Quick Results in a Renter's Garden — By c. l. Meller, r 



HOW THE TENANT, UNCERTAIN OF THE DURATION OF HIS OCCUPANCY OF A PLACE, 

 MAY DRAW ON ANNUALS TO CONVERT HIS BACK YARD INTO A GARDEN OF DELIGHT 



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HAVE an annual garden, if you are not 

 sure that you will occupy the same 

 rented place another summer. Say it is 

 a typical city back yard that is available, 

 and one divided into unequal parts by a walk 

 leading from the house to the back fence or 

 alley gate, you can handle it thus: Next to 

 the house, on the wider part, measure off a 

 square the full width from the walk to the 

 side fence. Divide this square into a central 

 round bed and four corner ones with the sides 

 facing the central bed. Sow the remainder 

 of that plot to grass and lay out the narrow 

 side of the yard in rectangular beds. 

 Have just enough paths to bring the flowers 

 within easy reach. 



Then commence spading, the hardest part 

 of all. Turn under as much manure as 

 maybe available; and if none is to be had, 

 spade the ground all the more thoroughly. 

 Almost any soil will grow annuals, provided 

 it is sufficiently worked. 



Hide the fences and shut out buildings 

 as much as possible, and for this morning- 

 glories are excellent. In fair soil they will 

 quickly grow as high as eight feet, and when 

 sown thickly afford an abundance of foliage. 

 With Tom Thumb nasturtiums at the base, 

 these are as effective an annual treatment 

 for a tight board fence as there is. The wild 

 cucumber vine is hardly to be recommended; 



it soon gets unkempt and yellow. Along a 

 picket fence sweet peas do fairly well. 



The treatment of the geometric design 

 must be simple to be really effective. In the 

 central bed, plant cannas, edged with either 

 lobelia or sweet alyssum. Castor beans 

 may take the place of cannas for a bolder 

 effect. By far the most artistic way to treat 

 the corner beds is to sow the same variety 

 of flower in each. This provides not only 

 harmonious, massed color, but uniform 

 height, which should not run over two feet. 

 Petunias give white and crimson until frost; 

 nasturiums have fine yellow, salmon, and 

 red shades, but if already used as a border 

 it is just as well not to repeat; ageratum 

 is a good blue, and Drummond's phlox is 

 a free bloomer with many tones. Aside 

 from annuals, geraniums are always good 

 bedders, though expensive as compared 

 with seeds. They may be used for the 

 triangular beds to fill the middle one instead 

 of cannas or castor beans. 



As for the bit of lawn, this may be con- 

 verted from spaded ground into a sheet of 

 green almost within a month, though a good 

 lawn is really a matter of years. White 

 clover makes a fair lawn, germinates quickly 

 (especially if soaked for a few hours in luke- 

 warm water), and when carefully sown a 

 pound of seed will cover a considerable 



space. I have achieved a tolerable sod with 

 a plentiful sowing of the sweepings from a 

 hay loft. A sod, however inferior, is quite 

 an addition to any garden, yet there are other 

 uses to which this plot of ground might be 

 put. Asters might be grown, for instance. 

 These sown thickly and thinned out properly 

 will yield a profusion of bloom from which 

 even a slight financial return may be derived. 

 I doubt if there is any town with ten thou- 

 sand inhabitants or more where such flowers 

 would not find a ready sale at ten cents a 

 dozen, and the number of dozen that one can 

 cut from a fair-sized bed is really astonish- 

 ing. I have in mind a woman who made 

 a neat little sum from an aster bed in a weed- 

 grown lot next the house she was renting. 



The rectangular beds should be filled 

 with such flowers as fancy dictates. For 

 the best effect, put the lower-growing flowers 

 near the house. Have a bench, or make 

 some other provision, for whatever foliage 

 plants have been growing indoors. Along 

 the alley fence sow a row of sunflowers. 

 Grow the large double varieties that so 

 much resemble huge chrysanthemums. 



This renter's annual garden is feasible, 

 because it has been done, not once, but many 

 times, and worth while because the results 

 of all the work will be evident within the 

 year. 



The chief effect here is from annuals. It is fortunate, indeed, if. as in this case, a few trees already have been planted on the place 



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