76 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



September, 1910 



A Wail from a Wee Garden 



THE articles which one reads on color, suc- 

 cession, etc., in the " small garden " are, 

 to quote Mr. Dooley, "inthrestin', but not con- 

 clusive, as Dorsey said to the Polack who thought 

 he could lick 'im." One article says, "My garden 

 path began in a very small way; . . . it is 218 

 ft. long, . . ." and continues, airily, "I always 

 grow hundreds and hundreds of foxgloves and 

 Canterbury beUs." Another speaks of a small 

 garden, stating that one of his bulb beds is 200 ft. 

 long by six to twelve feet wide, another eighty feet 

 long by six feet wide, and a tulip bed thirty-four 

 feet one way by twenty-four feet the other. 



My garden, entire, is 56 x 36 ft., with the addition 

 of a strip two feet wide along the fence (100 feet) for 

 daffodils. These, in fact, are the only plants I 

 have ever counted by the hundred. 



The irritating thing about "garden experiences" 

 and "garden books" is the fact that all the writers 

 talk in terms beyond my grasp: "Have a mass of 

 several hundred Emperor daffodils; " " fifty Lilium 

 candidum, combined with a hundred Delphinium 

 ccelestinum and one or two hundred of the lower 

 growing dark blue delphiniums;" "allow a drift of 

 Darwin tulips to come up through a mass of ever- 

 green Iberis." I can't afford more than six can- 

 didum lilies at once, or perhaps a dozen larkspurs 

 — and I do not want to specialize in my tiny garden. 

 I want "a few of each" — flowers to cut, flowers 

 to make gay color all summer, flowers for effect and 

 variety, for a small space, small price, and a one- 

 woman-power machine. 



I buy my plants, at the boldest, by the half-dozen. 

 Once I bought ten phlox, all at once! Six is a great 

 number; three is rather extravagant; one, we trust, 

 "will divide." I don't buy, when I can "swop." 

 I beg, hunt, trade, and steal (from deserted houses 

 and the wayside). It is lots of fun, but sometimes, 

 when one's soul longs for "drifts" and "masses," 

 it grows a bit monotonous. But my garden is gay. 

 I do not put magenta next to orange-color, nor 

 General Chanzy phlox beside bee-balm; but I had 

 ninety-five different kinds of flowers on my wee 

 patch last season, and they were lovely. I did not 

 know the exact colors of some of the flowers when 

 I sowed the seed. Newport Scarlet larkspur, 

 which I trustingly put next to Scarlet Lightning, 

 turned out a wonderful rose pink, but it harmonized 

 with the scarlet, and — always remembering the 

 blessed blending power of green — it was really a 

 successful planting. The whole garden blazed. 



I made a lot of mistakes, but chiefly in leaving 

 too much bare space and too much green. I don't 

 think any of the colors swore violently. I exercised 

 reasonable, decent color sense, or tried to, in 

 planting, but did not scheme much, and while "the 

 de\'il whispered behind the leaves, 'It's pretty — 

 but is it Art?' " still, for a small, blossomy garden, 

 boasting no shade at all, and cared for chiefly 

 by one small woman, it was a beauty and a joy. 



If I had one little flower bed, I'd rather grow 

 gold button, cornflowers, sweet William, oriental 

 and California poppies, Scarlet Lightning, bee- 

 balm and mignonette, than use up the same amount 

 of good ground on a horrible artistic blue succes- 

 sion (as I have seen suggested), of morning glories, 

 cornflowers, and ageratum! That's Art, but is it 

 pretty? 



Of course, when one talks in hundreds and plans 

 in acres, it is a different thing. But for small fry, 

 who garden in the back yard, and then with limita- 

 tions, a plague on too much "color scheming! " 



Long Island. Mary Yoitngs. 



Chance Eflfects of Spraying 



THE excellent table of spray materials in the 

 June, 19 10, number of The Garden 

 Magazine reminds me of certain effects, good 

 and bad, which this spring's work has shown in 

 my garden: 



1. A long delphinium border between two fruit 

 trees bordering the vegetable plot was nearly 

 ruined with "blacks" last year. This spring, in 

 spraying the trees for San Jose scale with the 

 standard lime-sulphur wash, all but the middle of 

 this bed was well wet with the preparation. This 

 was about March 10, before the delphiniums had 

 come up. Only the middle of the bed was not 

 sprinkled. At present, only the middle of the bed 

 shows "blacks," and there the disease is so bad that 

 persistent use of Bordeaux hardly does any good. 

 The sprayed parts of the bed are free. Is it not 

 possible that the seeds of this disease live over 

 winter on the old stalks and on the surface of the 

 ground ? 



2. Hellebore tea, brewed with boiling water and 

 set by till cold, then diluted to make one table- 

 spoonful of powder to one gallon water, is the most 

 economical form of this insecticide. It does not 

 burn foliage. 



3. Cowslips, polyanthus, and auriculas are so 

 built that raindrops drain from the leaf-blades into 

 the fleshy crown of the plant. For this reason any 

 arsenical spray or powder is gradually fatal to a 

 bed of these plants. The mineral works down 

 and cannot drain or wash away until it has corroded 

 most of the crown. 



4. Lime-sulphur wash put upon flowering 

 shrubs early in March destroyed the first buds of 

 German irises in an adjoining bed. The plants 

 were not hurt, budded two lateral sprouts at once, 

 and grew normally. But as the first or terminal 

 sprout of a German iris makes the flower stalk, the 

 spra)'ed plants have no flowers this year. A piece 

 of burlap would have saved the bloom. 



5. We cannot use poisoned bran-mash here in 

 our town garden because of our tame and too con- 

 fiding songbirds; we would poison more of them 

 than of the cut-worms. Instead we have tried 

 putting the cut-worms "off the scent." As they 

 are night feeders and must rely greatly upon smell 

 to find their favorite foods, a tremendous, unclassi- 

 fied, unappetizing odor ought to bewilder the 

 worm. Common white moth balls are all a bad 

 smell should be; and they are insoluble in rainy 

 weather. Common white moth balls do bewilder 

 the worm, so far. Two or three balls pressed into 

 the loose soil around a dahlia sprout, a tomato or 



egg-plant stem, five or six in a hill of lima beans; 

 a handful scattered in the iris bed — these have 

 absolutely prevented the usual midnight suppers 

 of these scoundrels. 



Pennsylvania. E. S. Johnson. 



Practical Ideas from England 



THE English people are very fond of the gigantic 

 members of the lily family known as Ere- 

 murus, and I have never known an American who 

 was not greatly impressed at the first glimpse of 

 these noble plants. For they tower up to a height 

 of eight feet and bear literally hundreds of lily- 

 like flowers in racemes that are three or four feet 

 long. The indi\'idual flowers may be pink, yellow, 

 or white and are an inch or two in diameter. 



Eremuri appeal so powerfully to the imagination 

 and emotions that I wonder no one has tried to 

 set forth the effect they have. Tom Moore could 

 have done it in Lalla Rookh, if he had only known 

 of the marvelous apparition these mystical and 

 aspiring flowers make in Persia and the Himalayas. 

 Their rate of gro^^th ought to pass into a proverb. 

 One of the joyous signs of returning spring is the 

 way asparagus heaves up the earth. But you 

 should see Eremurus do it! Its gigantic fist forces 

 its way through the surface in a single night, and the 

 next morning you may see the earth thrown tumult- 

 uously aside. 



It is fortunate that Eremuri can be kept for many 

 years, but their culture is very peculiar. The 

 roots are expensive and must be bought in August 

 or September. They are very fleshy and brittle 

 and are arranged in a circle, like a ring of carrots. 

 Roots -of flowering size may cost $2 or S3, but this 

 is not unreasonable when yoa consider that it. 

 takes about si.x years to raise them from seed. The 

 roots must be protected in winter from the cold 

 and rain by a mound of ashes or a water-tight bo.x 

 filled with dry leaves. Desert plants from Asia 

 start into growth too early in spring. The game 

 is to keep them cool and dry until danger of frost 

 is past. But if you cannot keep them back, be 

 prepared to cover the buds, which are very tender, 

 in spite of their gigantic size. 



Another weak point about the Eremuri is that 

 after blooming in spring the leaves dry up and 

 disappear. Thus they may leave an awkward 

 gap in the border, and an ignorant laborer is almost 

 sure to ruin them by hoeing or spading what seems 

 to be an empty spot. But skilled amateurs and 

 professional gardeners should be able to devise 

 several methods of avoiding such troubles. Those 

 who do not employ skilled labor would better plant 

 Eremuri in separate beds. 



New York. W. M. 



A colony of Ererauri in an English, garden 



