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THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



July, 1913 



(Editor's Note. — We want to know how suc- 

 cessful workers do things in order to put actual 

 experiences before our thousatids of readers in all 

 parts of the country. Every reader is invited to con- 

 tribute a short note on some interesting experience. 

 Just slate the facts about some ingenious idea that you 

 have actually worked out yourself or have seen.) 



Roses from slips 



Mr. Lange, in his account of growing 

 roses from slips in the January, 1913, 

 number, speaks of it as comparatively a 

 new method. It is a common practice 

 among the Philadelphia suburbanite dwel- 

 lers to make rose slips in August, set them 

 in the open ground, and cover with glass 

 jars or tumblers. There they remain till 

 spring. We followed the practice last 

 year and have a number of thrifty little 

 plants. — C, Penn. 



Sweet woodruff for partial shade 



In our country the sweet woodruff of 

 German forests will stand partial shade 

 without growing leggy. In full sun I have 

 used it as a mat between roses of free- 

 flowering tendencies like La France. If 

 it takes anything from the rose bushes, the 

 loss is not noticeable. Surely it could not 

 rob such things as the ramblers; nor do the 

 ramblers need bare ground and tillage 

 which some people are so careful to give 

 them.— E. S. J., Pa. 



Card indexing the garden 



I grow a variety of bulbs and the only 

 way that I have found to keep them straight 

 is to make out an index card for each item 

 of an order when the order is made out 

 and sent. Then, when the bulbs are re- 

 ceived, the card is checked and a note 

 made of their condition, and shortage or 

 over-run on count, if any; and, when they 

 are planted, the locality, etc., may be 

 added. Then all is ready for the blos- 

 soming, unless special methods of forcing 

 are used, which may also be noted. This 

 leaves plenty of room on the card for items 

 of cost and source also, together with full 

 notes on the flowers produced, and after a 

 year or so the cards become of considerable 

 value. They have all of the advantages 

 of a card index, and there is room on the 

 ordinary 3 by 5 inch card for at least 

 three years' entries. The same scheme may 

 be used for seeds, and if it is adopted for 

 plants and shrubs also, each may have 

 cards of a definite color, as they are to be 

 had in colors. — F. C, New Jersey. 



The Brighton grape 



In Mr. E. P. Powell's interesting article 

 "Plant More Grapes!" in the January, 

 1913, issue he speaks of not remembering 

 where the Brighton came from. It origi- 

 nated with Jacob Moore of Brighton, N. Y. 

 (whom he mentions in connection with 

 Moore Early), and is a cross between the 

 Concord and Diana Hamburg. Mr. Moore 

 was a modest, retiring man, averse to 

 pushing himself or his products, and never 

 received the pecuniary reward, from the 

 excellent fruits he introduced, that he was 

 justly entitled to. — W. H. C, Penn. 



The hobble=bush 



While on a snow-shoe tramp througn 

 the Adirondack pine forests one day last 

 March I noticed a small bush, with large 

 light colored flower buds growing at the 

 tips of the branches between two tightly 

 folded leaf buds, as between a tiny pair of 

 horns. I gathered an armful of the twigs 

 and put them in jars of water in a sunny 

 window. Three weeks later I had two jars 

 full of lovely white snowball-like blossoms. 

 The rich green leaves were almost as 

 beautiful as the flowers and they were a 

 delight for many days. This plant is 

 known as the wayfarers' bush, witch- 

 hobble or hobble-bush. It is quite hardy 

 and one of the first things to blossom in the 

 northern woods. — F. B. H., New York. 



Sowing fine flower seeds 



The way I sow poppy, and in fact all 

 my fine seed, is to put it in a salt shaker 

 with ten times its bulk of dry sand and 

 sift over beds, firming afterward with a 

 board. If you .,ish to be convinced of 

 the evenness of this way of planting fine 

 seeds use the shaker over the palm of your 

 hand and see how evenly the seed is dis- 

 tributed over the surface. I buy every 

 year one packet of the best Shirley poppy 

 seed and place it in good soil very early 

 in the spring. These poppies I keep well 

 cultivated and picked, but when frost 

 comes there are sure to be hundreds of 

 seed pods on the plants. These I pick 

 and preserve and find next spring that I 

 have a goodly quantity of seed which cost 

 me practically nothing. This seed I sow 

 lavishly over all beds. Thus I have no 

 bare spots later in the summer after peren- 

 nials have gone by. This year I am 

 trying bachelor buttons in amongst some 

 of the poppies. — Vida C. Webb, N. H. 



The butterfly pea 



In The Garden Magazine for April, 

 1912, N. S. T., Pa., takes occasion to praise 

 the butterfly pea (Centrosema grandiflora). 

 This is praise well bestowed; for it is an 

 exceedingly attractive climber, especially 

 the soft lavender kind which, I believe, is 

 the type. It varies to white and a "red" 

 is listed: though very likely the latter is the 

 "reddish violet" to which your correspon- 

 dent refers. This is not the only butterfly 

 pea. There is another, and to my mind, 



still prettier one — Clitoria temata. The 

 blossom, similar in form to that of the 

 centrosema, is a rich deep blue. There is 

 also a white variety. It is classed as a 

 greenhouse climber in the North, but, by 

 treating it as an annual, I have secured 

 bloom in the open garden the first year 

 from seed. To get the best results, the 

 seed should be sown very early indoors. 

 In the Bahamas, where it flowers all winter, 

 the clitoria has been found a good vine 

 for a wire tennis screen; it climbs about 

 fifteen feet. — N. S. A., Connecticut. 



Larkspur and cosmos 



Last year I had a large bed of the annual 

 blue larkspur and white cosmos that at- 

 tracted much attention. The larkspur was 

 self-sown and came up in the fall. Early 

 in February I planted broadcast the seed 

 of white cosmos all through the bed. The 

 cosmos began to bloom when hardly fifteen 

 inches high and continued long after the 

 larkspur had gone to seed. — M. B., Florida. 



Roses 



I started a rose garden two years ago 

 with one bed 4 by 12 feet in size. Last 

 year I had three beds of that size. The 

 centre bed and the two paths between 

 the beds were spanned by three wire arches 

 on which I had six varieties of climbing 

 roses. I did not lose a plant during the 

 winter, although it was a severe one. 

 Last fall I made two beds which were filled 

 with roses this spring. The rose I consider 

 the finest in my collection is the Lyon. — 

 Mrs. W. F., Conn. 



Morning=glories in January 



One of my successes during the past 

 winter has been a small pot with two 

 morning-glory vines in it. Two seeds were 

 planted in the pot after our autumn move 

 to town early in October, and the pot was 

 kept in a sunny south window of an invalid's 

 room. The first blossom came the end of 

 November, and by the last of January, 

 the vine had grown to the top of the win- 

 dow and bent down again. There was 

 hardly a day without a blossom, and 

 most days there have been from three 

 to seven. — M. F. B., Conn. 



Tomatoes on a single stem 



Ha-dng noted in The Garden Magazine 

 the many suggestions for raising tomatoes 

 on a single stem, I resolved last year to 

 try it in my little backyard garden with 

 six plants. One of the vines produced, 

 by this method, ^ fine tomatoes weighing 

 about 14 pounds. They were the finest 

 I grew. I was careful to pinch off all 

 shoots except the top one as fast as they 

 appeared. There were blossoms at the 

 top and some small tomatoes forming when 

 the vine was touched by the frost in Octo- 

 ber. Total height of vine from ground was 

 5 feet 10 inches. I gathered the first 

 tomato the latter part of July and the vine 

 continued to produce until frost.— R. B., 

 New York. 



