38 
TIIE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
February, 191, 5 
'0m 
•xA 
MICHELES 
AhniversaLry Catalog 
of Seeds, 
Plants, Bulbs and 
Garden Sundries 
is now ready 
A complete garden book — offers 
the best in flowers, vegetables, hardy 
perennials, annuals, vines, shrubbery 
and pot-grown roses. 
228 pages brimful of suggestions 
that will help you make practical 
selections. Complete planting in- 
structions; extensive illustrations — 
six rich color plates reproduced from 
nature. 
Full description of the Michell 
medals for achievement in Horticul- 
ture and Agriculture (in Gold, Silver 
and Bronze). Furnished free to 
civic organizations, etc., as a stimu- 
lus to their members. 
Write to-day tor your free copy 
When you get it be sure to note especi- 
ally the Everblooming Butterfly Bush (see cut), 
and the Special $1 Introductory Bag of Michell’s 
Evergreen Mixture — enough of the finest 
A grass seed for an average lawn. 
Henry F. Michell Co. 
520 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 
Start a Fernery 
Brighten up the deep, shady nooks on your lawn, or that dark 
porch corner — just the places for our hardy wild ferns and wild flower 
collections. We have been growing them for 25 years and know 
what varieties are suited to your conditions. Tell us the kind 
of soil you have — light, sandy, clay — and we will advise you. 
Gillett’s Ferns and Flowers 
will give the charm of nature to your yard. These include not only hardy wild 
ferns, but native orchids, and flowers for wet and swampy spots, rocky hillsides 
and dry woods. We also glow such hardy flowers as primroses, campanulas, 
digitalis, violets, hepaticas, trilliums, and wild flowers which require open sunlight 
as well as shade. If you want a bit of an old-time wildwood garden, with flowers 
ust as Nature grows them — send for our new catalogue and let us advise you 
vhat to select and how to succeed with them. 
EDWARD GILLETT, 3 Main St., Southwick, Mass. 
An Alaskan Flower Garden 
T HE town of Skagway, Alaska, lies at the head 
of Lynn Canal, a majestic fjord extending in- 
land from the Pacific Ocean a distance of more than 
ioo miles, and is inside of the Southeastern Alaska 
rain-belt, as is evidenced by the annual precipi- 
tation which averages only about twenty inches. 
The outdoor growing season generally extends from 
about May rst to September 30th. Being on tide- 
water and within the tempering influence of the 
Japan Current, we are not subject to the intense 
cold of interior Alaska, and the temperature during 
the winter rarely falls below zero. The soil of the 
Skagway Valley consists of a sandy loam approxi- 
mating only eighteen inches in depth, beneath 
which lies a deposit of sand, gravel and boulders 
undoubtedly left there unknown centuries ago by 
the receding glaciers which at one time filled all the 
valleys of this region. This fertile soil, the ample 
sunshine of our eighteen- to twenty-hour long sum- 
mer days, a temperature which is neither too hot 
nor too cold, an almost complete freedom from in- 
sect pests, and natural and perfect drainage, furn- 
ish ideal conditions. Practically our only enemy is 
the southerly trade wind which blows frequently on 
summer afternoons, and against which some shelter 
must be devised for tall growing plants which are 
in exposed situations. . 
During the season of 1912 we had flowers in 
bloom from the rst of June until the xst of October, 
and some of the more hardy kinds, such as pan- 
sies, sweet peas and antirrhinums, continued bloom- 
ing during the greater part of October. Think of 
sweet peas nine feet in height without special culture, 
pansies three inches across, stocks three feet high 
and godetias four feet high, asters more than seven 
inches across, and dahlias fully ten inches in diame- 
ter! In my own garden last season I had seven- 
teen kinds of flowers blooming outdoors — 
pansies, sweet peas, salvias, stocks, antirrhinums, 
petunias, dahlias, gladiolus, dianthus, phlox, asters, 
rudbeckia, godetias, schizanthus, canary vine, 
nasturtiums, and annual hollyhocks! Some of our 
neighbors cultivated other flowers in addition to 
the foregoing — even some splendid Hybrid Per- 
petual roses — and all grew luxuriantly. In 1911 
I had some vigorous roses in bloom including Frau 
Karl Druschki, but the bushes winter-killed. 
In order to accomplish these results we first 
aim to get the very best seeds in the market. My 
own plan — - and it is the method generally pre- 
valent here — is to start practically everything 
indoors in seed flats, using a carefully prepared soil 
of loam and leafmold, and observing the customary 
rules as to depth of planting, watering, etc. Some 
of the slower germinating seeds are started very 
early in March, and the others at intervals there- 
after until about the middle of April. During the 
day, while the house is warm, we keep the flats at 
the windows having a southern exposure where 
they can get all possible sunlight, but we are al- 
ways careful at night to remove them to a more 
sheltered location — a snug spot near the kitchen 
range Is my favorite place. 
As soon as the little seedlings show from two to 
four leaves we transplant carefully into larger boxes 
or pots where they are allowed to remain until 
“Frozen Alaska" — with geraniums, poppies, pansies, 
dahlias, etc., blooming outdoors! 
The Readers’ Service will furnish information about foreign travel 
