118 
House & Garden’s 
THE LAST RITES for THIS YEAR’S GARDEN 
Putting on the Winter Mulch, Cleaning Up the Odds and Ends, and 
Generally Preparing the Grounds and Planting Plots for Freezing Weather 
Jackets of clean, long 
rye straw tied about 
tender roses will protect 
them from winter injury 
W HEN every frosty morn¬ 
ing finds fewer leaves 
clinging to the already barren 
looking trees, and fewer of the 
garden’s last lingering flowers, 
it may seem to the uninitiated 
that Nature has about com¬ 
pleted her year’s work; that 
things are drawing to a close 
and that there is little or noth¬ 
ing more doing. 
But “things are not what 
they seem.” For every leaf that 
drops, you will find, if you 
look closely, a new bud dwell¬ 
ing under the little brown over¬ 
coat that will protect it through 
the winter. And down under 
the fallen leaves that have 
blown about and caught in 
masses among the dead stalks 
of the biennials and perennials, 
and in every nook and hollow 
in woods and swamp, you will 
find old roots or little seedlings 
a few weeks old, or bulbous 
plants such as Jack-in-the-pul- 
pit or Solomon’s Seal and the 
tropical looking “skunk cab¬ 
bage,” tucked away safely for 
the winter. Every hedgerow 
and field is full at this season 
not only of interest but also of 
information; of lessons which 
the wideawake gardener can 
hardly help taking to heart, 
The winter ground 
mulch is a necessity for 
many shrubs to prevent 
alternate freezing and 
thawing 
With slender ever¬ 
greens, much of the 
breakage caused by snow 
can be avoided by tying 
over from year to year in the 
form of dormant or hibernat¬ 
ing life or in eggs or disease 
spores that find a lodging in 
the fallen leaves or the old 
stalks, flowers or fruits in the 
garden and scattered around 
the grounds. 
One of the most important 
things to be attended to, there¬ 
fore, in the final garden clean¬ 
up is to make a careful search 
for any traces of disease and 
for every possible hiding place 
for hibernating insects. All 
suspicious material should be 
carefully gathered up and 
burned. One of the greatest 
mistakes that can be made is 
to use all the late garden refuse 
indiscriminately for the com¬ 
post heap, as is often done. A 
general fall pruning, with such 
sanitation in view, will often 
prove a great help in controll¬ 
ing diseases of all kinds. It 
will not take long to go over 
the fruit and ornamental trees, 
shrubs and other woody 
growths, and cut out and burn 
all suspicious looking branches. 
After the ground freezes the 
winter mulch of dead leaves, 
straw or well rotted barnyard 
manure should be applied to 
the perennial plantings. 
Do not apply the mulch 
until the ground is 
frozen. Its purpose is 
to protect from sun, 
not cold 
and which will give him many good pointers 
for the more artificial work to be done at home. 
Hardly a move that Nature makes in swamp, 
field, woods or by the roadside that does not 
hold a kernel of information for the open eye. 
And that, of course, is the only kind of an eye 
for a good gardener to carry about with him! 
There is, however, one thing in which the 
gardener can make a decided improvement on 
Nature’s methods: that is, in the matter of 
garden sanitation. For the old Dame herself 
does not worry much about insects and diseases, 
trusting rather to the survival of the fittest to 
keep things going. What the gardener may 
think the fittest from his point of view, how¬ 
ever, is often the vegetable or flower which 
proves especially susceptible to injury from 
these sources. Therefore, if he would succeed 
with them, artificial assistance is necessary— 
and cleanliness has proved as desirable in the 
garden as it is in the home. The great ma¬ 
jority of insect and disease troubles are carried 
Evergreen bough as a winter protection for perennial 
beds or even shrubbery plantings can often be used. 
They should be placed on the south as well as the 
north sides, to prevent premature thawing 
