The Garden Magazine 



Vol. XIV— No. 1 



Published Monthly 



AUGUST, 1911 



One Dollar Fifty Cents a Year 

 Fifteen Cents a Copy 



[For the purpose of reckoning dates, New York is 

 generally taken as a standard. Allow six days' difference 

 for every hundred miles of latitude.] 



August Work for Future Results 



THE watering, cultivating and liquid 

 feeding that you do in August will 

 be its own immediate reward. But a 

 number of other opportunities should not 

 be neglected simply because their benefits 

 will not accrue for several months. 



People get into the habit of thinking 

 of springtime as the one and only planting 

 season, and of the months from July to 

 October as the period of the harvest. 



Now, the wise gardener reverses this or- 

 der of things; he works while his neighbor 

 looks on — or sits in the shade — and, in 

 return, has vegetable food for at least 

 three of his senses all the year round. 



August is the planting month for two 

 important groups of plants. First, herba- 

 ceous perennials, that wouldn't bloom the 

 first summer even if the seed were sown 

 in April; and second, all the evergreens. 



Planting Evergreens Is Easy 



PROVIDED you save a good big 

 ball of roots, wrap it in burlap and 

 keep it from drying out. You see, you 

 should not prune back an evergreen, so 

 there is no way to lessen the evaporating 

 surface if you seriously reduce the number 

 of feeding roots. 



If your hemlock hedge is getting bare 

 at the base, plant a row of new small 

 trees about a foot in front of it. 



You simply can not move deciduous 

 trees in this weather. But if you foresee 

 an instance where you will have to, some 

 time in the future, root prune now (that 

 is, dig a trench around the trunk several 

 feet away from it) and move the tree next 

 spring. This pruning develops a host of 

 small feeding roots that you can easily 

 handle without injuring them. 



Flowers to Plant, and How 



THE list of hardy perennials is a long 

 and fragrant one. Foxglove, Can- 

 terbury bells, daisies, hollyhocks, all the 

 old time favorites, need only a light mulch 

 of coarse manure over winter. Moreover, 

 in this way you save money at the rate of 

 the difference between five cents for half 

 a hundred seeds, and twenty-five cents for 

 one plant from the nurseryman. 



Sow pansies in their permanent positions 

 for summer bloom; or, to be wintered in a 

 coldframe if for early spring flowers. 



English and Spanish iris, and the 

 Madonna or Annunciation lily need to make 

 a little fall growth, if they are to succeed 

 next spring. Therefore, plant them now. 

 Daffodils, too. 



To Brighten the Home in Winter 



r^\ON'T you rebel, every winter, at the 

 *— ' emptiness of a house without grow- 

 ing flowers, and also at the alternative 

 of buying a few expensive, evanescent, 

 forced plants? Well, then, why don't 

 you plant bulbs and sow seeds now? Have 

 the joy of caring for them and the reward 

 of enjoying them from Thanksgiving to 

 Easter. 



Sow seeds of calceolaria, cineraria and 

 cyclamen and repot the seedlings later. 



Sow mignonette in pots, but don't try 

 to transplant — merely thin it out. 



Dwarf red pepper plants started in a 

 frame or pots will provide a handsome 

 combination of green leaves and crimson 

 pods for December. 



Freesias and Roman hyacinth bulbs will 

 soon be for sale. To get the best order 

 early. Plant at once. The blossoms will 

 enrich the Christmas festivities. 



Bring carnations indoors to pots, boxes 

 or benches in the cool greenhouse. 



Two bulbs, if planted before August 10, 

 will actually bloom this fall. They are the 

 fall crocus (colchicum) and sternbergia. 



The perennial house plants can be in- 

 creased at this time. Bind some moss about 

 the stem of a "leggy" rubber plant, for 

 instance, keep it moist and when roots 

 form cut the stem below the moss and pot 

 your new, stocky plant. 



Keeping Vegetables Growing 



YOU can plant almost as many vege- 

 tables as flowers in August. Some 

 of them will be nipped by the frost, some 

 will have to be gathered very young, and 

 a few may never come to anything. But 

 it is a poor gardener who refuses to run 

 a few risks. 



Beet greens are extremely edible at 

 eight weeks of age, even if the roots are 

 only "nubbins." 



New Zealand spinach will withstand any 

 amount of heat till we can sow the regular 

 fall crop. 



In most gardens all that is needed for 

 newly set celery is plenty of water. You 

 can even sow a little for a very late crop. 



Corn and peas seem doubly delicious 

 in the fall. And even if you fail to harvest 

 them you are out only a few cents. So 

 plant a little of the earliest varieties at 

 once. 



Bush string beans, carrots, turnip- 

 rooted chervil, collards, corn salad, cu- 

 cumbers (for pickling) endive and lettuce, 

 mustard (for salad) parsley, salsify, 

 radishes, kohlrabi and turnips are other 

 crops that realize August planting ideals. 



If you knock together a coldframe over 

 a bit of good soil, you can keep leaf crops 

 growing till snow flies. 



"Worn out" manure from old hotbeds 

 is just the thing for mushroom beds in 

 the cellar. 



Inside the House 



ALL the beauty of the flowers is not 

 outdoors. One of the most fascina- 

 ting summer joys is arranging cut flowers. 

 See how exquisitely some of the coarse 

 wild grasses blend into the background. 

 One of the handsomest decorations I ever 

 saw was composed of the common aspara- 

 gus foliage, ferns, and the long tassels of 

 "love lies bleeding" (Amaranthus caw- 

 datus). 



Scattered Thoughts that Help 



LOOK outside as well as inside your 

 garden for beauty of bush and berry. 

 The velvet plumes of the staghorn sumach, 

 and the bright, fresh fruits of magnolias, 

 early hawthornes, viburnums, elderberries, 

 etc., all carry a note of relief in these dry, 

 dusty days. The "hips" of the rugosa 

 rose are beautiful, too, now and all winter. 

 The black aster beetle is a bother. All 

 you can do is pick him off or perhaps you 

 can let a few hens do it for you. 



A Year Saved 



YOU can save one year by setting straw- 

 berry plants (potted runners from 

 last spring) now, to bear within ten months. 

 Cut away old canes from blackberry and 

 raspberry bushes. Thin new growths to 

 three or four. Pinch these back to three 

 feet, and the laterals a little. 



