WALKS AND TALKS AT BREEZE HILL— V 



J. HORACE McFARLAND 



Wherein is Reflective, Critical, Philosophical, and Friendly Comment about Plants 

 and their Behavior, Inspired by Personal Experiences in a Garden Made for Pleasure 



[S I was looking over a hedge of Climbing Roses that 

 runs parallel to a traveled street, a man wheeling a 

 baby-coach (it was Sunday afternoon, please !) stopped 

 and spoke. 



"Where will you plant the Dahlias this year?" he asked. 



I told him I would need to put them back in the garden, 

 not along the street where they did radiant duty the previous 

 season. 



"Oh, but you mustn't put them where I can't enjoy them as 

 I pass by," he said. "They were wonderful last year. I never 

 saw anything so beautiful." 



When 1 told him he was entirely welcome to come in and see 

 them, and to see the garden generally, whenever he wanted to, he 

 replied that he certainly would do so, and thanking me, wheeled 

 the baby away. 



I have been thinking much of that man's anxiety about where 

 I might plant my Dahlias in my garden. What concern is it 

 of his? Isn't Breeze Hill my garden? 



No, it isn't. It never has been. Incidentally, I have a deed 

 for the land; I have made and tended the gardens and have seen 

 that particular West Garden develop during the past dozen 

 years from a rough shale grading into what it is. I have pulled 

 out a million Shepherd's-purse and Button-weed; have piled on 

 manure; grown Vetch to be turned under for humus; have seen 

 the spade driven down a straight twelve inches into every foot 

 of it. I have coddled the Pyruses (or Maluses — I forget which 

 is the name-fashion for the Apple-Pear family to-day) in the 

 southwest corner under the tall Locusts; I have stretched that 

 Rose hedge that faced the street. 



But I never made a single leaf to grow, a single flower to 

 bloom, of my own power. Who am I, a mere passing tenant of 

 a little section of God's lovely earth, to shut out by ownership 

 any one from seeing what He does with the mysteries of soil 

 and water and sunshine! 



This little Eden is mine "to tend and to keep," but not to 

 exclude others from. So I have welcomed the visitors who are 

 part owners with me, and am glad to have them stop and enjoy 

 the things that happen. Indeed, I enjoy with them, and I 

 enjoy their enjoyment. There are no gates across the four 

 Breeze Hill entrances. 



Hardy Outdoor Chrysanthemums 



MY memory tells me of many '"mums" or "frost flowers" 

 in the dear old garden of my boyhood home. Little yel- 

 low, brown, red, white, and pink "buttons" they were, and they 

 warmed the chill garden days of October. 1 have not succeeded 

 in getting established at Breeze Hill any of these ruggedly hardy 

 Chrysanthemums except a dull, dark red sort that stands any- 

 thing. The successive purchases of many sorts, and even the 

 getting of some from old gardens, have given us good flowers 

 sometimes, but plants of only incidental hardiness. Two 

 winters ago wiped out all but the red one I have mentioned and 

 a yellow button sort that seldom colors before hard freezing. A 

 few plants stored in my "dug-out" or deep coldframe kept 

 stock, but 1 have not gotten back the abundance I like of these 

 indispensable autumn flowers. 



There is one sort of the so-called Early-flowering Hardy 

 Chrysanthemum that has escaped the attention it deserves. 

 Catalogues offer it with a simple and quite indefinite descrip- 

 tion, leading to the cynical reflection that the florist often avoids 

 either noticing or checking up the accuracy of his descriptions. 



This one different " 'mum" is Normandie. It is of the infor- 

 mal Japanese type, opening into pink flowers of considerable 

 size, which eventually fade toward ecru and white, the fading 

 being agreeable and long postponed, by reason of the endur- 

 ance of the bloom. But the surprising thing about this Nor- 

 mandie is its earliness. I have had flowers open on August 

 25th, and the plants will do bloom business for more than six 

 weeks. If "disbudded" the flowers will have considerable 

 size, but not at all in the cabbage-head class that some folks 

 admire. 



There is a clear yellow "sport" of Normandie, but it isn't 

 as generally good as the parent. Indeed, I don't know of a 

 truly reliable and reasonably early yellow hardy '"mum." 

 Lillian Doty is a daintily beautiful globular pink; and I had, 

 until the bad winter wiped it out, a pleasing white sort called 

 Queen of the Whites. 



If I were a hybridizer of Chrysanthemums, I would cer- 

 tainly work with Normandie, hoping to carry its earliness, its 

 endurance, its other good qualities, into a variety of colors. 

 Our gardens need about a dozen hardy and reliable Chrysan- 

 themums, utterly apart from the greenhouse monstrosities 

 that never even suggest garden relations. 



About Prinsepia sinensis 



THE Forsythias are most useful spring-blooming shrubs, and 

 they surely do shine out in the shrubbery border. Breeze 

 Hill had a tremendous clump of F. viridissima, evidently the 

 quarter-century's extension of one plant in the only good soil on 

 the place when I was absorbed by it a dozen years ago. It made 

 a noble show, and I was indeed sorry that decrepitude and soil 

 exhaustion made its removal necessary four years ago. Then 

 there came an Arnold Arboretum plant of the true F. intermedia, 

 which set a new standard for profusion and beauty of bloom 

 and compactness of plant. It has made me wonder why 

 nurserymen will go on propagating less satisfactory forms that 

 are no easier to grow, just as I wonder why the same uncom- 

 mercial tradesmen keep on with Philadelphus coronarius only, 

 when with no more effort they might grow and sell — at a higher 

 price, probably — the lovely Mockorange Virginal to better 

 pleased customers. 



But this is not a Forsythia story. It is rather a word of an- 

 other and earlier shrub, with unique qualities and attractions. 

 Prinsepia sinensis is the first shrub to unfold its leaves in spring, 

 and they mind not at all the late snows that sometimes hang 

 on the graceful outcurves of the plant, which reaches barely 

 to three feet in height. The flowers open as the leaves develop, 

 and their soft golden loveliness is delightful. Not individually 

 conspicuous, as are those of the Forsythia, the effect is rather 

 that of a yellow mist or cloud — an effect of refinement and 

 elegance. 



This is another Chinese shrub, and we seemingly owe it to 

 England, to which land it was brought from North China some 

 years ago. My cherished plant came from the Arnold Ar- 

 boretum. Where to get plants, I will be asked! I don't know! 

 The nurserymen are yet blind to this lovely spring shrub, more's 

 the pity! 



Prinsepia uniflora is a sister plant, but without any attrac- 

 tions I have been able to discover as yet, while its thorns present 

 some definite detractions. It may have possibilities as a low- 

 growing hedge plant, and after it blooms — as it has not yet 

 done — its white flowers may commend it. 



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