Joys and Sorrows of a Trial Garden— By Mrs. Francis King, 



Michigan 



A PRACTICAL SCHEME FOR KEEPING UP-TO-DATE WITH THE NEW VARIETIES IN THE FLOWER GARDEN AND, 

 AT THE SAME TIME, AVERTING DISAPPOINTMENTS OR WASTING EFFORTS ON EFFECTS THAT "DON'T ARRIVE' 



nPHE three" indispensable adjuncts of a 

 -'- good flower garden, when considering 

 its upkeep, are in the order of their im- 

 portance: a tool-house well stocked, a 

 good supply of compost, and space for 

 a trial garden. In planting for color 

 effect the trial garden is a necessity. The 

 space for it may be small: no matter; 

 plant in it one of a kind. The gardener 

 happy in the possession of the visualizing 

 sense, may take the one plant and in his 

 or her imagination readily see its effect as 

 disposed in rows, groups, or large masses. 



My own trial garden space is very 

 small; and my idea has been from the 

 first to secure plants for it in multiples of 

 four, if possible according to size. The 

 formal flower garden happens to be ar- 

 ranged alike in all four quarters of its 

 plan, and this habit of balanced planting 

 makes the trying out of eight or sixteen 

 of a kind a really economical thing in the 

 end. If the plants please, and the colors 

 form an agreeable combination with 

 others already in the garden, their removal 

 in the autumn from trial-garden rows to 

 certain spots in the garden proper is 

 sim.ple. 



A portion of the trial garden is kept 

 for seed, and the balance for small col- 

 lections of bulbs or plants; except so 

 much space as is reserved for the fours, 

 eights and sixteens mentioned above. Of 

 Crambe cordifolia for example, I should 

 never plant more than four, owing to its 

 great size and spreading habit of growth, 

 while of a dwarf hardy phlox eight should 

 be the least. It occurs to me often that 

 some of us underestimate the enormous 

 value of this wonderful plant. Sure to 

 bloom as is the sun to rise and set, varying 

 in its height as few other flowers do, with 

 a range of wonderful color unsurpassed, 

 perhaps unrivalled, by any hardy flower, 

 the gardener's consolation in a hot, dry 

 August, when it maketh the wilderness of 

 the midsummer for- 

 mal garden to blos- 

 som as the rose — 

 there is a delightful 

 combination of cer- 

 tainty and beauty 

 about it which can- 

 not be over-praised. 

 Forbes, the great 

 Scotch grower, in his 

 last Hst gives six 

 pages of fine type 

 to this flower. It 

 is like a clock in 

 its day of bloom, 

 another great point 

 in its favor. I have, 

 for instance, three 

 varieties of white 

 which follow each 



other as the celebrated sheep over the 

 wall, each brightening as the other goes 

 to seed. No lovelier thing could be 

 conceived than a garden of phloxes, 

 a perfect garden of hardy phloxes; in 

 fact, an interesting experiment if one 

 had time and space for it would be a garden 

 made up entirely of varieties of phlox; 

 beginning with the lovely colors now 

 obtainable in the P. suhulata group, next 

 the fine lavenders of P. divaricata, then an 

 interim of good green foliage till Miss 

 Lingard of the P. decussata section made 

 its appearance, to be followed by the full 

 orchestra of the general group of violets 

 and purples (basses); mauves, lavenders 

 and pinks (violas, 'cellos and brasses) and 

 the range of whites (flutes and violins). 

 At the close of this concert of phlox-color 

 the audience must leave the garden. The 

 pity is that August is its last hour. The 



New columbines ■ Aauilegia) with larger flowers than 

 had been seen before 



Nothing in the trial garden gives more pleasure than the dafiodils. Flora 



216 



strains of glorious music, however, follow 

 one over the winter snows. 



But this ramble has carried me far 

 afield. To return to the trial garden; 

 heucheras in the following varieties were 

 admitted to this place last faU: brizoides, 

 gracillima, Richardsoni, splendens, Pluie 

 de Feu and Lucifer. They flourished 

 superbly, although their little roots had 

 been subjected to the test of a two weeks' 

 journey by sea and land from an English 

 nursery to Michigan. The flower spikes 

 of these hybrid heucheras were thirty- 

 two inches high by actual measurement! 

 Another year, when well estabhshed, 

 they should send up even longer spikes. 

 Their colors vary from very rich coral- 

 red to pale salmon, but invariably on the 

 right side of pink — the yellow rather 

 than the blue. This encourages me to 

 think of them in connection with sweet 

 William Sutton's Pink Beauty (Newport 

 pink). Next year I hope to see the 

 heucheras' tall delicate sprays emerging 

 from' the flat lower masses of the others' 

 bloom, since they flower simultaneously. 

 Long after the sweet William has gone 

 to its grave upon the dust heap, however, 

 the heucheras continue to wave their 

 lace-like pennants of bright color. I hardly 

 know of any plant which has so long a 

 period of bloom. The only heucheras 

 familiar to me before were the common 

 species H. sanguinea and the much- 

 vaunted variety Rosamunde. While these 

 are very beautiful, they have not with me the 

 height nor the generally robust appearance 

 necessary for full effect in mass planting. 

 The leaves of H. Richardsoni (which are, 

 as Miss Jekyll points out, at their best 

 in spring, with the bronze-red color,) make 

 a capital ground cover below certain daffo- 

 dils and tulips, and contrast well with 

 foliage of other tones which may neighbor 

 them in the late summer. These heucheras 

 are not common enough in our gardens 

 or in simple borders. 

 Their brilliant ap- 

 pearance joined to 

 the long flowering 

 period makes them 

 garden plants of rare 

 quality. Let me 

 suggest placing one 

 of the brighter varie- 

 ties before a good 

 group of white Can- 

 terbury bells with 

 the same pink sweet 

 William already 

 mentioned near by. 

 By "near by" I 

 mean really close 

 by, no interfering 

 spaces of earth to 

 wuson on the right injure the effect. I 



