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FLOWERS EASILY GROWN. 
By Mrs. L. M. McFarland. 
“ I am just as'fond of flowers as any other one; hut 
I’ve no time to work with them. When I get through 
with my daily house work, I’m too tired to work iu the 
garden. And even it I felt like working outdoors, 
there is always something to he made or mended for 
the children.” There is many a- family in which the 
lady of the house attends to all household matters, 
except the laundry work, and spends a part of every 
day in the flower garden. But this is her recreation. 
If it is drudging for you to weed and prune, don’t add 
it to your household duties. Seek recreation in some 
employment that rests you. But you have, what so 
many ladies who live in rented houses are longing for, 
a garden of your own. And since you are fond of 
flowers, let us try to help you to a garden that will 
give you a succession of bloom for several months, and 
at the same time require the least possible labor. We 
will make your garden entirely of hardy perennials. 
And first, we will set out for early spring blooming, 
the Japan Quince (Cydonia Japonica), whose brilliant 
scarlet blossoms, in March and April, seem like a 
glimpse of the tropics. Closely following this, we will 
have that earliest of the Spireas, the Bridal Wreath, 
and the well-known Flowering Almond. Then we 
will plant Lilacs, both purple and white, freighting the 
air with their generous perfume. The Snowball, laden 
with foamy blossoms, shall greet you when the Lilacs 
fade. This shrub will bloom and take care of itself, 
from one generation to another, and yet it were a 
pity not to loosen and enrich the soil once, a year, 
and cut out the old wood before it begins to grow in 
early spring, that you may leam how large the flower 
balls can grow. The Iris family is well adapted to the 
garden, and furnishes flowers with little labor. You 
may have a succession of them for weeks, commencing 
with the Dwarf Iris (Blue Fly), which will bloom 
wherever the sun shines, even if choked with grass. 
Then comes the more stately Flower-de-Luce, white, 
purple, straw color, brown and yellow, different tints 
following each other so rapidly, that ere the last flow¬ 
ers of one variety fade, those of another color appear. 
When the Snowballs begin to fade, you may have the 
Peonies, pink, white, and red, all gorgeously beautiful 
in the green which by this time surrounds them. Many 
of them are fragrant, yet we are not very particular 
about this quality in Peonies, since they were not made 
for bouquets, only for out-door ornaments. Both Pe¬ 
onies and Iris ought to have a covering of stable man¬ 
ure about the time the ground freezes at the opening 
of the winter, partly for protecting the roots from ex¬ 
treme cold, and partly for enriching the soil, to make 
finer flowers the next year. If you will promise to 
give all your flowering shrubs and plants one annual 
dressing of this kind, you may have the beautiful Di¬ 
centra among your laborless flowers. With this 
autumn covering, leaves and sand being sometimes bet¬ 
ter in its case than manure, varying with the soil in 
which it is planted. It takes care of itself quite as 
well as any of the hardy shrubs. Therp is the_ S.yria- 
ga, with its pure white blossoms, sweetly scented like 
orange flowers. The pink, white and -crimson of the 
Weigelias, gladdening the garden for many weeks. 
But best of all the Boses ! The Boses that our grand¬ 
mother planted by. the way-side school-house, years 
beforp we were born, are blooming yet. The old 
school-house was burned, and a new one has taken its 
place on the old foundation, and the roses are plucked by 
the grandchildren of those for whom they were planted. 
How much we enjoy our buggy rides, when the first 
i yellow roses are in bloom! Everybody has yellow 
roses. The humbler the dwelling, the greater their 
profusion. They clamber up on the roof of the 
little brown cottage, and twine about the windows like 
a wreath of sunshine. You will not see them around 
the stately pillars of the mansion’s portico, but some¬ 
where in the back yard, near the woodshed or stable, 
you will find a yellow rose-bush laughing in early 
| springtime. Boses long ago demonstrated then - abil- 
I ity to take care of themselves. Lilies follow the roses, 
and some of the old-fashioned varieties, at least, will 
give you no trouble, as most people think they like to 
be let alone. Then, for summer and early autumn, 
you may have that showy blooming shrub, whose am¬ 
bition is to be a tree, the Althea. Double and single, 
their hollyhock-like flowers are very ornamental. 
During the heat of summer, your garden shall be bril¬ 
liant with perennial Phlox, rich in masses of color, and 
heavy with perfume. Day after day the little flower¬ 
ets drop out, and new ones take their place, or rather a, 
new place, yet still the semi-globular mass remains. 
A rainy season is a wonderful lengthener of the Phlox¬ 
blooming period. Few summer blossoms are more, 
enjoyable than this. For your climbers you may have, 
in addition to roses, the early-blooming Wisteria, with 
its clustering purple. Clematis and Jessamine, and 
sweet Honeysuckle, some of them blooming till frost. 
The Morning Glory has a happy habit of coming up 
anywhere, and twining around anything. A little at¬ 
tention in starting the vines in desired directions, will 
ensure an arbor of beauty every morning, from early 
summer until severe frosts. The Waxberry is not 
noticeable for its flowers, but its white berries will 
please you when summer flowers are gone. Last in 
the list are the Chrysanthemums, radiant in beauty 
when other flowers are dead. Prettiest among these, 
are the Pompone varieties, though, perhaps a little 
less hardy than the large flowering ones. Thus, you 
see you may enjoy a garden of flowers throughout the 
season, giving them one day’s labor in the Fall. Yet 
they will richly repay more careful cultivation. Many 
more might be added, yet as one garden cannot con¬ 
tain everything, we confine ourselves to those most 
common in cultivation. 
MY AMARYLLIS. 
It was a long time before I knew its name. I 
thought it a Lily, and searched through the catalogues 
for a description or woodcut which resembled it, but 
nothing threw any light on the subject. When I first 
obtained it, it was a very small bulb, and threw up 
only one green leaf at a time. This for the first year 
would turn yellow and wither away while a fresh one 
would take its place. In this way it kept growing for 
two years or more. Gradually as it acquired age, its 
leaves became less tender and more numerous, but as it 
did not blossom I grew discouraged, and placed it in 
the garden to live or die as it pleased. A neighbor 
calling to obtain some cuttings, I gave the bulb to her, 
telling her what the lady said of whom I had procured 
it, that it was a beautiful flower, and would blossom 
when it was two years old, and as it was past that 
age now, she might by taking care of it make it bloom. 
She took it, but with very little faith, as the poor bulb 
which had been out in the hot scorching sun for a 
month had only one withered green leaf left. Some 
time after that, chancing to pass a town house where 
there was a nice collection of plants, I paused to 
mire them, and among the number was a beautiful 
plant, just like mine, in full blossom; but what excited 
my wonder, was that it Was growing in a very small 
pot which was standing in a vessel of water, 
the lady who came out the reason of her treatment. 
She said that she had kept it for a long time without 
its blossoming, and hearing that she could make it 
flower by this means, she had tried it and found that 
it had proved successful. She recommended it very 
highly to me, and I went home feeling very sorry to 
think that I had given mine away. I, however, called 
on the neighbor, to learn what had been its fate. She 
! said she thought it was dead, though it had acted the 
funniest of anything she ever saw; that when she first 
got it, she left it on the shelf, having forgotten it; that 
she had then placed it in a pot containing another plant, 
and had watered it thoroughly; after a while a spike 
came up out of the centre of the dry bulb, for all leaves 
had long since disappeared, with six of the prettiest 
blossoms she ever saw, fire-red they were, with a little 
white at the bottom of the petals. It stayed in bloom 
for a long time, then withered away, and there was 
nothing left but the old bulb, and she guessed that was 
dead. I asked her if I might have it; she said yes. 1 
gladly took it back, and kept it soaking wet until four 
nice green leaves made their appearance. The next 
spring its six lovely blossoms came forth to repay me 
for my trouble. Then letting it dry off for a season, 
though not getting so dry as to lose its leaves, I again 
commenced watering it, and this year it has had three 
spikes of flowers instead of one. Stella. 
Abutilons. —Mistake somewhere. “Abutilons will 
blossom from seed the third year.” As I had made up 
my mind to have a miniature grove of Abutilons, this 
paragraph did not strike me favorably at all; but ob¬ 
stacles and opposition always have a wonderful effect 
upon me, consequently in an hour I had a list of seeds 
made out, and among them was a package of Abu- 
tilon, mixed. I planted them in May, and on the 
26th of October following, the first bud opened, a fiuo 
large blossom. Now, please, which has made the mis¬ 
take, one of my papers or my plants? Marion. 
Climbing Vine.— A constant reader wishes to know 
what will make the most rapid growth to cover a sum¬ 
mer-house? I do not know whether the Tropasolum 
will succeed in a dry situation; but last summer I had 
an exotic, which had been kept through the winter, 
and in May I set it out, by a board fence, just over a 
drain-pipe. It grew very rapidly, and soon covered 
the fence, which was about five feet high; and when I 
measured it in the fall it was twenty-seven feet in 
length. Late in the summer it began to bloom, and 
when the frost came was covered with the greatest 
profusion of crimson and scarlet flowers. T. E. D. 
lee Plant. —I notice some inquiries with regard to 
Ice Plants. During the summer I had some very 
handsome plants in my garden. Late in the fall I re¬ 
moved one to the house, where it has been “a thing 
of beauty” this winter, with its delicate white blos¬ 
soms and icy foliage. I use common garden soil. I 
have also a Wax Plant, of a few months’ growth, that 
is covered with flowers. M. P. B 
Bay-Window. —Will “Advance” please give a few 
particulars respecting the bay-window mentioned in 
the last March number? I cannot imagine how one 
could be had for the sum mentioned ($50), and would 
very much like to know how it is constructed; whether 
built with the house or subsequently, and in what part 
of the country? F. A. A 
African Lily. —Will “M. J. S.,” who speaks in the 
July number of the African Lilyas companion for the 
Calla, please tell us where such a bulb may be got, 
and if it is a true Lily or an Amaryllis. I never saw 
one, but think it must be very desirable. F. A. A. 
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