GARDEN HELPS 



Conducted by Minnesota Garden Flower Society 



Edited by Mks. E. W. Gould, 2644 Humboldt Avenue So. 

 Minneapolis. 



GROWING GARDEN FLOWERS FOR THE MARKET. 



It is a decided surprise to find how large a number of garden flowers 

 can be used for the market, but it is no small trick to have at all times an 

 abundance of bloom of the various colors and various styles. One never 

 knows when the call will come for a yellow luncheon, a pink wedding, a red 

 porch party or white church decorations. And so there must always be 

 tall flowers and short flowers, and white flowers and colored one. But one 

 garden gorgeous to behold this week may reach the end of its season and be 

 entirely despoiled of its glory next. Is its successor ready? There would 

 be little trouble if all the crops lived up to the February garden plan specifi- 

 cations; but alas, the Iceland poppies, or the early sweet peas, or the daisies, 

 or the asters, or the dahlias, or something else are sure to be put out of sorts 

 with environment — and then what for a substitute? The only safety lies 

 in planning superabundance of bloom (especially as then you'll have some- 

 thing to give away — which is half the fun of having a garden). One day in 

 desperation over a shortage of flowers between crops, in the middle of the 

 summer, I said: "We simply must have flowers to burn." And my 

 aunt, a great literalist, asked, in surprise, "Why, what do you want to burn 

 them for?" 



Perhaps you would like to know what flowers we use. As we have no 

 regular greenhouses, our first spring arrivals come from the cold frames 

 where they were started the summer before. Most important of these are 

 the pansies, particularly when they can be induced to long stems. They are 

 very popular for table decorations, corsage bouquets and hospital messages. 

 A sweet, sad little story came to us last year. A friend ordered a hospital 

 bouquet for a friend of hers, and, by chance, along with other flowers, I put 

 in some pansies. When the box reached the hospital, the sick woman was 

 unconscious, but later she rallied enough to see the flowers and recognize 

 the pansies. She wanted those separated from the others and put in a vase 

 by themselves, close at hand. A little while afterward, she became uncon- 

 scious again for the last time. But it was a pleasure to her friends to know 

 that her last thoughts could be of her beloved pansies. 



Along with the pansies come forget-me-nots (star of love and Eliza 

 Fan Roberts), lilies of the valley, violets, Iceland poppies and trolius. A 

 friend receiving some Iceland poppies one year, the first of May, said, "How 

 did you get such summery flowers as these out-of-doors in this cold 

 weather?" Trolius is truly wonderful but is exasperatingly lacking in am- 

 bition about filling the earth with its kind. Maybe its seeds will come up 

 two years after planting, and most probably they'll not. So few people 

 know this lovely and comparatively rare flower that its name is something 

 of a curiosity. Some people have called it "petrolius" and others have nick- 

 named it "Tango Rose." 



Bleeding heart, a real old-fashioned favorite, comes early, the colum- 

 bines, also. The Rocky Mountain variety, with its big blue and white flow- 



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