60 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



September. 1911 



the inner vision of what will be some day 

 and to take joy in what the present gives 

 of good things. I hope I shall be changing 

 things in my garden as long as I live. A 

 large part of the pleasure it gives is the 

 joy of doing — of working, and I wish 

 never to be without that. 



To people who employ others to do their 

 garden work this is not addressed. I do 

 not envy them, nor should I wish to have 

 a garden in which the work was done by 

 any one but myself. This pleasure in 

 making the garden by one's self is perhaps 

 the greatest factor in that complex psy- 

 chological state of garden love, and this 

 again is a strong argument for the small 

 home garden as opposed to the art exhibit 

 garden of color harmonies. The work 

 should not be greater than a busy profes- 

 sional man can do in his hour or half hour 

 of physical exercise. My own yard is 

 three hundred and thirty feet long by a 

 hundred and thirty at one end, sloping 

 to less than a hundred at the other. The 

 house stands on an elevation at the north 

 end surrounded by old apple trees. The 

 garden separated from a lawn by a lilac- 

 hedge slopes to the south ; the flower-garden 

 is about seventy-five feet square, then at 

 the lowest end of the yard ioo x 50 ft. are 

 given up to vegetables, separated from the 

 flower garden by a grape trellis. The 

 vegetable garden supplies a family of seven 

 throughout the Spring and Summer. The 

 flower-garden is a mass of bloom throughout 

 the months from March to October with 

 occasional earlier and later patches of 

 flowers. During these months the house 

 is abundantly supplied and the demand 



made in this way is no slight one. Great 

 quantities are also given away. With 

 the exception of a few days in early Spring 

 or for some unusually heavy piece of work 

 requiring two workers, I have done practi- 

 cally all the work as my regular recreation 

 in place of tennis, golf or walking. In 

 every way I have been better physically 

 for it and I feel that every summer spent 

 at garden labor is a year of life gained. 

 As to the relative amount of pleasure 

 there is no comparison, the favor all being 

 on the side of gardening. It is the great 

 antidote for the worry and irritation to 

 which the strenuous life of the professional 

 man makes him so prone. Not only does 

 the gardener himself reap the benefit 

 but his family and associates as well. 

 The garden is a great humanizing factor. 

 As an element in the education and charac- 

 ter development of young children it holds 

 in my estimation the very highest place. 

 All of these things argue for the home-gar- 

 den in which the work is done by the man 

 of the house assisted by his family. 



Our garden is essentially a home-garden 

 and not a show place. We plant in it 

 the flowers we love, each one in abundance. 

 These are chiefly the so-called "old-fash- 

 ioned" garden perennials and annuals, the 

 Spring flowering bulbs, corn-flowers, pop- 

 pies of all kinds, peonies, iris of all kinds, 

 rocket, columbines, larkspurs, coreopsis, 

 lilies in variety, fox-gloves, campanulas, 

 daisies, snapdragons, mignonette, gypso- 

 phila, stocks, sweet William, pinks, holly- 

 hocks, mallows, nasturtiums, marigolds, 

 gaillardias, asters, zinnias and hardy chrys- 

 anthemums. 



The planting is made with but little 

 reference to color contrasts except in 

 a few instances and only when it does 

 not interfere with the rule of the garden 

 which is to have something in bloom in 

 every part of the garden all the while. New 

 things and novelties we try all the time, 

 looking for some new flower friend worth 

 while. We even try to produce new varie- 

 ties of our own — on a very small scale. 

 Exchanging with other garden-lovers adds 

 to the store and to the fun. 



To articles like those of Miss Jekyll, 

 Mrs. King and others we of the yard may 

 turn for pleasure and inspiration, but 

 their way of doing is not for us, even if 

 it be the most desirable way of gardening, 

 which I sometimes doubt. Who wishes 

 a Whistler nocturne in silver and gray in 

 his dining room! Who wishes to hear the 

 "Liebes-tod" every day! There are some 

 who take it every morning as a pianola- 

 accompaniment to coffee and toast. Not 

 so the true music lover! Who then would 

 wish a "white" garden or a "pink" one 

 or even a "mauve garden!" Occasionally 

 one might wish silently and unobserved to 

 creep into such a harmony of color garden 

 for a necessary soul catharsis. But who 

 would wish to stay there always! Amer- 

 ican life needs now more than anything 

 else the development of shut in, enclosed 

 yard gardens in which a family of children 

 may be brought up in close association 

 with flowers and all growing things — to 

 obtain there that insight into the mystery 

 of life, that balance and poise of mind that 

 can come only from the close contact with 

 the earth and nature. 



The Fascinating Beauty of Some Cape Bulbs-By A. Herrington, i\ 



A GROUP OF PLANTS THAT WILL GIVE STRIKING AND UNUSUAL COLORS AT A SEASON WHEN 

 OTHER BULBS ARE OUT OF FLOWER— SOME WINDOW GARDEN POSSIBILITIES FOR THE AMATEUR 



THE South African, or "Cape" bulbs 

 are spoken of as distinct from the 

 "Dutch" bulbs because they form a dif- 

 ferent cultural unit. Broadly, they re- 

 quire light, not darkness when rooting, 

 and they make their growth during winter, 

 resting in summer. They need to be 

 watered at all times when their foliage 

 is above ground and to be dried off entirely 

 as the foliage ripens. It is just because 

 they need so much watering that so many 

 window gardeners ' succeed with some of 

 this group. That they have not become 

 popular is no doubt due to the fact that 

 they cannot be merely stuck in the ground 

 and left to shift for themselves. 

 They just lack the essential hardiness 

 that would make them permanently adap- 

 table for planting in beds and borders. 

 If you love plants for what they are, and 

 for the charm and interest they possess, 

 apart from any consideration as to their 

 amenability for use in the stereotyped 

 methods of bulb planting, you will find 

 among South African bulbs a new field 



to exploit, new types of flower beauty 

 worthy of your best efforts. 



I particularly commend them to those who 

 have gardens in the South and West, where 

 killing frosts rarely occur, and for thousands 

 of gardens possessing an ordinary green- 

 house or frames that afford protection 

 from actual freezing. Where frost can be 

 excluded, Cape bulbs are a easy possibility. 



THE BLUE AFRICAN LILY 



There surely is no more beautiful blue- 

 flowered plant than the Agapanthus or blue 

 African lily, yet it is a rarity in American gar- 

 dens, although it is hard to imagine why it 

 should be so. It is capable of most effective 

 use in tubs or great pots to dispose on ter- 

 race or beside garden walks as we, for exam- 

 ple, now use hydrangeas. With our great 

 summer heat we might plant it in the open 

 ground in early summer and remove again 

 to shelter before the advent of severe frost 

 and enjoy, through the summer months, 

 its magnificence of flowering. Certainly in 

 its season there is no blue flower to compare 



with its distinctive beauty. The flowers are 

 borne in umbels upon a stalk two to four 

 feet in height, each umbel consisting of 

 from one hundred to two hundred flowers, 

 appearing from June to August. 



There are several forms. The type is 

 Agapanthus umbellatus; a giant form, 

 maximus, is truly magnificent, with enor- 

 mous heads of deep gentian blue flowers, 

 yet another long lasting variety has double 

 blue flowers, and a white-flowered form 

 can also be had. Of dwarfer growth, but 

 with equal charm, are the varieties Moore- 

 anus and Sandersonianus. The cultural 

 requirements are simple: just a good, rich 

 soil with abundance of water in the grow- 

 ing and flowering seasons, and winter 

 storage in a cool greenhouse, or even a 

 storage house where frost cannot injure 

 them. The plant is best grown in a tub as 

 the roots are likely to burst an ordinary pot. 



THE GUERNSEY LILIES 



On the same umbel plan, but very 

 much smaller, and in infinite shades of 



