112 



How to Make a Flower Garden 



The walking leaf 



growing species may be moved from their woodland home at almost any 



time during the growing season, provided a good-sized ball of earth is 



taken up with the roots. 



But the soil in the side yard is not infrequently ill suited to encourage 

 the growth of tender plants. Too much subsoil 

 thrown up at the time of housebuilding, and too 

 \(t^ \ much coal ashes and other refuse mixed in at the 



'*V\^^ ^S\^^^ time of grading, combine to produce a condition 

 ' /^-^yi far from favourable for our proposed fern garden. 



"Lacking in humus" is what the agricultural 

 scientists would be likely to say about such a soil, 

 and it is humus or decayed vegetable matter, such 

 ' as leaves, roots, and twigs, that forms the greater 

 portion of the natural soil in which the wild ferns 

 are found growing so luxuriantly. Where the side 

 yard presents these poverty-stricken conditions 



of soil, it would pay to make a little preparation before planting the 



ferns, by digging out the proposed bed to a depth of one foot, or perhaps 



fifteen inches, and then filling it in with some good garden soil or else 



woods' earth. The ferns should not be buried too deeply in planting, 



but have the soil pressed firmly around the roots. The crown or center 



of growth should be just about at 



the surface of the soil. 



The maidenhair is one of the 



choicest of our native ferns, but 



transplanted specimens seldom 



thrive as well as those in the 



woods. Success is generally had 



in proportion to the accuracy with 



which one can reproduce the 



natural conditions. 



The climbing or Hartford fern 



(Lygodin-fU palmatum) does not 



require the exclusion of direct 



sunshine to the same degree as does the maidenhair, and while the 



earth in which it grows is always moist, yet the wooded upland in 



which it is sheltered presents some entirely changed characteristics that 



Coin ritrht. 1901 G A Woolson 

 Asplenium Trichomanes, the fern which the English call 

 "maidenhair." It is also native to the United States 



