The Garden Magazine 
VoL. VII—No. 5 
PUBLISHED MONTHLY 
[For the purpose of reckoning dates, New York is 
generally taken as a standard. Allow six days’ difference 
for every hundred miles of latitude.] 
Ten Ways to Excel Your 
Neighbors 
1. Your neighbors’ flower gardens will 
look like the last run of shad in Septem- 
ber because it never occurs to them to make 
a second sowing of annuals. To make 
your garden the prettiest in town when all 
others are failing, sow now for September 
bloom, marigold, phlox, calliopsis, Cali- 
fornia poppy, zinnia, pansy, and nasturtium. 
The last-named make their largest flowers 
in September when the cold nights come. 
2. You can have in your vegetable garden 
between July and winter twenty good things 
that your neighbors are not likely to have 
at the same time if you study now “ Vege- 
tables for June Sowing,”’ which appeared in 
THE GARDEN MacGaAziIneE for June, 1907, 
pages 282 to 284. 
3. You can have better shrubbery than your 
neighbors who hire their pruning done every 
year in March by buying a pair of pruning 
shears and pruning your own shrubs. Prune 
after flowering by cutting out the old wood. 
4. Ninety-nine out of a hundred people 
who move into a, new house this June will 
take it for granted that it is useless to try 
tc make a garden this year. That used 
to be true, but all that is changed now, be- 
cause you can get pot-grown perennials and 
vines any day all summer. You will be 
astonished at the extraordinary variety 
kept by the nurseries near the big cities 
to meet this new demand. If you know 
nothing about flowers it will be safe for you 
to go in heavily on phlox and Japanese 
anemone which will give you a fine show 
through August and September. 
s. To make your porch a cloud of fra- 
grant white blossoms in August and of silky 
white seeds in September, buy now an extra- 
strong plant of Clematis paniculata, such as 
you can get in a 6- or 7-inch pot for a dollar. 
JUNE, 1908 
6. You can make your garden more 
interesting by night than any you have 
ever seen by sowing now seeds of the follow- 
ing fragrant or white-flowered annuals: 
Chinese pink, mignonette, sweet Sultan, 
sweet alyssum, stock, Virginian stock, or 
night-scented stock. And perhaps you can 
get pot-grown plants of the white day lily 
(Funkia subcordata). 
7. To have a better window box than 
your neighbors, grow something different 
from the hackneyed stuff kept by the small 
local florist. Get one of the great seedsmen 
to send you plants of white or blue moon- 
flower, lemon verbena, Srowallia alata, 
Othonna crassifolia, Gazania splendens, Lan- 
tana delicatissima, Maurandia Barclayana, or 
Thunbergia alata. All these are described in 
the catalogues. ‘They are no harder to grow 
and will be an agreeable change from fren- 
zied magenta geraniums, gaudy coleus, etc. 
8. If you have a large country place 
and want to make a beautiful new landscape 
effect at half the cost of ordinary gardening 
you should naturalize a thousand or more 
tulips in the grass —not the garden kinds 
for they would be inappropriate and short- 
lived, but the wild and run-wild species, 
or the sharp-petalled old cottage varieties 
that have survived half a century or more 
and will look like wild flowers in America. 
The cheapest, most permanent, and most ap- 
propriate kinds we know of are T. sylvestris, 
oculus-solis, Gesneriana (vars. major, auran- 
tiaca, and rosea), Billietiana, Didieri (and 
its var. alba), and Picotee, or Maiden’s Blush. 
But you cannot have one of these glorious 
pictures next spring if you put off a decision 
till October, because you. cannot get the 
bulbs then. You must order them in June. 
Any American bulb dealer will get them 
for you if you write him now. We have 
unpublished photographs showing these 
charming new effects which we will show 
you if you belong to the wild gardening 
fraternity. 
g. You can have the most personal and 
satisfactory floral gifts you ever made at 
Christmas time if you grow a dozen pots of 
freesias for the purpose. But to have free- 
sias by Christmas you should order the bulbs 
in June and stipulate July delivery. The 
best alternatives to this proposition are 
Chinese primroses sown in early June. 
1o. The most important fruits, vegeta- 
bles, and flowers are those that have the 
greatest number of varieties, but many of 
these are only good to sell — not fit for ama- 
teurs to raise. The majority of people 
will always order from catalogues. The 
few who enjoy the best of everything are 
the ones who attend the horticultural exhi- 
bitions and visit the nurseries with note- 
§ ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
( FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY 
books in hand. The most important horti- 
cultural products of June are roses, lilacs, 
azaleas, peonies, German iris, rhododen- 
drons, and strawberries. Catalogues can 
never do justice to these. Visit the largest 
collection near you and you can select better 
varieties than your neighbors have. Ask your 
nurseryman to notify you a few days in ad- 
vance of the best time. If you don’t know 
what large private or public collection is 
near you, ask THE GARDEN MAGAZINE. 
VEGETABLE GARDEN 
The most important routine work ‘of 
June is thinning, weeding, and cultivating, 
which is done in half the time and without 
backache, by using a wheel hoe. 
Cut-worms are destructive in June. Hand- 
pick them at night or scatter poisoned bran 
about. 
Train your tomatoes. If you leave them 
on the ground they will rot. 
Make a seedbed outdoors in June and 
sow vegetables and flowers for fall and 
winter use. Put brush on the bed to keep 
off cats, dogs, and chickens. Lay newspapers 
over the brush and sprinkle carefully every 
day until the plants are up. 
LAWN AND SHRUBBERY 
Trim privet hedges now, and twice more 
this season. Cut back one-half of the new 
wood each time. 
Protect your street trees with strong, 
neat tree guards. Geta good lawn mower. 
Why not start a notebook for flowering 
shrubs? ‘The best time to study them is from 
May is5th to June goth. Probably 80 per 
cent. of them bloom between those dates. 
The best place to study their comparative 
value for you is at a nursery, because you 
can get the prices there, while in a park 
or arboretum you cannot. 
The seeds that refuse to germinate before 
hot weather are an interesting group. It 
is useless to sow nasturtiums or that beauti- 
ful pink mallow, Lavatera trimestris before 
May isth in the North. Before June ist 
there is no use in sowing outdoors rose moss 
(Portuluca) or scarlet sage (Salvia s plendens). 
June is also the earliest suitable date for 
sowing kale and the interesting fruit or 
vegetable known as the lemon cucumber. 
To make peonies last longer, cut them 
twenty-four hours before you want to use 
them. Carry a pail of water to the beds 
and drop them in at once, immersing the 
the whole stem. Then keep them in the 
cellar or cool room till needed. 
Many June flowers last longer in water 
than on the plant, provided they are cut 
before the first buds open. Try this with 
Madonna lilies. 
