220 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



December, 1910 



What Mgh feeding does for a tomato. The plant 

 on the right was fed with nitrate of soda 



knife I cut it back until the white sap 

 appeared, keeping the end bandaged until 

 it healed over. This reduced the whole 

 height of the plant to about four feet. 



From the beginning it received the or- 

 dinary care of a normal plant, and stood 

 in the living-room, in a bay window having 

 a southeast exposure, where the temper- 

 ature was about 68 degrees. By the end 

 of April tiny leaves began to shoot out from 

 the whole length of the stem, the strongest 

 of these gradually developing into branches. 

 It was taken outdoors when all danger 

 from frost was over. By the end of the 

 summer it was a strong, healthy, bushy 

 plant with sixty leaves. 



A Wonderful Hardy Begonia 



By R. Rtogway, Washington, D. C. 



TUST think of having in the garden 

 ^ a begonia so hardy that each spring 

 the greater part of the new plants which 

 come up have to be weeded out! I have 

 a border of this begonia growing against 

 the north side of the house, where the 

 ground remains frozen during a consider- 

 able part of the winter, only thawing when 

 the general temperature of the air is 

 sufficiently high, the direct sunlight never 

 striking the location. The hardiness of 

 this begonia is probably known to some, 

 but certainly not to the extent it should be. 



A Winter Window Garden 



By Lucy E. Keeler, Ohio 



/^NE of the most satisfying things I 

 ^-^ ever concocted was a window-sill 

 garden made of two cheap, iron shelf-brack- 

 ets screwed to the clapboards. A board 

 the length of the sill and six inches wide 

 was fastened on them, the upper side of 

 the board being about four inches below 

 the sill. Eaves trough was nailed to the 

 front and ends of the board, the pieces 

 having been first flattened and the turned 

 edges being left for the top finish. The 3- 

 inch sides were of tin. In fall the box is 

 filled with hardy plants which keep green 

 or bronze all "winter — myrtle, English ivy, 

 bronze megaseas, thrift, iberis, arabis, 

 stonecrops, house-leeks, polypody, Christ- 

 mas ferns, Hepatica triloba, Indian pride, 

 a dwarf santolena, partridge vine, English 

 daisies and violet cress. Close tufts of 



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bed of hardy begonia, where the plants grow 

 hke weeds 



This rubber plant, once badly frozen, was saved by 

 careful handling 



these were transplanted into very small tin 

 boxes each having a hole punched in the 

 bottom. These filled boxes were arranged 

 in the window box, extra soil rammed 

 between and over them, and crocus, squills 

 and snow-drops planted wherever there was 

 room. The bulbs began to bloom in 

 February. The whole thing is so lovv' that 

 the outside blinds can be easily closed 

 without injury to the plants. 



Bonemeal vs Nitrate of Soda 



By M. W. Deland, Massachusetts 



nPHE accompanying photogiaph is cer- 

 -'- tainly rather amusing. These two 

 tomato plants were set out on the same 

 day; the one on the left had a handful of 

 bonemeal added to the soil about the roots, 

 and the one on the right had a handful 

 of nitrate of soda. The bonemeal plant 

 has four tomatoes; the soda plant has 

 eleven. Which would you rather have? 



Christmas roses that have flowered In Maine for 

 the last twenty years 



A Twenty-year Record With 

 Christmas Roses 



By J. L. M. Willis, Maine 



TV/TOST writers claim that the Christmas 

 -^ ' -'- rose will not grow as far north as 

 Maine, but last year I had especially 

 pleasing results. The little plants began 

 to bloom the last of November and all 

 winter long and well into the spring there 

 was not a day when I could not pick flowers. 

 This, for our cold Northern climate, seems 

 to me especially interesting and I wonder 

 that they are not more generally grown. 

 With the late fall-blooming flowers, such 

 as sweet peas, various varieties of pinks, 

 pentstemons, gaillardias and others; the 

 Christmas rose throughout the winter, 

 and the crocuses, hyacinths and early 

 tulips, I was able to pick a bunch of flowers 

 every day in the year. These Christmas 

 roses have bloomed each season for the 

 last twenty years. 



A Happy-Go-Lucky Garden 



By H. S. Adams, TSTew York 



CLTPSHOD methods of gardening are 

 ^ never to be encouraged; they are to 

 be distinctly discouraged. But they are 

 none the less ine\'itable in this busy world, 

 and, given an approximately good result, 

 the happy-go-lucky gardener is not in- 

 clined to worry much over the fact that 

 the moral side of the thing is all wrong. 



This particular tale of slovenly gardening 

 begins toward the end of the summer of 

 1Q08. Hollyhocks from seed, foxgloves 

 and Canterbury bells from seed were all 

 crying for room in which to grow and there 

 was a numerous family of young sweet 

 Williams from Anne Hathaway's garden, 

 as well as other things, that simply had 

 to be put somewhere. The lettuce bed 

 and other parts of the vegetable garden 

 offered the only relief and there, in neat 

 rows, the young plants were set out, with 

 the proviso that they must be moved in 

 the spring before the vegetable garden 

 was needed. 



It looked easy enough; the plowman 

 would skip that part of the vegetable 

 garden, which could just as well be spaded, 



