118 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



November, 1917 



Antirrhinum Gibraltarica. — The Snapdra- 

 gons such as we grow for cutting or bedding 

 may on rare occasions live through the winter 

 but are not dependable. In A. gibraltarica we 

 have, however, a thoroughly hardy species 

 which blooms right through the summer. The 

 plant is particularly well adapted for culture 

 in the rock garden, attains a height of 18 

 inches and carries spikes of pink flowers. It has 

 come through the past two winters with no 

 protection other than a very thin coating of 

 leaves such as is given to other such plants and 

 can, therefore, be classed as reliably hardy. 

 I have not noticed any rust or blight on this 

 Snapdragon, although the ordinary varieties 

 grown for forcing or bedding are badly affected. 

 —W. N. C, Mass. 



Ferns for House Plants. — Many people 

 have had my experience with the florists' 

 all-ready-to-sell collection of Ferns in a fern 

 dish. It is bought with high hopes; its life is 

 short. When one considers that the florists 

 put into a collection any of forty or so varieties 

 of little Ferns, it is not surprising that such a 

 selection is often a poor one. It is far better 

 I find to specify varieties desired and have the 

 fern dish filled with these. Among the best 

 ferns for the house are the following: Pteris 

 cretica albo-lineata; Pteris Wilsoni, a variety of 

 cretica; Polystichum Tsus-sinense; Pellaea 

 viridis; Cyrtomium falcatum variety Rochfor- 

 dianum. The last named is a Holly Fern, one 

 of the very best of ferns for fern dishes, single 

 specimen plants and window boxes. — E. E. S., 

 Brooklyn, N. Y. 



When Room Plants Become Leggy. — A 

 very good way of dealing with Rubber plants, 

 Dracaenas, Cordylines, Aralias and similar 

 room plants that have grown spindly — or leggy 

 as it is called — is shown in the photograph. 

 In the first place, it is needful to cut a small 

 pot in half with an old saw. Then at about 

 the middle of the stem make a long slanting cut 

 upward half way through. Fill the two halves 

 of the pot with damp moss and place one on 

 either side of the cut portion of the stem, 

 finally tying into position as shown in the 



illustration. Keep the moss damp and in a 

 month or so the upper portion of the plant 

 will have sent out a quantity of roots into the 

 damp moss. When this has taken place the 

 upper portion may be severed from the rest 

 of the plant and potted up separately. Very 

 often after this treatment the lower part of the 

 plant sends up some shoots and, apart from 

 the new specimen secured, its own improve- 

 ment will be the outcome. — S. Leonard Bastin, 

 England. 



An Original Sundial. — The accompany- 

 ing photograph shows a "home-made" sun- 

 dial, which conforms to the garden and house 

 to which it belongs. The house is a remodel- 

 led farmhouse surrounded by orchards and 



Lowering a "leggy" plant by inducing root formation at a 

 convenient height 



Bird bath made by setting rough stones in cement around a 

 shallow basin 



fields bounded by old stone walls. These 

 walls furnished material for the sundial, only 

 the very choicest moss and lichen-covered 

 stones being used, and all laid up in Portland 

 cement. The flowers (all hardy perennials) 

 in the garden are planted around an oval 

 grass-plot, and the sun-dial stands in the mid- 

 dle of this with stepping stones leading to and 

 around it from each side covered entrance. 



Narcissus bulbs are to be planted at the 

 base this fall for early spring flowering, fol- 

 lowed later by summer flowers. 



The dial itself is of bronze. But it is the 

 cement top which is unusual, being rounded 

 off and roughened to look as much like one of 

 the stones as possible, and having ferns and 

 leaves pressed into the cement while it was still 

 soft and removed just before it dried. A bird 

 bath was made in the same way, using an old 

 china wash-bowl as a foundation built up 

 with cement to be shallow enough to please our 

 feathered friends. The basin is surrounded by 

 paving stones laid in cement. The imprints 

 of the ferns and leaves look not unlike fossils. 

 Indeed those in the bird bath might have been 

 made by leaves falling from the Maple tree 

 overhead. 



Some time there is to be a teahouse at one 

 side, with a thatched roof and stone seats; 

 built in a semi-circle into the stone wall which 

 separates the flower from the vegetable garden 

 — and which, covered with vines — forms the 

 wonderfully artistic background for the whole 

 garden. — B. S. Provost, Winsted, Connecticut. 



Fall Color in the Rock Garden. — It seems 

 as though a rock garden was mostly a spring 

 garden but with September my hit-or-miss 

 patch (that for lack of better term I call a 

 rock garden) has gathered charm. A few 

 big plants of Campanula rotundifolia, still 

 decked with their lavender bells, are rampant; 

 a little colony, near by, of the doubtfully 

 hardy Parnassia caroliniana with its shiny 

 basal leaves and eight-inch stems bearing sea- 

 foam-white buttercups forms a bit of contrast. 

 Farther on, gray Artemisia struggles for 

 supremacy with the tender green of Sedum 



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Such a sundial is easily 

 made from a few large stones 

 and a little cement 



spectabile, its 

 rather dull mauve- 

 pink (touched off 

 by the deeper tones 

 of the variety Bril- 

 liant. Here and 

 there wild Asters, 

 the smooth leaved 

 laevis, the starry 

 ericoides and clust- 

 e r e d cordifolius, 

 have seeded in; the 

 shade - loving co- 

 rymbosus lightens 

 most happily the 

 dull "magentery" - 

 pink of Lespedeza Sieboldi which throws 

 its graceful sprays out over an outstanding 

 boulder, while lower down in the moist shade 

 the white again enlivens the scattered 

 yellow of the Wood Goldenrod. Here also 

 are dull blue Closed Gentians, late lingering 

 Cardinal-flowers and the frosted fronds of 

 Ferns. The frost brings many a colorful 

 tint to a wider landscape but in my re- 

 stricted space where perennials reign alone 

 Euphorbia corollata is all that gives a scarlet 

 bit of autumn glory. Weirdly well does it 

 blaze above clumps of the true Autumn Cro- 

 cuses but most painfully does it swear at the 

 pinker tones of Colchicums. How fortunate 

 it is that garden things are not always just to 

 your mind for where then would be that 

 pleasure of striving for the ideal? — R. S. 

 Sturtevant, Wellesley Farms, Mass. 



Mr. Duffy's Essay in the September issue 

 of The Garden Magazine is the cause of this 

 communication. In the past, I had had a 

 great deal of trouble handling the by-products 

 of the chicken crop, and having solved the 

 problem to my own satisfaction, my experi- 

 ment may be of use to Mr. Duffy or others who 

 have had similar difficulties. Several years 

 ago my attention was called to a commercial 

 poultry litter and the advantages claimed 

 were: that it did away with the use of drop- 

 ping boards and always kept the house dry 

 and odorless. I have been using it now for 

 five years and the results are most satisfactory. 

 The house is cleaned about three times a year 

 and the fertilizer put in barrels in a dry place 

 to use when wanted. When removed it is a 

 dry odorless powder and is very easy to 

 handle. It does not bake the soil; in fact, I 

 think that the peat of which the litter is made 

 improves it. While the litter is rather ex- 

 pensive, I think the resultant fertilizer more 

 than repays the cost, and its use certainly re- 

 duces work in the hen house to a minimum. — 

 B. Preston Schoyer, Pittsburg, Pa. 



Meconopsis Integrifolia. — It is now some 

 eleven or twelve years since Mr. E. H. Wilson 

 first sent to England seeds of this extraordinary 

 plant from Western China, and when sub- 

 sequently exhibited in flower, for the first time 

 at the Temple Show, I believe, it immediately 

 arrested the attention of all interested in 

 hardy plants. Although several species of 

 Meconopsis were known and cultivated it was 

 not supposed that any of the genus could de- 

 velop flowers of such wonderful size and 

 beauty, and though of only biennial duration 

 it was at once recognized as one of the most 

 remarkable of the many new plants received 

 from Mr. Wilson. Leaving England soon 

 after, I did not have an opportunity of be- 

 coming better acquainted with this Mecon- 

 opsis, but in the early spring of 1916 I saw 

 seeds advertised in an English list, procured 



