July, 1907 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



343 



The turtle-head (Chelone glabra). a while autumn 

 wildflower. Much more splendid is (he bright rosy 

 ■Chelone Lyont, which is hardy if covered in winter 



members of the orchid and heath families 

 are now known to be 'partial sapro- 

 phytes.' They are not downright parasites, 

 like the misletoe and dodder, which get 

 all their nourishment from living organism 

 and often cause the death of their hosts, 

 ibut they are more nearly comparable to 

 mushrooms and the Indian pipe, which feed 

 ■on decaying organic matter." 



I. AN ORCHID BOG GARDEN 



There are thousands of these sphagnum 

 bogs in the United States which are worthless 

 to the farmer, and in New England, especially, 

 they can often be bought as parts of ten- 

 •dollar-an-acre farms that are just the thing 

 for summer homes. I know of one Boston- 

 ian who is planning to buy one and grow all 

 the hardy native orchids mentioned in The 

 •Garden Magazine for August, 1906, on 

 pages 13 to 15. The showiest of all hardy 

 •orchids is Cypripedium spectabile, which is 

 -often found in sphagnum bogs. 



II. AN INSECTIVOROUS BOG GARDEN 



The other great specialty which one may 

 cultivate in a sphagnum bog is the insect- 

 catching plants. Of these the most wonder- 

 ful is Venus's flytrap (Dioncea muscipula). 

 Although this grows wild only in North 

 Carolina, it is hardy at Philadelphia and I 

 believe it would be hardy in a New England 

 sphagnum bog, for Mr. Manning finds that 

 the Southern pitcher plant (Sarracenia flava), 

 the showiest of the whole genus, multiplies 

 under such conditions. However it is most 

 satisfactory as a pot plant and is too small 

 for mass effects, and so are sundews. I know 

 where I can buy six kinds of hardy pitcher 

 plants (the showiest of which is Sarracenia 

 flava), and several kinds of sundews and 

 butterworts — all at an average rate of $1.50 

 for ten. Some day I intend to follow Mr. 

 Manning's example, buy a farm with a 

 sphagnum bog on it, get Darwin's book on 

 Insectivorous Plants and go in for these 

 wonders of the vegetable kingdom. Among 



the many other treasures that will grow in 

 Mr. Manning's bog garden are the exquisite 

 twin flower Linncea borealis, the dainty 

 mealy-flowered primrose (Primula farinosa) 

 and a whole section of the lovely heath 

 family, including Andromeda, swamp huckle- 

 berry, marsh rosemary and Kalmia glauca. 



The only thing you have to do to such a 

 bog garden is to set the plants and kill the 

 poison sumach if there is any. 



III. A SPECTACULAR BOG GARDEN 



Coming now to the ordinary muck swamp 

 or meadow, we find that great floral spec- 

 tacles can be produced at trifling expense by 

 naturalizing the showiest American wild- 

 flowers that delight in wet ground. Our 

 loveliest blue wildflower, the fringed gentian, 

 is now being grown by thousands at Tuxedo, 

 New York, by Mr. Thomas Murray, to 

 whom The Garden Magazine awarded a 

 medal in December, 1905, for his discovery 

 of the secret of fringed gentian culture. 



Our very best red wildflower, the cardinal 

 flower, has two kinks in its cultivation (which 

 are straightened out in The Garden Maga- 

 zine for May, 1905, on page 187 and April, 

 1906, on page 180), but it can be cheaply 



For the American bog garden — cattail 



For the collector's bog garden in which "one ol 

 everything" is (he idea. Japan iris {I. laevigata). Over 

 a hundred varieties of this gorgeous nine-inch flower 



raised from seed. Mr. Murray estimates 

 the cost of raising a million cardinal flowers 

 about $300 for actual labor. These can be 

 easily transplanted from seed-bed to flats and 

 thence to the open ground. 



Bee balm (Monarda didyma) is a coarser 

 flower than the cardinal, but a brighter and 

 more effective red in distant masses, and it 

 multiplies with ridiculous ease — almost as 

 fast as mint. I wish I had a piece of wet 

 woods which I could drain by simple ditching. 

 By letting the ditch meander a little, I could 

 make a brook out of it, and line a mile of it 

 with bee balm and forget-me-nots at a cost of 

 fifty dollars. (I should get the Myosotis 

 palustris, var. semperflorens, which is said to 

 bloom all summer.) 



The brightest yellow flowers of early April 

 are marsh marigolds (Caltha palustris). I 

 know a man who offers to collect 10,000 for 

 $70, but a fair price for clumps is $20 for 100. 



The hundreds of thousands of commuters 

 who daily cross the Haekensack marshes to 

 New York all know the marshmallow 

 {Hibiscus Moscheutos) which glorifies the 

 meadows in August. It has pink flowers 

 four or five inches across. The white variety 

 is kept by nurserymen, also a variety called 

 Crimson Eye. 



The most gorgeous purple flower of July 

 and August is the spiked, or purple, loose- 

 strife (Lythrum Salicaria), which improves 

 wonderfully in cultivation. In the great 

 marshes opposite New York it grows only 

 two or three feet but at Barrytown, N. Y., 

 it attains eleven or twelve, and has countless 

 spikes of small flowers. This plant is a 

 great favorite of Mr. John Burroughs. Its 

 season of bloom is extraordinarily long. A 

 hundred clumps of it cost about $10. 



The crowning glory of such a garden would 

 be the American Turk's cap lily (Lilium 

 superbum), a stately species with whorled 

 leaves, which attains eight feet and bears 

 dozens of scarlet-orange flowers. This is 



