316 



GARDENING. 



July i, 



their best when planted in clumps or 

 masses. They are also fine for planting 

 in the edges of the shrubbery, in fact they 

 will bloom most anywhere. We treat 

 them as biennials, but if they can be win- 

 tered over from year to year, the old 

 plants give the largest and best spikes of 

 flowers. Gloxiuaeflora is the showiest one. 

 It has spotted flowers in various colors. 

 These should be sown now; and if frame 

 room is plenty, put them there, they will 

 be larger and better plants next spring. 



Canterbury bells are not hardy and 

 have to be grown in a frame all winter, 

 but they need very little attention. They 

 also make nice pot plants, and can be 

 had in flower at Easter if taken into the 

 greenhouse early. The seed should be 

 sown about July 20. If sown much 

 earlier the plants get too large. 



Hollyhocks are the better for being sown 

 every year. In old plants the di ease is 

 sometimes very troublesome and the only 

 way out of it is to get up a stock each 

 year. Sow some of the single ones; they 

 are very nice, if for nothing but variety's 

 sake. Sow at once. 



Delphiniums are easy to raise from seed 

 and if sown early in spring will bloom the 

 first year. They make a fine display in 

 the garden and are nice as cut flowers. 

 Get the Lemoine strain; it is the best and 

 all the colors are good. Sow now, and 

 you will have nice strong plants for next 

 summer's flowering; quite hardy. 



Aquilegias, if sown now, will bloom 

 next year. From a paper of .4. hybrids 

 a lot of good colors will be had, but the 

 named ones are just as easy to raise as 

 the mixed ones. 



Oriental poppies come freely from seed 

 and their big showy flowers are sure to 

 please. They are quite hardy and will 

 stand the winter all right. 



The plants named are only a few of the 

 ones that are easy to grow. Any one 

 can raise them. They are all good and 

 no garden is complete without them. 

 They can either be sown in a prepared 

 bed or in boxes. If sown in a bed the 

 best covering to give is sand put through 

 a fine sieve and patted down with a piece 

 of board and kept well watered. 



Mahwah, N. J. David Fraser. 



HBSPERIS MATRONHLIS. 



On page 261 of Gardening for May 15, 

 Geo. S. C nover, in speaking of the above 

 plant, orings to mind my early days 

 when a boy competitor with the weavers, 

 and our beds of double white sweet rocket 

 (Hesperis Matronalis), Spinks (polyan- 

 thus), dusty millers (auriculas) and the 

 Daphne Cneorum, constituted the stock; 

 this was about the year 1833. It surely 

 caught my early fancy, and since then I 

 have never seen, and tried in vain to this 

 day to obtain them. 



I imagine few of the present day know 

 either of them. This is a fast age — new 

 things the rage, and old beauties, like old 

 people, are left unnoticed. But if some of 

 your well-to-do amateur readers would 

 obtain and care for a bed of each of these, 

 they would surely be delighted, especially 

 with the double white sweet rocket. 

 Those who may travel through Scotland 

 will find all these in perfection and ob- 

 tainable in unassuming and unlooked for 

 places. West Tennessee. 



treme south ordinary hybrid fuchsias are 

 not infrequently seen. 



In Philadelphia small plants of Riccar- 

 toni have stood for several winters un- 

 protected. The tops are injured, but 

 fresh shoots are made freely from near 

 the base when spring returns. I have 

 but little doubt that if strong plants with 

 two or three year old shoots were ob- 

 tained, the killing back in winter would 

 not be so severe, following in the line of 

 what occurs in the case of such partly 

 tender shrubs as the pomegranate and 

 the crape myrtle. When first set out the 

 latest growth will be p rtly or entirely 

 killed in winter. But protect them awhile, 

 say for two or three years, until the plant 

 has become well established, and then the 

 winter's cold will not hurt them to any 

 serious extent. And no doubt it would 

 be the same with the fuchsia. 



Philadelphia. Joseph Meehan. 



HARDINESS OF FUCHSIA R1GCARTONI. 



English gardeners are familiar with 

 many sorts of fuchsias which are hardy 

 in the southern portion of that country. 

 Among them are such kinds as globosa, 

 gracilis and Riccartoni, and in the ex- 



FALSE SOLOMON'S SEAL. 



(Smilacina racemosa. ) 

 This hands me plant, sometimes known 

 as the "False Spikenard," is a native of 

 rich woods from Canada to South Caro- 

 lina and westward to Kansas. In culti- 

 vation it belongs to the wild garden 

 where its graceful habit is in keeping with 

 the surroundings. It is a most excellent 

 cut flower, keeping fresh and in form for 

 a long time, and lends itself most gra- 

 ciously to house decorations, furnishing 

 its own green and holding its racemes of 

 minute white flowers well above the foli- 

 age. It blooms in May or June. 



The Fruit Garden. 



SETTING OUT STRAWBERRIES. 



It is not too early in the season to be 

 making preparations for a strawberry 

 bed. The runners on the old plants are 

 now forming rapidly, and whether ornot 

 a good fruiting bed is had next season 

 depends a good deal on these runners. 

 Where a bed is in contemplation, runners 

 should be looked for from a vigorous, 

 healthy bed. If there are ample runners 

 to permit it the point of the runnershould 

 be pinched oft as soon as the first one has 

 good root hold, that it may becomeextra 

 strong. The soil should be very good, to 

 assist the plants at first. 



Just as soon as these first runners are 

 nicely rooted, which hereabouts is in July, 

 the new bed may be made. Lift the 

 plants with some little ball of earth 

 attached and set them in the new bed, 

 and with a good watering afterwards 

 the plants will take care of themselves. 

 But when plants are purchased and have 

 no soil with them, much more care in 

 watering and shading is necessary, espe- . 

 cially when the planting is in the heat of 

 summer. I do not think much is gained 

 in setting out runners without soil 

 attached at any time but early spring. 

 The chief object of summer or fall plant- 

 ing is to gain a bed for fruiting the next 

 spring, and this cannot be done unless the 

 plants make a good growth after they 

 are planted. Plants removed with a ball 

 of earth attached or those grown in pots, 

 will produce a fair crop the next season. 

 To get these plants as vigorous as possi- 

 ble is the object desired. 



A bed of plants set out in summer and 

 encouraged to grow nicely will give a 

 fair crop of large berries, perhaps not as 

 full a crop as an older bed, but still a very 

 satisfactory one. It may be let alone for 

 another season, but strawberry beds 



should not be permitted to stand longer 

 than two 3 - ears. Indeed when plants are 

 set in spring it is quite common to let 

 them bear but the one crop, in the spring 

 following, thus setting a new bed annu- 

 ally. Better results in the way of profits 

 are obtained under this system than 

 under the old one of permitting the beds 

 to remain for several years. 



The sorts to plant depend a good deal 

 on the location. What does well in one 

 place does not always succeed in another. 

 Sharpless, Bubach, Capt. Jack, Chas. 

 Downing and Parry are old sorts, but are 

 still reliable with us. These are all per- 

 fect flowering ones excepting Bubach, 

 and this needs planting near other kinds 

 named, to gain its fruit. Sharpless seems 

 the universal berry with us, just as the 

 Sir Joseph Paxton is in England. 



Philadelphia. Joseph Meehan. 



WORMS IN STRAWBERRIES. 



Our strawberries are large and fine (ex- 

 cept that we have had too much rain) 

 but we find several of the berries have 

 worms in them, and a small snail was 

 found in one the other day. We have 

 had the beds covered with salt grass for 

 a long time so we are utterly at a loss to 

 know what to do. E. V. T. 



It is probable that the snail and worms 

 are but enemies enticed to the fruit by the 

 peculiar cool, moist weatherof the spring. 

 Such weather will bring out snails. There 

 is no known strawberry enemy in the 

 shape of a worm. A small beetle some- 

 times feeds on the fruit. A good plan to 

 get rid of it and other pests is to mow off 

 the tops of the plants after fruiting and 

 burn them. And it is just as well to 

 start a new bed, from other plants, in 

 another part of the garden. 



STRAWBERRIES AND RASPBERRIES. 



Will it pay to continue strawberry 

 beds more than one 3'ear? That depends 

 much on the condition of the bed at the 

 close ot the fruitingseason. If the ground 

 is rich, the rows well filled out, the crop 

 light and nearly free from grass and 

 weeds, it will then usually pay to con- 

 tinue one, two or more years. If how- 

 ever plants are exhausted by a large 

 yield, and grass and weeds have been 

 allowed to grow, it will be more work to 

 place old beds in condition than to pre- 

 pare new ones. 



If to be discontinued, plow at once and 

 sow some late crop for feed or fertility. 



To renew old beds, mow off plants; as 

 soon as dry burn over, reduce rows to 

 six or eight inches in width with spade or 

 cultivator. Remove all weeds, even,- par- 

 ticle of grass, apply a liberal dressing of 

 fine manure, cultivate and keep clean 

 same as with new beds. 



Right here is one of the great benefits 

 of keeping new beds perfectly clean. It 

 saves a large amount of labor when beds 

 are continued more than one year. 



Old beds produce berries a little earlier, 

 and the second year is often better than 

 the first, when treated in this manner. 



The bearing canes of raspberries and 

 blackberries should be removed immedi- 

 ately after fruiting. Cut out all small 

 weak canes, leaving only five or six in the 

 hill. 



The removal of old canes leaves no hid- 

 ing place for worm or bug, or eggs of 

 same. It also allows the free circulation 

 of air, and the sun penetrates the center 

 of the bush, making canes strong and 



