Old Fashioned Flowers from Frost to Frost 



By Gladys H. Sinclair, ^ 



AN EASILY MADE GARDEN THAT CAN BE STARTED THIS SPRING TO GIVE FLOWERS 

 IN PROFUSION THIS YEAR, AND GETS BETTER AND BETTER AS IT AGES 



WHEN my friend, ready to begin 

 transforming an ordinary sub- 

 urban house and yard into a 

 home, applied for flower gar- 

 den lore, I readily promised my whole 

 stock. Then he hesitated and fidgeted. 



"What next?" I asked. "Out with it." 



"Well," he answered, it seems too bad 

 to begin with my notions when you know 

 the business and I don't, but there really 

 are a few limits I'd like kept in mind." 



"Let's hear them." 



"I want flowers in bloom from winter's 

 going to winter's coming — not just red and 

 yellow fireworks in hot weather. 

 My mother managed it, somehow, 

 years ago, with almost no money 

 but I don't know what she planted. 

 Then, I think every plant will have 

 to be a prodigal flower giver; the 

 place is too small t for stingy things. 

 And they must be reasonable in 

 price; I can't buy expensive novel- 

 ties. Neither can I afford as many 

 hardy things as I want, now, so I 

 must plant sorts that will increase 

 as the years pass. Besides the 

 economy of this, I want my flowers 

 to grow old and grow up with me 

 and my children as mother's did 

 with her. Then, I want good, honest 

 things that will grow and bloom as 

 my homely, honest youngsters grow 

 and thrive, with only hearty food 

 and drink and grooming. I have no 

 time to coddle delicate beauties." 



"That isn't such a very hard 

 order to fill since I know you will 

 see that your flowers do have food 

 and drink," I answered. "But a 

 garden with all these qualities will 

 need careful planning." 

 • cj Looking the place over, I found a 

 frame house with brick porches and 

 a deep, narrow corner yard with 

 young Maple trees at the south side 

 of the house and a drive to the gar- 

 age on the north side. The house 

 sprang nakedly from the ground, grass and 

 foundation stones cheek by jowl. On the 

 south side of the house, with the Maples, 

 was a walk leading from porch to street and 

 around to the back door. Each side of it was 

 a row of big old fashioned Rose bushes — 

 blush and white and mosses. "I wish we 

 might leave these," my friend begged wist- 

 fully. "Mother had them like this and my 

 den looks this way." 



"Surely we will leave them, then. The 

 lot is so deep that this division line is not at 

 all bad. Spray these hardy bushes once 

 in April and two or three times in May with 

 fish oil soap and you will have a show 

 in June, with foliage undamaged. Heap 

 stable manure around them in late Novem- 

 ber and leave the finest of it to wash down 

 in spring, when you cut out the old wood. 

 That is all they need." 



This left, as the only legitimate places 

 for flowers, the borders of the drive to the 

 garage and a long, wide space along the 

 boundary of the lot on that side, from even 

 with the front of the house clear back to the 

 garage behind. Part of this garden space 

 was sheltered by a clipped Arborvitae hedge 

 on the north. "In the borders along the 

 drive we must plant things to be handsome 

 the season through, and the same here, to a 

 certain extent," I explained. "But in this 

 big border you can indulge your preferences, 

 grow flowers to cut, plant the overflow of 

 roots and bulbs from the other borders, your 



The Herbaceous Peony is indispensable for May and June. It has the 

 flowers of any hardy perennial and grows better and better year by 



plant gifts and the treasure trove from trips 

 to wood and meadow. So, though we be- 

 gin with some perennials and many annuals, 

 this sheltered place will gradually become 

 a big hardy border — the fascinating kind 

 that 'never was born, but growed' like 

 Topsy." 



The front of the house was our first care. 

 It must be made to nestle cosily in green, 

 not look as though dropped by a tornado. 

 Flowers were not permanent or big enough, 

 my friend ruled out Rhododendrons as 

 expensive and Junipers and Hemlocks as 

 gloomy, so we achieved our desire with 

 Boston Ivy over the brick porch and mixed 

 flowering shrubs, not planted in a packed 

 bank but high and low side by side. Each 

 side of the porch there are two Van Houtte 

 Spiraeas for show in May; two Wiegelas 

 (pink rosea and crimson Eva Rathke) for 



204 



June; two Altheas that will stand pruning 

 to medium height for September; and two 

 black Alders grouped with Thunberg's 

 Barberries for winter red. 



Then we began on the drive borders. 

 My friend is a business man who knows the 

 value of good foundations, and that whole 

 border was dug out two feet down and filled 

 up with a mixture of rotted stable manure 

 with an equal part of the surface soil which 

 was rich, sandy loam. Quite a job, but it 

 paid. It will be years before that border 

 needs remaking and the growth in it is 

 wonderful. 



For March bloom here we planted 

 when the fall came Snowdrops and 

 Crocus, hundredsof them, in splashes 

 just inside the edge. In "apart- 

 ments ' ' three inches under the Crocus 

 we planted quantities of the earliest 

 variety of Poet's Narcissus, for April. 

 I have seen them in full bloom with 

 two inches of late snow around their 

 ankles, smiling sweetly through icy 

 tears. This Narcissus is one of the 

 loveliest of cut flowers and lives 

 generation after generation. 



For May's bedecking I shared my 

 precious edging of old fashioned 

 Clove Pinks because they were the 

 same spicy things my friend re- 

 membered in his mother's garden 

 and are almost impossible to buy. 

 With these we planted in several 

 places the lovely Arabis albida that 

 breaks into snowy foam late in April 

 and lasts more than a month — one 

 of the finest low flowers in the world 

 for dazzling white masses in spring. 

 For June my friend thought he had 

 Roses enough, so we used Peonies 

 along the drive, setting them in 

 clumps of three, twelve feet apart. 

 These flowers are so large that they 

 lose their really delicate beauty if 

 too many blossoms are seen close 

 together. We chose soft pinks and 

 creamy whites among the "herba- 

 ceous " Peonies, thefavorite Festiva maxima, 

 Sydonie for its rare flush, Whittleyi (or 

 Queen Victoria) for early white blossoms 

 and Humei for late pink ones. We set them 

 in September and they bloomed fairly well 

 the next June, but the second year they 

 were the wonder of the neighborhood and 

 will be as long as the border stands. But 

 I would plant in early spring if it had not 

 already been done in the fall. 



For July and August we wanted cool 

 looking flowers here, so we set, between the 

 Peony clumps, Pyrethrum uliginosum and 

 behind them hardy Phlox in white and 

 pink. No planting of any size seems quite 

 complete without some sort of Daisy in it, 

 and this Pyrethrum or giant Daisy is the 

 freest flowered, hardiest and showiest of its 

 tribe. It does not spread weedily but can 

 be divided every year or two in spring or 



largest 

 year 



