1462 



HERB 



HERB 



helianthemums, and many alpine plants, while most 

 bulbous-rooted plants which are true herbaceous peren- 

 nials are separately classified and grown as bulbs. 



Herbaceous perennials are an exceedingly important 

 element of landscape, for they predominate in the mat 

 of grassy or sedgy plants, covering dry or wet open 



1814. An iafonnal herb border. 



fields, and in the surface vegetation under woods and 

 shrubby thickets, either as a grass crop, composed of a 

 comparatively few species cultivated for economic pur- 

 poses, or as a wild growth made up of many species. 

 The most attractive of these native plants are being 

 cultivated and improved more and more from year to 

 year for ornamental purposes, and are planted in the 

 flower-garden, in artificial plantations of shrubbery and 

 in the wild-garden. It is to such natives and to e.\otics 

 of the same class, which are cultivated for a similar 

 purpose, that reference is to be made hereafter. 



Fifty years ago nearly every well-to-do family main- 

 tained a'flower-garden, in which there were from fifty to 

 one hundred and fifty species and varieties of herbaceous 

 perennials, and there were few of the humbler famihes 

 that did not have a dozen or more species established 

 about their homes. Such plants were distributed by 

 exchange among neighbors and were propagated and 

 offered at retail by dealers, who, however, gradually 

 allowed their stock of plants to run low or abandoned 

 them altogether, until many kinds dropped out of culti- 

 vation or were neglected in favor of the tender "bedding 

 out" plants that were brought suddenly into favor by 

 the displays at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposi- 

 tion. Then they gradually declined in favor until the 

 interest was newly revived at the period of the Chicago 

 Exposition. 



Since that time there has been such a constantly 

 increasing interest in herbaceous perennials that there 

 are now offered in catalogues of American nurserymen 

 and collectors of native plants, nearly 3,000 species and 



1815. Planting against a rock background. 



varieties, exclusive of the many garden forms that are 

 distinguished chiefly by the color of their flowers. 



In use, the species and varieties of herbaceous peren« 

 nials may be broadly separated into three groups. 



First, plants for the garden requiring the favorable 

 conditions of a highly cultivated ground, and careful 

 attention to attain perfection and to persist and increase 

 from year to year. This would include many exotics, 

 some native species and most of the horticultural varie- 

 ties. Many of such species which would find a congenial 

 place only in the garden have attractive flowers which 

 are so fugitive that they can be enjoyed only on the 

 plant. Other species which are suitable to cut flowers 

 from can hardly be grown in the flower-garden in suffi- 

 cient quantity hberaUy to meet the floral requirements 

 of the home, and they should be grown in quantity in 

 the kitchen-garden or in a special cut-flower garden, for 

 their crops of flowers. Included among plants of diffi- 

 cult cultivation with fugitive flowers are the rock or 

 alpine plants, many of which are offered in European 

 catalogues. (See article on Rock Gardens.) 



Second, plants for the shrubbery, having aggressive 

 habits, which make them rather objectionable in the 

 flower-garden, but fit them to withstand successfully the 

 crowding of shrubs. This class of plants will give va- 

 riety and prolong the flowering season of shrub borders 

 about lawns, and would be made up chiefly of strong- 

 growing natives and a few of the more persistent 

 exotics. 



Third, plants for the wild garden, including the spe- 

 cies that require for success some one of the many 

 special conditions 

 prevaiUng in un- 

 cultivated or un- 

 cultivable land, 

 or which are so 

 rampant as to re- 

 quire the restraint 

 that some one of 

 these natural con- 

 ditions will pro- 

 vide. This class of 

 plants would be 

 made up chiefly 

 of natives and a 

 few of the more 

 persistent exotics, 

 and they would be 

 used to enrich 

 groups of native 

 plants under 

 woods, in mea- 

 dows, along 

 streams, ponds and hedge-rows and on poor soil. There 

 are attractive plants that will and do grow successfully 

 under all these conditions without special cultivation, 

 and many of them may be already on the ground. If 

 every plant in a group of natives is watched for at least 

 a year, it will be found that many are so attractive at 

 one season or another that they wiU be retained and 

 developed in beauty by the gradual removal of the less 

 desirable kinds, for which others that are more desirable 

 may be substituted. 



In arranging plants in new plantations, or in modify- 

 ing existing plantations in gardens, lawns or woods, 

 much more effective landscape compositions and more 

 agreeable color effects can be secured by using large 

 quantities of a few sorts than by using a few individuals 

 of many kinds. Groups of different species should be 

 chosen that will give from period to period during the 

 flowering season effective and dominating masses of 

 foliage and color, and all other plants of the garden 

 which appear at the same time should be made subor- 

 dinate to these. 



Herbaceous perennials are propagated by divisions 

 and from offsets, cuttings and seed. Some kinds, as 



1816. The ground line is hidden by 

 herbs or shrubs. 



