THE GARDEN IN AUTUMN 



It is the deciduous trees and shrubs which announce the 

 arrival of autumn. Green leaves take on a colouring of 

 yellow, brown, or red more pronounced than the yellows 

 and reds of spring. As the wind blows, a few of the 

 ripest leaves fall, and one becomes conscious of a feeling 

 of evening, of the end of a play, or of the end of a 

 beautiful poem. If it were but by these autumnal 

 colourings, and by the feelings which the fall of the 

 leaf produces, one would be well repaid for the planting 

 and cultivating of trees and shrubs. 



Because the active life of these larger plants is over 

 for a season, however, one need not imagine that the 

 well managed garden is suddenly to become flowerless. 

 Roses and Pentstemons, Potentillas and Phloxes, Sweet- 

 Peas and Nasturtiums, and a host of other summer 

 bloomers still remain and often continue to bear flowers 

 till hard frost pulls down the curtain. But it is not on 

 summer flowers that we need rely, for there are numer- 

 ous beautiful hardy flowers peculiar to autumn itself. 

 Dahlias, Rudbeckias, Sunflowers, Tritomas, Michael- 

 mas Daisies, Japanese Anemones, Fuchsias and Chrys- 

 anthemums are those which immediately rise in the 

 memory. 



The common Torch Lily, or Red-hot-Poker, is almost 

 the hardiest of the Tritomas — or Kniphofias, as they are 

 now called — and in a moderately light soil will live year 

 after year with little or no attention. Often, in neglected 

 cottage gardens at about the end of August, a group of 

 these Flame flowers, burning red and glowing yellow, 



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