October, 1911 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



123 



(Editor's Note. — We want to know how suc- 

 cessful ivorkers do things in order to put actual 

 experiences before our thousands of readers in all 

 parts of the country. Every reader is invited to con- 

 tribute a short note on some interesting experience. 

 Just state the facts about some ingenious idea that you 

 have actually worked out yourself or have seen.) 



Slipping roses 



In the July number of The Garden 

 Magazine there is a short note by " C." 

 on propagating roses. When I slip my 

 roses in October by the same method — 

 that is, inverting a glass jar over them — I 

 can generally depend upon eight out of ten 

 of the slips taking root and growing well. 

 When I have attempted the same course 

 of treatment in summer, I have hoped 

 that, one out of ten might live and so came 

 to the conclusion that there was some 

 chemical difference in the soil, and some 

 change in the atmosphere in summer which 

 caused a failure that season with the arti- 

 ficial heat. With me the rose slips root 

 more successfully in moist sand, without 

 glass in the summer. I would like to know 

 whether "C" gives her slips any special 

 treatment in the way of watering or soil. 

 — H. S., New York. 



Canterbury bells from seed 



Last fall I had a dozen small seedlings 

 of Canterbury bells given to me. Two 

 of them I planted in the border behind 

 the row of crocuses, but then remem- 

 bered an article I had read on the par- 

 ticular care of Canterbury bells during 

 the winter, realized that, if planted in 

 the border, it would not be so easy to give 

 them a special protection; so the other 

 ten were planted most carefully in a corner 

 of the seed-bed, and after the first hard 

 frost, according to instructions, I covered 

 them well with leaves, and inverted an 

 empty box over the leaves, endeavoring 

 to make it water-tight. The two lone 

 plants in the border were covered lightly 

 with leaves, with no special care, for 

 everything else was perfectly hardy, and 

 they were forgotten, the other ten being 

 so well cared for. In the spring the leaves 

 covering the border were taken off before 

 the first of March, and again the Canter- 

 bury bells were forgotten. About the 

 first of April the box was carefully lifted 

 off the ten treasures, and they were found 

 to have wintered beautifully. They were 

 duly transplanted into permanent quarters, 

 where, with an occasional stirring in of 

 bone-meal, they continued to thrive. By 



the first of May, the largest was, perhaps, 

 two inches high, a nice little stocky tuft of 

 leaves. And then I came across their 

 neglected brothers; they — un cared for, 

 unfed, completely overlooked — were fully 

 five inches high and had the flower stalks 

 well-developed! It would seem that, after 

 all, with ordinary care, the Canterbury 

 bell seedlings might be quite as hardy in 

 the border as foxglove or delphinium 

 seedlings. — S. T. H., Long Island. 



Deep planting for late tulips 



Darwin and May-flowering tulips will 

 deteriorate unless planted deep — nearly 

 twice as deep as the early tulips. It took 

 me some time to discover this fact and 

 before it was discovered I had many dis- 

 appointments in late tulips "fizzling out" 

 the second year after they were planted. 

 A portion of a Darwin tulip bed accident- 

 ally had nearly six inches of earth thrown 

 ever it and it was allowed to remain 

 there. This occurred two years ago. A 

 year ago last spring the Darwins came up 

 through the extra cover and gave a few 

 small blossoms, as did the rest of the bed 

 to my intense disgust. Last spring the 

 Darwins with the extra cover came up 

 vigorously and gave blossoms almost as 

 fine as their first season's output. Just 

 after arriving at the conclusion that they 

 flourished with deeper cover I found a 

 confirmation of it in a foreign magazine 

 which said that the late tulips should be 

 planted nearly twice as deep as the earlies. 

 In course of time the bulbs will bury them- 

 selves deep enough to regain strength, 

 as a bed of T. Gesneriana, var. spathulata 

 major is gradually righting itself after several 

 seasons of precarious existence. However, 

 a large percentage of the bulbs has dis- 

 appeared during the struggle to burrow 

 out of the way of the hot spells of May 

 which evidently ripen the bulbs prema- 

 turely. — S. R. D., Illinois 



Tobacco plant indoors 



Last October I picked a spray of nicotiana 

 and placed it in a vase in the house, that 

 I might enjoy its beauty and fragrance. 

 The flower closes in the daylight, opening 

 late in the afternoon. Much to my sur- 

 prise, the flowers stayed open all the follow- 

 ing day. After that I picked every avail- 

 able spray, giving them to friends after 

 nearly all the garden flowers were gone. 

 I found that small buds grew and opened 

 in water, and lasted in bloom for over a 

 week. — A. B. S., Massachusetts 



Orange seedlings 



A neighbor who planted a lot of orange 

 seeds for stock to bud on, has among the 

 thousands of young seedlings, now about 

 an inch high and with only their first two 

 leaves, a quantity with buds and blossoms. 

 They resemble nothing so much as a large 

 patch of wintergreen, except for the larger 

 size of the flowers. Is this premature 

 blossoming unusual? A budded orange 

 tree usually does not blossom until it is 

 two or three years old and several feet 

 high— J. F., Calif. 



Sun for spring bulbs 



Last fall I planted some bulbs of daffo- 

 dils in the shade of a building where the 

 sun was not entirely excluded, but shone 

 on them only in the middle of the day. 

 The other bulbs were planted where they 

 would have full sunshine all day. The 

 middle of April, the "sunshiny" bulbs 

 gave a blaze of golden yellow; large, full 

 flowers entirely lacking any trace of green. 

 Their brothers in the shade came into 

 bloom some weeks later, showing green 

 in every petal. — T. H., New York. 



Run=wild poppies 



A white California poppy has been a 

 striking feature of my wild garden for 

 several seasons. It springs from seed 

 each year. It is not a mere paling shade 

 of lemon or cream, but a pure, white satin. 

 The contrast is sharp of this white cluster 

 of flowers in a dense bed of the golden 

 ones. It should be remembered that the 

 Eschscholzia is a much deeper orange 

 color in the intense sunlight of its native 

 state than it ever attains in the Eastern 

 gardens, where it usually shades off into 

 yellow. I allow my poppies to run wild 

 and they supply riotous masses of color, 

 blooming continuously from early i-n Jan- 

 uary till July. This permitting the plants 

 to have a little of their own way soon 

 teaches us which ones are most suited to 

 our soil and conditions. — H. B., Calif. 



Dahlias by mail 



For mailing single dahlia tubers in moss, 

 or for packing small plants for 2-day jour- 

 neys in the mail, the cast-off chrysalis of 

 a gas mantle makes an ideal box. It is a 

 small, stiff cylinder of pasteboard two 

 inches in diameter capped at both ends. 

 These boxes are commonly thrown away 

 by the gasfitters, and can be had for the 

 asking. — E. S. J. 



A showy tall perennial 



For a high effect in the borders late 

 in the season, Siebold's desmodium, 

 or bush clover, is an excellent perennial 

 that is all too little known. I have seen 

 it fully five feet in height and, at the end 

 of September, fairly rosy with its hundreds 

 of racemes of light solferino blossoms. One 

 of the best places for it is between the 

 border and shrubbery, where the two 

 happen to come together. This herbaceous 

 perennial is known as Lespedeza Sieboldi 

 and also as Desmodium penduliflorum. 

 The white-flowered lespedeza (L. Japonica) 

 is equally desirable. Both are natives of 

 Japan. They are perfectly hardy as far 

 north as Hartford. — B. G, Connecticut. 



Privet from cuttings 



Last year I planted the cuttings from 

 an Amoor privet hedge, pruned in the 

 spring while the wood was dormant, 

 and grew ioo plants from about 300 

 cuttings, planted six inches apart. The 

 nursery rule is to make cuttings in the fall 

 and allow them to form callouses in sand. — 

 R. P., Ohio. 



