The Garden Magazine, June, 1920 
269 
P OR years I have been trying to find an 
Caroline r 0 ld “p a j r y” Rose called Caroline Mar- 
Marinesse inesse. It is like a miniature Baltimore 
• Kose Belle, the color and fragrance being the same. 
1 have written to all Rose growers whose names I could find, and found 
it in one catalogue of 1914. Three times have 1 written to this firm 
but have received no answer, yet even the present postal service could 
hardly lose three letters sent to the same address. Can this Rose be 
found through the magazine? Can any of the Neighbors give me any 
clue? — Mary Chapman, Springfield, Mass. 
T HAVE just read a very instructive article 
Cure for Box-leaf 1 by Doctor Felt in the Maynumberof The 
Garden Magazine with reference to the 
Box-leaf Midge, which is becoming very 
frequent on Long Island Box. In addition to spraying with a 
contact insecticide, I think that if the lower leaves of the plants are 
powdered by a blower with one-half arsenate of lead and one-half 
Paris green, weekly from the first of May up to the tenth of June, 
better results will be obtained than spraying with whale-oil soap or 
tobacco soap. This insect is being fought vigorously by a few 
people and their experience is that the powder is better than the 
spray. — Frank Bailey, New York City 
IT IS a general rule that house plants should 
House Plants I never p ave wa t e r standing in the saucers 
standing in under the pots; but there are exceptions as 
Water in the case of the forced Astilbe, or as it is 
commonly called, “florists’ Spiraea.” To be sure there are fewer of 
these plants by many thousands than there were before Quarantine 
No. 37 made their importation from Holland and Belgium impossible; 
still a good many plants exist among us and as they can be planted 
out-of-doors after being forced under glass, and after two or three years 
of rest may be taken up and forced again they are not quite outlawed! 
All too often people complain that the flowers drop quickly but this is 
prevented by having the saucers under the pots filled with water. If 
they can be kept in a somewhat cool room, that will help too, but the 
main thing is to give them all the water they can take up. Another 
water-thirsty plant is the Bleeding-heart, Dielytra spectabilis. The 
value of this for greenhouse work is hardly realized, but it makes a 
fine subject either under glass or in the living room. Its pink blossoms 
are more decorative when potted up than when seen growing in the 
hardy border. It forces readily, requiring only a little heat to bring 
it into bloom. Clumps can be potted up in the fall and kept in a cool 
place until they are well established. Sometimes gardeners treat them 
like Tulip bulbs, covering the pots with sand or ashes. When once 
the Bleeding-heart has come into flower, it requires all the water which 
can be given and the greatest success is attained by keeping the saucers 
full of water, both with home forced plants and those purchased from 
the florist. — E. I. F. 
. A VERY beautiful, if not the most beauti- 
Scabiosa f-\ ^ fl ower j n the perennial border is 
uaucasica Scabiosa caucasica. Somewhere I once read 
a criticism of this plant which said that it was 
too rampant, but for me it is most delicately constituted. I have 
never seen it in any garden but mv own; and so assume that it is another 
of those rare common plants. And I take it that the reason why it is 
scarce — since it does not belong to the dug-overs — is that only about 
one in a dozen of its seeds ever germinate, and of course so small a 
showing is likely to be lost in the weeds, whose seeds invariably do, 
wherever you make your seed-bed. Another species, Scabiosa jap- 
onica, is even harder to grow from seed. I have tried it at least a dozen 
times — and now at last, having despaired utterly, I am raising a crop 
of promising seedlings of it from a packet purchased as Scabiosa 
caucasica! Is it ever thus? — Julian Hinckley, Long Island. 
. IT MAY be of interest to some of the Neigh- 
. , 1 bors to know that one of The Garden 
Aster . 
t, Magazine readers has had the same experi- 
ee eS ence which Mr. Adolph Kruhm mentions in 
the January number of The Garden Magazine — that of the black 
Aster beetle forsaking the Asters for the Calendulas. I was not so 
delighted as Mr. Kruhm with this discovery, for the Calendulas are 
one of my garden favorites. I plant seed of the most beautiful novelties 
and give them special attention, and the great gorgeous beauties fill 
their corner of the garden with loveliness through the long summer until 
Thanksgiving time. But they are favorites of the beetles too! To 
save both Calendulas and Asters 1 used to spend a precious half hour 
of every busy garden morning, knocking the active black beetles into a 
can of kerosene and water with a little wooden paddle. But for quite 
a half dozen years 1 have made an observation which is of much more 
value — namely that with the blooming of the white Snakeroot in late 
July all the garden flowers are safe from Aster beetles. They will leave 
Asters, Calendulas, and Clematis paniculata (which they stripped of 
every leaf last year) for the fragrant flowers and leaves of the white 
Snakeroot on the banks of the river. And they leave the garden in a 
body. Not one remains behind. Moreover this happens every year. 
The White Snakeroot or Durwort Boneset (Eupatorium ageratoides) 
which sweeps in white waves of bloom through our beautiful Stillwater 
Valley has many very good qualities to recommend it too. It blooms 
with the purple Wood Asters, Goldenrod, and wild Sunflowers, and its 
wild beauty is almost equal to Stevia, its cultivated cousin of the 
greenhouse. — Cora Fix, Ohio. 
, , D1RDS are often little nuisances in the 
tr s an D garden, welcome though they are, on 
_ account of the manner in which they attack 
a P e flowers, seeds, and fruit. A fact which has 
recently been demonstrated at a British experimental station is that 
sparrows and nearly all common birds have a perfect horror of blue 
paper. Over seed beds lengths of twine were stretched, and from these 
strips of blue paper were hung, and the birds left the situation severely 
alone. In the same way pieces of bright blue paper were hung about 
fruit trees and not a single bird approached. In a town garden where 
the Crocuses and other spring flowers had always suffered greatly from 
the depredations of sparrows, a few pieces of blue paper (not enough 
to give an unsightly appearance) kept the blossoms free from attack. 
This fact is certainly one that it would pay the gardener to note for 
birds have been the most difficult of all things to deal with, seeing 
that they so soon get used to scarecrows.-S. Leonard Bastin, England. 
A PLANT WITH A PERPETUAL THIRST' 
Hence one which goes contrary to all rules and 
should always have water standing in the saucer 
