296 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 492. 



great regularity in late spring. It is a fine plant for pot-culture 

 and does well when pot-bound if occasionally ferlilized. 

 Though I have grown a number of Crinums, none of the 

 others, either evergreen or deciduous, interest me particularly. 

 It is too much trouble to shift them out-of-doors for summer 

 growth and store them in the winter, when the same labor can 

 be expended more profitably on a selection of many hand- 

 somer Amarvllids. C. pedunculatum is a species which is 

 retained for the purpose of testing some time its possibilities 

 in the way of growth. With my best efforts at repression, it is 

 now four feet high and is flowering, with a peduncle three 

 feet long furnished with twenty flowers ; these are white, with 

 long narrow petals, purple filaments and brown anthers. The 

 bulbs have leafy columns five or six inches in diameter. It 

 appears to be a plant worth trying in a wet warm place in the 

 garden, but not desirable in valuable space under shelter. 

 Elizabeth, N.J. J.N. Gerard. 



Flower Notes. 



IN his note on the showy Alstromeria last week, Mr. 

 Cameron speaks of it as perfectly hardy, which does not 

 seem to be always the case. I have one clump of this plant 

 which has flowered for six or seven years, without fail, and it 

 increases in size and vigor every year, but some of my neigh- 

 bors find it a difficult plant to keep. Even when in soil that is 

 thoroughly drained, the thick fleshy roots sometimes rot with- 

 out any apparent cause. Standing water is almost certain to 

 be fatal, and I have thought that perhaps the freezing and 

 thawing in spring sometimes causes injury. At all events, the 

 thriftiest plant I know stands on the north side of a low fence 

 where the ground remains frozen for weeks sometimes, after 

 it has been soft on the south side during the same time. 



This has been a trying year for Cannas. June was an ex- 

 ceedingly cold month, and those that were first set out-of- 

 doors made comparatively little growth. The advantages of 

 the dwarf kinds are manifest, for the reliable Madame Crozy, 

 although hardly more than a foot high, is bearing as many 

 flowers as usual. If the seed-pods are removed as fast as they 

 appear the vigor of the plant will be thrown into the flowers 

 as they continue to appear, and they will improve until frost. 



Our common Clematis Virginiana is very effective now, as 

 it festoons shrubbery by the roadside, and its rich green 

 foliage and dainty flowers make it worthy of a place in the 

 wild garden or naturally planted grounds. There are some 

 strong-growing shrubs which are not injured by it, so that it 

 ought not to be excluded from park shrubberies. C. coccinea, 

 however, is never oppressive, having very scant foliage, so 

 that it wanders through a large shrub with little observation 

 and doing it no harm. Its presence is hardly made known 

 until the bright coral-colored flowers are seen here and there 

 on long stems well above the foliage of the bushes. This is a 

 first-rate use to make of C. coccinea, for it has the advantage 

 of blooming in a sparing way all the season through, so that 

 every day a few flowers are produced. 



Among our showy wild flowers is Monarda didyma, or 

 Crimson Balm, whose bright red flowers are common in 

 midsummer in the middle states along shady streams, where 

 it often grows in large masses, occasionally to the height of 

 from three to four feet. It is well worth growing in the gar- 

 den, where it responds to kind treatment and in deep soil 

 reaches a height of four or five feet, with larger flowers, 

 whose glowing color makes them conspicuous for a long dis- 

 tance. The plant has a fragrance of Bergamot, and it is alto- 

 gether the best of the native species of Monarda. 



The dark blue flowers of Platycodon grandiflorum, an old 

 Bell-flower which has been familiar to gardens for more than 

 a century, are now very beautiful, as they hang gracefully 

 from the extremities of their slender stems. Some of them 

 are nearly white, and they vary through different shades of 

 blue, but those with the darkest flowers are the most effective. 

 The plant has long fleshy roots, which are proof against our 

 coldest winters, and in good soil which does not get too dry in 

 summer they reach a height of three feet and make an inter- 

 esting picture for a long time. 



Lythrum Salicaria is n'ot uncommon on the banks of rivers 

 where it has been naturalized, for it is not a native plant, and 

 its growth makes it singularly effective for such a situation. 

 Its spikes of purple flowers are five to six feet high, and they 

 are nowhere more effective than where they can be reflected in 

 the water and have a background of dark foliage. Like the 

 other Loosestrifes, the plant needs little looking after when it 

 has once taken hold of the ground, and it keeps in flower a 

 long time. The dealers in hardy plants have two or three 

 well-marked varieties which are worth growing, and all of 



them when cut can be loosely arranged in large vases, so as to 

 be very effective where such decorations are wanted. 



New Brunswick, N.J. S. A. 



Zonal Pelargoniums. 



/^ERANIUMS have received considerable attention in recent 

 ^—* years from hybridizers, and a long list of good varieties 

 is now in commerce, which tor brilliancy of coloring and 

 varied usefulness is hard to equal in any class of plants. A 

 comparison of our two most popular bedding Geraniums of 

 to-day with the two most popular sorts of twenty years ago, 

 namely, General Grant with the old Tom Thumb, and Pink 

 Perfection with the old Master Christine, will give some idea 

 of the rapid improvement during that time. The gain has 

 been principally confined to the semidouble and single sec- 

 tions. The old stiff double forms are seldom seen now, 

 probably owing to their shy flowering, lanky habit and their stiff- 

 looking trusses. The semidouble ones are most popular and 

 by far the most suitable for bedding purposes, and admirably 

 adapted for winter flowering in the greenhouse, either for 

 general show or for cutting. 



The single varieties fade readily under the sun's rays, and 

 do not last nearly so well as the semidouble kinds. They are, 

 therefore, not suitable tor bedding purposes, and generally 

 can only be brought to perfection under greenhouse treat- 

 ment. Their bright flowers are most appreciated during the 

 winter months. To procure the most serviceable plants for 

 flowering, their cuttings, made from firm short-jointed wood, 

 should be struck during July. They should be inserted singly 

 in three-inch pots filled with a free, porous compost composed 

 of equal parts of sand, leaf-mold and turfy loam. With care- 

 ful shading and watering the cuttings will soon strike root, and 

 should be shifted on as the pots become filled with roots, the 

 final shift being into six-inch pots. The soil for these later 

 shifts need not contain so much sand or leaf-mold, but should 

 be moderately enriched. Occasional pinchings of the points 

 of the shoots will be necessary to keep the plants bushy, and 

 all flower-buds should be removed as they appear. 



The aim during the building-up season should be to keep 

 the plants growing freely and at the same time to procure 

 firm short-jointed wood. This can probably be done best by 

 growing them in a cold frame with the sashes off, except 

 during heavy rains, during August and September, removing 

 them inside before danger of frost. For winter quarters they 

 need a bright house with a night temperature of forty-five 

 degrees, and plenty of air admitted during suitable weather. 

 When the flowering-pots are well filled with roots and the 

 plants begin to bloom freely an application of weak liquid 

 manure will be very helpful. They may be allowed to begin 

 to flower in October, and with proper care they will continue 

 to produce an abundance of bloom throughout the winter. 

 The perfection to which they can be brought with a little extra 

 care is remarkable, and cultivators who have never made any 

 special effort with them would be agreeably surprised at the 

 difference it makes. 



I always think single Pelargoniums the most attractive for 

 greenhouse decoration, though they are not nearly as useful 

 for cutting as the semidouble forms. The varieties are 

 numerous, and all have more or less distinctive features, so 

 that the selection of the kinds one may think the best is largely 

 a matter of individual taste. If asked to name the best vaiie- 

 ties of their respective colors I should have no hesitation in 

 choosing Athlete, scarlet ; Queen of the Belgians, white ; Day- 

 break, pink; Madame Reydellet, salmon. But thereareso many 

 reallv good varieties that it is needless to enumerate more. 



Tarrylown, N. Y. William Scott. 



Three Good Conifers. 



I RECENTLY saw a specimen of Pinus parviflora which 

 was nearly twenty feet high and broader at the top than 

 near the ground, although it was well branched to the turf. 

 The short, silvery white leaves give it a very distinct appear- 

 ance which is unlike that of any other Pine I know. It is 

 perfectly hardy in New England, and there seems no reason 

 why it should not become as tall a tree as it does in the moun- 

 tains of Japan, where, according to Professor Sargent, at 

 elevations of more than 5,000 feet above the level of the sea, 

 it is found growing singly or in small groves, and reaching a 

 height of sixty and sometimes seventy feet. The conifers 

 which can be trusted to grow in the gardens of eastern North 

 America are not very numerous, and the fact, therefore, that 

 this beautiful Pine flourishes in this section ought to be more 

 generally known. 



Another desirable and hardy Pine is Pinus Koraiensis. It 



