164 



• • * GARDENING. 



Feb. 15, 



them to the bright rays of the sun, and it 

 is desirable that they hold the foliage as 

 long as possible, which will give larger 

 bulbs and consequently stronger flower 

 spikes for the coming year. From strong 

 bulbs we get two, three and even four 

 spikes, and four spikes means sometimes 

 over one hundred flowers to the bulb, but 

 I notice that when a bulb goes to extremes 

 in flowering it starts weak the following 

 spring. 



Calanthes require a warm house; the 

 temperature should not fall below 65° at 

 night and 70° is preferable from the time 

 the bulbs are potted until halfthe flowers 

 are open. After this time they will require 

 little water, and will do in a lower tem- 

 perature. To keep the bulbs healthy, do 

 not store them where the temperature 

 falls below 50°, nor over the heating 

 pipes, where they will dry up. 



The accompanying photograph was 

 taken the day before Christmas and 

 shows only a small part of the calanthes 

 that were in bloom here on that day. 

 George McWilliam. 



The Flower Garden. 



SAIRLEY POPPIES. 



A distressing drought occurs nearly 

 every 3 T ear throughout much of the 

 country reached by Gardening, usually 

 in late summer or earlv fall, and it is a 

 deterring factor so patent that it proba- 

 bly accounts largely for the barren door 

 vards that abound in villages and sur- 

 round the country homes of many well-to- 

 do farmers. Where there are public 

 water works, anyone who will may 

 easily and cheaply secure an ample sup- 

 ply, but will and work are essential to 

 success with flowers, when watering them 

 through the dry season means drawing 

 water from a well or cistern and carry- 

 ing it by the pail or barrelful, and in face 

 of the possibility of the supply being ex- 

 hausted before " the blessing of the rain " 

 comes. 



But this drawback can be largely over- 

 come by judicious gardening plans. 

 Being forewarned should mean being 

 forearmed. My own experience with a 

 soil that takes a malicious delight in dry- 

 ing up and circumventing my efforts — it 

 shows its pleasure by cracking its face 

 into wide-spreading derisive smiles, a dry, 

 diabolical grin that is most exasperating 

 — leads me to think it an excellent thing 

 to circumvent (or should I say aid) 

 nature by devising methods whereby 

 flowers shall be forthcoming drought or 

 no drought. One effective plan is to get 

 an early start. This is best done by 

 opening the campaign in the fall by 

 partly preparing the ground for annuals, 

 etc.. by digging trenches for sweet peas, 

 packing in several inches of manure and 

 refilling with earth until the trenches are 

 mounds that will shed water, and by 

 sowing certain seeds such as poppies, 

 miniature sunflowers, Nicotiana affinis 

 and other hardy annuals. By this course 

 sweet peas can be sown and some of the 

 roughly prepared ground easily made 

 ready for another sowing of hardy 

 annuals very early in spring, and seed- 

 lings from the fall sowing will come up 

 betimes and be sturdy little plants by the 

 time the springsown seedlings make their 

 appearance. 



Poppies should head the list of flower- 

 ing annuals for duplicate sowings, pop- 

 pies in variety. Double, single, all kinds 

 and conditions of poppies are good, but I 

 have found the Shirley strain pre-emi- 



POPPIES AND GRASSES, 



nently satisfactory because of the wide 

 range and variety ofcoloring and of text- 

 ure, the long life of the individual flowers 

 (as compared with other poppies), and 

 because of their unusual quality of use- 

 fulness for cutting. For cutting, bow- 

 ever, care must be taken to select only 

 freshly opened flowers, and they must be 

 cut in early morning, preferably before 

 the sun's rays strike them. Those with 

 petals just shaken from the newly fallen 

 sheath are best. Buds will open after 

 being cut, but the blooms will lack the 

 size and brilliancy of those that open on 

 the plants. Their colors are varied and 

 sometimes peculiar — like chrysanthe- 

 mums they seem bent on following the 

 fashions— but all are lovely, although not 

 to be indiscriminately combined in the 

 same bouquet. It is necessary to keep the 

 cool pink and mauve shades apart from 

 the scarlet division. But even a small bed 

 will for three or four weeks furnish mater- 

 ial enough in each color scheme to satisfy 

 the most inveterate bouquet maker. 

 And it is a pleasure to cutthem. Instead 

 of shortening their life, it prolongs it, 

 and they are so beautiful in vases needing 

 only a few of the pretty grasses that are 

 at their best when the poppies blossom 

 to furnish forth a chaste or gorgeous 

 ornament as taste or requirements 

 demand. 



I like them best in clear glass vessels, 

 but on the morning that this bouquet 

 sat for its portrait there chanced to be 

 available only a pale green and white 



vase of Japanese pottery touched with 

 red and blue on the draperies of the 

 quaint figures, and the poppies looked 

 very well in it. My straggling border of 

 poppies wound in and out along the 

 front of a little plantation of flowering 

 shrubs and it was a delightful mass of 

 color for six weeks and gave scattering 

 blooms for two weeks longer. It repre- 

 sented two sowings as desctibed above, 

 and the last of the flowers were much 

 inferior to the earlier ones in consequence 

 of the coming on of dry, hot weather. 

 There were hundreds of blossoms, a laby- 

 rinth of bloom and color. Glowing 

 flowers of dark scarlet satin, thick, 

 smooth and without a wrinkle to mar 

 the shining surface of the rich petals and 

 in the center a black maltese cross sur- 

 mounted by a crown of black stamens; 

 others orange, scarlet, flame, pure red, 

 rosy red, rose, rose pink, shrimp pink, 

 apricot, salmon, salmon pink, blush, 

 flesh colored, mauve, pearl and snowy 

 white. Some in plain solid colors, others 

 bordered with white from the merest 

 silver thread to a half inch band, and 

 white ones tinged on the edges as by a 

 lightly loaded paint brush dragged softly 

 outward on each petal. Some with, 

 others without a black or a white mal- 

 tese cross in the center, yet others with 

 the black or white blotch on but two of 

 the four petals. But all wearing a splen- 

 did crown of closely massed, dull black or 

 golden stamens in which big bumble bees 

 all black and gold themselves seemed 

 always to be tumbling. There was 

 nearly as much variety of texture as of 

 color. Satin of heavy and of light quality, 

 several sorts of silk, crepe and tissue 

 paper in various conditions, as smooth, 

 fluted, crinkled, crimped and creped. 



The border presented some new feature 

 every day. Each morning it was a study 

 and revealed variations from all previous 

 aspects. Poppies so managed may be 

 enjoyed to the full and be finished and 

 gone, the stalks pulled up, and asters or 

 other late bloomers occupying their place 

 if it is desirable, before the arrival of the 

 dreaded drought. By this means the grin 

 on the face of the ground becomes a 

 sheepish expression that makes the vic- 

 torious poppy grower smile. 



Fanny Copley Seavey. 



TAB PROPAGATION OF DAALIAS. 



Dahlias are propagated in several ways, 

 by seed to secure new varieties, and by 

 grafting, division of roots and cuttings, 

 to reproduce and increase existing varie- 

 ties. 



Raising new varieties from seed is per- 

 haps the most interesting branch of 

 dahlia culture. However, asit is so uncer- 

 tain, and as the seedlings do not average 

 up to the same standard as named varie- 

 ties, it affords greater pleasure than 

 profit. The seeds if sown in the green- 

 house in March, potted off and planted 

 out in May, will bloom the same season. 

 The seed can also be sown in a mild hot- 

 bed or frame. 



Grafting is another method of increas- 

 ing varieties that is more interesting than 

 remunerative. It is an excellent method 

 for the amateur, where a new or rare 

 variety is a poor propagator. Take a 

 small or medium sized vigorous tuber and 

 a young shoot of the variety you wish to 

 graft. Cut the base of the shoot to wedge 

 form, but with one side of the wedge 

 thicker than the other, and an eye on the 

 thick side, then cut the tuber to corres- 

 ponding shape, but a trifle smaller, so as 

 to slip in and make a good joint, pot off 

 and place in a warm shaded place. I 



