| FOR BOTH AMATEUR AND PROFESSIONAL 
! GROWERS OF THE GLADIOLUS, DAHLIA, IRIS, ETC. 
Entered as second-class matter March 31, 1914, at post office at 
Calcium, N.Y., under act of March 3, 1879. 
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! PUBLISHED MONTHLY ON THE FIRST OF THE j 
f MONTH BY MADISON COOPER, CALCIUM, N. Y. ! 
Subscription price: Three years, $2.50; One year, $1.00. 
Suggestions 
[ Written expressly for The Flower Grovjer. ] 
for Planting Home Grounds. 
By Bertha Berbert-Hammond. 
Go, make thy garden as fair as thou canst 
Thou workest not alone ; 
Perchance he whose is next to thine 
Will see it. and mend his own. 
—Colliger. 
in mind, is bound to produce a “crazy 
quilt” effect that is confusing and 
disquieting. 
As an artist first makes a study or 
sketch of a painting he desires to cre- 
ate, so the amateur landscape gar- 
dener should study carefully the pos- 
sibilities of the area to be beautified, 
and compose a planting 
scheme that will be harmon- 
ious. In this working plan, 
aim to secure as large and 
unbroken a vista of velvety 
lawn as is possible as this 
gives a restful effect of 
spaciousness. Effectively 
grouped shrubs and plants 
may be used to round out 
angles, screen off undesirable 
objects and to form a kind of 
frame along the boundaries 
or division walls or fences. 
They should never, for good 
effect, be dotted promis- 
cuously on the lawn proper, 
as such a method tends to 
dwarf or decrease the appar- 
ent size of the plot. 
Plants graduated as to 
height — the tallest in the back 
ground— planted along the 
foundation of buildings soften 
the harsh outlines and serve 
as a sort of connecting link 
in the correlation of build- 
ings and grounds. Stiff, 
formal lines in the border 
may be avoided by skilfully 
massing appropriate varie- 
ties, so that the groups dove- 
tail in an irregular fashion. 
Trees, if used at all, on places 
of limited areas, are usually 
better in the background. 
Those that attain a large size 
are decidedly out of place in 
a planting scheme for small 
yards. 
Even the diminutive city 
yard has its planting possi- 
bilities. If the small patch is. 
well sodded or sown with a 
high grade of lawn mixture,, 
the resulting green sward, 
bordered with flowering 
plants and graceful vines 
GLADIOLUS — CIRCE. 
One of A. E. Kunderd's 1916 introductions. A very early, deep, dark 
red variety, slightly tinted wine. Large blooms, five to six open at a 
time and uniformly placed on spike. Mr. Kunderd speaks of Circe 
as being one of his best dark varieties. 
As one result of the wide- 
spread movements for out- 
door improvement that have 
swept the country, awaken- 
ing the latent civic pride of 
individuals and in many 
cases, of entire communities, 
considerable progress has 
been made toward making 
our country more beautiful. 
The neglected grounds of 
many school houses and pub- 
lic play grounds have been 
beautified, waste places re- 
claimed, vacant lots re- 
deemed, back yards tidied 
and the home grounds gen- 
erally made more attractive 
and livable. 
As landscape gardening is 
an art not widely understood 
or appreciated, it is not at all 
surprising that mistakes have 
been made in some of these 
attempts to beautify. But 
if these efforts have been in- 
strumental in removing the 
untidy, tell-tale signs from 
heretofore neglected, slov- 
enly places, making the prem- 
ises more pleasing and orderly 
in appearance, they have 
surely not been in vain. 
It is much easier to criti- 
cise than to rectify, but a 
few simple suggestions as to 
what constitutes artistic 
planting, may be of some as- 
sistance in correcting, or at 
least modifying, the poor 
effects of the most flagrant 
errors. Haphazard planting 
and crowding, cause most of 
the troubles. To set out 
quantities of trees, shrubs, 
plants at random without a 
well defined decorative idea 
