THROUGH THE GARDEN GATE 



^ J&jise ( mWder 



Ofutftbr o^mySarden" and "Co/Sur 'in >Jfy garden ° 



When Candlemas Day is come and gone 

 The sun lies on a hot stone. 



— Old Saw. 



The Counsels of Perfection 



There is a difference between the winteriness 

 of January and that of February. In the first 

 month it is winter indoors, outdoors, and within 

 ourselves; but in the second month of the year 

 those whose nerves are atune to the elemental 

 variations are aware of a change. In truth, 

 as the old saw says "the sun lies on a hot stone," 

 and there will come more than one day between 

 the storms and cold when we feel spring's young, 

 firm fingers upon the wavering pulse of gray 

 old winter. These are the days when we may 

 look for a few stars upon the Naked Jasmine, or 

 a branch of pink-flowered Daphne scenting all 

 the air, or perhaps an Hepatica crouched in a 

 warm hollow. 



These are the days too, when gardeners be- 

 come most truly inspired; when they feel most 

 keenly the beauty of their craft and dream their 

 best dreams of advance and improvement. And 

 let not the owner of the very smallest garden 

 fear to dream gloriously. Great space does 

 not by any means insure beauty, and numbers 

 frequently serve but to confuse the observer. 

 A great gardener once wrote "The counsels 

 of perfection are not to be slighted because the 

 ground is small. ... A small trim garden, 

 like a sonnet, may contain the very soul of 

 beauty." Love and high ideals and good cul- 

 ture will make the littlest garden a delight, and 

 without these the owner of the great garden 

 will strive in vain, 



Bee Hives in the Garden 



I was much interested in the article in the 

 January magazine entitled "Bee Keeping for 

 Boys." But I would go further and recommend 

 it to all gardeners; not only because it is an inter- 

 esting and remunerative occupation, but for 

 the additional reason that as garden furniture 

 few things are prettier or quainter than bee hives. 



Long ago every gardener was also a beekeeper, 

 or beemaster, as the old books call them, and 

 the hives stood upon low stools or benches along 

 the garden walls among the riotous Poppies, 

 Hollyhocks and old fashioned Roses, or along 

 the flower bordered walks. Sometimes they 

 were the picturesque "skeps," or bee baskets, 

 made of "sweet wheaten straw and bound with 

 bramble;" sometimes wooden boxes with quaint 

 peeked thatching held in place with barrel hoops. 

 Holland gardens boasted gaily painted hives — 

 bright yellow, pink, but mostly deep blue, for 

 this was thou-'ht to be the color most attractive 

 to the bees. Very bizarre and cheerful must 

 these bright-hued hives have looked in the stiff 

 little Dutch gardens; but the simple white hives 

 of our own day are delightfully decorative, and 

 far more appropriate to modest gardens than 

 the ornate furnishings with which they are 

 frequently embellished. 



Pleasant too, it would be, to learn which flowers 

 are most sought by the busy little workers and 

 set them round about the hives, making a special 

 garden for them, as it were. Blue flowers we 

 know they love, and so there would be many 



kinds of Sage and Mint, Borage, Cornflowers, 

 Phacelia and Eutoca, Lupines, Larkspurs and 

 Anchusas, Lavender and Nemophila, Nigella, 

 Chicory, blue Nemesias and many Michaelmas 

 Daisies. And besides these, Ambrosia, Evening 

 Primroses, Marjoram and Savory, Zinnias, 

 Sweet Peas, Woodruff, Bartonia, Limnanthes, 

 Sweet Sultans, Stocks, Mignonette, Poppies, 

 Collomia, Anise, Naked Jasmine and Clematis 

 paniculata. Of trees: Willows, Red-bud, Alder, 

 Crabapple, Locust, Maple, Lime, Hawthorn, 

 Basswood and Shadbush are the favorites with, 

 of course, the orchard trees whose blossoms offer 

 such a feast for the bees. 



Michaelmas Daisies 



This is the time to make plans for autumn 

 beauty and I want to say a word for the inclusion 

 of our native Michaelmas Daisies in the spring 

 order lists. No other plants at our command 

 so fill the last months of the garden's life with 

 beauty, none are so easy to grow or more strongly 

 defy the frost and few are more available and 

 charming for indoor decoration. All this is 

 indisputably true and yet I can name dozens of 

 gardens where not. a single Michaelmas Daisy 

 waves a beflowered wand in the Autumn sunshine. 

 Our nurserymen offer long lists of them, garden 

 writers, native and foreign, tell of their charms, 

 Dut the American gardener turns a deaf ear (and 

 a blind eye, for if he would but once look at 

 them he would be conquered), and the American 

 garden remains given over in the autumn to 

 hard-faced, flauncing Salvias and stout Marigolds 

 while the sumptuous purple tide flows in and out 

 among the brown-tipped Sumachs and flaming 

 Creepers along our country roadsides. 



I do not like to hint that because our Michael- 

 mas Daisy is a native and has the temerity to 

 grow wild before our eves, we look upon it with 

 contempt. But we do love a foreign title, and 

 even the fact that the Starworts have, for the 

 most part, been improved and developed in 

 foreign workshops (not in our own as they should 

 have been), does not rid them of the stigma of 

 being "just wild flowers, or roadside weeds." 

 However the time is at hand when if we do not 

 appreciate our own, American gardens will be 

 at a sorry pass. So let us begin by giving the 

 Michaelmas Daisy its just mete of consideration 

 and a place in our flower borders. 



The members of the Cordifolius group are all 

 lovely and particularly good for small gardens, 

 as they are not so strongly spreading as some 

 others. Their average height is about three 

 and a half feet, and the slender branches carry 

 clouds of bloom several feet across. The 

 Ericoides group is also particularly fitted for 

 small gardens. Its root stock is even smaller 

 and more stay-at-home than the foregoing, and 

 most of the varieties do not exceed three feet in 

 height. The tiny blossoms are produced in 

 bewildering profusion — blush, gray, mauve, 

 lavender, and white. 



Aster laevis, and its varieties, is a tall, strong 

 growing sort with wand-like branches bearing 

 loose open sprays of fairly large lavender flowers. 

 I his type is extremely graceful. 



Perhaps the best of all are the many varieties 

 that have been developed from our New York 

 Aster (A. novi-belgii). This type sends up 



leafy stems from three to six feet tall that bear 

 dense masses of large blossoms in all shades of 

 lavender, pink, mauve, purple, gray, white and 

 magenta. It has prowling underground stems 

 that spread rapidly, exhausting the soil about 



24 



it and soon forming tangled unwieldy masses 

 of branches. It is best to keep the novi-belgii 

 Asters down to about six stems, to this end 

 dividing the plants at least every other year,, 

 or cutting out the surplus growth. 



The New England Aster novae-angliae has a 

 stout root stock that increases much less rapidly 

 than the foregoing, but in my garden the plants 

 seed so freely, and the youngsters take such firm 

 hold upon the paths and borders, that they be- 

 come a real nuisance. They are tall and strong 

 in growth and the colors are rich and deep — 

 purple, violet and magenta. 



A small native Aster suitable to rock work 

 and very lovely is offered by Wm. Gillett as 

 Diplopappus linariifolius. 



The latest flowering Asters are the Virginian 

 A. grandiflorus, A. tataricus, and a hybrid of 

 heath-like growth and pale magenta-pink blos- 

 soms called Novelty. These flower in November. 



Not for Little Gardens 



There are certain plants that are best kept 

 out of little gardens; indeed are not wisely admit- 

 ted to any save after due consideration of their 

 propensities. They are those whose growth 

 underground is so rampant, or whose seeding 

 is so prolific, as to make them a menace to choicer 

 less pervasive subjects. None of these plants 

 is devoid of beauty or lacking in usefulness of a 

 sort, but the owner of the small place or suburban 

 lot will have a much happier experience if he 

 extends his hospitality only to those of con- 

 servative habits and who do not grow over stout 

 and unwieldy. 



I can remember very well that my early garden- 

 ing days were made green with the type of plant 

 against which I am inveighing — and there is 

 always this danger threatening the peace of the 

 beginning gardener. Gardening folk are gener- 

 ous and neighborly and it is always a pleasure to 

 help stock the new garden; and the novice accepts 

 eagerly anything that looks green and sturdy. 

 But it is in no wise a kindness to hand over to 

 him plants that will shortly become a pest 

 instead of a pleasure — if they do not quite cure 

 him of his budding enthusiasm for the work. 

 Here is the blacklist and I hope I am not tread- 

 ing upon too many toes: 



All the Perennial Sunflowers save the varie- 

 ties of H. multiflorus, Achillea ptarmiea, Bol- 

 tonia asteroides and B. ladsquama (the dwarf 

 form, nana, is fine), the great Plume Poppy 

 (Bocconia cordata), Hemerocallis flava and 

 H. fulva, both lovely but too strongly spread- 

 ing for small gardens, Bugle Weed (Ajuga), 

 Golden Glow, Polygonum cuspidatum and its 

 variety compactum, Campanula Trachelium 

 and C. Rapunculus (Rampion), varieties of 

 Aster novae-angliae, the great Ox-eye (Buphthal- 

 mum salicifolium), the Silver Thistle (Echinops 

 sphaerocephalus), Iris versicolor and I. pseuda- 

 corus, the Dead Nettle (Lamium maculatum), 

 Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia Nummularia), 

 Ground Ivy (Nepeta Glechoma) — the last three 

 are particularly dangerous in rock gardens — , 

 Oenothera biennis, the pretty Spiderwort 

 (Tradescantia virginica), Comfrey (Symphytum 

 officinalis), Goutweed (Aegipodium podagraria), 

 and the pretty pink-flowered Bindweed 

 (Calystegia pubescens or Convolvulus japonicus). 



Many more could doubtless be added out of 

 the sad experience of others, but these are the 

 plants against which I have waged a losing fight 

 for many years. I think it is quite safe to say 

 that the labor of caring for my garden would be 

 lessened by very nearly half had none of these 

 determined ones been allowed a foot-hold within 

 its walls. 





