February, 1918 
Ol)e Slower (Brower 
A Roseless Garden. 
By T. Dabney Marshall, (Mississippi.) 
[ M^rittfu expressly for 'The Flower Grower . ] 
Note by the Editor- 
In this article Mr. Marshall offers some suggestions for flower gardens which will prove especially 
useful to the person who is laying out an entirely new proposition. His article is somewhat of a stricture 
on the rose, but let the rose people speak up and defend their favorite. The columns of The Flower 
Grower are always open to reasonable expressions of opinion and helpful statements of facts. 
U T’VE bought the lot next to mine,” 
I said to my friend. “It’s fifty 
by one hundred and fifty.” 
“What for?” he asked. “An invest- 
ment?” 
“No; to raise flowers.” 
“What kind of roses will you plant?” 
he asked, as if you could not have a 
garden without roses. 
“No kind,” I answered, irritably. “I 
said I wanted to raise flowers. I do 
not care for beetles and blights. Nei- 
ther do I care to open a boarding- 
house for bugs and bacteria. I do not 
wish to invest in vermine, aphine, in- 
sectine, nic-o-teen, nor Paris Green, 
nor arsenate of lead. I am planning 
a flower garden — not opening a drug 
store. 
“Besides, I wish flowers out in my 
garden from Washington’s birthday, 
late in February, until the first killing 
frost in November. During all that 
time I desire my garden to be a blaze 
of beauty, a tangle of perfume, the 
home and haunt of bees, birds and 
butterflies. I even hope that some 
blooms will lift pale, pleading faces 
to the icy skies of December and 
some more daring will flash back the 
flare of January sunsets with hues as 
vivid as their own.” 
“How will you accomplish this with- 
out roses?” he stubbornly persisted. 
“I couldn’t accomplish it with 
roses,” I persisted as stubbornly. 
“They don’t bloom in the open in Feb- 
ruary in this climate. No, even if the 
bugs and bacteria were considerate 
enough to spare them.” 
“How will you do it, then?” he 
asked. 
“With bulbs, tubers, corms and 
rhizomes.” 
“With what?” he asked in amaze- 
ment. 
Ignoring the interruption, I contin- 
ued. “First, when bells are pealing 
forth the announcement of Washing- 
ton’s birthday, the old-fashioned single 
yellow Von Zion Narcissi shall blow 
with their trumpets of gold a fanfare 
for the dancing feet of spring. Before 
their sheen is tarnished, the Sir Wat- 
kin, that best of all daffodils for the 
South, shall inlay the earth with pati- 
nes like those with which the stars 
pave the skies, when the young-eyed 
cherubim sing for joy. They will just 
have passed their prime when the bi- 
color, Empress, almost as hardy as the 
Sir Watkin, will display her silver and 
gold. She will but lead the way for 
the triumphal entry of the Emperor, 
Glory of Leiden and Olympia. By 
this time the Poetaz and Leedsii sec- 
tions will begin to flower. The best 
of these are the Poetaz, Elvira and the 
Leedsii, Mrs. Langtry. I almost forgot 
to mention the Barrii Conspicuous 
with golden trumpet edged with scar- 
let. It blooms along with the Em- 
press and must have been in Shakes- 
peare’s mind when he spoke of the daf- 
fodils that come ere the swallow dare 
and take the winds of March with 
beauty. These will carry us well on 
into April — giving more than a month 
of continuous bloom. During the last 
days of March and on until late in 
April we will have those most gor- 
geous of all Spring flowers, the mag- 
nificent Darwin tulips. Where have 
you ever seen such rose-scarlets, crim- 
sons and salmons as are furnished by 
Mrs. Francombe Saunders, Gesneria 
Spatula Major, Clara Butt and Pico- 
tee? What if they don’t live from 
year to year? What if you should 
have to plant them each season? They 
cost but from one dollar and a quar- 
ter to one dollar and seventy-five cents 
a hundred. Think of getting a hun- 
dred blooms like Pride of Haarlem for 
one dollar and a half! 
“Towards the end of April and dur- 
ing the first week in May the English 
and Spanish Iris will be in flower. 
Dainty, delicate, graceful they will 
seem a hundred out-door orchids. They 
will last until the Candidum and long- 
iflorum lilies lift their spires of green 
from which golden-hearted bells of sil- 
ver shall pant forth a music ‘so deli- 
cate, soft and intense that it seems 
an odor with sense.” In the meantime, 
if the Fates are in any way propi- 
tious, the Peonies will flower all the way 
from the first of May until the middle 
of June. They are, however, not 
adapted to the climate of Mississippi. 
It is too hot for them. Sometimes 
they bloom and sometimes they don’t, 
but oftenest they simply don’t. But 
when they do bloom ! Say, have you 
ever seen a really fine clump of Fes- 
tiva Maxima, Jules Elie, Souvenir de 
V Exposition de Lille ? If you have, 
then you have seen some flowers. 
Great balls of snow and rose and sul- 
phur sweeter than all the honies of 
Hybla. When you look on them, when 
you inhale their fragrance, when they 
literally enchant you, you will forget 
that there was ever such a thing in 
the world as a rose. I mean to have 
me some of the old-fashioned Offmalis, 
Rubra and Rosea, besides about a doz- 
en of the newer sorts, put forth by 
Kelway, Calot, Lemoine and the Amer- 
icans, Richardson and Brand. 
“I shall also be guilty of the extrava- 
gance of separating myself from five 
hard earned simoleons and buy one of 
those gorgeous things which appear 
in Bertrand Farr’s catalogue under the 
15 
name of tree peonies. I am buying 
it for the benefit of my unborn grand- 
son. He may live to see it bloom. And, 
may-be, too, when, fifty years after my 
death, my wandering spirit is permit- 
ted to visit again ‘ the pale glimpses 
of the moon,’ I may see a great, gor- 
geous clump loaded with super blooms 
like those made out of printers’ ink. 
But, seriously, between you and me 
and to go no further, I doubt it. For 
you will find it no lie, that the finest 
flowers do not grow in gardens of the 
loving amateur, nor in the green- 
houses of the great, but only in the 
catalogues of the seedsmen and florists. 
Turn a printer loose and he can beat 
a gardener every time. 
"But it will be in June that my gar- 
den shall be at its finest. For that is 
the season, in this section, of that 
most satisfactory, most reliable, most 
hardy, most beautiful and most gor- 
geous of all flowers, the Gladiolus, the 
undoubted King of the flower world. 
Can morning skies display such splen- 
dours as are theirs? Can the cunning 
hands of chemist discover such hues 
as glitter on their petals? Scarlet and 
crimson, rose and salmon, violet and 
mauve, purple and pearl has the Lord 
given them, and theirs also are the 
luster and the sheen of sea shells and 
coral. First in the long procession of 
beauty will be Pink Beauty and then 
Halley and Lily Lehmann and Baron 
Hulot and later America and Mrs. 
Francis King and a hundred others, 
each more beautiful than the other. 
“I shall have masses and masses and 
masses of that most superb of them 
all, Mrs. Frank Pendleton. I have al- 
ready grown them five feet tall in my 
old garden under poor conditions and 
I believe I shall be able in my new 
garden to coax them up to six feet, 
with a dozen blooms open at one time 
on a stalk. When they come into 
flower and you ride out to see them, 
you will think you are not looking up- 
on mere earthly blossoms, but will im- 
agine that old St. Peter, in a moment 
of forgetfulness, must have left open 
the gates of paradise and you see a 
host of heavenly butterflies that, es- 
caping the eager pursuit of the young 
cherubs, have taken refuge in my gar- 
den and enchanted lingered there in 
its golden airs. War shall flash his 
flag of flame. Peace unfurl her banner 
of snow. Clad in purple the Baron 
Hulot shall walk beside Lily Lehmann 
robed in silver. Primulinus hybrids 
shall mingle their grace of form and 
delicacy of color with the too sturdy 
and almost too gorgeous varieties that 
Mr. Kunderd has evolved. Of course, 
I would like to have Mrs. Dr. Norton, 
Madame Mounet Sully or even one of 
Richard Diener’s thousand dollar 
corms, just as I would like to have 
Koor-in-Noors and pigeon-blooded ru- 
bies. But if I bought these it would 
take so much money that I would 
have to go without eating for a year, 
and I do not wish to commit suicide 
by starvation. It is too lingering and 
disfiguring a death. Besides, I am so 
much in love with life that I would not 
die for a dozen Mrs. Dr. Nortons. Why 
[ Concluded on page 23. ] 
