December, 1910 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



219 



Another kind of record for the hollyhock — a stalk 

 twelve feet high 



blooming varieties, they were present in 

 the garden for two months. In September 

 were the early pink cosmos and the hardy 

 asters, and then last of all, in October, 

 Lady Lenox, the finest cosmos grown, 

 reaching, when unrestricted, ten or twelve 

 feet of height. 



With but little expense and not an in- 

 ordinate amount of labor my pink and 

 lavender garden bloomed for me nine 

 months of the year. 



A Tomato Crop Worth Raising 



By S. E. Green WAY, Canada 



TN A PLOT less than 25 feet square, 

 -^ bounded by careless, scoffing neighbors, 

 where scrawny chickens scratched by day 

 and tomcats yowled by night, with an 

 eternal prospect of unkempt and barren 

 backyards whichever way you looked, I 

 determined to create a paradise. 



After dragging along content with the 

 mere suggestion of a garden for four years, 

 during which time I dug and raked in the 

 most intractable heavy clay which even 

 now is so hard in the dry time that it 

 scarcely notices the onslaught of pick and 

 shove!, I determined to make the season 

 of iqog bring forth my paradise. In the 

 spring as soon as the frost was out of 

 the ground I dug to the depth of one 

 and a half feet, left it to dry out for two 

 days and then battered down the hard 

 lumps and secured a fair seed-bed. I dug 

 in the cinders from two tons of hard coal, 

 and a large load of well-rotted leaf mold. 

 Our planting time is three to four weeks 

 later than it is in the eastern states. I 

 T3lanted my sweet peas about the first of 

 May, and the other seeds in season. 



Around the entire plot I planted a row 



of large Russian sunflowers. Next to 

 these and one foot away I had previously 

 dropped a row of sweet peas. In the centre 

 of the plot were two clumps of runner beans 

 and around each clump were several 

 clumps of sweet peas. Then without 

 regard to the arrangement I transplanted 

 here and there tomatoes, pansies, stocks, 

 petunias, verbenas, etc., allowing them 

 morning sun and afternoon shade according 

 to requirement. Nothing failed. I trained 

 everything upward, using tall stakes and 

 twine for support. During the first week 

 in September I had 19 Earliana tomato 

 plants 6 feet high; 6 Plum tomato plants 

 7 feet high (all with luscious bunches of 

 ripe fruit); sweet peas 12 feet high; runner 

 beans nearly 20 feet long, running crisscross 

 overhead with great clusters of pods; 

 cucumber vines climbing upward and fully 

 fruited, 8 feet high; and the greatest pro- 

 fusion of flowers, which seemed to thrive 

 in the shade of the taller vegetation, all 

 surrounded by the sunflowers, some of 

 which measured 16 feet to the flower. 

 From the 19 Earliana tomato plants up to 

 September 23, when the first hard frost 

 came, I plucked 250 pounds of fruit of 

 a superb quality. I kept no account of 

 anything save the tomatoes. Of these 

 there was not a single .spoiled or misshapen 

 fruit. If I had been disposed to sell them 

 all I should have had no difficulty in secur- 

 ing 20 cents a pound for them. 



These results were achieved partly by 

 the exceptional length of the season. But 

 I think that the main reason for such 

 splendid growth was the fact that the entire 

 plot was hoed every day during the early 



part of the season and often in the later 

 part. I gave frequent irrigation with 

 water that had passed through a leech 

 of horse manure into which was thrown 

 every three weeks a handful of sodium 

 nitrate, about two pounds in all at a cost 

 of 12 cents, the water being applied 

 plentifully to the soil between the rows, 

 and not immediately around the roots. 

 In this way the roots were encouraged to 

 reach out. 



A Really Tall Hollyhock 



By G., Minnesota 



TV/TY GARDEN last yeai was a great suc- 

 i-^ ^ cess, asters, gaillardia, hardy phlox 

 and cimicifuga, etc., furnishing a profusion 

 of bloom. The season's curiosity was a 

 hollyhock, which grew to the extraordinary 

 height of twelve feet. The photograph 

 was taken on September 25th, and shows 

 what a monster the hollyhock stalk was. 



Renovating a Frozen Rubber 

 Plant 



By M. W., Pennsylvania 



I HAVE a rubber plant about six years 

 old, which was a single stem eight feet 

 high, and very fully covered with leaves 

 to within one foot of the pot. Early last 

 January it was exposed to zero weather, 

 was very badly frozen, and immediately 

 the leaves began to curl up and die. In a 

 week or two there was nothing left but 

 the bare stem, the upper green part of 

 which gradually died, losing its color and 

 feeling pulpy to the touch. With a sharp 



In this 25-ft.-sauare garden the owner grew wonderful crops of tomatoes with beans and flowers besides 



