The Garden Magazine 



Vol. XVII— No. 6 



Published Monthly 



JULY, 1913 



i One Dollar Fifty Cents a Year 

 1 Fifteen Cents a Copy 



rMONTffS 





REMINDER 



[For the purpose of reckoning dates, New York is 

 generally taken as a standard. Allow six days' differ- 

 ence for every hundred miles of latitude.] 



The Month of Reckoning 



JULY is the month of compensation in 

 the garden. When you wake up 

 early, knowing that you should go out and 

 cultivate, but wanting to sleep an hour 

 or two longer; when, at eventide you real- 

 ize that the hose ought to be dragged out, 

 but really want to sit quietly on the 

 piazza; when, picking corn just before 

 dinner, you feel the blistering heat of the 

 sun on the back of your neck, and reflected 

 from the ground against your feet — at 

 these times you wonder why you ever 

 started a garden. 



But look on the other side of the page. 

 When you bite into that melting, juicy 

 corn; when you set on the table a dish of 

 fragrant, luscious raspberries fresh picked; 

 when you look out across a soft green lawn 

 toward tier upon tier and mass against 

 mass of harmonious, smiling blossoms; 

 then, and half a thousand other times a 

 day, you know the answer, and all the work 

 is more than paid for. 



Cheer up. The work isn't so hard after 

 all — not nearly so exacting and contin- 

 uous as in the spring planting season. 

 Just a little regular attention of a morning 

 and an evening, and these are the things 

 you can and should accomplish: 



For Better Fruit 



T3EGIN summer pruning, which is but 

 -■-* a light shaping process. Take out 

 suckers ; and one of every pair of branches 

 that chafe or interfere. 



Multiply brambles by tip layering, which 

 consists of bending over a cane, covering 

 the tip with earth and holding it down with 

 a stone or peg. By fall roots will have 

 developed and new plants may be cut 

 loose and transplanted. 



Increase gooseberries by mound layering. 

 The principle is the same, for you simply 

 heap soil up around the base of the plant, 

 and later remove as cuttings such branches 

 as have sent out roots. At this time, how- 

 ever, cut out weak shoots that would pro- 

 duce poor plants. 



For all orchard spraying from now on use 

 ammoniacal copper carbonate. The formula : 

 6 ounces of copper carbonate dissolved in 3 

 pi n t s of ammonia , diluted to make 5 o gallons . 



Stop the lateral growth of grapes under 

 glass by pinching back. Remove leaves 

 here and there if necessary so as to let 

 the berries color up well. As soon as the 

 crop is picked, clean the vines thoroughly, 

 scraping off all loose bark, etc. 



Continue cultivating until July 20th. 

 Then, as soon as possible, sow cover crops. 

 Crimson clover is about the best, cow peas 

 next, then rye and lastly buckwheat for 

 very poor soils. 



Where Flowers Bloom 



IF YOU can get some gladiolus bulbs 

 within three days of the time you get 

 this magazine, plant them and keep them 

 moist, for results late this summer. 



If you want star of Bethlehem in your 

 lawn or among your trees, and must buy the 

 bulbs, do it in September. But if you know 

 of a field where you can get them for the 

 trouble of digging, now is the time to dig 

 and replant them. 



Cut back H. P. roses that have bloomed. 

 You may force another crop, and you will 

 surely produce strong wood for next sea- 

 son's flowers. 



Sow hollyhock seed as soon as you can 

 gather it, four inches apart in drills an 

 inch deep and eighteen inches apart. By 

 fall the seedlings can be transplanted later 

 to be mulched well for winter. 



Three hints that sound unimportant 

 but are really valuable, are: (a) Pinch 

 back tall plants to cause bushy, floriferous 

 growth, (b) If you must economize with 

 the water use it not on the plants in full 

 bloom, but on the growing and budding 

 specimens. And apply it only in the 

 evening, (c) Keep the beds either culti- 

 vated or covered, between the large plants, 

 with trailers. These look well, keep weeds 

 out and take less moisture than the bare 

 soil would evaporate. 



Start new rose plants in the cleaned and 

 disinfected greenhouse benches. Remem- 

 ber to put tobacco stems in under the soil 

 to deter aphides. The best rose soil is 

 good loam and rotted cow manure in ap- 

 proximately a 5 to 1 proportion, with a 

 bit of bone meal added. - 



335 



Take gloxinia cuttings from year old 

 plants. Stick an inch or so of the leaf stem 

 into the soil and a bulb will form at its 

 base by fall, giving a good plant next year. 



To keep the greenhouse from being bare 

 and uninteresting all summer keep these 

 blooming and store them under the benches 

 or in the cellar over winter: caladium, 

 tuberous begonia, ferns, fuchsia, achimines, 

 gloxinia, palms, selaginela, allamanda, 

 gesneria, and even aquatics to be grown 

 in tubs. 



Gardens Can be Made in July 



AND you can prove it! Read I. M. 

 Angell's account of her "after July 

 4th" garden in The Garden Magazine 

 for July, 1906. Study also the tables on 

 page 333 of that issue and page 356 of the 

 July, 191 1, number, then go and do likewise. 



Of course there are a few special hints. 

 Plant only black seeded lettuce and endive 

 for instance, and shade them both if pos- 

 sible. Wax beans, beets, corn, cucumbers 

 for pickles, kohlrabi and radishes may be 

 sown as usual. 



Transplant more cabbage and celery for 

 the main crop. Among the invariable garden 

 rules is: "When in doubt, water the celery." 



About the middle of the month, start 

 a brand new crop of tomatoes in flats, the 

 seedlings to be later put in tubs or solid 

 beds indoors and forced for Christmas fare. 



Also, with winter in mind, sow corn salad, 

 late turnips and winter radishes outside. 



Tie up cauliflower leaves as soon as the 

 inflorescence can be seen nestling in their 

 midst. But be sure it is dry, or the whole 

 head will rot. 



Put a bit of shingle under each ripening 

 muskmelon to keep it clean and free from 

 that disfiguring yellow blotch, always 

 associated with hucksters' stuff. Of course, 

 if you can get the vine up on some sort of 

 a trellis and support each fruit in a ham- 

 mock or sling, it will be handsomer and 

 more delicious than ever. 



Harvest each crop promptly when at 

 the height of its quality. If you simply 

 cannot use it all let some seed ripen and 

 save it for next season. To forestall the 

 inevitable question about the "mixing" 

 of melons, squash, etc., we suggest that 

 this plan be not tried with the cucurbi- 

 tacese. Although a melon and a squash 

 grown within five feet of each other will 

 not produce a "squalon" or a "meash," 

 or any other sort of a hybrid the first year, 

 yet they may cross fertilize and' produce 

 seeds that would produce something new 

 and less desirable. 



However, of our other crops — peas, 



