20 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



Mat, 1909 



4. Then select a carpeting plant for the 

 edging, making sure that it has perfect 

 foliage. If the centre-piece is bare or 

 shabby at the base, choose an edger high 

 enough to screen this fault. You can have 

 a different kind of bulb under the edging. 



THE BEST CENTRE-PIECES 



The late or Chinese peonies are the best 

 for centre-pieces because they are the longest 

 lived perennials that can be obtained in 

 many colors. They generally bloom in 

 early June in the North. I would reject 

 columbines, European peonies, sweet Will- 

 iams, foxgloves, larkspurs, poppies, Japan 

 iris, bee balm, and most varieties of phlox. 



The best perennials for the purpose, in 

 my opinion, are: 



much room. Therefore, bulbs are best, as 

 a rule. I would reject hyacinths and 

 early tulips because they are not permanent 

 enough; also English and Spanish iris. 

 The best, in my opinion, are: 



Crown imperial 



. Early April 



Daffodils . 



Late April 



Poet's narcissus 



May 



Darwin tulips 



May 



Madonna lily 



June 



Lilium elegans . 



• July 



Lilium Henryi . 



Aug. 



Lilium, speciosum 



Sept. 



Bleeding heart . 

 Peach-leaved bellflower 

 Gas plant . 

 Japanese balloon flower 

 Miss Lingard phlox . 

 Swamp rose mallow . 

 Japanese anemone 

 Subsessile veronica 

 Hardy chrysanthemums 



I think we ought to use 

 bedding, as the English 



Early May 



Mid-June 



June-July 



July-Aug. 



July-Oct. 



August 



September 



Aug-Sept. 



Sept. -Nov. 



low shrubs for 

 often do. For 



THE BEST CARPETING PLANTS 



Carpeting plants should do three things: 

 (1) hide every inch of soil; (2) furnish at- 

 tractive foliage for seven months; (3) bear 

 some interesting flowers. It is possible to 

 carpet the whole of a bed, but there is no 

 point in doing it if the shrubs or perennials 

 in the centre would hide them. Conse- 

 quently, the edge of the bed is all that needs 

 carpeting. However, it is often a good 

 plan to fill every inch of a bed with small 

 bulbs like crocuses, glory of the snow, or 

 scillas, which bloom in March and April 

 before the bushes put forth their leaves. 



I suspect that tufted pansies or violas 



Senecio Clivorum, which has bold foliage and yellow flowers. These leaves are often two feet across. 

 Others of this class are the ornamental rhubarbs, Crambe, Senecio Biebersteinii, etc. 



(1) they are more permanent than peren- 

 nials; (2) they are a pleasant change from 

 the flatness of ordinary bedding; (3) some 

 of them have brilliant autumn foliage in 

 addition to their flowers. The best shrubs 

 for this purpose, in my opinion, are those 

 with arching stems that meet the grass. 

 The following are all of this type, and the 

 dates from September to March mostly 

 refer to flowers or berries: 



will become the most popular plants for 

 covering the ground because they bloom all 

 spring and summer (except for an enforced 

 rest of about ten days) and they have a 

 great range of colors. 



There are fully 100 hardy perennials 

 suitable for edging and carpeting. Among 

 them are: 



Magnolia stellata 



. March 



Forsythia suspensa . 



April 



Spiraza Thunbergii 



May 



SpircBa Van Houttei . 



May 



Deutzia gracilis 



May 



Philadelphia Lemoinei 



June 



Stephanandra flexuosa 



June 



RegePs privet 



June -July 



Rhus copallina 



• July 



Blue spirea 



Sept. 



Yellowroot 



Sept. -Oct. 



Symphoricarpos racemosus . 



Sept. -Nov. 



Berber is Thunbergii 



Sept-Mar. 



THE BEST FILLERS 



Adonis Amur ensis 



. March 



Russian violets . 



. March 



Iris cristata 

 Iris pumila 

 Goldentuft 

 Moss pink . 

 Arabis albida 

 Ajuga Genevensis 

 Tufted pansies . 

 Cerastium tomentosum 



April 

 April 

 April-May 

 April-May 

 May 

 May-June 

 May-Sept. 

 June-July 



Achillea tomentosa 



June-July 



Anemone Canadensis . 



June-Sept. 



Carpathian harebell . 

 Coral bells . . 

 Hardy leadwort . 



. • July 

 July-Aug. 

 Sept-Oct. 



Napoleon III. pink 



June-Oct. 



For filling in between the most important 

 plants we must have something that grows 

 higher than the centre-piece without taking 



THE FOURTH CROP 



Underneath the carpeting plant it is 

 perfectly practical to have a crop of bulbs. 



Indeed, bulbs never look their best when 

 growing out of bare earth. They are far 

 prettier when seen against a background 

 of foliage that hides the soil entirely. These 

 carpeting plants are so shallow-rooted that 

 they do not exhaust the soil. If you have 

 lilies in the centre of the bed, you can 

 have an edging of daffodils or tulips. If 

 you have tulips or daffodils in the centre 

 you can have spring or autumn crocuses for 

 an edging. 



In this way it is easy to get flowers at 

 four different seasons. If each one lasts a 

 fortnight you will have eight weeks of 

 bloom from hardy flowers. Indeed, I 

 believe it possible to have three months of 

 bloom in a hardy bed and attractive foliage 

 for seven months without the expense of 

 annual digging and replanting. 



GAINING TWO OR THREE MONTHS 



Anyone can make a hardy bed look at- 

 tractive two or three months longer than 

 the best bed of tender plants in the world. 

 There are two whole months in spring, or 

 from March 15th to May 15th, when hardy 

 plants will bloom while tender ones would 

 be killed by frost. This one fact is reason 

 enough why we should try nine times to get 

 a hardy combination before falling back on 

 tender plants, because this is time when 

 there is the greatest heart-hunger for 

 flowers. 



Among March and April bloomers there 

 are Russian violets, the Japanese Adonis, 

 the dwarf-crested iris, golden tuft, and moss 

 pink. Under these we can grow snow- 

 drops, glory-of-the-snow, and scillas, getting 

 two crops of flowers before the ordinary 

 flower beds are even planted, and this, too, 

 without such extravagant methods as we see 

 in the Boston Public Gardens, where 

 everything is potted, forced under glass, 

 and then set out. 



Among the best October-blooming or 

 frost-resisting flowers are pompon chry- 

 santhemums, the Napoleon III. pink, gail- 

 lardias, and nine kinds of hardy asters. 

 Under the edging plants you can put three 

 kinds of autumn-blooming crocuses and 

 maintain a succession from September 

 almost to Thanksgiving. 



POINTS TO REMEMBER 



In conclusion, it seems to me that there 

 are only two positions of the first impor- 

 tance where formal beds are really needed, 

 viz., near the house and in the garden. 

 For the first position the noblest plants are 

 the broad-leaved evergreens, especially 

 American holly, mountain laurel, and rho- 

 dodendrons, because these are attractive 

 the year round. 



In the garden, however, we want more 

 color, and for that we have hitherto relied 

 chiefly upon tender plants. The great 

 lesson that England has to teach us is 

 that we can now rely chiefly upon hardy 

 plants which are more harmonious, digni- 

 fied, and permanent, cost less to main- 

 tain, remain attractive two months longer, 

 and save us the ugliness and expense of 

 annual digging. 



