May 19, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



193 



whaling town of Portsmouth formerly stood on this land, 

 but its site is now partly under Delaware Bay and partly 

 covered by the sands. The tree is about ten inches in 

 diameter, breast-high, and perhaps twenty-five feet in height, 

 vigorous, wide-spreading and evidently in strong health. 

 Its identification as P. Taeda has been confirmed by 

 Mr. Jack, of the Arnold Arboretum, who was kind enough 

 to examine leaves, cones and fertile seeds gathered from 

 the tree and forwarded for his inspection. 

 NewYoik. Gifford Pinchol. 



The Hardy Flower Garden. 



MR. A. HERRINGTON, gardener for H. McK. Twomb- 

 ley, Esq., Madison, New Jersey, read a paper on 

 this subject before a meeting of the New Jersey Flori- 

 cultural Society held at Orange. The paper was illus- 

 trated by some fifty colored plates of the best hardy 

 plants. We reproduce, in a condensed form, the more 

 important parts of this paper : 



This department of the garden has, generally, the least con- 

 sideration. A lawn is laid down, a few trees and groups of 

 shrubs are planted, and the garden is made. If the luxury can 

 be afforded, glass is indulged in. Many gardeners understand 

 the cultivation of Palms, Ferns and Orchitis, and know the 

 latest introductions from the tropics, but they do not grow 

 more than a small Iractional part of the hardy flora of the 

 temperate regions, and of the improved cultivated forms 

 known in some of the best nurseries. Even in an extensive 

 glass establishment only an infinitesimal portion of the tropical 

 flora can be grown, whereas in the garden numberless good 

 and hardy plants will flourish, from the tiny Saxifrage or vernal 

 Gentian to the stately Lilies and sturdy Sunflowers of the 

 prairies. 



In home-grounds supposed to have a flower garden one is 

 likely to find a little assemblage of beds, in stars or diamonds 

 and other fanciful geometric forms, and containing a limited 

 selection of plants, mostly tender, and often clipped and 

 pinched into formal shape. The average garden is bald and 

 bare in spring, waiting upon the elements to make possible 

 the planting of tender summer plants, which eventually fur- 

 nish a gaudy, monotonous display, to become a mass of black 

 decay with the first frost in autumn, while nature's great 

 garden all about us remains beautiful weeks afterward. 



Our gardens and parks need never be flowerless except 

 when the ground is frost-bound and all vegetation is dormant. 

 The ideal garden, and the one which can easily be realized, is 

 one which tells the story of the advancing or declining year, 

 and whose blossomings denote the week 1 ? and months as they 

 come and go. In this latitude there should be spring gardens 

 and summer gardens and autumn gardens. In the highways 

 and byways in early spring the resurrection of floral life may 

 be seen on every side, and the garden should awaken in the 

 same way. The mountain plants, whose flowers succeed the 

 melting of the snow, and the waves of verdure spreading 

 over hill and plain teach the practical lesson that plants in the 

 spring garden should not be coddled and given ceaseless atten- 

 tion in dug-up beds and borders. 



Ten years ago I tried to express in an English garden my 

 idea of nature's planting on a grassy slope half an acre in 

 extent, where spring-flowering bulbs were disposed. These 

 have increased each year and now make a beautiful and satis- 

 fying stretch of blossoms in the turf from January until June. 

 Snowdrops and Snowflakes appear first, and in February Cro- 

 cuses of many colors, and spreading colonies of deep blue 

 Scillas and Chionodoxas. In March the bright flowers of the 

 Dog's-tooth Violets stand up in tufts of marbled foliage and 

 seem as much at home as in their native Alps. From March 

 until June there is an unbroken succession of Daffodils, and I 

 noticed, two years ago, a tuft with sixteen and another with 

 seventeen flowers where a single bulb had been planted eight 

 years before. Other flowers in this English garden are Apen- 

 nine Anemones, Grape Hyacinths, Stars of Bethlehem and 

 Fritillaries. Every year, according to the season, there is this 

 combination and succession of bloom for four to six months, 

 at no outlay beyond the first cost of planting, and with no care 

 or attention. In July the slope is mown and kept as a lawn 

 for the remainder of the season. This happy experiment of 

 growing flowers in the turf suggests that stretches of grass 

 need not be cut off close from early spring onward, and that 

 patches under the leafless trees may be charming pictures of 

 spring. This sort of gardening is infinitely more interesting 



than the ordinary practice of setting out a few beds of Tulips 

 and Hyacinths and drilling a few Pansies and double Daisies 

 into lines and squares. But this is only one kind of spring gar- 

 den, and another, quite opposite in character, can be made 

 from the arrangement of flowering plants which need careful 

 and persistent cultivation. Then, too, there are many beau- 

 tiful perennials for the spring garden, such as the dwarf moun- 

 tain Phloxes, Saxifrages, Sedums, Aubrietias, Arabis, Alyssums, 

 Veronicas, Silenes, etc., with Epimediums, Primulas, Pulmo- 

 narias, Mertensias, Convallarias and dwarf spring Irises. 

 Though many of these are alpine plants and natives of rocky 

 ledges above die tree and shrub line, they are entirely happy 

 and prosperous in gardens under right conditions. A miniature 

 of a mountain range should, of course, not be attempted in the 

 garden, but a delightful effort may be had from these hardy 

 plants in rocky beds and borders, with the rocks subordinated 

 to the needs of the plants, instead of the too common rockery 

 in which the plants languish and die. 



A yreat variety of hardy flowering plants are available for 

 making a summer garden, and a careful selection will produce 

 a picturesque and orderly effect during the entire season, and 

 not be a heterogeneous mingling of plants without any unity or 

 harmony. Entire beds are planted with Cannas, Geraniums 

 and other conventional bedding plants, and if hardy plants 

 were used in the same extensive way our gardens would not 

 be colorless, as they have sometimes been described. Many 

 tender flowering plants can be used to make the garden gay 

 in summer, but we are not dependent on them, and they 

 should not monopolize space which could be occupied by 

 better plants. Instead of the little pattern gardens that admit 

 of no variety in planting, and confine our attempts at garden- 

 ing to one spot, the adaptability of hardy flowers should be 

 studied, and they should be distributed in localities suited to 

 them. The beds should be bold and the borders long and 

 wide, with large groups of one kind of the best hardy flowers. 

 For example, in an Iris garden an acre in extent all of this 

 family could hardly be included, for there are Irises from 

 Europe, Asia, Africa and America ; Irises that do well in a 

 wet ditch bottom, and at least one Iris that will grow on the 

 house-top, and between these extremes an endless variety 

 adapted to every soil and every aspect. There are Pceonies, 

 Delphiniums, Pyrethrums and Day Lilies, each of which can 

 be massed with striking effect. Occasionally a few of them 

 are seen dotted here and there at regular intervals, but how 

 often has any one seen them planted in bold, simple, natural 

 groups ? 



Here again nature gives a lesson for arrangement in the 

 garden. Along the wavsides flower succeeds flower on any 

 special area, through spring, summer and autumn, and plant- 

 ings should be made in the same way in the garden. Many 

 combinations of plants whose flowers succeed each other may 

 be used on the same plot or tract. As a practical illustration 

 I planted last fall some of the best sorts of tree and herbaceous 

 Paeonies. These flower early and are soon past, with only 

 huge tufts of spreading leaves remaining for the season. If 

 Pceonies only were planted there would be no more color for 

 the remainderof the season, and no flowers after Pasony time. 

 But many bright and showy Lilies flower during summer and 

 autumn, and while these flowers enjoy the warm sunshine the 

 roots do best in cool earth and in partial shade ; consequently 

 I planted Lilies among the Pgeonies. All will grow up to- 

 gether, and when the flowering season of the Pajonies is 

 passed, their luxuriant foliage will help to keep the soil cool 

 and moist, and be an admirable support and foil to the tall 

 Lily stems when in flower. Many similar combinations are 

 practicable, and instead of planting an entire garden each year, 

 some of these plantations will continue for years, increasing in 

 extent and beauty all the while. To be successful, the soil 

 must be well prepared beforehand. A mere turning up of the 

 upper six inches is not sufficient. For some hundreds of feet 

 of hardy flower border made last year we trenched the ground 

 thoroughly two feet deep and broke up the soil below that. 

 Manure was worked in in the proportion of about one yard to 

 six yards of soil. With a little feeding from the surface, 

 plants will thrive for years in borders thus prepared. 



There is abundant material, too, for autumn gardens, so 

 that they need not be made up of the languishing remnants of 

 summer. The autumn garden of nature is a calendar of this 

 particular time of year in masses of Golden-rods and Asters, 

 and our gardens may be a similar record of the season. The 

 best of the wild Asters are not to be despised as garden 

 flowers, and many lovely forms have originated under culti- 

 vation. On the prairies are perennial Sunflowers, and in the 

 woods and fields close at home are rich, showy Cone-flowers 

 worthy of garden space. The native and cultivated Phloxes, 



