My Wild Flower Garden in the Heart of New York City 

 Dorothy Oak 



Each spring, as soon as the roads are passable, I begin 

 going off into the country in my car, to collect specimens for 

 my school work. Therefore, even before the maple buds begin to 

 swell or the first skunk cabbage appears, I am collecting twigs 

 and cocoons. My car was bought with an eye to utility for this 

 purpose and I often bring back more mud inside than out! 



In these drives on all the highways and byways around the 

 city, we have seen the development of many of the suburbs, 

 and in our opinion it is the clearing of the ground for subsequent 

 building, which is the greatest factor in the extermination of the 

 smaller wild flowers. 



As a member of the Wild Flower Preservation Society, I 

 listened with interest to the suggestion concerning the estab- 

 lishment of wild flower sanctuaries, and decided to try to trans- 

 plant all the "wildings" I could, both to the city yard and the 

 garden at Woods Hole, Mass. It is the success I had in the city, 

 that I am concerned with here. 



W^e lived in an ordinary 19-foot wide house in the heart of 

 Harlem, but our yard has southern exposure and added to that, 

 we had the advantage of an opening in the houses to the south 

 of us, right through to the next street, so that we got an unusual 

 amount of sunlight. 



After many experiments and failures, I discovered that the 

 east side of the yard, near the fence, which received the after- 

 noon sun, was best for most of the early spring flowers. A shady 

 corner in the back of the yard, where the ice remained very late, 

 became the "fern corner." Here we transplanted the ostrich, 

 cinnamon, sensitive, Christmas and evergreen wood fern. From 

 Vermont, one year, we brought some ebony spleenwort, which 

 survived several years, growing weaker with each succeeding 

 winter, however. In this corner, among the ferns, were Jack-in- 

 the-pulpit, wild iris, purple and yellow violets, bird foot violets, 

 and red and white triliums. 



On the eastern side of the yard, a large patch of bloodroot 

 had developed from a few plants, and each year they appeared a 

 few days or a week before I could find them in the woods. 

 Hepaticas, with Dutchman's breeches, brought from near Dan- 



