234 CALIFORNIA GARDEN FLOWERS 



Diosma. This plant, with its miniature coniferous, fragrant foliage 

 and white starry bloom abundant in it, has a modest beauty either as a 

 single plant or in low hedge form. It is very easily grown and is con- 

 tented with ordinary garden conditions. 



Deutzia. Deutzias are very graceful with their slim branches 

 thickly set with white or blush blossoms. The beauty of the plant 

 depends largely upon cutting back after blooming to force out new 

 growth of flowering shoots. The plants are easily grown from seed or 

 cuttings, both hard and soft, as described in Chapter VIII. Deutzias 

 do well with ordinary garden soil and treatment. 



Geraniums. These plants in their great variety of foliage and 

 bloom-colors are too well known to warrant discussion, and yet so 

 important in the joy of the garden that to omit them would be un- 

 grateful discrimination. They all come readily from cuttings and 

 they sow themselves also myriads of new plants beneath and around 

 old ones, during the rainy season. And though so common and so 

 easily multiplied, the geraniums and their aristocracy, the pelar- 

 goniums, are well worthy the amateur's more careful attention. 

 Nurserymen offer new varieties of great desirability, and the amateur 

 who undertakes to improve his home collection by securing larger 

 blooms, choicer colors and better foliage, will derive much satisfaction 

 therefrom. 



Heliotrope. Heliotrope is at home in the open air in all places 

 where frosts are light and can be carried through several degrees of 

 frost by training flat against a house-wall as shown in Plate 10. 

 Handled in this way it gives almost continuous bloom, enjoying full 

 summer sun and being protected from many frosts which might other- 

 wise blacken its outer growth. This training also makes it easy to 

 remove excess shoots and avoiding smothering, which turns the in- 

 terior of a large bush into a mass of dead brush. In bush form it 

 should be often cut back for a new start. New plants are easily made 

 by layering the shoots which rest upon the ground. 



Holly. The English holly, usually counted a shrub, makes a pyra- 

 midal tree very readily in California, though it will endure cutting 

 back to hedge form, if one choose, and its use for Christmas decora- 

 tions makes that more desirable. It can be easily propagated by 

 planting the berries in seed boxes, as described on page 60, or from 

 cuttings either in the open ground or in boxes under frames. The 

 English holly is dioecious, and to secure the desirable fruit it is neces- 

 sary to have staminate and pistillate plants associated, most of the 

 trees pistillate, as one staminate tree will fertilize a large number of 

 pistillate. 



Hydrangeas. These shrubs attain wonderful growth in the open 

 air in most coast and valley situations if given more or less shade, 



