98 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



March, 1912 



(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. 

 Jtist state the facts about some ingenious idea that you 

 have actually worked out yourself or have seen.) 



A planting idea 



For the last eight or ten years I have 

 planned my garden a month or two before 

 planting time, and to economize and make 

 the very most of my space I have followed 

 this plan: I plant on one side of my 

 garden seeds that require the greater part 

 of summer in which to grow and mature, 

 such as beets, parsnips, parsley, etc. 

 Quick-growing crops, such as lettuce, radish 

 and onion sets, I plant side by side and 

 follow with cucumbers, tomatoes, etc. 

 When I plant the larger crops — melons, 

 potatoes, etc. — I make the rows three feet 

 apart and use every other row for the vine 

 crops. The same plan works well with 

 sweet corn and squashes or pumpkins. 

 -J. G. J., Ohio. 



Sprouting dahlias 



Last spring was my first year of plant- 

 ing dahlias. I let the tubers sprout before 

 planting, then separated, and planted two 

 or three to a hill, first cutting off sprouts. 

 The soil, which originally was a stiff red 

 clay, had been fertilized the fall before 

 with cow manure and another dressing of 

 well rotted manure was worked into the 

 soil in April. The tubers went into the 

 ground on May ist. I dug a large hole, 

 filled it with water, set in the tubers and 

 covered them with about four inches of soil. 

 I watered regularly the first two weeks. 

 On June 2d the first shoot made its ap- 

 pearance and by July 6th I had fine plants 

 covered with immense yellow dahlias. I 

 did not stake the plants nor prune them; 

 they were covered with blooms until 

 frost killed them. When I dug up the 

 plants last fall there were from ten to 

 fifteen tubers in each bunch. — N. Z. F., 

 North Carolina. 



Gladiolus and poppies 



For the last two years I have tried plant- 

 ing gladiolus around my Oriental poppies. 

 If two successive plantings are made the 

 gladiolus may be had in bloom quite late. 

 I plant the bulbs the first thing in May, 

 before the poppies have made a very large 

 spring growth. In the middle of June, 



or later, when the poppies have ceased 

 flowering, I cut the plants, leaves and all, 

 back to the ground. Then the gladiolus 

 can have plenty of sunshine. Last spring, 

 in planting the bulbs, I found that I had 

 not dug up the old ones the fall before. 

 They had lived through the winter and had 

 made considerable growth by the middle 

 of May — S. T. H., New York. 



Rugosa roses for hedges 



In a recent number some one com- 

 plained of the rugosa rose being straggly. 

 It is not so in my garden; I have a large 

 hedge of a number of kinds, which is 

 trimmed down about a fourth every March. 

 The plants are bushy from the ground up, 

 a mass of bloom in June and a great deal 

 of bloom all the rest of the summer. The 

 June sprays are cut off. Blanc Double de 

 Coubert is the most prolific bloomer and 

 best shape. — Mrs. D. P. L., Wisconsin. 



After the bulbs flower 



The leaves of daffodils are a nuisance 

 after the flowers fade, if the bulbs are in 

 a border awaiting other plants. I either 

 tie the leaves in a loose knot close to the 

 ground, or fasten them into compact 

 bundles with raffia, so they will fall into 

 one place and not interfere with other 

 plants. Tuberous begonias are fine for 

 following daffodils. I sprout them in 

 pots or boxes and set them out as soon as 

 the daffodils begin to die down. — F. H., 

 Illinois. 



Saving space 



Planting time for tender annuals last 

 season found us in temporary quarters 

 in which two kitchen windows — one on 

 the east side and the other south — were 

 the only ones available for my "flats." 

 With care this was sufficient space until 

 the seedlings were large enough to be 

 promoted to separate pots. The following 

 scheme for saving space W'as a great suc- 

 cess. I set the pots in boxes as deep as 

 the pots were high, after putting drainage 

 id the bottom of the flat and the pots. I 

 then filled box and pots level full — but 

 lightly — with fine potting soil. The seed- 

 lings were transplanted into the pots and 

 into the spaces (even the triangular out- 

 side ones) between the pots. When it 

 came time to set out the plants the pots 

 were lifted and emptied first, and the 

 remaining plants were standing in clods 

 of earth as firm and as easy to handle as 

 the balls from the pots. But — the plants 

 grown between the pots, having had so 

 much more room for their roots on account 

 of the tapering down of the pots, were 

 without exception bigger and stronger than 

 their pot-grown brethren. It may not be 

 a new idea to cover the flats as soon as the 

 seeds are sown, with sphagnum moss. By 

 keeping this sprinkled the soil had no 

 chance to dry out and the moss was a 

 protection against washing. It was re- 

 moved, of course, as soon as the seedlings 

 appeared. — C. P. B., New Jersey. 



New potatoes on May 18th 



Last year I had new potatoes ready for 

 use on May 18th, from seed planted in 

 March. I bought one peck of Early Rose 

 potatoes, cut them in pieces, leaving two 

 or three eyes in each piece. I had pre- 

 pared a small coldframe, putting in it 

 only a moderate quantity of well-rotted 

 stable manure, with four or five inches of 

 garden soil covering it. In this frame, on 

 March 3, I put the whole peck of potatoes, 

 laying them close together and covering with 

 a glass frame. I let them stay until they 

 were well sprouted and then transplanted 

 them into the garden in three rows, each 

 forty feet long. Fortunately they escaped 

 frost and grew rapidly; on May 18th we 

 began using them for the table, and they 

 supplied a family of five until the later 

 crop had matured. — M. F., Maryland. 



Fragrant shrubs 



In a late number of The Garden 

 Magazine a writer names the sweet brier 

 as the most fragrant shrub of his section — 

 the New England States. And I agree 

 with him. In my little California garden 

 I brush against the orange, lemon, walnut, 

 lavender, sweet bay, and the choysia, 

 with its pungent odor, with a keen appre- 

 ciation of each and all. But down in a 

 corner of the garden is a clump of Scotch 

 sweet brier; and I know that if I had to 

 choose only one fragrant thing for my 

 garden it would be this plant. In my 

 opinion nothing else that grows is so 

 perfectly satisfying. My impression is 

 that it is universally hardy, and I have 

 seen it growing along country roadsides 

 in ground as hard as flint. Yet it is seldom 

 that one comes across it in gardens, at 

 least in this section, and it is rarely men- 

 tioned in garden publications. The variety 

 known as Scotch Brier is, in cultivation, 

 a strong, tall grow r er and soon spreads into 

 a clump. — S. E., California. 



Poppies for the bulb beds 



I have a bed of narcissus and tulips 

 2x15 ft. When it was in full glory last 

 year I lightly scattered over it Shirley 

 poppy seed; the poppies began to bloom 

 in June and bloomed profusely. The 

 roots did not go deep enough to injure 

 the bulbs left in the ground. As every 

 one knows who likes Shirley poppies and 

 has observed them, the new blooms open 

 about an hour after sunrise. To keep 

 the bed blooming it must not be allowed to 

 go to seed. So cut all the flowers at once 



— there will be plenty more the next 

 morning. The Shirley poppy self sows; 

 the spring after the seed is sown the bed 

 will be so full of plants that they will have 

 to be thinned. Give each plant a square 

 foot (or a foot square) and it will show a 

 score of blooms. In the fall sprinkle a 

 little strawy manure over the bed which 

 must be raked off before the plants start 

 in the spring. In this way one can have 

 beautiful poppies four inches in diameter. 



— H. C, New York. 



