204 
minute; they never loped 
down our newly sodded ter¬ 
race that they did not go next 
and step in the new Lettuce 
bed. Cows came by day or 
night and ate our vegetables 
till we organized a series of 
alarms and the neighborhood 
would turn out to drive them 
away. Moles burrowed under 
everything that we watered. 
The more moles that came, 
the more one had to water; 
and the more one watered, 
the more moles came. A year 
later 1 learned that moles are 
as prolific as guinea pigs, and 
that almost made me give up 
gardening; but not quite! The 
pocket gopher was new to me. 
He suddenly begins building 
little mountains of newly dug 
earth in the middle of your 
lawn. He usually does one 
every day and where he gets 
the earth you cannot see, for 
it will not go back into the 
hole again. We finally trapped 
him. 1 don’t know whether 1 
had better tell about the bob¬ 
tailed mice and the skunk we 
caught in the rat trap; nor 
will I mention rabbits, ground 
squirrels or chipmunks. No! 
You might think 1 am exag¬ 
gerating, but 1 am not, and 
all this took place on less than 
an acre. 
Yes, we had some difficul¬ 
ties to overcome, and 1 have 
sometimes thought that if 1 
were a flower 1 would resent being asked to grow in some of 
the seasons here. But when they get their roots well down in 
the richness of our soil, and their thirst is slaked, and the 
sun shines, they feel such an urge from below that they can- 
The Garden Magazine, May, 1924 
not resist pushing upward into 
the glowing sunshine and 
bursting into floods of blooms; 
at least a great many of them 
cannot. And some years they 
bloom no matter whether we 
pay attention to them or not 
—1 gardened four years before 
I had such a season, but we 
do have them. 
And so now after a decade 
of gardening I have learned 
that just as very rarely all 
the wheat and all the fruit is 
ruined (the newspapers to the 
contrary) so, generally speak¬ 
ing—cyclones, floods, and 
droughts not counting—there 
are very few seasons that do 
not average up in the long 
run and when some flowers 
cannot be counted on to come 
through smiling. 
When 1 look at the growth 
of the climbing Roses at the 
seashore, and think of our 
second story shoots yearly; 
and when 1 consider our de¬ 
lightfully early start and our 
late fall blooms; not to men¬ 
tion our lack of rose bugs, 
hollyhock rust, and some other 
difficulties that I find exist in 
Eastern gardens—then I feel 
that the “heart of America” 
is not really such a bad place 
to garden. 
One gardening district has 
one set of difficulties, another 
another. I have yet to see the 
garden that has taken Topsy 
as an example. One should garden with a thankful heart for 
all favors received and a firm belief that there are as good flow¬ 
ers in gardens as smile at one from the beautiful colored covers 
of the catalogues. 
CLIMBING ROSE TAUSENDSCHON 
Lustily clambering upward season after season with a prodigal dis¬ 
play of cherry-pink bloom, this Rose was set out in its present 
situation in 1911 after having been forced for Easter bloom; at 
the home of Mrs. Massey Holmes, Kansas City, Missouri 
LILIES IN A KANSAS GARDEN 
VIOLA McCOLM 
VOU must see Mrs. Pierce’s Regal L.ily and the Peruvian Daffodils 
* (Ismene)! They are in bloom now.” 
So the friend I was visiting in Topeka took me to this garden in a 
back yard of two lots. Here, although three fruit trees of good size 
and some lawn occupy considerable space, Mrs. Pierce has shep¬ 
herded a beautiful array of bulbs and hardy plants; among them, 
fifty varieties of German Iris, besides several kinds of Japanese and 
Siberian. 
It was late in June when the early perennials and German Iris had 
finished blooming. The Lilium regale, however, was in its prime, the 
bulb having been set out in December of the year before. The first 
season it made little growth, but in the following spring (1923) it 
threw up three strong stems, bearing one bud, three buds, and five buds 
respectively. I was fortunate enough to see the latter stalk with its 
full number. 
There are twenty-three varieties of Lilies in Mrs. Pierce’s garden, all 
fall-planted. “Yes, 1 should know a good deal about Lilies. I have 
been growing them ever since I was eight years old and 1 am not a young 
woman now,” she remarked. “The Regal Lily bulb was set between 
six and ten inches deep. I find the best method of handling Lily bulbs 
is to put at least two inches of coarse sand underneath, then to fill in 
around each bulb with a mixture of sand and thoroughly rotted manure. 
And a Lily bed should never be allowed to suffer for water. I find par¬ 
tial shade to be best for the Regal Lily. The topic assigned me in the 
Flower Lover’s Club is the Lilv, and the club is planning for a show of 
Tulips and other spring flowers to be held in Topeka early next May 
(1924).” 
Mrs. Pierce then discussed the Peruvian Daffodils which were just 
commencing to bloom. These large fragrant white flowers, upheld on a 
three-foot stem, are of the Amaryllis family; easily cultivated; and 
the bulbs multiply rapidly. As soon as ground is warm enough for 
Corn to grow, the Ismene bulbs may be planted. For successive flower¬ 
ing it is well to plant at intervals of two or three weeks until the middle 
of June. The top of the bulb should be at a depth of two or three 
inches. Each may send up several flower stalks—one Peruvian Daffo¬ 
dil in Mrs. Pierce’s garden sent up five. 
