August, 1914 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



n 



but with all its faults "I love it still" 

 and would be sorry not to have it in my 

 garden. Planted in alternate clumps with 

 a mauve Darwin such as Euterpe, the 

 blending of colors is restful and somewhat 

 uncommon. 



To these Darwin varieties I now pass. 

 Their introduction into commerce in 1889 

 created a profound sensation. I have an 

 early list of Messrs. E. H. Krelage & Son, 

 the introducers, dated 1891. It contains 

 three hundred varieties with prices rang- 

 ing from twelve cents (6d. in English 

 money) each, to twenty-five and thirty 

 guelders (30 guelders equals about $12.50). 

 It is impossible to say how many kinds 

 have been introduced since then, but they 

 must be numbered by hundreds. Slowly 

 the best are crystallizing out, but the pro- 

 cess is by no means complete. It is this, 

 coupled with fashion, which accounts for 

 such a mighty rise as took place in 

 the case of the blue purple The Bishop. 

 Every one wants it. No one has much 

 stock. Up goes the price. The same firm 

 which lists it in their 1914 catalogue at 

 30 shillings per dozen (say $7.50), offered 

 it last season at 5 shillings ($1.25). It is the 

 bluest of the purples and a self. 



Viking comes near it, but it is to The 

 Bishop as La Tristesse (rosy heliotrope 

 edged silvery gray) is to Remembrance. 

 That is, it is more of a bicolor on account 

 of the three inner petals being of a paler 

 shade than the interior ones. Let me 

 couple two more, still paler, but of a similar 

 tone, Euterpe and Erguste. These are 

 both very lovely and while my favorite is 

 the more rosy and taller growing Euterpe, 

 very many lean to the bluer gray of the 

 latter. If my garden was bathed in sun- 

 shine all May I would go in for some of the 

 real darkies, but I would have to be care- 

 ful to give them an appropriate setting. 

 If placed against very dark foliage, they 

 do not show; and if they are part of a 

 scheme it will then, I fear, look gappy. 

 The two I would advise are the earlier and 

 rounder flowered Fra Angelica and the 

 later and longer Faust. 



Pink shades are very popular. Hereto- 

 fore, Clara Butt has carried all before her 

 and now that she can be bought at quite a 

 low figure her popularity will not be less. 

 There is nothing quite like the delicious 

 warm pink that we get on well grown 

 flowers. I would again suggest two names 

 — Suzon, a beautiful buff rose with a blush 



edge, and L'Ingenue, a sort of paler edition 

 of the same. Deep reds and rich dark 

 crimsons are "off," not because they "are 

 not" but because no one seems to notice 

 them. I don't think my fine bed of City 

 of Haarlem evoked a single exclamation of 

 admiration among my visitors this spring! 

 The deep crimson Millet and the rich ruby 

 red Tara (syn: William Goldring) were 

 likewise all passed by. 



With the Cottage varieties it is nearly the 

 same. Orange King (splendid rosy orange) , 

 Inglescombe Pink (buff rose) and the very 

 new Branching Tulip, Mons. S. Mottet, 

 were three of the exceptions. This last 

 variety is the first of a new type "made 

 in France" by Mons. G. Bony of Cler- 

 mont-Ferrand. Every plant bears from 

 two to five or six well developed blooms 

 on different lengths of stem. The blooms 

 are white in their boyhood, but with ad- 

 vancing age they become more and more 

 flushed, just as is the case with the well 

 known Picotee. I believe in this type. 

 I think it has a future — the days of a too 

 prim regularity are no more. For a 

 cycle we have become Gothic in spirit. 

 A bed of Mons. S. Mottet exactly expresses 

 the change. Hence my faith. 



Qardening atJYb. iffy 



patct 11. 



(Concluded from June Number) 



JSeinylfie Veracious Jlcceunt of a Jticcess/uC JdattCe 6etween 

 the Chime/* and a JRecalcltrunt JBack it/art?, 6y 



HAVE already alluded to 



our efforts to hide our ugly 



fences. Besides the plants 



previously mentioned, we 



have used various vines, both 



annual and hardy. Among the 



latter was the kudzu vine which, we were 



told in divers veracious publications, would 



often grow fifty feet in a season. 



It is strange how different is the appear- 

 ance of a plant in a seed catalogue and out- 

 side of one. In a certain catalogue, this 

 one grew skyward with a Jack-and-the- 

 beanstalk-like rapidity, its blossoms rising 

 in innumerable clusters tier on tier. A 

 glowing description below the picture made 

 life seem hardly worth living without a 

 kudzu vine, although the catalogue admitted 

 that it would need to be helped little. 



I should think so. I did its twining for 

 it during one entire summer, and in the 

 autumn I discovered that as soon as I 

 stopped, the kudzu vine had wandered 

 from the fence out into the border, and had 

 rooted here and there among my hardy 

 plants, no doubt, with the amiable intention 

 of presenting us with some young kudzu 

 vines. As if we needed any more or wanted 

 them! 



It has never produced a blossom, though 



JY2naJ{. MCen 



every spring from twenty to thirty sprouts 

 have shot up from the root, sprawling shift- 

 lessly in every direction, and waiting for 

 somebody to come and do something. 



At length it has seen fit to make wood 

 that endured a severe winter, and as we 

 are about to move, I fear that I shall be 

 obliged to abandon the kudzu vine to its 

 fate. Otherwise, I must also take the fence 

 with me. 



OUR STRUGGLE WITH THE SOIL 



I have left this topic to the last because 

 it was our greatest difficulty, not our least. 

 In its virgin state, our soil is a fine gray 

 sand of the most compact texture, baking 

 in the sun to a bricklike hardness. Dry 

 and powdered, it looks like road dust, and 

 seems to have little more fertility. When 

 we came here, grass refused to grow in 

 places, and where it managed to exist, it 

 was rooted so shallow that the turf could 

 be peeled off almost as easily as the rind 

 from a California orange. 



Into this hard, airless ground, we ignor- 

 antly dug bonemeal and sheep fertilizer. 

 On account of the bad mechanical condition 



^1 



of the soil, neither had any 

 appreciable effect. 



Having read repeatedly of 

 the value of the dust mulch and 

 the need of breaking the crust 

 that forms after a rainfall, we 

 endeavored to stir the ground around our 

 plants, as directed. The result, during our 

 first season, was that the ground broke in 

 such big pieces that the little plants were 

 uprooted with the chunks of earth. In 

 places, the soil set like cement around young 

 seedlings. It was as if they had been put 

 into little plaster jackets, and the life was 

 squeezed out of them. The air could not 

 reach their roots, and they were smothered. 



Even now, after the improvement due 

 to the addition of humus and to frequent 

 cultivation, this soil has a way of greening 

 over the surface, though in the sun, unless 

 continually stirred. This appearance, when 

 undisturbed, is followed by moss, indicating 

 the poor drainage of the place, the bad aera- 

 tion of the ground. 



The soil is acid, as I scarcely need to say. 

 One indication of this fact was found in the 

 deformity of certain flowers. Hardy chry- 

 santhemums at first showed in some cases 

 only a partial development of their ray- 

 florets. Perhaps a quarter of the circle of 



