Why My Hardy Garden is Hardy -By H. s. Adams, 



Con- 

 necticut 



COMMON SENSE APPLIED TO THE PROBLEMS OF WINTER PROTECTION- THE EVER PRESENT DANGER OF TOO MUCH 

 FUSSING THAT KILLS LARGE NUMBERS OF REALLY "HARDY" PLANTS EACH YEAR -GETTING NEAR TO NATURE'S WAY 



LAST spring, in our part of New 

 England, there were numerous com- 

 plaints of "winter-killing." So-and-so 

 lost all her foxgloves, another "every 

 blessed Canterbury bell," and so on. 



At the end of a tale of woe from a neigh- 

 bor there generally was a "misery loves 

 company" inference that, of course, I 

 had similar bad luck. 



Of course, I had — not; out of the many 

 kinds of flowers that I grow, only two 

 species of anemones were missing, and 

 those because they had not been properly 

 looked after in summer. And, each time, 

 I would take pains 

 to explain that 

 hardy plants were 

 killed not so much 

 by the winter as by 

 lack of thought, es- 

 pecially in the way 

 of mistaken kind- 

 ness. 



Here is the whole 



secret of the reduc- 

 tion of the mortality 



of my hardy garden, 



during five winters, 



to a minimum; I do 



not over-protect — 



in other words, 



smother my plants 



to death. I go on 



the principle that 



what is hardy in my 



climate is hardy, 



and that it is up to 



me to do for my 



plants no more than 



nature would do in 



similar circum- 

 stances. It is safe 



to say that, aside 



from species of 



doubtful endurance 



in a given latitude, 



the majority of 



hardy plants perish 



thus and that the 



greater part of the 



remainder are 



killed by the winter 



only because 



(through crowding or some other kind of 



negilgence) they have been sent into a de- 

 cline before the coming of cold weather. 

 I really begin putting away my hardy 



borders in the summer. Then, wherever 



they can go without showing much, I lay 



the cut flower stalks — which serve first 

 as mulch and later as winter protection. 

 Done as it is in odd moments, this takes 

 no apparent time. 



The actual start, however, is made with 

 the first fall of leaves in the early autumn. 

 This comes from our big octogenarian 



maple, whose leaves so drop all over the 

 east lawn that they can not be raked up 

 without also gathering in the needles that 

 an ancient white pine sheds during its 

 "moult" of the late summer. 



The east lawn has hardy borders on 

 three sides. So, starting in the middle, I 

 rake a windrow of leaves to the edge of 

 each border in turn. In the case of the 

 rose border I make a ridge of the leaves 

 just over the edge of the lawn, to be added 

 to later and, after the ground freezes, 

 raked up around the bushes. When the 

 other two windrows reach the herbaceous 



Cutting off the dead leaf stalks of a peony to lay over the plant. With the 

 leaves over it, this herbaceous border will be sufficiently protected 



borders I take the rake and toss the leaves 

 over the plants, so that they will fall as if 

 nature had dropped them. If any point 

 is beyond the reach of such a toss, I take 

 a lot of leaves in my two hands and scatter 

 them. The leaves soon settle down be- 

 tween the plants and begin their important 

 work of ground protection. Where the 

 borders are not next to the lawn, I rake 

 up a basketful or wheelbarrow load of 

 leaves and toss them by hand. Usually I 

 repeat the process three times, winding 

 up with the apple leaves in November. 



158 



The advantage of this plan, aside from 

 the saving of virtually all the precious 

 leaves, many of which are apt to be blown 

 away if allowed to lie after the early falls, 

 and the avoidance of the trouble of storing 

 in bags or barrels, lies in its emulation 

 of nature. By it the plants are protected 

 most where they most need protection — 

 around the crowns — the growth, which 

 sometimes goes on well into the winter, 

 is not impeded. 



Excepting on the rose border, where 

 the ground is bare around the bushes, 

 along the edges of the herbaceous borders, 

 and over such bulbs 

 as tulips and hya- 

 cinths, I make no 

 pretense of having 

 a blanket of leaves 

 three inches or so 

 deep. I simply see 

 that there are leaves 

 all around such 

 plants as Canter- 

 bury bells and pri- 

 mulas and, in the 

 final round-up, that 

 a few leaves are 

 thrown over them 

 so lightly as not to 

 hide them com- 

 pletely. I take a 

 basket of leaves 

 around with me, 

 and, wherever some 

 are needed, in they 

 go. Peony, chrysan- 

 themum and other 

 stalks are cut and 

 laid over or around 

 the plants, as the 

 case may be, and I 

 place a few corn- 

 stalks on the north 

 side of the borders 

 if they can be used 

 without crushing 

 anything. 



If, to some, this 

 seems a "stepmoth- 

 erly" blanket, thin 

 and full of holes, I 

 can only say that, 

 again and again- in my experience, it has 

 succeeded where piling on leaves — or, 

 worse yet, manure — has placed on win- 

 ter the responsibility for a lot of killing 

 of which it was quite innocent. As I have 

 said before, it is natural; and I find that 

 the more tips I take from nature the better 

 I get along in my pottering with a hardy 

 garden. 



As a general proposition plants that 

 really die down to the ground in winter 

 can stand a heavy blanket of either leaves 

 or manure, though in the case of both 



scattering of a few more 

 for the winter 



