290 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



Floral Edition. 



Decorative Perennials for the Autumn Garden 



THERE are few among lus who do 

 not heave sij.'hs of regret when 

 we wake up somie morning and 

 find thot "the fi-ost is on the pump- 

 kins," and alias! our nasturtiuniiS, sal- 

 viias and too many other lanmials that 

 have been making suoh a riot of color 

 in our gardens are mere limp, blacken- 

 'ed masses of decaying vegetable matter. 

 Sadly we clear away the debris. We 

 try to philosophise, telling ourselves it 

 does not matter, wiTiter is so nearly 

 here — 'but is it? Oh! no, there is from 

 six weeks to two months of our magnifi- 

 cent "made in Canada" 

 fall weather yet to conue. 

 And are our boi-ders to be 

 a blank waste all this time ? 

 It is now too late to mend 

 matters for this season, but 

 the lesson can be leariied 

 now — -"Provide plenty of 

 good, fall-flowering, 'hardy 

 perennials for the border, 

 even if you have to leave 

 out some annuals to make 

 i"oom. Then the early frost 

 will have no terrors for us. 

 The hardy as:ters alone 

 would more than fill the 

 breach, with eanly, mid- 

 season and late varieties — 

 and they are so lovely ! The 

 misty blues and mauves, 

 the rioh pinks and purples, 

 melt into trie autumn tints 

 of the trees and shrubs re- 

 sulting in an exquisite har- 

 mony of color. But before 

 beginning on the hardy as- 

 ters I would like to recom- 

 mend a few good tall STib- 

 jects that make an admir- 

 able background for them. 

 Some of the Rudbeckias are 

 excellent. R. Nitida Hergs- 

 toune is one of the stateli- 

 est, reaching a height of seven or eight 

 feet, vroth s'oft yellow flowere and long 

 green cones. R. Subtomantose is four 

 to five feet in height, and of a bush-like 

 growth, with rich yellow flowers and 

 small cones of a deep chocolate brown. 

 It has all the glowing color of R. New- 

 manni, our wild "Black-eyed Susan," 

 with a refinement of growth all its own. 

 For happy growers commend me to 

 the Heleniums. They are "the flower 

 for the million." Whether it be the 

 richly coloi-ed H. Rubrum, the fine old 

 H. Riverton Grem with its wall-flower- 

 red blossoms, the soft yellow H. River- 

 ton Beauty with brown centres broid- 

 ered delicately with gold, or H. Autum- 

 nale Superbum, towering often to seven 

 or more feet, with solid yellow flowers, 



•Extracts from a xkaper read before the On- 

 tario Horticultural Convention. 



Misi M. E. Ulackuck, IMcadowvale, Oni. 

 they are all good, easily grown and 

 wonderfully fine as backgrounds for 

 asters in the fall garden. 



Boltonia Asteroides (False Starwort) 

 is another good doer. Its great quanti- 

 ties of stfiirry white flowers massed on 

 top of seven to eight foot stems, are de- 

 lightfully light and graceful. Another 

 fine white flower Ls the Giant IMoon- 

 penny Daisy, rivalling the Boltonia in 

 height, and equally beautiful. 



The autumn Monkshoods must not be 

 forgotten. The gloss}^, finely diWded 

 leaves of Fisher's Moonkshood would 



Mikado Asters. 



The Asters are the official autumn flowers. 

 Mortimer Bezzo, Kitchener, Ont. 



make it well worth growing for foliage 

 alone. But in September and Octol>er, 

 when its massive spikes of lovely soft 

 blue flowers begin to open, we worship 

 it for these alone. Delphiniums, too, 

 if cut down to the root after their mid- 

 summer display, can usiiallj'' be relied 

 upon for autumn bloom, but the spikes 

 are miniatures compared with their 

 earlier efforts. Spring sown seedlings, 

 however, often are effective at this 

 season. 



For lovely autumnal effects nothing 

 excels or equals the hardy asters. 

 Perry's Bine and Perry's Mauve, with 

 Acris and the small white Aptarmi- 

 coddes, a" charming wee thing for the 

 front of the border, usher in the season 

 toward the close of August. With Sep- 



tember the Aster season comes on in- 

 deed. Each little rod shakes out of 

 sleep its quota of flowers, and from tip 

 to base becomes a waaid of magie 

 beauty. When one variety leaves off 

 another begins, and not until "drear 

 Xovember" do we harden our hearts 

 and cut doAvn the plants before the 

 seeds get rape enough i>o fall and cause 

 trouble. 



To my mind, the outstanding varie- 

 ties are the following: In the Nova 

 Augtae section, Sil Fardel, a fine rich 

 pink. In the Nova Belgii section, 

 Perry's Blue and Mauve, 

 eai-ly, Feltham Blue, Cloudy 

 Blue, an exquisite pale lav- 

 ender-blue, Keston Blue (a 

 rich color), Perry's Pink 

 Improved, Heideron, a soft 

 pink, Amos Perry an early 

 pink, Esther a dwurf pink, 

 and St. Rg\vin a fine late 

 pink. Not cla.ssed in any 

 .section are Ooome Fishacre, 

 a flesh colored late variety 

 with great la.sting qualities, 

 Hon. Edith Gibbs with tall 

 spra.^-s of pinkishjlavender, 

 and finest of all, the queen 

 of A.sters, Climax, with its 

 large lavender-bine flowers 

 centered with gold. A 

 clump of it forms a mass of 

 bloom as large as a fair 

 sized lilac bush, and quite 

 as effective. 



In the Ooixiifolius secrtion 

 both Profusion, a pale 

 niauA-e three to four feet 

 high, and Ideal a soft lav- 

 ender dwarf, are exquisite. 

 Of the small heath-like a.s- 

 ters, Ericoides Enchantress 

 is like our o^vn wild one, 

 and equally beautiful. 

 Katie, white changing to 

 rose, is pretty, as is small starry white 

 known as A. Tradescarutii. In the Vim- 

 ineus section Maidenhood and Delight 

 are good varieties. 



With all this material to choose from 

 there is no need of being hopeless when 

 frost comes. The plants described pay 

 no attentdon to it, and are quite as fresh 

 after waking up with its spangles be- 

 decking them as before. 



Photo by C. 



The Lebanon Squill (Puschkinia Liba- 

 notica), with white flowers shaded and 

 striped with blue, is quite a different 

 shade to the numerous other blue flow- 

 ers, and in growth it is more like a 

 small hyacinth, though its petals do not 

 recurve. It begins to bloom just as 

 the Siberian Squill declines. 



