228 



The Garden Magazine, January, 1920 



float bowl or better in a cream-colored bowl which flares open like 

 a morning glory. This, on one of the black wooden stands that 

 the Japanese devise for vases, with the strongly colored Irises, 

 makes a delightful spot of color and fragrance for the table decora- 

 tion. — B. Y. Morrison, D. C. 



The Rare Box 

 Huckleberry 



THE plant here shown (Gaylussacia 

 brachycera) was photographed at its 

 original stand in Pennsylvania. This beau- 

 tiful ground-cover plant is not obtainable 



at nurseries and unless some one 



takes up its propagation it may be 



lost altogether to our gardens. 



The tract of land where it grows 



will sooner or later be turned into 



farmland and the plant will then 



become extinct. The Arnold Ar- 

 boretum in a bulletin of 1917 



has this to say of this plant: 



"Among the easily grown and 



perfectly hardy evergreen plants 



of the Heath Family none is per- 

 haps more beautiful than the Box 



Huckleberry with its small, lus- 

 trous leaves which become the 



color of old Spanish leather in the 



autumn, small white flowers and 



blue fruits. The prostrate stems 



spread into broad mats only a few 



inches high and although the 



plant grows naturally in the shade 



of oak woods it thrives in full sun- 

 shine. This is one of the rarest 



plants in North America and is 



now known to grow naturally in 



only one place in Pennsylvania. 



— E. Morell, Harrisburg, Pa. 



ONE OF THE RAREST 

 Luxuriant enough as it grows in its 

 Huckleberry is nevertheless almost 



A Greenhouse A H ° T Wat6r heat6r ° f Pr ° Per ^ ^ * 



Heating Problem 



small greenhouse has such a small fire 



may have rows of Canterbury-bells to make glory for another 

 month. They are sure from seed, and easy to grow; and though I 

 lose some plants every year from stem rot, enough remain to make 

 my place look like a big bouquet of white, pink, and purple. Before 

 they are through another flower, Godetia, begins to bloom — not so 

 well known as it should be , though varieties of it have run wild along 

 our roadsides. For brilliancy of coloring from white to crimson, for 

 prolific bloom, for ease of culture, and for perfection as a bouquet 

 flower, Godetia is unsurpassed. Though an annual, it seeds itself 

 and is almost as reliable as a perennial, and by having plants fall 



self-sown, spring-sown, and some 

 sown later, one can have quite a 

 season of bloom to tide over the 

 hot daysof July. Atthesame time 

 the Gaillardias, with their red and 

 gold, begin to bloom and keep it up 

 till frost if conditions favor. Then, 

 too, the Shasta Daisies splash their 

 snow on the summer's heat, and 

 presently the stately Dahlia . is 

 opening its great glowing bloom. 

 By this time here along the coast 

 the gardens are drying up and 

 looking scraggly and the Dahlias 

 call for water and more water, but 

 they make good use of it, and all 

 tastes can surely be satisfied! 

 Without them and Gladiolus I 

 have found it hard to tide over the 

 hot days of August. Later come 

 the Asters; then Cosmos; and the 

 season's pageant closes with the 

 Chrysanthemum. I have chosen 

 from the list the things that by 

 actual experience 1 have found 

 most needful for a constant color 

 display, and most easily produced. 

 And this from a state that boasts 

 its Roses! But Roses are another story indeed and mean constant 

 work. — Mrs. A. I. C. Black, Corvallis, Oregon. 



PLANTS IN THE WORLD 

 native haunt in Pennsylvania the Box 

 certain to be exterminated eventually 



box that it is very troublesome to keep up a 

 satisfactory fire and maintain a uniform 

 heat. The solution would seem to be found in a heater using kero- 

 sene, but there seems to be no satisfactory burner on the market. 

 There are kerosene-burning hot water heaters for domestic use but 

 none of them are of sufficient capacity. Also, there are a number of 

 kerosene burners of the vaporizing type, intended to install in a coal- 

 burning boiler. These 1 know from expensive experience are not 

 satisfactory for they one and all carbonize and the extremely small 

 nozzle chokes up; also most of them work on the pressure system, 

 which means much hard work. Has any Garden Magazine reader 

 any light on the problem? — Marshall P. Slade, New York. 



California 

 Tree Poppy 

 Defies Winter 



Continual Bloom 

 In An Oregon 

 Garden 



FOR several years in my Oregon garden 

 I have been studying how to get con- 

 tinual and plenteous bloom from the fewest 

 kinds of flowers. Much that 1 have learned 

 will apply to other states as well. Unless the winter is a hard one 

 Violets bloom constantly — not much color about them, but they are 

 there. No spring's sun shines in Oregon without seeing its gold and 

 white reflection in the Narcissus of most dooryards. This family 

 in our climate grows and multiplies "like weeds," and when the 

 beautiful double Poet's Narcissus ends the season's display it finds 

 itself in company with the great crimson blooms of the old-fashioned 

 red Peony, than which no more gorgeous coloring ever graces a 

 garden. Last year they began to bloom May 4th. Before they 

 are gone, if you have taken a little pains the summer before, you 



A FEW years ago I wrote to The Garden 

 Magazine a trifle vaingloriously, I am 

 afraid, of my success with the California Tree 

 Poppy (Romneya Coulteri). That very 

 winter, the bitter cold one of 1917-1918 my pride was overtaken by 

 misfortune and the beautiful thing was killed, notwithstanding the 

 fact that it had had the same protection as usual with the shelter of 

 the high wall at its back to keep off the north winds. To the right 

 of the Poppy's dwelling place is a coldframe, and great were my 

 astonishment and delight this spring when I lifted the glass to find 

 a vigorous plant of Romneya in full growth. I do not know if this 

 plant came from the seed of the other — which is said to require a 

 year or more to germinate — or from a prowling rootlet that had 

 found its way deep down under, or through,- the stone foundation of 

 the concrete frame. It grew nearly five feet tall and as many 

 through and early in July bore twenty of the great silken, fragrant 

 blooms, then addressed itself to developing fresh shoots and these, 

 beginning to flower in September, continued until hard frost. The 

 white petals are so thin as to be almost transparent; the whole 

 flower looks frail and ephemeral to a degree, yet it lasts in water 

 for several days. The perfume is a deliciousness somewhere be- 

 tween a Tea Rose and a Magnolia. It seems rather curious that a 

 California plant accustomed to a long dry summer should have so 

 plainly delighted in the past very wet one. The soil that is said 

 to suit it best is a light loam, but that in my coldframe is very 

 sandv. — L. B. Wilder. 



^^^■^M 



