THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 
345 
sonic of their history and development in a previous num- 
ber of the Gardeners' Chronicle of America, telling 
of ihe work of the late Peter Barr, the "Daffodil King," 
and of the late Dr. Robt. Hogg, the famous British 
pomologist. Both belonged to the Victorian school of 
floriculture, both were rugged Scotsmen with tender 
hearts for the flowers, "the stars of earth," and both loved 
the same line of special favorites — the Primroses, Poly- 
anthuses, Daffodils, Auriculas, Hellebores and others. 
Many a week-end visit was paid by one or the other to 
each other's collections. Barr was the commercial man. 
Hogg the scientific man and garden editor. N. S. Fardell, 
at Great Neck, L. I., has probably the best collection of 
Hellebores in this country, but Barr & Sons, King street, 
Covent Garden, London, Eng., have the most extensive 
variety of hybrids in pink, plum, purple, greenish prim- 
rose and spotted types. For culture in cold frames for 
mid-winter or where the frost can be warded off, the 
chaste while Christmas Rose surely deserves attention. 
The flowers of all of these must be dropped in water 
( left floating in it ) immediately after they are cut. That 
is one detraction to their merits, but, like the Water Lilies, 
if the sepals are bent back or broken, they remain open. 
* # * . 
Should borders be planted in the fall or in the spring ? 
Really, this is a serious and important question and a 
compromise arrangement is perhaps the best. By this I 
mean that both seasons are good, and as we have such 
precious littie time for all the work of the spring, I favor 
getting the border thoroughly prepared in the fall, 
as early as possible — say by the second week in 
October or before — and plant the skeleton of it 
with the hardiest, most vigorous subjects and 
leaving the filling in with the others to be done almost 
the very moment the frost is out of the ground in April. 
Sometimes I wouldn't wait for all the frost to dissolve: 
turn up the ground and get your roots in. The cool, moist 
conditions of the early days following the twelfth to the 
fifteenth of April, which is our earliest possible dates in 
the lower Xew England States, are the best of all for the 
hardy plants that have to strike down root and get estab- 
lished before the first drought spell. Get them in, rub the 
soil cultivated, mulch the surface with two to three inches 
of fine manure and, if you haven't success, you ought to. 
* * * 
< )f course, it takes courage to clear off a border plot 
which may still be well filled with Dahlias, Chrysanthe- 
mums, the milk-white mugwort or Artemia, the perennial 
Asters, Cosmos and Japanese Anemones, that are the 
chief glory of the garden until the end of October, but 
what else can we do if the garden must be replanted or 
rearranged ? We can do nothing else. To delay is dan- 
gerous and may be fatal, although, indeed, the autumns 
seem to hang out nowadays away into wdiat should be 
winter, and real winter only begins when we expect the 
first tokens of spring. Oh, those wretched, long-drawn- 
out American springs ! Snow r , snow, snow — endless 
snow ! It melts — it comes again. The brown earth re- 
appears, only to be covered with the winding sheet of 
snow. . For the past three years I have planted hardy 
stock until the end of November, including, as well, a 
regular line of Dutch bulbs. The autumn, therefore, holds 
out inviting opportunities — opportunities that should be 
taken advantage of. 
We are in the sea of hardy plant gardening. We are 
only on the threshold of it in this country. In the British 
Islands, in Holland and in Germany, at least before the 
devastating, wrecking, bankrupt-making war, hardy gar- 
dening and hardy plant study have been carried to the 
stage of a science as well as a fine art. This is true 
literally. There they saw fine differences in plants, 
selected these, cherished and named and propagated them, 
had them certified at the shows and vied with one another 
in the most proper cultivation and finest development of 
them. The man who succeeded with difficult races of 
plants or "nifty" plants was as an academician — one who 
was looked up to — as Sir .Michael Foster with Iris Susi- 
ana and his tuberous varieties ; George Yeld with his fine 
Day Lilies (these were not really "niffy," however) ; 
lames Douglas with his New Zealand Forget-me-not 
i .Myosotidium nobile) ; James Hudson with his Transvaal 
Daisy ( Gerbera Jamesoni), which he wintered out of 
doors, and others who had the finest Ramondias, Saxi- 
fraga, gold-laced Polyanthus, and so on. The floricultural 
"schools" or, rather, schools of old-time florists, the Pansy 
growers of Ayrshire and Paisley, the Tulips of the Mid- 
landers, the laced Pinks of both the northern and English 
growers, the remarkable race of Auriculas that I '.en 
Simonite and his cronies had — the men who would rob 
their own bed of a blanket on a winter night and put it 
over the cold frame that their pet plants might pull 
through safely — these coteries we don't yet possess. But 
we are getting there. It is the age of specialization, and 
in America there are as good rosarians, as good tulip 
growers, as fine a line of Sweet Pea men, and probably 
as good a bunch of Dahlia cranks as anywhere in old 
Furope. Yes, when gardening and the true love of flow- 
ers get hold of a man or woman they don't leave him or 
her. They grow mellow under it. Their lines and minds 
are sweetened and enriched. Yes, "believe me." You 
rich men who chase the dollars ; you ladies who gad 
around ; you sporting people, automobile fiends, hangers 
on and others who don't very well know wdiat to do next 
to kill time, get into the garden. Probably you are even 
a member of a garden club : you fly along the dusty roads 
in your fine cars, making the roads dustier still and killing 
the old woman's Dahlias and Phloxes by the side of the; 
turnpike by the clouds of smothering "shoor" (Scotch! 
for "dust in motion"), yet have you a garden of your 
own? Do you have heart to heart talks with your gar- 
dener, ever anxious to please? With all your opportu- 
nities to see other gardens, to visit the shows, and to help 
the nurseryman who has good stocks of the best and the 
latest, do you know plants, do you get down to the study 
of them, are you in accord with the tender spirit, beaut\\ 
and loveliness of the garden ? If not, you are losing much 
and by and by when your blood is running less lustily, 
when quieter joys will be sought, you will surely wish you 
had made of flowers a greater, a closer, a more intimate, 
companionable study. Get into it. Gardening and music. 
gardening and painting, gardening and reading — these 
are the lasting joys — they have been the solace of great 
men as well as poor men, all ages and in all lands. 
Luxurious plantings of any given subject insure the 
richest effect and probably, also, in most cases, the best 
effect. In a visit recently to the John Wanamaker estate 
at Wyncote, Pa., under the very able superintendence of 
John Dodds, there was seen probably half a mile of road- 
way walled on each side and having high banks behind the 
walls. Advantage had been taken to plant the rambler 
in- climbing roses just back of the coping all along, the 
varieties being Dorothy Perkins, Lady Gay, Newport 
Fairy, Excelsa, Crimson Rambler, White Dorothy Per- 
kins and one or two others. Mainly the pinks and crim- 
sons were employed. As the long, willowy shoots grow 
they are taken down the face of the wall and tied there 
in hooks or staples which were imbedded in the lime and 
cement. Each year the older wood is cut out and the new 
shoots laid in. The floral scenic effect of these draped 
walls in June can be better imagined than described. 
There were literally walls of flowers, a paradise of charm- 
(Continued on page 348.) 
