 Iris Kaempferi, the crowning glory of all with its great 

 blooms a foot in diameter, rising on tall stems to a 

 height of five feet — the royal family, arrayed in richest 

 blue, and purple antl gold — and the pageant comes to 

 an end, untler the blazing August sun. 



Again in November, the Crimean Irises, yielding to 

 the allurements of the mild summer days, put forth 

 their blooms here and there as if to remind us of their 

 existence and their imi)atience in awaiting the coming 

 of the spring. 



The charm of the iris appeals irresistibly to those 

 whose taste for the refined and delicateh' beautiful 

 leads them to seek a close acquaintance with it. The 

 ethereal beauty of its soft irridescent coloring and its 

 frail, orchid-like formation is likely to pass unnoticed 

 l)y the casual observer. But to the enthusiast there is 

 opened a field where he may have full scope for his 

 wildest fancies. For there are irises for every conceiv- 

 able situation, for nearly every month in the year — 

 there being about one hundred and seventy distinct 

 species, with the varieties running into the thousands, 



*E.xtiact from a paper reati before the Ontario Horticultural .Association. 



.AN .\TTR.\CTIVE DISPL.W OF PAEONIES .\f HluHL.-XND P.\RK, ROCHESTER, N. Y. 



