54 



WIND FALLS. 



the water and there bloom. Care must be taken to 

 have the water the temperature of the room. You may 

 also have in your mantel garden crocuses and tulips, but 

 be sure to use earthen-ware pots for these. 



Flower-Stand Garden. — Place a flower-stand against 

 the wall, where it may remain permanently, so you can 

 put into one of the pots a trellis for climbers. Passion 

 flowers and pinks would be a good choice, and double 

 violets at the bottom will have a good effect. For the 

 other pots select such plants as will not grow tall. 



A Tree Mignonette will be a fine addition. To rear 

 this you must plant only one root of mignonette, tying 

 it to a stick. When buds begin to appear, cut them off ; 

 other shoots will then start. For these make a hoop 

 and fasten them to it. After they have bloomed, take 

 off the seed pods, and then, by judicious lopping, you 

 will soon have a mignonette tree. — Edith Somner. 



The Thistle Poppy. — The papaveracese or poppy 

 family furnishes many beautiful flowers for us to culti- 

 vate and admire. The order includes near twenty gen- 

 era, of which nine or ten are represented in California. 

 Among these genera is argemone, a genus of some six 

 or eight species of free-flowering border plants, with 

 large, showy, white or yellow short-pediceled flowers. 

 They are stout, glaucescent hardy annuals, with sinu- 

 ately pinnatifid, prickly-toothed leaves, from which 

 they have become known as thistle-poppies. 



Argemone giandiflora is described as "growing two 

 feet in height, and producing numerous large white 

 flowers. " 



Argejiioiie IMe.xicaiia, a native of Texas and Mexico, 

 grows to about the same height, and produces conspicu- 

 ous yellow flowers in profusion. As a weed, this plant 

 ''has spread to almost all warm countries," but I be- 

 lieve it has not as yet been recorded from California. 

 The leaves are blotched with white and less hispid than 

 in the following species. 



Argemone hispiJa, the chicalote or thistle poppy of 

 southern California, in the beauty of its flowers almost 

 rivals the magnificent Romneya CoitUen. It forms an 

 erect branching bush, one to three feet or more in height, 

 producing a profusion of its large, pure white flowers, 

 closely set among pale green, bristly-armed leaves. 



The large white flowers render it very conspicuous 

 on a lawn, by day or night, but the delicate texture of 

 its petals, and unpleasantly hispid character of its stems 

 and foliage, will not render it a favorite with florists. 



When seen growing luxuriantly on its native, dry and 

 otherwise almost barren hillsides in California, or in 

 equally dry valleys, its beauty is not likely to be easily, 

 overlooked. It extends eastward through Colorado and 

 New Mexico, and has gained a permanent place in the 

 catalogues of American seedsmen. — C. R. Orcutt, Cal. 



Olearias. — Shrubs for our Middle and Southern 

 S/a/es. Olearia Gunniana is a Tasmanian shrub, long 

 known in the gardens under the name Eiirybia Gunniana , 

 but as eurybia cannot be generically separated from 

 olearia, the older name gives place to the one given 

 above. The plant grows from three to four feet in 



height, with hoary branches and polymorphous leaves, 

 which are oblanceolate, coarsely toothed, and hoary 

 beneath. The starry white flowers are very numerous, 

 and cover the ends of the branches with a snowy sheet. 

 In sheltered situations it will stand out of doors unin- 

 jured in our usual winters, although in very severe ones, 

 and in cold situations, it may be preserved from injury 

 by a small amount of protection. 



About London this shrub is often found, smothered 

 with bloom, in the spring months, and it is undoubtedly 

 a town plant, although the flowers get smirched with 

 "blacks." 



Of olearias eighty-five species have been described ; 

 of these, sixty-three are Australian, and the remainder 

 natives of New Zealand and the neighboring islands. 

 O. Haastii, white, flowering in dense subterminal hoary 

 cymes, is undoubtedly hardy in this country, and is a 

 dwarf shrub everyone should grow. — Gardene7-^s Chron- 

 icle. 



Best Chrysanthemums for Market. — What kinds 

 of chrysanthemums are best for cut-flowers for market ? 

 Chas. T. D., Lotig Island. 



A fiswer by B. AI. Waison, Jr. — No list of the six best 

 chrysanthemums for the cut-flower trade is likely to 

 suit any one given combination of circumstances ; expe- 

 rience alone will determine what kinds will prove the 

 most profitable. I would suggest as the sorts likeliest 

 to be successful where large and fine flowers are re- 

 quired. Belle Hickey, Fair Maid of Guernsey, white ; 

 Jardin des Plantes, W. H. Lincoln, yellow ; Culling- 

 fordii, deep crimson, and John Thorpe, deep lake. An 

 almost equally good list would be, Domination, Robt. 

 Bottomly, white ; Gloriosum, Neesima, yellow ; Mrs. 

 C. H. Wheeler, orange and red, and Lilian B. Bird, 

 shiny pink. Mrs. Alpheus Hardy has proved a paying 

 kind where it has been well grown. Grandiflorum and 

 Thunburg are fine late yellows ; Helen Galvin, a new 

 one, promises to be one of the best of whites. 



Up to the present year the demand for cut-flowers has 

 been for yellows and whites. Now there is a call for a 

 larger variety ; if this is to be permanent, additions to 

 the above list should be made ; say. Source d'Or, yellow 

 and orange ; Bouquet Fait, rose and white, Tokio, dark 

 orange red. with yellow, not very large ; Cannon Farrar, 

 white shaded pink; Wm. Robinson, crimson yellow ; 

 E. G. Hill, yellow, with deep purplish shading, and 

 Diana, a pure white, incurved red, and of moderate size. 



Good Perennials. — A garden of perennials in good 

 variety is a wonderful thing, and a constant surprise ; 

 and to my thinking it is the only one that amateurs who 

 have no greenhouses should attempt to carry on. Near- 

 ly all of the hardy plants offered by our nurserymen 

 are good, and very few are worthless. Double pyreth- 

 rumsare very pretty, and the newer sorts of campanulas 

 are good, although there is nothing finer than the old 

 fashioned Canterbury bells. The hundreds of varieties 

 of phloxes, paeonies, lilies, larkspurs, etc., are mainly 

 good. Scabiosa Cazicasiea is very satisfactory, and too 

 much cannot be said in favor of hardy poppies, especially 



