OUTLINING THE YEAR'S GARDEN WORK 



A Practical Method of Determining What the Garden 

 Really Needs and of Deciding How It Shall Get It 



GOOD New Year's reso- 

 lution for the gardener 

 will be to decide now to 

 balance last year's results 

 against the efforts that were made 

 then, as he lays out the plan of 

 operations for the coming year. 

 Of course there were failures — ■ 

 every year sees certain failures! 

 But failure may teach us far more 

 than success. Examine thoroughly 

 the failures of last year in order to 

 determine the plans for this year. 

 Was too much attempted? Was 

 the nature of the necessary work 

 too little understood? 



A Garden Is Not a Farm 



Guiding Points for the Planner 



Things to be Sure of 

 That your seed order goes in early to insure proper 



filling 

 That your soil is suitable for the things you intend to 



plant 

 That your house is wedded to the ground by vines or 



shrubs 

 That your garden generally is a completely developed 



scheme which carries the livable quality from 



indoors out 



Things to Avoid 



Undertaking to do too much anywhere 



Miscalculating the effort of maintenance 



Long distances separating the service features of the 



place 

 Trifling indirectness in walks and drives 

 Walks and drives that are cramped in width or sweep 

 A turn-around of the drive that makes it necessary 



to back and go forward with an automobile in 



order to negotiate it 



ON THE farm it is estimated 

 that one man is needed for 

 each five acres of land under broad cultivation. But that 

 is no criterion of the labor involved about residential 

 grounds, for "broad cultivation" is not of course intensive. 

 Intensive maintenance requires almost daily grooming, and 

 every strip of walk or driveway that has to be margined cuts 

 heavily into time for work with flowers or the vegetable 

 garden. Yet it is doubtful if we ordinarily take into con- 

 sideration the great amount of labor needed to keep a lawn 

 clipped and in good condition. Many times an increased 

 portion in flowers will be an actual saving in maintenance, 

 instead of an added effort. 



For the owner who is willing to do something himself it is 

 well to limit definitely the part to be played — or worked! — 

 right now when the planning is being done. Work that looks 

 inconsiderable from a distance has a way of becoming intoler- 

 able when the season for it arrives, and if the garden plans 

 are made on a loose basis of the owner's willingness to " help 

 out " on occasion it is almost a certainty that various and most 

 unexpected tasks will present themselves to him during the 

 summer. This entire object of planning now is to assign 

 definitely each thing and duty to its place in the scheme of the 

 whole, and so to avoid possible overcrowding. 



ONCE planted, trees and shrubs require practically no 

 care whatsoever. Perennial flowers are supposed to be 

 as little trouble as anything in the flower world can be, and 

 annuals are regarded as a bother. Yet perennial borders 

 need to be worked over every spring and weeded during the 

 summer quite as energetically as any annual beds or borders; 

 and the time needed for spading up the space for the annuals 

 is practically no greater! Make up your mind that border 

 flowers of any kind need looking after; and that if there is no 

 time to do this, or no one to do it, flowering shrubs are a better 

 material to stick to. 



The vegetable garden should 

 have cultivation over its entire 

 surface every three days until the 

 plants are so large that such work 

 is impossible. With the best mod- 

 ern implements this work is done 

 almost as fast as one can walk the 

 rows, with an extra allowance for 

 weeding by hand along the rows 

 during the early days of it. 



Fruit trees take the time re- 

 quired to mix sprays and apply 

 them three or four times during 

 the early summer — sometimes 

 later. 



Roses require constant atten- 

 tion, and weekly spraying usually. 

 All flowers (especially of annuals) 

 should be cut as fast as they fade, 

 in order to carry blooming over as 

 long a period as possible. 

 Sum up the total of all of these demands in planning for 

 the coming year's work, and if it amounts to more than can 

 be assured, decide now what you will omit. On the other 

 hand if less has been accomplished than may be done with 

 the labor at your disposal, plan now how best to increase the 

 garden's worth either for practical utility or for pure pleasure 

 and beauty. 



Determining the Object in View 



HAVE an aim in gardening, of course! Yet without a 

 doubt this aim will change as knowledge increases and 

 ideals advance or shift. So look well over your present ideal 

 for the garden and see whether the garden itself now conforms 

 to it or falls short. The ideal garden is made up of nine 

 things and it is well to test one's own place for completeness 

 by the standard which these establish. Here they are: — 

 i A complete vegetable or kitchen garden 



2 Hotbeds and coldframes 



3 Tree fruits 



4 Small fruits 



5 A greenhouse of appropriate size 



6 A flower garden 



7 As much lawn as may be 



8 Trees for background and shade 



9 Shrubs for boundaries, thickets, and screens. 

 Further than these nine things individual fancy may of 



course carry out such special schemes as occasion offers — 

 water gardens, rock gardens, a rosery, winter gardens, spring 

 gardens, or what-not. Less than these nine features individ- 

 ual preference must decide upon by eliminating those that 

 appear least worth while, if actual completeness is not the 

 aim or is impossible. 



The place that is lived in only during the summer may be 



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