160 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
April, 1917 
They hover by the hour over the Nasturtium 
beds. They pay vagrant calls on many 
other flowers — Primroses, Geraniums — in fact, 
they thoroughly patronize a garden which 
offers them a feast of honey and nectar. — 
G. F. Alsop, N. Y. 
Right up in the Front Seats! — Well, three 
spring numbers of the Garden Magazine are 
at hand, and I see you’ve “gone and done it!” — 
put the subscribers right in the front seats, and 
relegated the contributors to the rear of the 
hquse. I knew you’d been considering that 
move for some time, but I doubted if you’d 
venture it, for it’s something of a radical de- 
Here’s a scheme that protects Crocus flowers from the 
pestering destructiveness of sparrows 
parture. Apropos of the change, I have a 
iittle personal confession to make: While I 
have occasionally written for the front pages, 
it has for a long time been the back pages, the 
“Odds and Ends from Everywhere,” that I 
read first when the magazine came to hand. 
They had what in the popular fiction maga- 
zines they call “human interest.” And they 
had also garden interest; little things that the 
regular contributor would never think of 
writing about; little points on culture, or 
varieties, or the behavior of certain plants 
under special conditions, that he would never 
get to, or could not know about. This move, 
it seems to me, will do a lot toward making 
The Garden Magazine less like a book and 
more like an interested and experienced 
friend ' coming to walk with us in our gar- 
dens every few weeks, and letting us know 
what their garden neighbors are doing, and 
finding out. Too bad your subscribers are 
scattered so far afield that they can’t be got 
together once in a while for a good old- 
fashioned “ meeting”; but this, it seems to me, 
will be the next thing to it. Good luck to 
“the Neighbors!” — F. F. Rockwell. 
[Can’t we have both? The garden gate is 
always open at Garden City and a cordial wel- 
come is extended to any neighbor who favors 
us with a visit, as indeed many do each sum- 
mer. I like that idea of a real “field day” 
with a tent on the lawn, if a date can be 
arranged to suit, say in Peony time; or a 
united pilgrimage to some centre of great 
garden interest. What would you have? — Ed.] 
Delphinium Zalil in Pennsylvania. — Some 
time since a contributor famous for her gar- 
dening experience speaks of never having 
seen Delphinium Zalil in flower. That men- 
tion inclines me to speak of the plant, which 
flowers in my garden in early July, in ordinary 
light garden soil. The leafage is very like that 
of the annual stock-flowered Larkspur, fine and 
glossy and wilting easily when cut. The plant 
is three and a half feet high, two feet being 
spike. Individual blossoms are pale butter 
yellow with a dash of egg yellow at the eye, 
not more than three quarters of an inch in 
diameter, carried stiffly out on inch long 
pedicels from the stalk. Side spikes have not 
yet begun to come out, but are well budded. 
The whole appearance of the Zalil is that of a 
wild flower not yet worked up by gardeners, 
light, pretty, and not very conspicuous. If 
one had a large bed of it to cut from, it would 
be an odd and charming table flower with 
feathery grasses and some light greenery like 
the sweet hay fern of summer meadows. I am 
growing it for an experiment in crossing with 
the highly developed blues of the Kelway 
Delphiniums — a venture which I do not think 
can come to much good, by the way, because 
the types are too far apart. 
If any one wishes to grow the Zalil for itself 
because it is a rare plant, I cannot describe its 
general type better than by comparing it to 
the Habenaria group of wild orchids. H. 
orbiculata in greens, and H. speciosa, the tall 
fringed spike in pinky purples, might find the 
Zalil a full sister so far as general floral effect 
goes. The light and open spike of the Haben- 
aria genus is nowhere so well imitated as in this 
Delphinium, and the twisted spiral rank of the 
flowers on their scape is noticeable. — E. S. 
Johnson, Pittston, Pa. 
Guarding the Crocuses.— Crocuses, and other 
low growing flowers of spring, are often at- 
tacked by small birds. Whole beds of these 
blossoms are sometimes sadly mangled and 
most gardeners are at their wit’s end to know 
how to meet the difficulty. One plan that 
works is shown in the accompanying photo- 
graph. Short stakes of wood are pushed at 
intervals into the ground and fine black cot- 
ton is stretched in between these. The cotton 
is almost invisible, yet it affords an ample 
protection for the flowers. A bird while trying 
to make an attack is seriously alarmed on 
coming into contact with the threads and, 
suspecting a trap, is not in the least likely to 
make a second attempt. — S. L. Bastin. 
Transplanting the Papaw. — In these pages 
for January, 1917, Mr. W. L. Wilson, of Indi- 
ana says: “If a Papaw plant found in the 
woods could be transplanted with enough care 
and earth, no doubt it would live, but it seems 
that by the time a Papaw seedling is big 
enough to be found it is too big to transplant, 
and the result is, that even when great care is 
used, it dies.” Now for some evidence : 
It was early in November, 191 5, that a friend 
brought us from some distance eighteen 
Papaw sprouts. They were 3 or 4 ft. high 
and about \ in. in diameter; had been 
“grubbed up” on a piece of land he was hav- 
ing cleared. They had indeed been grubbed, 
for most of the roots had been left in the 
ground; but as I had wanted a Papaw “ patch ” 
for a long time, I commenced to eat Papaws 
then and there! The sprouts were “heeled 
in” tied up in a bunch — standing upright — 
just as I had received them. This was done 
with the intention of planting them in a few 
days, but as we were busy building that fall, 
they were left there until spring. During 
the winter I read several articles to the effect 
that they could not be transplanted success- 
fully, so by spring time my Papaw “patch” 
was mighty small. As soon as the ground 
was in good condition for planting I pro- 
ceeded to work, but the sprouts seemed “as 
dead as a door nail.” The tops were all 
shriveled and the wood almost black. As we 
did not need the ground where they were at 
that time I did not even pull them up. 
Some time in June that particular piece of 
ground was needed for strawberry plants. 
I noticed one of the Papaw sprouts had a 
small new growth near the ground and de- 
cided to plant that one just to see what it 
would do. I pulled up the whole bunch and 
found that all were alive from six to fifteen 
inches above the ground, but the roots had 
made no growth at all that I could find. I 
washed all the earth off the roots, then lay 
them in the shade and let them dry; let them 
lay until they were good and dry — that was all 
wrong, according to the Law and the Prophets, 
wasn’t it? I cut back the tops to live wood, 
and the roots, too! Most of them were dead 
two or three inches from where they had been 
cut off. By the time I had that done the root 
system was mostly a memory. Then I 
dipped all the fresh cuts in melted wax, and 
planted these sprouts in fairly good garden 
soil. After planting I placed an eight inch 
drain tile over each plant and where they were 
more than a foot high I put two tiles, one on 
top of the other. We had a very hot and dry 
summer. I he Papaws were watered once in a 
while, not regularly, nor as much nor as often 
as they should have been. 
Now, I come to the strange part of it. 
They all lived! Each plant put out from two 
to seven shoots, and each shoot made a growth 
of not less than two inches (and some as much 
as eight inches) in length. 1 hey seemed to 
go into the winter in good shape. Now I have 
been wondering what did it. Was it drying 
the roots; the grafting wax; or protecting 
them from sun and wind? Or did they grow 
in spite of it all? Anyway, when I have trees 
or shrubs that are said to be hard to trans- 
plant I am going to try the washing-drying- 
grafting-way, protection from sun and wind 
method. — Th. G. Mistry, Indiana. 
Mrs. Sargent’s Lily. — This Lily has been 
under trial and observation nosv sufficiently 
long for us to decide that it is really what it’s 
claimed, a perfectly hardy garden counterpart 
of the Easter Lily of the florists. Coming to 
us at the same time as the Regal Lily, it has 
been somewhat overshadowed by the glory 
of that, but Lilium Sargentiae is good enough 
to stand on its own merits and planted along 
with L. regale — comes into flower just as its 
companion is passing out, and the two plants 
get on very well in company. 1 hey like similar 
conditions, but Sargentiae in my observation 
resents enriched soil conditions even more than 
Mrs. Sargent’s Lily, with flowers of pure white, six inches 
long and fragrant, is a perfectly hardy plant, blooms in 
early summer 
