54 



* * ' GARDENING. 



Nov. /, 



not kept them tight and snug give them 

 some more. All is now ready for a coat 

 of well rotted manure. 



My fern bed is my darling It has a 

 back ground of tall box wood that does 

 not show so much in summer but comes 

 out beautifully as the summer ferns die. 

 This and the lovely evergreen ferns from 

 the Alleghany Mountains makesit a feast 

 for my eyes. " Whenever not covered with 

 snow"! am plantingsome extra pretty cro- 

 cuses among the ferns to bloom in spring 

 before the summer ferns wake up to much 

 growth. No manure is put here only their 

 own leaves to enrich th m. I simply 

 trim out the long stems. 



Mrs L. C. Chrisman. 



Rockingham Co., Va. 



GOBEA AND OTHER VINES COVERING fl CHIM- 

 NEY. 



I send you bv this mail the photograph 

 of "the chimney." Vou will remember 

 that you have'been consulted through 

 Gardening about a self clinging vine lor 

 that chimnev, and the Gordian knot has 

 been cut with annuals. The success has 

 been so unexpected that I telt you must 

 see mv triumph, as far as a photo will 

 allow'youto do so. There is a Henryii 

 clematis on the farther corner that has 

 never heretofore reached above the lower 

 window ledge and even now has only 

 spread around in a space some three feet 

 square and produced numbers of large 

 flowers all summer— in fact, there are 

 three now ready for the scissors to-mor- 

 row The annuals are a pot of Mina 

 lobata and a white Cobxa raised from 

 seed sown in March— and see thegrowth, 

 for it is fullv thirty feet to the eaves of 

 the house, and since this photograph was 

 taken, strings have been carried over the 

 top of the chimney, which is ten feet 

 higher and the vine is nearly to the top 

 now. There was, of course, a bunch ol 

 spravs at the top ready to go upward, 

 but for some inscrutable reason they do 

 not appear in this photo. We mean to 

 use only coba^a another season because 

 of its cast iron endurance of frost, whereas 

 the Mina is almost as tender as a helio- 

 trope. The shrub at the right is a Loni- 

 cera Morrowii, and the one at the left of 

 the chimnev is a deutzia, Pride of Roches- 

 ter, both of a handsome shape and about 

 « feet high. The blurred look in the 

 deutzia is a tamarix, and the white 

 trouble in the lower left hand corner of 

 the picture is a hydrangea that the pho- 

 tographer seemed to think would prevent 

 our having this view. 



Indiana. F. Norton Biggs. 



PREPARING FOR WINTER AND SPRING; WHAT 

 WE ARE DOING FOR IT NOW. 

 Frost paid us a visit on the 9th inst., 

 and next day everything was hanging its 

 head in mourning. We will now have to 

 get the garden cleaned up and all dead 

 stuff taken away. But such plants as 

 phloxes and others with stalks that stand 

 up all winter we do not cut, as we like to 

 see the snow hang on them; we put a few 

 pieces of cedar among them, and in this 

 wav have something green in the garden 

 in winter. We are also busy makingnew 

 borders for perennials and filling them,' 

 digging up plants that have got to be too 

 large and resetting them. All this sort of 

 work that is done in the fall helps greatly 

 to lessen the spring work. These new 

 borders we are filling with the perennial 

 plants we raised from seed this summer; 

 they are nice sized plants and lift with big 

 balls of roots, and they will all flower next 

 summer. We have about four thousand 

 plants of this summer's raising, and what 



ANNDAL VINES COVERING A CHIMNEY TO THE EAVES. 20 FEET HIGH. 



is not needed just now we will put into 

 the reserve garden where we can get them 

 at an}' time. In preparing the borders 

 plenty of old rotted cow manure and 

 wood ashes were used, as the large rooted 

 plants soon exhaust the soil in which they 

 are gro » ing. Do not plant too close, as 

 the plants soon get to a large size, and 

 leave a few spaces here and there to be 

 filled with annuals to brighten up the 

 border and make it more interesting. In 

 arranging a border of this sort avoid 

 planting in lines. Put a clump of this 

 and that in here and there, putting the 

 tallest to the back and the low growing 

 plants to the front, and plant lots of 

 bulbs in it. Plant them at the same time 

 as > ou do the other plants, laving them 

 there to take care of themselves, and by 

 the time the border plants need resetting 

 the bulbs can be taken up and spread out 

 too. A light coating of old manure 

 around the plants will help them, but do 

 not put on your winter protection for 

 some time yet. 



We have finished putting up a number 

 of windbreaks; these were made of tall 

 field corn. Posts were sunk in the ground 



about ten feet apart and cross stakes 

 nailed to them; the corn was put up on 

 each side of this and tied to these stakes. 

 This makes a fine windbreak, and is the 

 proper thing to put around evergreen 

 trees that are a little exposed tothenorth 

 and west winds. We also put one at the 

 frame ground to keep the wind from 

 blowing off the straw or other covering. 

 It is a little early for this work, but as 

 the corn was being cut we had it hauled 

 right from the field and put up, saving 

 two handlings of it. 



In cutting over the dead stalks of the 

 perennials do not cut over the Japan iris. 

 These are better left as they are till 

 spring; put some old manure around the 

 plants and leave it on as a mulch for sum- 

 mer covering. The rhizomes of the Ger- 

 man iris often get decayed if a covering of 

 manure is put on them, and more so if 

 the winter is open. If you do not intend 

 to lift any of your perennial plants till 

 spring be sure to mark them, as some of 

 them are slow of starting into growth, 

 and you will then know where to find 

 them. 



The half hardy plants in the frames. 



