22 THE GARDEN 



hairy, dark green leaves are a perfect setting for the delicate and truly 

 modest blossom. Many folk do not know that heliotrope is a member of the 

 same family as the forget-me-not. Yet this is so. 



If you have been growing your plants in a cool spot in the outdoor 

 garden, do not delay too long in bringing your plants indoors, that is, if 

 you wish to have winter bloom. 



JPrepare some good loam, some sand, a fourth of old manure, and 

 thoroughly mix. This mixture will make a suitable soil for producing good 

 house plants. 



As a rule, you will not want to bring in the large plants as they stand 

 from the garden beds. These will be much too large. But choose a nice, 

 fat, straight branch some six inches, or perhaps ten, in length. Remove it 

 from the old plant. Remove all the lower leaves to about two inches from 

 the tip. This will leave some four or five leaves on the shoot. Pinch off 

 the top bud. This will prevent further growth without branching. 



Plant the shoot half its length in the prepared soil, so that about three 

 inches of the shoot are under the earth. Soon small fibre roots will be 

 thrown out. In a week or so a few lateral branches will just begin to peep 

 from the scars of the old removed leaves. By the time this has occurred 

 your plant nad better be brought up from the cellar or from underneath the 

 dark, shady tree, where it was set, as soon as the planting had taken place. 



Before exposing your new plant to the strong light, soak for an hour 

 in a pail of water. Allow the strong sun to reach the new plant gradually, 

 for heliotrope is tender alike of heat and cold. 



When the purple blossoms appear, give plenty of water, and do not 

 forget to spray or wash the leaves. 



Heliotrope will not grow in any room where the gas escapes, a common 

 thing, unfortunately, in city houses. 



IRIS 



There is so much to be said about these altogether delightful flowers 

 that I shall not even attempt to say much about them. Their beauty is 

 entirely beyond any description that my poor pen can do justice to. 



The iris, or flowering flag, as many know them better, has been called 

 the poor man's orchid — and rightly, toQ. I do not think that any person 

 should be excused for not knowing something about this family, which 

 comprises the crocus, the gladiolus, the blackberry lily, the ixia, imd the 

 tigridia, each and every one of which is remarkable for some unusual 

 beauty peculiar to itself. The iris itself is, of course, the most characteristic 

 and remarkable. 



When I tell you that there are already some one hundred and seventy- 

 five specimens known to botanists, you will at once realize the task before 

 us if we were to attempt to go carefully into the subject of irises. 



However, there are two main species that we are concerned with — the 

 German irises and the Japanese irises. 



The German irises are purely garden flowers, into whose composition 

 have gone the strains of a score or more of primitives, and it is owing to 

 this great diversity of origin that the varieties have an equal diversity of 

 coloring ranging from white, through many hues of purple, yellow, bronze, 

 claret, blue and mauve. Many are exquisitely veined and marked. The 

 leaves are long, broad, swordlike, and are more or less evergreen. The 

 flowers singly, or in twos, and occasionally threes, come from the centre of 

 the sword sheath, on a tall, strong stem, proudly uplifted above the rest of 

 the plant. 



The Japanese irises are very beautiful. There are many points of 

 difference between the two species, which we need not just here concern 



