LillllllllllllllllUIUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIiflim 
GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 
OF AMERICA 
Devoted to the Science of Floriculture and Horticulture 
| Vol. XX. 
Illlllllllllllllllllllffllltitllllltlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll 
AUGUST, 1916. 
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No. 8. § 
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Things and Thoughts of the Garden 
By the Onlooker. 
WHAT are the most difficult hardy plants to trans- 
plant? Which of our border flowers least like 
a change? Which of them rejoice to have a new- 
location? Which of the herbaceous perennials ought we 
to put in their permanent quarters now ? These are all 
questions that are of supreme interest. Among those 
that do not like to be disturbed any oftener than is ac- 
tually necessary, say every three years or less, are the tall 
growing Delphiniums. The first year after a shift these 
are comparatively weak ; thereafter they get stronger and 
flower better and longer. A second class of beautiful, 
hardy flowers that can scarcely be expected to do much 
the first year following a change of site are the Peonies. 
Much may be done by affording them some little feeding 
and keeping them watered should the weather be dry, but 
as they flower so early in the summer they have little time 
to get nourishment together for the flowers, and their 
thick roots must get established before we obtain the finest 
from the plants. Thirdly, the Dictamnus or Burning 
Bush, also called Gas Plant, because of the amount of 
gas that seems to be generated in and by the seed pods. 
When these pods are dry and ripe and are lit by a match 
a tall flame will shoot up and continue burning for many 
seconds. The Dictamnus likes to live long in one place. 
It is a plant we find in old gardens and colonies have 
been known to grow in sites for a generation. Fourthly, 
the Bleeding Heart. This is another of the almost uni- 
versal favorites, but the best cannot be expected the first 
year after disturbing it or dividing it. Here, again, the 
roots are fleshy and, as with so many plants of this char- 
acter, they flower early in the year, or which demand un- 
limited supplies of sap and strength, they take about a 
season to get fully re-established. Of course, the Bleed- 
ing Heart (Dielytra spectabilis) is a very free and often 
persistent bloomer, too. It prefers semi-shade to full 
sun. Dicentra eximia, growing nine inches to one foot 
tall, likes an open, sunny spot and will flower for weeks 
and weeks. It is a good plant for the rock garden. The 
list of plants that resent disturbance and show it could 
be considerably augmented were one to ponder the matter 
thoroughly- I have had poor success with Tritomas or 
Kniphofias after transplanting in the late spring. The Sea 
Hollies or Eryngiums cannot be disturbed with impunity, 
and so the list might be extended quite a way. 
* * * 
Plants that ought to be transplanted in August — by 
mid-August, if possible — are the Oriental Poppies, and, 
be it noted, that there are some wonderfully fine shades 
in these now — soft salmon, rose, white, "art" shades in 
varietv. as well as the old "glare of the garden." scarlet. 
whic h flaunts it over everything else and can only be put 
in a certain limited number of spots. Someone has de- 
scribed Picea pungens giauca as an exclamation spot on 
the lawn, an epithet we must all heartily endorse, and 
surely the old papaver orientale is the exclamation point 
of the flower border. In the old home garden of "The 
Onlooker" a big clump of this steel-gray, hairy-leaved 
flame-flowered favorite came up with seemingly irre- 
pressible vigor year after year, right at the end of a 
medium broad border, at right angles to another border 
near the greenhouses. It was exceedingly telling while 
it flowered and could be seen for three hundred yards 
away in great style. As lads we used to delight to make 
Chinamen's faces on the urn-shaped, crown-capped seed 
pods by gently slitting them with a penknife so that the 
milky juice or latex oozed out to form eyes and nose and 
mouth. This latex stiffens at once and soon turns black. 
Most comical faces can be made. It is, of course, the 
Opium Poppy, papaver somniferum, that yields the ar- 
ticle of commerce by that name, so beloved of |ohn 
Chinaman. 
^ £ -i- 
Our Oriental Poppies are now at the stage when they 
may safely be transplanted and will form a basal tuft of 
leaves which persist through the winter and the plants 
get established again now before the end of the fall. They 
cannot possibly be removed in the spring after growth has 
made the least signs of a start. Their roots are watery 
and fleshy then ; now, in August, they are fibrous and 
tough. Irises of the rhizomabous or fleshy-rooted sec- 
tion — the German-bearded Irises — also do well if divided 
up and transplanted as they are still making new feed 
roots, and these continue to ramify in the soil while it 
is warm and moist. In the cooler northern sections of the 
country, where heat spells and perhaps drought are not of 
usual occurrence, it would be best to break up and trans- 
plant the German Irises one week or two weeks after the 
flowering was passed. They like a porous, well-drained, 
fertile soil, and if a perceptible amount of calcareous ma- 
terial is in it or added to it, so much the better. Some- 
times Irises are subject to a root disease on soils deficient 
in lime, and the Iris leaf blotch is a nasty pest also in 
many collections. 
* * # 
One other genus that had better be treated now than at 
any other time is the Hellebores, the true Christmas Rose, 
which is Helleborus vigor, and the Lenten Lilies, which 
are varieties of H. orientalis. What a storv could be 
written around these lowly, lovely plants ! Not everv one 
can see or appreciate the full beauty, but I think I related 
344 
