December, 1913 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



187 





plentiful here in the South. It is just 

 what is it in New York and New England. 

 I have a big one hanging over my water 

 trough, where my horse drinks, and it 

 revels in the puddle. The blossoms come 

 continuously in great trusses, pure white; 

 while the new stems are as busy as bees 

 getting ready for more flowers. 



The hibiscus, in its herbaceous form, 

 has its representatives in our Northern 

 gardens, but in its shrubby forms it is the 

 glory of Florida. Going below the frost 

 line, we find it in blossom every month 

 of the year. The blossoms, however, last 

 only a single day, but the buds are 

 multitudinous enough to give a daily 

 supply. When the bush is only a 

 foot high it begins to bloom but when it 

 has reached twelve feet, with a diameter of 

 eight, it is a scarlet glory. However the 

 colors are by no means confined to shades 

 of red, there are white, and crimson and 

 salmon, with buff; and there are not less 

 than twenty catalogued sorts — some of 

 them with flowers six or eight inches across. 

 Used either for hedges, or as single speci- 

 mens on the lawns, nothing can surpass 

 this shrub in semi-tropical Florida, unless 

 it be the oleander. 



Most people know the oleander only in 

 its double red and single white varieties. 

 These are grown liberally in the North; 

 where they require house room during the 

 winter. With care not to be over-watered 

 they can be stored in a cellar. But here 

 in Florida the V oleander opens its 



richly variegated leaves 

 and pink flowers. The 

 leaves are broad, and 

 the white borders are 

 conspicuously rich. A 

 pink-flowered variety 

 gives us a very rich 

 shade, and is very rare. 

 The oleander is poison- 

 ous; do not plant it 

 where hungry horses or 

 cattle may nibble it. 

 It is not easy to trans- 

 plant large bushes. 



Once in my life I saw 

 a large shrub, it might 

 be called a small tree, 

 covered with blue flow- 

 in spikes six inches 



It was 

 growers 



called by 

 the sage 

 It haunted my 

 until after search- 



heart to us very 

 generally March, 

 varieties give us 

 perpetual bloom un- 

 in the autumn. I am 

 growing thirteen 

 eties, one of them with 



early in the spring, 



and most of the 



nearly 



ers, 

 long 

 the 

 tree. 

 desire 



ing all the catalogues, I 

 found it at last in that of 

 the late Mr. T. V. 

 Munson, the grape king 

 at Denison, Texas; under 

 the name of Vitex ag- 

 nus-castus , var. incisa, 

 or mint tree" — de- 

 scribed as perpetual- 

 flowering, and producing 

 innumerable " spikes of 

 rich blue, highly scented, 

 mint like flowers, much 

 liked by bees." The leaves are divided 

 like a hand into five or seven finger-like 

 leaflets. There is also a white colored 

 sort, with the same characteristics, of 

 profuse bloom and delicious odor. The 

 whole foliage has the fragrance of a mint 

 bed or sage. It begins to blossom when 



Nothing excels the gorgeous bloom 

 of the hibiscus. It lasts only a single 

 day, but is always in flower 



The flowers of the common elder bush take on a new glory as a foil 

 for the brighter colors of other flowers. 



net more than three feet high, and pro- 

 fusely continues the habit until we have 

 almost a tree. I do not know anything 

 finer for our shrubberies. It is entirely 

 hardy in Florida and with all its unique- 

 ness and attractiveness and wholesomeness, 

 it is for some reason very rare. I find it 

 quite easy to propagate. 



After all I am not quite willing to refuse 

 to place at the head of the whole list a re- 

 markable plant, the crepe myrtle, Lager- 

 stroemia Indica. It is indeed the lilac 

 of the South in effect. There are three 

 colors that I am planting, with slight varia- 

 tions in the shade of the crimson: the pink 

 and the white seem to be established 

 colors. They are equally profuse in bloom, 

 beginning about July first and continuing 

 until October. The flowers come on new 

 stems, which are continuously developing 

 all over the bush. They are huge bunches 

 of very delicately laciniated individual 



flowers. A Northerner will have his 



heart captured at once. 



Of course we shall plant largely of 



citrus shrubs, for they can be grown 

 as shrubs; indeed all young orange orchards, 

 if rightly trimmed, look very much like 

 shrubberies — while the grape fruit rarely 

 grows beyond large shrub size, that is 

 eight or ten feet in diameter. It has 

 also developed very largely the spreading 

 type, while most of the oranges are more 

 erect and stiff. For ornament these shrubs 

 or trees have the great advantage that they 

 are in bloom through March, and frequent- 



