Pinks are specially useful for edging or masses. Flowers for two months 



Sweet Williams give big effects more quickly than any other perennial 



Perennials Everybody Can Grow from Seeds— By Adolph Kruhm, 



A DOZEN DEPENDABLE SPECIES THAT YOU CAN SURELY HAVE IN FLOWER NEXT YEAR FROM SEEDS 

 SOWN IN AUGUST — THE MAKING OF A SEED BED AND REASONS WHY SOME AMATEURS FAIL 



PERENNIALS from seeds! Does the 

 term cause you thoughts of past dis- 

 appointments, of hopes not realized and 

 time, money and effort wasted? Then 

 forget the past and be assured that you can 

 grow them if you follow the suggestions 

 offered herewith and concentrate your 

 efforts upon the easily grown species. 



The reasons why most people fail with 

 perennials are threefold. Part of the 

 blame must be put on the planter whose 

 lack of patience often upsets seed pans and 

 destroys seed beds before they have started 

 to fulfil their mission. Another part of 

 failure is due to the "over-civilization" of 

 many of our choicest perennials. The 

 higher developed and higher bred any form 

 of life, the more difficult it becomes to 

 propagate that species. Many of our best 

 perennials have become so high bred that 

 they require the guarding care, eye and 

 hand of an experienced nurseryman. Lastly, 

 we forget that most perennials are children 

 of foreign climes and soils. Our rough and 

 ready methods of doing things in the gar- 

 den often do not agree with them and 

 through carelessness during their early 

 stages of development we are robbing them 

 of chances to become acclimated. 



The list of perennials that may be sown 

 by the amateur with a reasonable assur- 

 ance of success, has gradually been sifted 

 down to twelve — the dependable dozen. 

 A peculiar point about many of them is 

 they have relatives among the wild flowers 

 of this country. This assures the presence 

 of a strong vitality and sturdy vigorous 

 constitution — the requisites for sure ger- 

 mination and long life. Many of them 

 self-sow freely and multiply rapidly of their 

 own accord, a sure sign that the climate 

 agrees with them. 



All the varieties mentioned may be 

 sown right now into the open ground in the 



place where they are to grow or in a seed 

 bed. If your garden soil consists of a 

 good, friable loam, no specially prepared 

 bed is necessary except that the soil should 

 be dug deeply and a big wheelbarrow-load 

 of well rotted manure should be incor- 

 porated into the bed. If you are con- 

 fronted by heavy, stiff clay, prepare a bed 

 as follows: 



Get 2 bushels good, black soil from a 

 florist; to this add 2 bushels of leaf mold 

 and 1 bushel of sand. A bushel of de- 

 cayed wood meal from an old tree stump 

 added to this, is fine though not necessary. 

 Mix all this thoroughly with a shovel or 

 a hoe and then spread it in a suitable place 

 over the top of the ground in the shape 

 of a bed, size 4x5 ft. The amount of 

 mixture suggested above will cover such a 

 surface to a depth of 4 inches. Raise it 

 high enough above the level of the sur- 

 rounding ground to insure good drainage. 

 Select a partially shaded spot for the lo- 

 cation of this bed for two reasons: Most 

 of the plants named below thrive naturally 

 in partly shaded places and if you can keep 

 the hot noonday sun off the seedlings, so 

 much the better. Where peculiar condi- 

 tions oblige you to build your bed in a 

 position with full exposure to the sun, it 

 pays to cover the bed, after seeding, with 

 w y et burlap between n a. m. and 3 p. m. 



Level the bed carefully and place rows, 

 by means of a long, straight lath, 4 inches 

 apart. Into these sow seed as deeply as 

 indicated in the tabular record below. This 

 advice of "sowing seeds" put into a dozen 

 words reminds me of a saying of our es- 

 teemed editor: "Be explicit — it is the 

 tmng everybody knows that nobody ac- 

 tually knows in detail." There never was 

 a truer saying than this, applied especially 

 to the sowing of seeds. A dozen different 

 people do it a dozen different ways though 



8 



there must, of necessity, always be one 

 best way. Here is the simplest way to sow 

 fine seeds accurately: 



Take your seed bag and carefully pull 

 open the sealed flap. Take the bag by the 

 edges between the fingers of your right hand 

 and press it into funnel shape. Take your 

 left hand and gently fold the flat front 

 portion of the bag so as to produce a sharp 

 crease in the bag. This crease should 

 extend all the way to the edge of the bag 

 clear across the flap you pulled back. 

 Then hold the bag between the thumb and 

 last three fingers of your hand, tip the bag 

 gently and tap it with the pointing finger. 

 The seeds will roll out of the bag as by 

 magic; one by one, slowly or fast, thickly 

 or thinly, as you wish. The little channel 

 you pressed into the bag, the slant position 

 you give the bag and the motion you pro- 

 duce with your pointing finger, do the trick. 

 Only a few minutes are required to get the 

 practice. 



After seeds are in the rows (don't forget 

 to properly label each row with a 4-inch 

 wooden pot label) you can cover them 

 two ways: gently push sufficient soil over 

 them to cover to proper depth or take a 

 sieve and sift soil over the rows. This 

 last method will, perhaps, do the work 

 most uniformly. 



Now, be patient. Perennials grow slowly. 

 Keep the surface of the bed moist all the time. 

 Cover it during the middle of the day, as 

 suggested above, to prevent the hot sun from 

 cracking the soil. If by September 1st 

 the seedlings are large enough (from 2 to 3 

 inches) to be transplanted into their per- 

 manent places, set them out the distances 

 suggested below. They will then have six 

 weeks of growing weather to become firmly 

 established. A 4-inch coat of coarse man- 

 ure spread over them by November 1st 

 will prove good protection against severe 



