140 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



April, 1907 



4. The wrong way — isolated or against deciduous 

 background. A fragrant bush honeysucKle in March 



placed in sand until they root, then planted 

 out and will make shrubs six to eight feet 

 high in three years. 



Twigs of golden bells are easily forced in 

 the home window, by putting them into a 

 vase of water in February. During the last 

 five years, the florists have forced a great 

 many forsythias in tubs for Christmas and 

 Easter bloom. The process is very simple 

 and I dare say could be accomplished without 

 a greenhouse. 



OTHER APRIL-BLOOMING SHRUBS 



The redbuds are undoubtedly the most 

 beautiful early-blooming members of the 

 great and wonderful pea family (Legumin- 

 oscb). The American redbud (Cercis Can- 

 adensis) has the distinction of being the 

 hardiest species. It has purplish-pink flowers 

 a half inch long, which seem to come right out 

 of the wood, in clusters. It attains an ex- 

 treme height of forty feet. The most beauti- 

 ful species is the Chinese redbud (C. Chinen- 

 sis), which has rosy-pink flowers three- 

 quarters of an inch long, but unfortunately 

 it is not hardy north of New York. It attains 

 fifty feet in its native country, but is a shrub 

 in cultivation. It is the best species for 

 forcing. The largest-flowered redbud is 

 C. Siliquastrum, with purplish rosy flowers 



nearly an inch long. It is a native of southern 

 Europe and is not hardy in our Northern 

 States. In Europe it seems to be valued 

 chiefly for the picturesque form which very 

 old plants attain. All these redbuds require 

 a rich, sandy, somewhat moist soil. The 

 name " Judas tree " ought to be dropped. 



An interesting lilac-purple flower that 

 may appear any time from February to April 

 is the olive spurge (Daphne Mezereum). It 

 has nothing like the charm of that exquisite 

 evergreen trailer which is so difficult to 

 propagate, Daphne Cneorum, but it has the 

 same delicious fragrance and has the advan- 

 tage of blooming earlier and being of easier 

 culture. It is a deciduous shrub, grows 

 about four feet high, has three flowers 

 in a cluster, and bears red fruit. There 

 are white-flowered varieties, both single 

 and double, but probably the most de- 

 sirable kind is the variety grandiflora (also 

 called autumnalis) which has larger and 

 earlier flowers that sometimes appear in the 

 fall. 



The white flower of April that I like the 

 best is the shad-bush, which has a genius 

 for planting itself with the instin&t of a land- 

 scape gardener wherever the heart seems 

 to demand it. It hovers over the brink of 

 the gorges at Cornell University, and I used to 

 fancy that Nature made these awful chasms 

 in order to show how spirit triumphs over 

 matter, for in spite of its mystic delicacy and 

 feminine grace there is a quiet sense of 

 masterfulness in these shadbushes that 

 suggests the still, small voice. 



The name shadbush is applied indiscrim- 

 inately to Amelanchier Canadensis and A. 

 Botryapium. Both bloom a week or two 

 before the orchards and their petals are 

 longer and narrower than those of the fruit 

 trees. They often take the form of a tree 

 and I have seen photographs of specimens 

 forty feet high. The name Juneberry is 

 also applied to both. The flowers of A. 

 Botryapium are said to be smaller and the 

 racemes shorter and it is native to swamps, 

 whereas A . Canadensis favors dry woodlands, 

 but both grow well in garden soil. The 

 Juneberry is a blue fruit about half an inch 

 long and is borne in great profusion in June. 

 A good variety called Success was introduced 



5. The flowering dogwood (Cornus flortda.) has blossoms four inches across. The characteristic notches in 

 the "petals" (or, rather, bracts) are made by the frost. The winter buds are naked 



6. The redbud {Cercis Canadensis), whose lovely, 

 pea-shaped, rosy pink flowers seem to come out of 

 ihe wood. The name Judas-tree ought to be dropped 



by Professor H. E. Van Deman and is 

 referred by Professor Bailey to A. Botry- 

 apium. The objection to this fruit is that 

 the robins are excessively fond of it. I have 

 scared up hundreds of them simply by 

 walking along a row of Juneberry bushes 

 about 200 feet long. The robins will even 

 leave the cherry trees to eat the Juneberries, 

 and therefore the Juneberry is worth planting 

 in order to protect cherries. 



The climax of spring is reached when the 

 orchards are in bloom. Most of our common 

 fruit trees belong to the rose family, par- 

 ticularly the great genera Prunus and Pyrus. 

 It would take at least five pages of The Gar- 

 den Magazine to. do justice to the ornamen- 

 tab members of these two genera, but I shall 

 say little of them here, because the San Jose 

 scale is so likely to spread to them from the 

 orchards that I am not willing to recommend 

 them for general planting, unless a person 

 has an excellent spraying outfit. 



The earliest, and to my mind, the most 

 beautiful member of the genus Prunus in 

 common cultivation is the peach (P. Persica) , 

 which has pink flowers. There are many 

 ornamental forms of it, including double- 

 flowered, white-flowered and dark-flowered 

 forms, the most popular of which is probably 

 the camellia-flowered variety. David's peach 

 (P. Davidiana) has larger and earlier flowers, 

 which are white or blush and an inch or more 

 across. It is reliably hardy as far north as 



