January, 1912 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



209 



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

 cessful workers 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.) 



Blue salvia 



Why is it that when the scarlet salvia is 

 so commonly grown as to fairly dazzle 

 our eyes every summer, its relative, the 

 perennial blue salvia (Sahia azurea), is 

 almost unknown? It is a beautiful shade 

 of nearly sky blue. The plants are hardy 

 so that they do not require setting each 

 year, but in time will make a good clump. 

 They are very readily grown from seed; I 

 picked a few seeds in the fall and rather 

 late in spring tucked them into a flower pot 

 without much expectation of good results, 

 but I had several sturdy young plants 

 blooming the first year. The color is so 

 excellent that a massed planting would 

 certainly be most effective. — A. H. B., 

 Penna. 



Figs 



I was interested in reading in the Sept- 

 ember Garden Magazine, Mrs. G. F. 

 M. S.'s description of growing figs in a cold 

 climate. At the Missouri Botanical Gar- 

 den, St. Louis, there is a stone wall seven 

 or eight feet high, along the south side of 

 which figs are grown every summer. 

 The figs are growing permanently in the 

 ground. The stems of some of the plants 

 are four inches or more in diameter. To 

 protect these figs during the winter the 

 branches, which are pliable, are laid down 

 and covered with straw in sufficient quan- 

 tity to keep them from freezing. This 

 winter protection is given on the approach 

 of cold weather in the fall and removed 

 after the danger of frost is past in the spring. 

 In a Massachusetts town thirty miles 

 from Boston, there is a fig tree which has 

 grown for years and of which I have per- 

 sonal knowledge. This is really growing 

 in what one might call a greenhouse, but 

 is nothing more than a deep pit. The pit 

 is about eight feet deep and the glass over it 

 is almost flush with the ground, the wall 

 extending above the surface of the soil 

 just enough to prevent the entrance of 

 surface water. The protection afforded 

 by the glass has carried this fig tree through 

 the rigors of a Massachusetts winter with- 

 out the use of fire heat or any further pro- 

 tection. I have eaten ripe figs from this 



fig tree, as well as from the trees growing 

 in the Missouri Botanical Garden, and I 

 can see no reason why amateur gardeners 

 anywhere here in the North should not 

 enjoy this delicious fruit fresh from their 

 own plants. — P. T. B., Penna. 

 Hepaticas in January 



Last December, while walking in the 

 wood, I spied a few hepatica leaves. With 

 a jack-knife I cut the plant out of its icy 

 bed, taking care to get a good chunk of 

 soil, too. I carefully carried it home, 

 potted it, and placed it in a cold room for 

 a week, then brought it gradually to a 

 warmer place and finally to a sunny win- 

 dow. In about six weeks I had the first 

 flower which was followed by several 

 perfect specimens. — G., New York. 

 Transplanting mignonette 



For four successive summers I have had 

 a wealth of bloom from mignonette seed 

 sown in March or April under glass. Last 

 summer I transplanted in May more than 

 a hundred young plants from the green- 

 house to my garden, and lost but two. And 

 yet in the May number of The Garden 

 Magazine the statement is made "Mig- 

 nonette will not stand transplanting!" 

 The varieties I use are Machet and De- 

 fiance. I have frequently given some of 

 my young mignonette plants to friends 

 and they have all reported excellent suc- 

 cess, some of them having had the plants 

 succeed where the outdoor-sown seed 

 failed — A. S. H., Penna. [It is possible 

 to transplant almost anything with great 

 care, but as the average person does it, 

 with the average plant, the practice is 

 not a sure one with many annuals, like 

 poppy and mignonette. — The Editors.] 

 The hollyhock disease 



A row of hollyhocks four years old was 

 attacked with a disease last year. I began 

 spraying with Bordeaux mixture when the 

 leaves were quite small and kept it up for 

 two months, with no good results. I 

 destroyed this row and started a new one 

 with about thirty fine plants in a new 

 location. They did splendidly until they 

 were about two feet high, when the disease 

 appeared and steadily robbed them of their 

 foliage. The flowers amounted to almost 

 nothing. In contrast to this sad story, 

 there was a cluster of perfectly healthy, 

 splendid looking plants back of a shed in 

 poor ground where some chance seeds 

 must have dropped. Now what is one 

 to do? — M. H., Penna. [Give up growing 

 hollyhocks for a year or two on infected 

 soil. — The Editors.] 



Watch your crocuses! 



Hens and crocuses are incompatible! 

 A hen turned out to pasture during the 

 sunny hours of a January or February 

 thaw will eat off every one of the white 

 "eye-teeth" of your sprouting bulbs. Per- 

 haps she takes them for truffles out of 

 season; at any rate, she will see to it that 

 your spring flowers go to roost at evening 

 under her own feathers! This is sad 



tidings, unwelcome at a time when fresh 

 eggs are "up" and poultry keeping a fad. 

 But from a tragedy of my own garden I 

 want to warn other crocus-owners. Mice- 

 are very dangerous to potted crocuses in 

 the cellar, too. The remedy is to keep 

 potted crocuses on a swinging shelf out of 

 easy reach, to set traps with apple or turnip 

 as well as cheese, and to feed the family cat 

 half-rations for a while. — E. S. J., Penna. 



Parsley as a house plant 



By taking three small parsley plants 

 from the garden in the fall, planting them 

 in a five or six-inch pot, and placing them 

 in a shady place for a few days before 

 giving them sun, you will have a pretty- 

 plant for the table all winter, as well as 

 one which will furnish a garnish for salads 

 or flavoring for soup. Occasionally give 

 the plant some sun. — W. B. G., New 

 York. 

 Using old seed 



In one of the numbers of The Garden 

 Magazine, I read that one should throw 

 away old lettuce, carrot and parsnip seed. 

 However, I have had parsnip seed germ- 

 inate the second season ; and several times 

 I have planted old lettuce seed and have 

 grown as good crops as if I had used new 

 seed. The only time I ever used old carrot 

 seed I had a very good result. — G. H., 

 New Jersey. [Very likely! Some seed 

 does better its second year, but the danger 

 lies in your ignorance of its age when you 

 buy it; and again you may not keep it 

 properly. — The Editors.] 



Seed pods sprouting 



This summer a curious thing happened 

 to my sweet Williams. The flower stalks 

 had been left on, when a three-day 

 storm set in — three days of rain with 

 never a ray of sunshine. When the sun 

 did come out and garden work was 

 possible, I was surprised to see the sweet 

 William plants with tufts of green held 

 up high above the leaves. All the seeds 

 had sprouted in the pods! I picked one 

 of the clusters and planted it as it was, but 

 the tiny plants did not live, and those 

 left on the plant soon withered in the sun- 

 shine. — S. T. H., Long Island. 

 Self=sown phlox 



Some of the "wise ones" have written 

 that when the perennial phlox goes to 

 seed, it is better to pull up the seedlings 

 as they have a tendency to revert to the 

 original type, an ugly purplish pink. In my 

 garden some of my prettiest varieties are 

 self-sown. I had five or six original 

 plants from deep red to white, all self- 

 colored. Some of my seedlings show white 

 ground with deep pink eye, pink with a 

 much deeper eye, and one especially hand- 

 some one shows the white ground, bright 

 pink eye, and all the trumpet a correspond- 

 ing bright pink, making a curious and 

 beautiful effect. It seems to me, if one 

 has room, it might be better to let the 

 seedlings bloom once before weeding out 

 the objectionable colors. — H., New York. 



