20 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



August, 1909 



A bed. of Japanese flowering crab carpeted with heath. The countless white dots in the lawn are English 

 daisies, white, single, half an inch across. (Pyrus floribunda, var. ScheideeTceri) 



protective instincts like helpless children. 

 But they do their work marvelously well. 

 They smother all weeds; they define the 

 walks ; they fill the air with the scent of cloves 

 in June; they are covered with flowers 

 during their season; their silvery foliage is 

 attractive even in winter; and they soften 

 and glorify the lines of garden paths. It is no 

 wonder that Mr. E. T. Cook says (in the 

 "Century Book of Gardening") that they 

 are the most popular of all flowers for edgings. 

 My own impression, however, is that 

 tufted pansies are the favorites in England 

 at the present time. They have one great 

 advantage over pinks in blooming all spring 

 and summer, with the exception of a fort- 

 night's enforced rest. Pinks ! bloom once 

 and are gone until next year. There are 

 several "everblooming" pinks in the cata- 

 logues, but I have never seen any I cared for. 



Either they have poor colors or poor form 

 or else they split their calyces. Doubtless 

 there are many fine pinks I have never seen, 

 but surely tufted pansies bloom longer and 

 they are also available in a wider range of 

 colors — blue, yellow, violet, etc. These 

 tufted pansies, or violas, have smaller 

 flowers than the ordinary r kinds and will 

 actually bloom freely .through our hot sum- 

 mers. Some idea of their charm may be 

 had from the picture on page 21, which, 

 however, shows one of the simple old types 

 having the narrow petals of Viola, cornuta, 

 the chief parent of this race. The latest 

 varieties are decidedly showier, because 

 broader petaled. I expect to see millions 

 of these pansies sold in America every year. 

 The only drawback to them I know of is 

 that they are said to get "sick of the soil" in 

 two or three years, and have to be removed 







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Fancy walking on this velvety moss for a quarter of a mile under beech trees! 



Cliveden, estate of W. W. Astor 



A unique effect at 



or they will give out suddenly. They can- 

 not be regarded as permanent edging 

 material, but they are certainly longer-lived 

 than ordinary pansies, and you can propa- 

 gate by cuttings the one variety you like best. 

 I wish everyone who reads this article would 

 try some tufted pansies in a rose bed next 

 spring. Or if you wish enough to edge a walk 

 and cannot afford to buy the plants, get some 

 seed now and sow in flats in coldframes. 



These, then, are the great edging plants 

 in England — pinks and tufted pansies. 

 For variety they use thrifts, which make 

 neat evergreen sods and bear tidy balls of 

 rosy flowers on long stems; moss pink 

 {Phlox subulata), in refined varieties; rock 

 cress {Arabis albida); an exquisite harebell 

 known as Campanula pusilla, which I fear 

 we can grow only in rockeries, and saxifrages 

 without number. These last we cannot grow, 

 except possibly the London Pride (Saxifraga 

 umbrosa), which seems to me the most valu- 

 able of all because of its evergreen rosettes. 



I think we particularly need white-flowered 

 edging plants that bloom in summer. White, 

 because white is the peace maker in the gar- 

 den. Summer-blooming, because white flow- 

 ers make a garden seem cool and restful. 

 If there is any nurseryman or amateur who 

 has a white-flowered variety of the lemon 

 thyme I wish he would send me some 

 plants for experimentation as I think that 

 would make an ideal edging plant for 

 America — white flowers, summer bloom, 

 evergreen and fragrant foliage. 



FRAGRANT EDGINGS 



This brings me to a fascinating subject 

 — the use of fragrant herbs for edging paths 

 in a flower garden. A garden can hardly 

 be charming without sweet odors and I fancy 

 that some of the fascination of the old 

 Italian gardens is due to their bay, myrtle, 

 and lemon, which makes them ever fragrant. 

 Flowers are scented only when they bloom, 

 but leaves will give forth their odor whenever 

 they are brushed against. Therefore, an 

 evergreen edging plant, with fragrant leaves 

 would be a great advantage, but I fear we 

 shall never have any in the North, except box. 

 Sweetgale is evergreen in England, but not 

 here. Rosemary hedges are common in warm 

 countries, but I doubt if rosemary would be 

 sufficiently hardy or evergreen for northern 

 gardens. The most fragrant evergreen native 

 to the northern United States is the balsam 

 fir, which is obviously unsuited to gardens. 

 Wintergreen would be too low for some gar- 

 dens, and requires shade from the midday 

 sun. Perhaps some genius will give us a 

 dwarf hemlock with foliage more fragrant 

 than the ordinary. 



Lavender is not only fragrant, but ever- 

 green and hardy in England. "Lavender 

 walks" are a famous feature of English 

 gardens. I have seen them four feet high 

 and several hundred feet long. Full 

 grown lavender is too tall for garden use 

 without clipping. However, there is a dwarf 

 variety that minimizes clipping or even 

 renders it unnecessary. Unfortunately, lav- 

 ender is not hardy in the North and we 

 cannot have lavender edgings except as a 



