74 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



October, 1918 



to select from and yet few gardens have even 

 one specimen of any nut. Why? Because it 

 has not yet become a habit to regard the nut tree 

 seriously. Isn't it time that we woke up? 



Plan in the FalL— One always reads in the 

 spring recommendations to begin drawing up 

 garden plans before planting. Perfectly good 

 advice of course, but why not a still better idea, 

 to do it in the autumn? It is then that our mis- 

 takes are freshest in memory, some being hardly 

 yet a memory, more an actuality! Errors in 

 arrangement show up plainly, poor choice of 

 varieties can be most easily noted, while at the 

 same time we jot down as a reminder the name of 

 that more successful sort our next-door neighbor 

 had. Keep your notebook handy and working 

 all summer and before the crop of good ideas has 

 been stored away for winter, sketch out your 

 next year's garden plan, even roughly; and then 

 elaborate if you like, in the spring. — Clare M. 

 Bell, Ohio. 



That Blue-Berried Vitis. — I am obliged to 

 Bernard H. Lane, who gives, in the August num- 

 ber, such a clear description of the Vitis he has, 

 that on comparison with the vine I asked about 

 I am sure they are the same. I note the red 

 stem and the blue berries, as well as the general 

 habit of the plant. At the same time I shall 

 have to envy him his less rigorous climate of 

 Washington, D. C, as compared with that of 

 western New York, for the vine is not quite 

 hardy here. It froze down to the ground last 

 winter, as I did not give it any protection. It 

 came up in the spring, more bushy than ever 

 before and the leaves in a bunch are very 

 handsome. It does not always blossom here, 

 but as the foliage is its chief attraction that does 

 not matter much. — John W. Chamberlin, N. Y. 



Success With Fall-sown Sweet Peas. — Such 

 a coincidence! I, like J. W. Ginder, also planted 

 Sweet Peas two or three days previous to 

 Thanksgiving Day last year. Though the time 

 of planting may have been the same yet prob- 

 ably there is much difference of climate between 

 Ohio and Washington. My row, only about ten 

 feet long, was trenched and prepared in the usual 

 way. I made two little furrows, parallel, about 

 8 or io inches apart, forming a double row. 

 The little furrows were only 3 or 4 inches deep. 

 In each I placed a half-inch layer of sifted 

 sand. On this sand I sowed, rather thickly, 

 seeds of Hercules, King White, Florence Night- 

 ingale, and some old seed left over from spring 

 planting of Margaret Atlee and King Edward. 

 All were Spencer varieties. Over these seeds 

 was placed another half-inch layer of sand. The 

 seeds were simply sandwiched between the 

 layers of sand. Over all I put fine loam, until 

 within an inch or two of the top of the furrow. 

 Planting was followed by mild weather for a 

 couple of weeks, when there came a rain and 

 heavy frost. On ascertaining that the ground 

 was frozen hard I placed over the Sweet Pea 

 bed a heavy layer of ordinary wheat straw. 

 The winter was pretty severe and very little 

 thawing took place from then on; but when I saw 

 that there was danger I left part of the straw off" 

 at night when sharp weather was expected so as 

 to freeze the bed hard again. Try as I might, 

 though, along about March 12th I found Sweet 

 Peas coming up thick and fast. I then took 

 off about half the straw. Soon the seedlings 

 were coming through that amount of straw and I 

 drove sticks in the space between the two rows 

 and on cold nights burlap was placed over them, 

 the sticks preventing the weight of the burlap 

 from contact with the seedlings. Only two seeds 

 of Florence Nightingale came up. I attributed 

 this to the fact that Florence Nightingale is a 

 wrinkled seeded Sweet Pea, and probably tender, 

 as is its cousin the wrinkled garden pea. But I 

 don't think one seed of King White, Hercules, 



King Edward or Margaret Atlee failed to come 

 up. My Sweet Peas had no frame whatever. No 

 coddling except what a little burlap on freezing 

 nights could furnish, and the spring was fully two 

 weeks backward, yet on June 12th I picked my 

 first flowers, and had them in greatest abundance, 

 very large flowers and say! but my Hercules 

 had some stem — like a hand spike! The summer 

 was cool and they had no watering, and were not 

 troubled to any great extent by aphis. I have 

 found a fine spray from the hose a good remedy 

 for aphis. I attribute my success, first to the 

 sand at planting, which drains away all surplus 

 moisture; keeping the ground well frozen through 

 the winter, and after the seeds are up giving pro- 

 tection during hard freezing weather. But for 

 fall planting generally, I believe the smooth 

 seeded varieties will prove most successful. — 

 Mrs. R. W. Walters, Ohio. 



A Novel Centre Piece.— One day last fall I 

 found myself without either flowers or ferns for 

 my dining table and began looking for a tempor- 

 ary substitute. Some Pachysandra was growing 

 near the front walk and the green leaves stood 

 out boldly against the drooping foliage of the 

 other plants, which had been killed by the frost. 

 In a moment of inspiration I picked a number 

 of these leaves, getting them with fairly long 



The Mountain Spurge (Pachysandra) is an enduring evergreen 

 for indoor decoration 



stems, and thrust them into a low, glass bowl, 

 using a wire support, purchased for Pansies, to 

 hold them in position. The broad leaves hid the 

 support almost entirely and gave the impression 

 of a growing plant. The effect was so pleasing 

 that I decided to keep the unusual centre piece 

 until the leaves wilted or dropped. Well, they 

 are still green and glossy when this is written, 

 early in March. I have changed the water fre- 

 quently, or, rather, have added fresh water as 

 that in the bowl has evaporated, and have kept 

 the bowl out of the direct sunlight, but the 

 tenacious hold on life shown by the leaves is most 

 surprising. The bowl of green foliage is much 

 admired by guests, although few know from what 

 plant the leaves came. Sometimes I have 

 added a few red berries for the time being, small 

 Rose hips or Hawthorn fruits, and the effect has 

 been cheerful. Nothing which I have used on 

 the dining table has required so little attention 

 or proved more generally satisfactory. It may 

 be that other housekeepers will like to know 

 about this little experiment. — Harriet Farring- 

 ton. 



Stake Tomatoes, or Not? — There is some- 

 thing to be said in favor of both the staking and 

 let-alone systems of growing tomatoes, but one 

 point in favor of the former was proven satis- 



factorily to me this| summer. Being one of a 

 committee of War Garden judges I had oppor- 

 tunity of seeing gardens of all sorts under varied 

 conditions, and in almost every instance, those 

 tomatoes that had been trimmed and staked 

 and given good cultivation had escaped the dry, 

 or blossom end, rot so prevalent here this season, 

 while the let-alone vines had suffered more or 

 less badly.— Clare M. Bell, Ohio. 



Fighting Tomato Leaf Curl. — If the tomato 

 vines in the back yard garden were afflicted 

 with leaf curl this summer, it is reasonably certain 

 that they will be similarly afflicted next summer. 

 The spores live over in the soil, and the limits 

 of such a garden are too restricted to make a 

 planting shift effective. The only thing to do 

 is to settle down to fight the disease the best you 

 may as long as you grow tomatoes in that place. 

 If nothing is done you will find that however 

 sturdy your plants may be when you set them 

 out the lower leaves will soon begin to show signs 

 of curling. This will follow up the plants as 

 they grow, getting steadily worse. The disease 

 can't be cured, so it must be endured and held in 

 check as much as possible. To do this it is nec- 

 essary to begin at the beginning. See that all 

 the earth in which the seeds are planted and to 

 which the seedlings are transplanted is thoroughly 

 sterilized. This may be done by saturating it 

 with formaldehyde and water — one ounce of 

 40-per cent, formaldehyde to one gallon of 

 water. No planting should be done until the 

 solution has evaporated — in about ten days or 

 two weeks. Also dip the flats in the solution and 

 let it dry on them. This should protect the plants 

 until they are set in the garden and give them as 

 good a start as possible. Just before setting out 

 dip the plants top first into a bucket of bordeaux 

 mixture, or Pyrox or some other proprietary modi- 

 fication of it; and then' every ten days or two weeks 

 give them a thorough spraying with a similar solu- 

 tion. This will prevent the disease from becoming 

 serious, and with good culture, fertilization, and 

 irrigation, the vines can be carried through their 

 usual season — until a killing frost — in fairly good 

 bearing condition. I have had the leaf curl in 

 my garden for about six years, and for a time 

 thought that it would be necessary to abandon 

 tomatoes, but with the treatment here outlined 

 I have raised fairly good crops. — W. L. Wilson, 

 Indiana. 



Osceola the Periwinkle City. — When I struck 

 the little city of Osceola, Ark., last autumn I 

 knew right away that the people there took the 

 Vinca (or Madagascar Periwinkle) seriously. 

 That is, I knew they gave it serious consideration 

 if the prominence a plant is given is a determin- 

 ing factor. Vincas were growing upon every avail- 

 able foot of soil in the little river port. They 

 grew upon both public and private grounds. 

 Long straight rows of the glistening pink and 

 white blossoms above the oily green foliage bor- 

 dered the sidewalks and beds of other flowers. 

 In the gardens of many individuals this dainty 

 flower found first place. I could not understand 

 its popularity and asked an old Negro gardener 

 to explain it to me. His answer embodied a 

 motto that would be good for every gardener to 

 follow: "When you find a good thing, stick to 

 it." Then he told me of the difficulties the 

 gardeners of his town had experienced prior to 

 the advent of the "Vinca. The alluvial Miss- 

 issippi River soil contained so much nitrogen and 

 other elements of plant food that Petunias and 

 Phloxes had crawled over the ground like water- 

 melon vines. Geraniums had imitated toma- 

 toes in their manner of growth — and other bed- 

 ding plants did likewise. Therefore when an 

 up-to-date gardener succeeded with a row of 

 Vincas everyone in town admired and copied. 

 That is how Osceola came to be regarded as the 

 "Periwinkle city," for that is what everybody 

 calls it. — Buford Reid, Osceola, Ark. 



