138 



ITdLlSHED THE 1ST AND I5TH OP EACH MONTH 

 BT 



THE GARDENING COMPANY, 



Monon Building, CHICAGO. 



Sibecriptlon Price, 12.00 a Year— 24 Numbers. Adver- 

 tising rates on application. 



Eatered at Chicago postofflce as second-class matter. 

 Copyright, 1&<7, by The Gardening Co. 



Address all communications to The Garden- 

 ing Co., \i<mm>m Hui'tling, Chicago. 



Gardening 1b gotten up for Its readers and In their 

 Interest, and it behooves you, one and all, to make It 

 Interesting. If It does not exactly suit your case. 

 please write and tell us what you want. It 1b our 

 desire to help you. 



Ask ant Questions you please about plants, 

 dowers, trults, vegetables or other practical gardening 

 matters. We will take pleasure In answering them. 



Send us Notes of your experience In gardening In 

 any line; tell us of your successes that others may be 

 enlightened and encouraged, and of your failures, 

 perhaps we can help you. 



Send us Photographs or Sketches of you 

 (lowers, gardens, greenhouses, fruits, vegetables, ur 

 horticultural appliances that we may have them en- 

 graved for Gardening. 



CONTENTS. 



TROPICAL VEGETATION. 



A giant bamboo (illus.) 130 



Caryota urens (illus ) . . . 130 



THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



English iris (illus ) . . . 130 



Herbaceous plants for dry situations 130 



Confederate jasmine (illus j 133 



Fatsia or Aralia papyrifera (illus.) 133 



Rosa multiflora japonica— Clematis 131 



Festuca glauca 134 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



Plan for a suburban lot 234x160 feet (illus.) . . .134 



TREES AND SHRUBS^ 



Cercidipbyllum japonicum (illus.) 135 



Pruning evergreens too close ... ....... 135 



Ginkgo biloba 136 



Vitis Coignetee 136 



Shrubs lor small places 13b' 



The tulip tree 136 



AQUATICS. 



Tropical water lilies at Schenley Park (iPus ) . 137 



ORCHIDS. 



The vanilla bean not a bean . . 137 



THE GREENHOUSE. 



Preparing tor Easter 138 



Propagation of Ficus elastica 139 



Care of hydrangeas 139 



Plants hurt by fumigation 139 



Annuals for Decoration Day . . 14U 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



The garden that I love 140 



Old time gardens 140 



Mushroom spawn 142 



A Fox Glove in an English garden pro- 

 duced a flower spike nine feet high with 

 side shoots at the base six feet long. 

 Nicholson gives its average height at 

 three to five feet. 



The Araucaria excelsa, the Norfolk 

 Island pine, nowquitecommonly used for 

 house decoration, is said to sometimes 

 attain a height of two hundred and 

 twenty fett with trunks ten feet in diam- 

 eter. Its timberis useful in ship building. 



If when setting posts in the ground 

 for climbing roses or any permanent pur- 

 poses, you will shave off the bark and 

 paint that portion going under ground 

 with linseed oil in which very fine char- 

 coal is mixed so as to make a thin mush, 

 letting it dry thoroughly and again 

 painting it, your post will last much 

 longer. 



Eunonymus alatus is, in many ways, 

 an interesting shrub. It is interesting in 

 its curious "wings" extending down the 

 stems, interesting in its oval shining ber- 

 ries produced in a peculiar fashion, and 

 extremely interesting when clothed in the 

 scarlet robe of its autumn colors; and 

 withal is perfectly hardy and easily trans- 

 planted. 



GARDENING. 



Rosa centifolia, the old "hundred- 

 leaved" cabbage rose of our gardens, is 

 grown in southern Europe and Asia for 

 the distillation of rose water and oil, or 

 attar of roses. The flowers are gathered 

 before sunrise. From twelve to sixteen 

 thousand blooms, equalling two hundred 

 and fifty to three hundred pounds of rose 

 petals, are required according to some 

 calculations to produce a single ounce of 

 attar. 



Oir Northern yellow locust, Robinia 

 pseudo-acacia, is one of the best trees to 

 plant in very sandy soils. Its wide spread- 

 ing roots push out in all directions cov- 

 ering a wide area. Owners of sandy 

 beaches who experience difficulty in re- 

 taining them against wind and wave 

 should try this tree, as a net work of its 

 roots would have a tendency to retain 

 the sand. It should be well cut back 

 when transplanted. 



If you want your herbaceous pa?onies 

 to look neat next summer, have made 

 this winter galvanized iron hoops with 

 three legs fully two and one-half feet long, 

 the latter one-quarter of an inch in thick- 

 ness. If your plants are large the hoops 

 should be nearly twenty to twenty-three 

 inches in diameter but may be of lighter 

 material than the legs. Barrel hoops or 

 similar contrivances are an abomination, 

 while those above mentioned are not seen 

 at a distance. 



Where one saves his own seeds and 

 grows many annuals it is well to procure 

 a number of plain glass bottles— three or 

 four-ounce bottles will do— and a box of 

 gum labels. When the seeds are cleaned, 

 bottle and label plainly, putting the date 

 of the year on also. Some seeds retain 

 their vitality a number of years. You 

 may wish to omit growingcertain plants 

 one year but desire them the next, and 

 your bottles will keep them safe from 

 mice or other destructive agencies. 



A good manurial water to be applied 

 to pansies and many other plants when 

 flowering is made by dissolving one-half 

 ounce of sulphate of ammonia in three 

 gallons of water; apply twice a week. A 

 good plan is to take a small tin cup, 

 weigh the half ounce and note how much 

 it fills the cup, then attach a label to 

 the handle on which write say: "One- 

 third full of sulphate ammonia to three 

 gallons water," then you are not apt to 

 get mixed up and want to put three 

 ounces of ammonia to a half gallon of 

 water. 



Do some thinking now and put your 

 conclusions on paper and it will help you 

 very greatly in spring. Now that the 

 holidays are past and the evenings are 

 long and you have settled down to peace 

 and quietness again, lay the plan of your 

 garden on the table and study it; if by a 

 little change here, the planting of a few 

 trees or bushes there, or the removal of 

 something somewhere else, vou can 

 enhance the beauty and interest of your 

 garden, make a note of it now, and when 

 spring time comes you can throw vour 

 strength into executing the plans" you 

 now have designed. 



High mountain plants.— Dr. Thorold in 

 passing from Ladak to China passed 

 through twenty degrees of longitude at 

 an average elevation of 15,000 feet and 

 found only about 100 species of flowering 

 plants. Not a tree nor shrub of any kind 

 was found. Most of the plants" were 

 small isolated tufts or patches 2 to 3 

 inches high, and consisted chiefly of but- 

 ter cups, gentians, poppies, saxifrages, 



Jan. is, 



wormwoods, primroses and grasses. At 

 an elevation of 19,000 feet Saussurea 

 tridactyla, a littlecompositecovered with 

 a dense coac of wooly hairs was picked 

 up. No plant has yet been discovered at 

 any higher altitude in the world. 



Fertilize the Flowers to make the 

 cucumbers and tomatoes set fruit in win- 

 ter, especially between the middle of 

 November and the first of January. 

 With a snip of the finger or a camel's 

 hair brush, on a bright morning, one 

 can easily fertilize the tomato flowers; 

 in the case of the cucumbers, as the fertile 

 and staininate flowers are different blos- 

 soms, the fertilizing can be done by using 

 a hair brush as above, but I prefer to 

 pluck some good fresh staminate flowers, 

 tear off the corolla, and then insert the 

 part left into the clelt of the fertile blos- 

 som leaving it there. Cucumber flowers 

 treated in this way, if otherwise healthy, 

 most always swell and perfect their 

 cucumbers. 



One of the essential practices of a suc- 

 cessful gardener is the keeping of a diary, 

 in which is noted every important trans- 

 action in the routine of his work. Every 

 step relating to a plant should be noted": 

 The time of starting the seed, of pricking 

 off the plants, of shifting into larger 

 pots, of transplanting into permanent 

 quarters, and the distance apart so 

 planted. Then during the summer nota- 

 tions should be made of successor failure, 

 whether placed too far apart or too close. 

 Whether put out too early and thus 

 stunted by the chill air, or kept under 

 glass too long and thus becoming ".eggv." 

 When the following year comes and the 

 same process is gone through he can 

 profit by his errors. Note the time of 

 covering and uncovering of plants; and 

 constantly refer to last year's diarv, and 

 read a few days ahead "in it, which will 

 keep him posted as to what work it is 

 about time to think of. It is the proper 

 attention to the little things of this life 

 that makes one successful. 



Boston now claims Mr.J. A. Pettigrew, 

 he having been appointed superintendent 

 of the parks of that city and has accepted 

 the appointment. Since the acceptance 

 became known the officials at Brooklyn 

 have been making a strong effort "to 

 retain him there, but Boston refuses to 

 release him. The offer from Boston came 

 at a time when a change of park commis- 

 sioners was imminent at Brooklyn and 

 the acceptance was sent through (ear 

 that political influences would prevail in 

 the Brooklyn park system. Happily the 

 change did not so result but the Boston 

 appointment had been already accepted 

 before this was known. It is good to see 

 this competition among cities for the ser- 

 vices of a man like Mr. Pettigrew, whose 

 abilities are of the highest class. He did 

 most excellent work for many years at 

 Lincoln Park, Chicago, until the injection 

 of "practical politics" into the park ad- 

 ministration, whereupon he accepted a 

 call to Milwaukee, and thence to Brook- 

 lyn, N. Y., from which place he goes to 

 Boston. 



The Greenhouse. 



PREPARING FOR EASTER. 

 Easter Sunday this year is April 18. 

 Bear this in mind and plan to have your 

 display of flowers come in at that time. 

 While it will be easy enough to manage 

 your lilies and hydrangeas, you are going 



