Flowers for a Light, Dry Soil-By Gladys Hyatt Sinclair, 



Mich- 



igan 



THRIFTY, SHOWY FLOWERS THAT WILL GIVE THEIR BEST IN SANDY SOILS, WITHOUT EXTRA FEED- 

 IXC. AND THAT DO NOT DEMAND CONSTANT ATTENTION — SOME THINGS YOU CAN SOW NOW 



MANY women and children there are 

 who love flowers and would willingly 

 work for them, yet give up because their 

 garden soil is poor and lacks water. 

 To the ordinary garden rich soil and water 

 are necessary. It is folly to try to grow 

 roses and lilies, dahlias and chrysanthe- 

 mums in light, dry sand. But there are a 

 tew plants that revel in just such a situa- 

 tion; and more that, while preferring easier 

 circumstances, make an excellent best of 

 what they can get in the way of food and 

 water. Since perennial plants are so much 

 fuller of comfort than annuals it is fortu- 

 nate that the list of ask-but-littles holds 

 twenty perennials to ten annuals. 



To begin at the front of the border and 

 the front of the season: among perennials 

 that do not care to live high, rock cress 

 (Arabis alpina is the earliest, coming into 

 its white sheet of bloom just after the snow 

 goes. It grows in spinster-neat tufts about 

 six inches high and its little four-petalled 

 blossoms are as welcome as the robins. 



For edging paths, planting around pools 

 or seats or bird baths where mowing is 

 annoying, or for carpeting poor ground in 

 shady places, use "myrtle," the periwinkle 

 with clean, shining evergreen leaves and 

 lavender blue flowers that come so early. 

 In rich land this plant is apt to become a 

 nuisance in time, as dwellers on old places 

 in Maryland can testify. But it is a boon 

 to the poor-soil garden. 



If you want a silver leaved plant that 

 will fend for itself and draw water from a 

 desert use w r oolly leaved chickweed (Ceras- 

 tium tomentosum). It is often misused 

 in perennial carpet bedding but is really 

 excellent to outline with where grass wall 

 not grow 7 , edge a walk or bound a flower 

 bed or border. It grows less than six 

 inches high; and though its white, oxalis- 

 like blossoms come later, it grow r s bright 

 and pretty with the first warm days. 



Doronicum is a taller April bloomer. 

 Leopard's bane is an old name for it. Its 

 long-petalled golden yellow "daisies" on 

 eighteen inch stalks are beautiful massed 

 in the garden or cut for the house. Daisy 

 formed flowers are plentiful later, but they 

 are few in early spring so these are especially 

 valuable. 



The prettiest carpet weaver of May is 

 moss pink {Phlox subulata). It has im- 

 proved much in the hybridizer's hands. The 

 old magenta has given place to a really 

 delicate pink variety, rosea. It creeps 

 close to the ground and blankets itself with 

 bloom in early spring after the hardy, dainty 

 fashion of the old sort. 



Two worthy white varieties are alba and 

 Xelsoni. Just back of this should grow 

 the clove pinks. They flourish in light soil, 

 making beautiful gray foliage all summer 

 and spicy blossoms that last well into June. 



The improved sorts from seedsmen are 

 lovely and fragrant but if one wants the true 

 old clove pinks of grandmother's days it 

 is best to get a few roots or a handful of 

 seed from some old garden. 



Behind pinks in the garden of May plant 

 German iris. It will do well in sand. 

 There are many varieties in blue, white 

 and yellow, all beautifully marked. They 

 stay in bloom all through the month and 

 ask but little, though grateful for the suds 

 on wash day in blooming time. To make 

 a fine show they should be set in clumps. 

 Back of these or among them set lupines. 

 They are lilac-blue, and planted in masses 

 are more effective in May than many things 

 more pretentious. Sturdy, free-blooming 

 and showy, they are well worth planting 

 where food and water are scarce. 



Sweet rockets make good in the garden 

 of limited resources. Their sizable heads 

 of white or lavender flowers stretch up in 

 showy groups, last a long time and are 

 valuable because they will bloom in shade 

 as w r ell as sun. Another May bloomer that 

 asks little and gives much is valerian — 

 the old sort with large pinkish white heads 

 of tiny flowers that will perfume a whole 

 house. It growls three feet high and I have 

 seen it hold its own behind German iris and 

 bloom in utter neglect for years. Cultivated 

 and given room, it increases rapidly. 



If there is a gravelly place where nothing 

 else that is pretty will grow, a hot bank that 

 refuses to entertain aught but sand burrs, 

 plant bishop's weed (iEgopodium). Its 



The wild cucumber will quickly cover a fence 

 trellis and flowers freely in summer 



243 



green and cream, three-partite leaves as 

 large as those of a maple grow six inches 

 high and completely cover the ground. It 

 makes pretty edgings too, but must be 

 strictly disciplined to keep it within bounds. 

 This little plant is, in a way, quite curious 

 and interesting. It seems to be hardly 

 known nowadays, and is spoken of but in 

 few books or catalogues. Yet it is in all 

 really old-time gardens and seems to carry 

 the atmosphere of the Colonial with it. 

 Perhaps its variegations in these days of 

 pure taste have rung its knell. 



Thrift (Armeria) is a June blooming 

 edger that will grow 7 in poor soil as well as 

 in rich, and is very pretty. Its prim ever- 

 green tufts make a good defence against 

 grass and its bunches of pink or white flow- 

 ers, something like single geranium blossoms 

 come, off and on, from June to September. 

 Sweet Williams are favorites in the June 

 garden and make a fine display if good colors 

 are chosen and thickly set. The rich reds, 

 clear whites and red-and-whites are espe- 

 cially good. 



Beside them grow Shasta daisies. Don't 

 be afraid of the name — not only are they 

 three times as large as their grandmothers 

 of the field, but they have developed home 

 keeping traits, that must astonish their 

 relatives. About of the same height is a 

 June blooming soapwort that does well 

 in sandy gardens, Saponaria officinalis or 

 bouncing Bet. Don't judge it by the 

 scraggy w 7 ild specimens you see competing 

 with burdock and June grass. It responds 

 wonderfully to room and cultivation and 

 the double form is as beautiful as the 

 choicest stocks. 



Two of our annuals join the procession 

 in June — nasturtiums and California pop- 

 pies. Nasturtiums will give more flowers 

 in poor soil than elsewhere and they run to 

 leaves when watered too freely. They are 

 excellent for children's gardens; the little 

 ones like to pick their flowers. An edging 

 of dwarf nasturtiums sown of two colors, 

 say bright red and cream, is much finer 

 than a mixture. Plant six inches apart 

 early in May. 



For a low-growing, self-sowing, cheer- 

 bringing riot of yellow 7 and white, serf 

 California poppies. Their finely cut gray 

 leaves are beautiful, their flowers are limit- 

 less if seed pods are picked and the blos- 

 soms are lovely in bowls, opening morning 

 after morning. Like all the poppy family 

 they are very hard to transplant success- 

 fully, and should be sown early. 



July brings the true poppies in gorgeous 

 array to the garden of limits. Poppies are 

 short of season; three weeks see their com- 

 ing and going; but they are brilliant weeks, 

 and anything in annuals prettier or daintier 

 than a bed of Shirley poppies is yet to be 

 found. Scattering seed among perennial 



