178 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



April, 1912 



The Sweet Pea Contest 



SOME of the boy and girl readers 

 of The Garden Magazine may not 

 know that there is a society called the 

 Xational Sweet Pea Society of America. 

 It is to encourage the culture of sweet 

 peas. Prizes are offered for grown ups and 

 for children, too. The Garden Mag- 

 azine offers a prize in this contest to 

 the boy or girl making "the best display 

 by an individual child in any class" Our 

 prize is called The Garden Magazine 

 Achievement Medal. It is a beautiful 

 silver medal, the sort you will always be 

 proud to have won. This sweet pea con- 

 test will be held in Horticultural Hall, 

 Boston. Mass., July 13th and 14th. Send 

 for the full schedule. 



It is not too late to start sweet peas 

 when you receive this magazine. Presi- 

 dent William Sim of The Xational Sweet 

 Pea Society of America sends this word 

 to the boys and girls: 



"Sweet peas do best where they have a 

 long cool period to grow before the flower- 

 ing season. To give them this advantage 

 the most important part of their culture 

 is to get the seeds into the ground in the 

 spring, at the earliest possible moment. 

 This should be done immediately after 

 the frost is sufficiently out of the ground 

 to work the soil. The soil should be deep 

 and rich. If a row of sweet peas is to be 

 planted dig or fork over the ground as 

 deep as possible, forking in a good quantity 

 of well decayed manure. If this cannot 

 be procured buy some pulverized manure 

 at a seed store. 



" Roots of sweet peas may go down as far 

 as the vines go up, so that it is essential to 

 dig deep. The ground should be dug over 

 two or three times before the seed is sown 

 so that the manure will not be left in layers. 



" The seed should be sown in a drill 

 four inches deep, running lengthwise of the 

 ground. It is better to grow vines three 

 inches apart of the choicest varieties, than to 

 buy the cheap seed and sow it so thickly 

 that the plants smother each other when 

 they grow up. More failures are caused by 



too thick sowing than from any other cause. 

 Have some way of supporting the vines 

 for they must be kept straight while 

 growing. Birch boughs six feet long are 

 the best, but if they cannot be procured 

 use straight stakes driven in the centre of 

 the row every three feet, with string run 

 each side of the row, and tied to the stakes. 

 Strings should be put on as the vines grow. 



" If the above directions are carried out 

 there will be no insects to contend with 

 unless a spell of hot, dry weather comes, 

 which might check the plants' growth. 

 In dry weather water twice a week, apply- 

 ing water enough to reach the lowest 

 down roots. 



" Pick the flowers as they mature, unless 

 seed is wanted. The plants cease growing 

 when forming seed. Stir the ground on 

 top once or twice a week, whether there 

 are weeds or not. If you like flowers 

 of all shades sow a mixture of varieties; 

 but the best way is to buy separate colors, 

 in the choicest varieties. A ten cent 

 packet of a kind will give all the flowers 

 needed of one color. " 



For varieties of sweet peas see page 40 

 of the February Garden Magazine. 



Garden Work for April 



LAST month you paid special at- 

 tention to looking through the en- 

 tire magazine and reading certain articles. 

 This month do the same thing, as all the 

 practical articles are just what you, too, 

 want at this time" 



You are beginning to be impatient now 

 and wish to plant outdoors. But do not 

 begin to plant in the open until the ground 

 is in the right condition. This means 

 that the soil must be nice and mellow and 

 light. If it is heavy and wet wait until 

 the sunshine dries it out. Go out into 

 your garden and take some of the soil 

 into your hand. If you can mold out of 

 this a compact, damp ball, the soil is not 

 ready to plant in. But when the soil is 

 mellow sow out of doors, beets, kohlrabi, 

 radish, onions, lettuce and turnips. This 

 planting mil probably come between March 

 15th and April 1st. 



Do not think that you can plant your 

 flower seeds so early. Leave these, except 

 the sweet pea seeds, until the middle of 

 April. Here is an experiment worth try- 

 ing. Sow some flower seeds as early as 

 you can in a nice sunny spot in the garden. 

 Choose the warmest place you have. Later 



plant the same kind of seeds in a more 

 shaded spot. You will get a succession 

 of bloom in this way. See how much 

 earlier the plants in the sunny spot blos- 

 som than those in the shaded corner. 



Plan also for a wild flower succession of 

 bloom. Did you know that arbutus, skunk 

 cabbage and hepatica are March bloomers? 

 Keep this in mind for your wild flower gar- 

 den. Anemone, bloodroot, saxifrage, jack- 

 in-the-pulpit and marsh marigold are April 

 bloomers. 



Just after spring recess seems to be the 

 time when teachers and scholars begin to 

 get actively busy at work on the school 

 grounds. The school garden area should 

 be either ploughed or spaded. Fertilize 

 it well if the soil is poor. Two inches of 

 rotted manure spread over the surface of 

 the ground is not too much. Before 

 planting sprinkle on some commercial fer- 

 tilizer, and rake it in. 



Have a path all around the garden, 

 also around individual plots. If possible 

 the garden should have a southern ex- 

 posure with the rows running north and 

 south. It is easier for children to sow small 

 seeds in straight drills than in any other 

 way. Make the drills about a foot apart; 

 then the children can walk and cultivate 

 between the drills. Small seeds may be 

 sown right from the package. Children 

 usually plant seeds too thick and too near 

 the surface of the soil. The preparation 

 of the garden plot and the making of 

 drills is as much a part of the garden 

 lesson as the mere act of sowing seed. 



Consider as you work out the flower 

 garden color, the time of bloom and 

 duration of bloom. Add these facts to 

 your garden diaries. Xote what effect 

 the season has on both. One may often 

 make a second sowing of annuals and so 

 keep the garden constantly blossoming. 



A garden bench or a garden seat, 

 a summer house and tool house covered 

 with vines, add to beauty and fill a need in 

 the garden. 



The table shown below may e of use as 

 all these plants are easy to grow from seed 

 and can be planted as soon as the ground 

 is warm: 



Some of the best annual vines are morn- 

 ing glory, Japanese hop, gourd, cypress 

 vine, nasturtium, moonflower, and canary- 

 bird vine. Use these for screens to ugly 

 spots. 



See page 1S2 for a list of the prize win- 

 ners in the 191 1 children's garden contest. 







HEIGHT 



DURATION" OF 





NAME 



COLOR 



(inches) 



bloom (weeks 



USE 



African marigold 



Yellow 



24 



Twelve 



Mass effect: cut flowers 



Ageratum 



Blue 



IO 



Ail summer 



Cut flowers and borders 



Alvssurn 



White 



6 



Twentv 



Edgings and mass effects 



California poppv 



Yellow 



12 



Four 



Edgings; cover for rough ground 



Candvtuft 



White 



6 



Four 



Edgings; cover for rough ground 



Cornflower 



Blue 



24 



Until frost 



Cut flowers 



Dwarf lobelia 



Blue 



6 



All summer 



Cut flowers 



Mignonette 



Greenish 



12 



All summer 



Mass effect; cut flowers 



Mammoth verbena 



Pink 



12 



Ten 



Cut flowers 



Mammoth zinnia 



Red 



20 



Fifteen 



Mass effect 



Stella sunflower 



Yellow 



36 



Ten 



Cut flowers 



Ten weeks stock 



White 



15 



Ten 



Cut flowers 



Dwarf nasturtium 



Yellow; red 



12 



Twelve 



Cut flowers 



178 



