November, 1913 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



143 



afford a brick or stone wall around our 

 large lot even had we considered it ad- 

 visable to put it there. Anyway in our 

 little American towns these walls look sel- 

 fish and inhospitable. But we set to 

 work to secure by shrubbery the seclusion 

 we coveted. How well we succeeded may 

 be seen from a picture taken outside the 

 hedge along the much travelled street, 

 and another just inside it — near to the 

 throng but not a part of it. 



The hedge is not a stiff, uncompromising 

 row of a single kind of shrub, as one might 

 think from the photograph of the outside 

 of it. It is rather a succession of artistic- 

 ally arranged clumps of shrubbery of all the 

 varieties which will grow in this climate. 

 Through this hedge, which is about two 

 hundred feet long, the passer-by can get an 

 occasional vista which creates the desire to 

 enter and enjoy the quiet beauty and rustic 

 seats of one part of it, or to take a hand in 

 a croquet or tennis match in another. 



The expense of this protection has not 





M lt 



On the public street outside the hedge 



We can look into the world 



A Shade Loving Plant 



JACOB'S ladder {Polemonium replans), 

 *■* mentioned in The Garden Magazine 

 for June, 191 2, as a shade loving plant, is 

 indifferent as to soil in Northeast Pennsyl- 

 vania. It does, if anything, better on loam 

 than on gravel or leaf mold, but it will live 

 and flower well anywhere when given shade, 

 or plenty of water instead of shade. It 

 relishes a good sprinkling of nitrate of soda 

 in March , or nitrate in water at any season. 

 It flowers to a day with the old-fashioned 

 Narcisius poeticus, which will stand half- 

 shade reasonably well; but the narcissus, 

 so pretty coming through the polemonium 

 clumps, dies under nitrate. The secret of 

 raising Polemonium reptans is to sow the 

 seed before it is fairly ripe and without 

 a day's drying. Self-sowing is best unless 

 the ground must be kept stirred for some 

 other plant. Seed gives low germination, 

 because it is a seed not armored by Nature 

 against growth. By E. S. T., Penna. 



been large. We have added a few shrubs 

 each year and have made use of cuttings 

 as much as possible. Not only have we 

 secured the delights of privacy, but our 

 children are being brought up with a 

 knowledge and love of outdoors and growing 

 things which they could not have gained 

 so easily and unconsciously in any other 

 way, for every new shrub has been hailed 

 with delight and its growth carefully 

 watched and noted. 



The father is a busy professional man 

 with little time for home life, but the family 

 bond is strengthened when, after each 

 meal, in favorable weather, the whole fam- 

 ily, with the dog and cat bringing up the 

 rear, walk about in the grounds and take 

 note of the progress and needs of the trees, 

 and shrubs, and plants. We could not take 

 this systematic and united interest in them 

 had they not been planted with a special de- 

 sign and for a definite purpose — that of se- 

 curing privacy and beauty for the home nest. 



Near to the throng but not a part of it 



