76 
Two Very Hardy Shrubs 
ie OUR small garden there are two 
shrubs which form a _ splendid con- 
trast when in bloom and can be relied 
upon to renew their beauty year after 
year.. They are the red rugosa rose and 
the mock orange (Philadelphus). A bush 
of the former has been growing in the 
same place for over twenty years, stand- 
ing unharmed by the winters, which are 
often very severe in this section of the 
country. This shrub commends itself par- 
ticularly to the amateur gardener as it is 
beautiful in leaf, free from insect pests, 
and has a perfume like the wild rose. 
After the bewildering blossoming of June 
it will give flowers all the season if prop- 
erly nourished, and in autumn, when the 
leaves turn brown and red, it will cover 
itself with hips which resemble small red 
crab apples. It is particularly adapted 
to exposed situations. 
A large bush of the mock orange grows 
very near the rugosa rose. This bush has 
not been pruned down for years, but has 
had only the dead wood cut out, and 
although it stands at a very exposed, wind- 
swept corner of the garden, it never fails to 
give an abundance of bloom. It has 
attained a height of about twenty feet, and 
so ancient is its appearance that I was once 
asked if it was not a hundred years old, 
the inquirer being rather nonplussed by the 
THE GARDEN 
- reputation.” 
reply that it had grown from a small twig 
which I myself had planted. 
The only care given these shrubs is in au- 
tumn, when we scatter a little manure over the 
grass. This gives nourishment to the plants 
and helps to keep out the frost. The ground, 
however, around the roots is kept clean. 
P. Q., Canada. ANNIE L. JACK. 
The Advantage of Buying Good 
Seed 
poy ”T buy your garden seeds from local 
stores. Buy only from firms of national 
This is clearly the moral to be 
drawn from a bulletin of the United States 
Department of Agriculture which bears the 
innocent title of “The Germination of Veget- 
able Seeds.” But, of course, no Government 
“dast” speak right out in meeting as clearly 
as that. 
However, the department shows that 
“commission” sales are 25 per cent. worse 
even than the seeds which Congressmen give 
away asa part of their graft. (“Commission” 
seeds are the ones in fancy packets which 
you find in every general store in the 
country. They are so called because the 
store-keepers sell them on commission for 
certain big seedsmen who make a specialty 
of this business.) We have every confidence 
in the house that originated this type of 
seed-selling, but there are now twenty-six 
other firms in this special business and it 
is clear that some of them are dishonest. 
The department of Agriculture tried 
2,778 packets of. seeds from commission 
houses and only 62 per cent. germinated. 
The Department politely remarks that 
““many seedsmen rely more on the striking 
appearance of the colored packets than on 
the quality of their contents.” Our own 
rude opinion is that anyone who has n’t sense 
enough to buy his seeds per catalogue from 
a seedsman of national reputation deserves 
to buy all his vegetables and eat them stale. 
New York. W. M. 
The rugosa rose and mock orange are two of the hardiest and most effective shrubs 
MAGAZINE 
SEPTEMBER, 1908 
Thimble Flowers in the North 
and West 
HE thimble-flower was a favorite of the 
lamented young horticulturist, J. H. 
Cowen,of Colorado, who wrote an exception- 
ally interesting account of it for the “‘ Cyclo- 
pedia of American Horticulture,” part of 
which is here reprinted from the article 
“Lepachys’”’ with the permission of the 
publishers: 
“The Lepachys grows two to three feet 
high, has elegantly cut foliage, and bears. 
flowers something like a brown-eyed Susan, 
but the disk is finally cyclindrical and more 
than an inch high, with six or seven oval, 
reflexed rays hanging from the base. In 
a fine specimen these rays are one and 
one-half inches long and nearly one inch 
broad. 
There are five inches or more of naked 
wiry stem between foliage and flower. Typi- 
cally, the rays are yellow, but perhaps the 
most attractive form is var. pulcherrima, 
which has a large brown or brown-purple 
area toward the base of each ray. 
Like the majority of our native Western 
flowers that are cultivated in the Eastern 
states, the plants have reached our gar- 
dens from European cultivators. Meehan 
says it is perfectly hardy in our Northern 
borders, but the English do not regard it 
as entirely safe without some winter 
protection. Moreover, it is one of the 
easiest herbaceous perennials to raise from 
seed, flowering the first year, and it is 
chiefly treated in the Old World as 
an annual bedding plant, the seeds be- 
ing known to the trade at Obeliscaria 
pulcherrima. 
For bedding, the seeds are sown in 
early spring in a hotbed, the seedlings 
pricked off into boxes, hardened off, and 
finally transplanted to the open, only slight 
care being necessary to obtain compact 
bushes about two feet high. Under such 
circumstances the plants flower from June 
to September, and the season may also 
be somewhat prolonged by a later sowing 
in the open. 
This plant deserves trial in our Northern 
borders, where seed can probably be thinly 
sown in the open where the plants are to 
stand, with a fair chance of autumnal 
bloom, the same year. The flowers last 
well in water and should be cut with long 
stems to get the benefit of the delicately 
cut foliage.” 
New York. W. M. 
