PLANT LABELS THAT LABEL 95 



ment, seemed tropical. Here were the Aralia spinosa, or its more 

 delicately framed sister, the Dimorphantus, which nevertheless yields 

 its sceptre less quickly to the frost king, fronting a beautiful specimen 

 of purple blossoming Paulownia imperialis; then came the copper- 

 hued Ricinus and glorious cannas of rampant growth and brilliant 

 color assiduous care forcing the rankest growers to leap upward 

 a dozen feet while in the foreground were elephant's ears (Cal- 

 adium) often a yard or more in length. By copious watering with 

 liquid fertilizer many of its leaves grew to the length of five feet, 

 and in sharp contrast and goodly quantity a wide variety of sub- 

 arctic plants, among them a bed of edelweiss from parent stock we 

 brought from the base of the Matterhorn. Near by were Iceland 

 moss, saxifrage, andromeda, ranunculus, clethra, and cloudberry. 



Semi-hardy Canna. 



During the past mild season, a canna bed planted against a south 

 wall on slightly sloping ground wintered finely unblanketed, proving 

 that with protection and under certain conditions, even in Connecticut, 

 the tender canna can be thus handled. 



Evergreens were scattered through the grounds in over one 

 hundred varieties, totaling well into the thousands. 



Grouped in effective contrast were green and golden yew, 

 Colorado blue spruce, silver fir, cypress, and Biota, in silver and gold, 

 the gold that shines as brightly in winter as in summer, as well as 

 that variety that dons a bronze hued coat in the "melancholy days." 

 There were also green and variegated, spatulated and pointed, feath- 

 ered and curled Biotas and Retinosperas of varied hue, a bewildering^ 

 labyrinth of form and color that to the real lover of trees spelled 

 Elysian realms, and vastly improved the contour, foliage and bloom of 

 our two-mile garden strip. 



Let me relate an incident apropos of tree, shrub and plant cultiva- 

 tion. I had journeyed far to see what was considered the finest private 

 collection of evergreens in our entire country, its owner a scholar, as- 

 well as a strenuous business man. Standing before a bed of inconspicu- 

 ous Echeverias of a hundred or more varieties that formed part of this 

 wonderful collection of trees, shrubs, and plants, I asked the gardener 

 why there was not a single label to be seen in the entire planting. 



The lack of real appreciation on the part of the family and 



friends was betrayed by his reply: "Mr. - knows their names, 



I know their names, and no one else cares" 



Plant Labels That Label. 



We all cared in Hillcrest Manor; so did some of our friends. 

 For labels, in addition to a carefully adjusted tree label, we used 

 soft copper strips about four inches long and an inch wide. On these 

 were indelibly traced with a sharp steel point the names, after which 

 they were attached by a bit of copper wire to an eighteen-inch length 

 of galvanized wire, one end of which was thrust into the ground at the 



