Massa- 

 chusetts 



The Gayest Flowers for Late Fall— By Allen French 



THE ONE PLANT OF REMARKABLE VIGOR OF GROWTH AND PROFUSION OF BLOOM 

 BURSTING INTO COLOR WHEN OTHER PLANTS SUCCUMB TO THE FROST 



[Editor's Note — The author of that deservedly successful novel "The Colonials" is not too proud to garden with his own hands, 

 story of his conversion from golf to gardening in " Country Life in America " for May, 1905, page 96. Photographs by the author.] 



He told the 



THE pompon chrysanthemum rewards 

 the grower better than most flowers, 

 as it is that rare thing, a hardy autumn plant, 

 keeping in bloom for a month after almost 

 everything else has gone, and able with its 

 masses of blossoms to maintain a gay looking 

 garden. 



Whenever I see the strange shapes of the 

 odd chrysanthemums on which the pro- 

 fessionals so pride themselves, and whenever 



I note how quickly those queer flowers fade, 

 I think with satisfaction of my own unpre- 

 tentious but prolific plantation. Not one 

 flower to a stem, but often more than fifty; 

 not tender to frost, but hardy, not soon fad- 

 ing in the house, but usually keeping more 

 than a fortnight; regular in shape, beauti- 

 ful in color, requiring no skill to grow, no 

 investment and no great care. 



I am ready to admit that there is beauty 



The hardy chrysanthemum is the most profuse late-flowering hardy plant. Although an armful of flowers 

 has just been picked from these plants, there is still an abundance of bloom. Frost h«is killed the sneezeweed; 

 stocks and sweet alyssum are almo?* over, but the chrysanthemums stand erect 



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in many of the large-flowering chrysanthe- 

 mums, but when I think of the care needed in 

 growing them, as well as in keeping them 

 after they are cut, and consider how little 

 time the average home-gardener and house- 

 keeper can give to both these, I make my 

 decision in favor of the less showy but more 

 cheaply and more easily grown kinds. 



THE INCREASE OF SEVEN YEARS 



I started seven years ago with perhaps a 

 dozen small plants of two varieties, red and 

 yellow. The yellow kind has done better 

 than the red, and it now makes a row of about 

 twenty-two feet long, while the red ones fill 

 only sixteen feet. Yet that is doing very 

 well, considering three complete transplant- 

 ings, the many roots given away, and the 

 fact that not until recently have the plants 

 had really good earth. Having been told 

 that they would "live anywhere," and being 

 an ignorant rather than a careless cultivator, 

 I did not realize, until I tried it, the difference 

 between living upon scant rations and flour- 

 ishing upon plenty. There are now so 

 many new plants springing from the roots 

 that in another year I shall be able to nearly 

 double each row. 



Though they are an old-fashioned plant, 

 and somewhat neglected just now, they are 

 offered by seedsmen and nurserymen, who 

 carry (according to their catalogues) some 

 as few as four, one as many as forty-seven 

 named varieties, and one offers the seed. 



They have the same characteristic shaped 

 leaves as the show flowers, but are smaller, 

 and bear their own small, symmetrical, more 

 or less double flowers, in great profusion. 

 The blossoms vary in size with the varieties, 

 my small reds being seldom more than an 

 inch across, while the yellows are two inches; 

 and I have seen other varieties whose flowers 

 were as much as two and a half inches in 

 diameter. It is possible to produce larger 

 flowers by disbudding and growing only a 

 few to a stem, but this required more time 

 and trouble than I have been able to give 

 to them. 



POMPONS AS A SCREEN 



I use these hardy chrysanthemums to 

 screen my piazza lattice, which is never truly 

 handsome, and which, as the summer ad- 

 vances, they cover to perfection, even to the 

 height of four and a half feet. As they grow 

 they require support, for although the red 

 ones are very stiff, they bend in wind or rain;, 

 the yellows droop naturally. We support 

 them with light bamboos tied across the 

 rows; the uncompromising reds reveal their 

 support, but the yellows completely cover 

 theirs. 



As a low screen they are therefore perfect,, 

 and give besides a good background for the 

 flowers which stand in front of them. I 





