September, 1907 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



XVll 



or April. The plants may be transplanted to 

 the open ground as soon as the ground can be 

 worked in the spring. The pansy bed should 

 occupy an open sunny position, but not the 

 hottest on the premises. It should not be 

 crowded back against the wall of a house or 

 building, but should be so placed as to allow 

 of the full sweep of the wind across it. It 

 should have little shade — none direct. 



The best soil for growing pansies is leaf 

 mold and old, well-rotted cow manure. 

 Never place fresh manure in the pansy bed ; 

 the pansy is a lover of coolness and moist- 

 ure, and fresh manure is very heating and 

 must not be used. Where leaf mold is not 

 procurable good garden loam will grow very 

 good plants, but is not as desirable as the leaf 

 mold. This, by the way, is easily manufac- 

 tured at home if one will but save the leaves 

 and litter that go to furnish the autumnal bon- 

 fire, and much good will result as well as 

 much smoky annoyance be saved one's neigh- 

 bor if instead of raking the leaves up into a 

 heap and burning them they are all carted to 

 some out of the way nook and piled up and 

 left to decay; occasionally they may be turned 

 over to hasten their decay, the hose turned or 

 any waste water from the house added ; this 

 in a year or two will produce the finest kind 

 of leaf mold for the garden and for potting 

 soil, and if it is unsightly during summer 

 vines may be grown over and around it, cer- 

 tain gourds are much at home there, and their 

 great snowy, ruffled blossoms rival the finest 

 clematis. 



In working up the pansy bed it is always 

 best to trench in the manure that it may be 

 well below the surface and no great amount 

 of weed germinate. This is best accomplished 

 by laying aside one spade width of soil at one 

 side of the bed, filling the empty space with 

 manure and throwing the next row of spading 

 on top of this, instead of merely turning it 

 over. About one wheelbarrow load of manure 

 should be added to each square yard of earth. 

 The surface of the bed should be made very 

 fine and even and the rows for the plants 

 evenly marked on the surface. 



Pansy plants should be set about nine inches 

 apart each way, alternating the plants in the 

 row. In transplanting make a hole in the soil 

 with a trowel, set a plant in place, pull up a 

 little earth and pour in a liberal quantity of 

 water, and when that has filtered away draw 

 up the remaining earth and press firmly over 

 the plants. Make a fine dry mulch on the sur- 

 face of the bed and do not protect in any way. 

 The plants will need no further attention for 

 three or four days, when watering may begin. 



As the pansy grows its roots close to the 

 surface of the ground, frequent and copious 

 waterings are necessary; this must be given 

 with regularity and in sufficient quantity to 

 prevent drying out. My own experience is 

 that a thorough watering at night and again 

 at noon will result in the very finest pansies. 

 I know that watering flowers in the middle 

 of the day is against all accepted theories, but 

 experience is sometimes to be preferred to theo- 

 ries, and the pansy is not injured, as are many 

 plants, by water applied while the sun is 

 shining. 



To insure fine flowers and abundance of 

 them it is necessary to remove all seed pods, 

 or rather all withered flowers, as fast as they 

 form ; this will necessitate going over the beds 

 plant by plant and blossom by blossom twice 

 a day; this is the most interesting feature of 

 pansy culture, but the result well repays the 

 extra effort. For this reason it will be found 

 more convenient to grow the plants in long 

 narrow beds which may be easily reached 

 across. 



Along in July, or possibly as late as August, 

 according to the season, it will be found that 

 the blossoms are growing small and scarce and 

 the branches, long and scraggly; if now atten- 



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