Bringing Wild Flowers Into the Garden— By Elsie McFate, 



SOW SEEDS OF THE NATIVES AND GIVE THEM THE SAME TREATMENT AS THE EXOTICS 

 AND YOU WILL HAVE STRONG, ENDURING PLANTS — KINDS THAT GIVE GOOD RESULTS 



Pennsyl- 

 vania 



PHE wish to add the wild flowers of 

 ■*■ the wood and field to the hardy 

 border inside the garden is common to 

 many of us, but the realization would ap- 

 pear to be beset with difficulties if we are 

 to judge from the failures seen. These 

 are all due to starting on a wrong tack, and 

 I have proved that the wild flowers can be 

 successfully introduced and that they will 

 grow as vigorously as anything else. The 

 wrong method is by going into the wild 

 and digging up entire plants whenever 

 they are seen. The right way is by going 

 back to first principles and starting your 

 plants from seed. Moreover, it is easy 

 to obtain quantities in this way *and the 

 native haunts are not desecrated or van- 

 dalized. 



I owe no apology to my friend the botan- 

 ist. Together we climb the Pennsylvania 

 mountains very pleasantly until he shuts 

 between the leaves of his herbarium the 



lovely, breathing flowers about him. My 

 specimens — alack — are "introduced 

 into cultivation." 



Public favor is fast reclaiming many 

 beautiful flowers, hitherto known only 

 as flowers "common in waste places of the 

 United States of America." Many wild 

 flowers are most beautiful under cultivation ; 

 but there are conditions which govern their 

 common use. They must be propagated 

 from seed, layers or division, grown under 

 cultivation, given a sturdy constitution 

 and finally moved in good clumps to their 

 permanent places in the border. My 

 experience is that a hotbed is unsuit- 

 able for the germination of wild-flower 

 seed. 



I prefer to sow the seed in flats in Febru- 

 ary or March, placing the boxes in well 

 protected coldframes that have been kept 

 well covered at night and during very cold 

 days with straw mats. I use an ordinary, 



light, open seed bed soil just as is common- 

 ly employed for celery, tomatoes, etc. A 

 slight frost in the frame will not kill the 

 seedlings if they are properly hardened. 

 Seeds sown in this manner produce plants 

 of the most vigorous constitution. 



During "open" weather the seedlings 

 are "pricked out" into the frames from the 

 boxes and by the beginning or middle of 

 April are in fit condition to be placed in 

 open ground. In this manner I have 

 grown wild flowers from seed for many 

 years and although propagation by divi- 

 sion offers an easier method of increasing 

 stock, I always find more vigorous plants 

 are obtained from seed. 



It is not wise to buy plants of this char- 

 acter in pots. This is the most unnatural 

 and disastrous way a wild flower can be 

 handled. I quote from Miss Jekyll: "I 

 have a great dislike to growing hardy 

 flowers in pots. The roots become pain- 



Into such an informal border as this, our native plants can be introduced as fancy may dictate. Here they will develop without hampering restraint and will 



take on a beauty and vigor unknown in the field 



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