166 
The Garden Magazine, November, 1923 
Roses here are possibly more subject to blights and fungus 
diseases than in Northern gardens, but less liable to aphis and 
insects generally. The Teas and Hybrid-teas are most generally 
planted. Radiance, and Red Radiance, are giving greatest sat¬ 
isfaction with their long stems and strong full buds; but Minnie 
Francis, Ophelia, Killarney, Maman Cochet, Sunburst and most 
of the other popular varieties are good standbys, ever and always 
if given good care! 
The Climbing Roses do exceedingly well, too, and should be a 
feature in every garden; the cherry red Reine Marie Henriette, 
Perle des Jardins, and the pale pink fragrant Climbing De- 
voniensis being excellent for this purpose. 
Sweet-peas make another of the wonderful features and op¬ 
portunities for the Florida garden, but only the Early-flowering 
Spencer type is successfully grown. Planted when the days are 
growing cooler in early November and with successive sowings, 
you may have them in great masses, acres of them if you will, 
from January to April. Sweet-peas are quite subject to wilt 
and damping-off, but experiments are being made in the way of 
seed and soil treatments to overcome these troubles, as has been 
done for the vegetables of the state. 
Annuals that Play the Part of Perennials 
N ONE’S garden proper it is difficult at first to know how to 
start without the perennials so much used in the North. But 
there are any number of excellent subjects for hedges as a be¬ 
ginning. In one garden 1 know there is an outer hedge of Ever¬ 
green Japanese Privet (Ligustrum lucidum) with splendid glossy 
leaves and white panicles of bloom in the spring, and an inner 
hedge of peach-blow pink Hibiscus planted at intervals with 
clumps of blue Plumbago. 
The owner of this garden uses for backgrounds the blue and 
white Annual Lupin which grows as high as four feet and 
blossoms for several months, making an excellent substitute for 
the Campanula. Here grow, two to three feet high, the giant 
white Phlox Drummondi and Giant Candytuft—as thrifty as 
perennials; and the Ageratum and Madagascar Periwinkle 
(Vinca rosea) are everblooming. The Periwinkle grows wild in 
places. When sheared back once or twice a year, it makes won¬ 
derful hedges and borders, especially the varieties alba and alba 
pura. The finest perennial is the Transvaal Daisy (Gerbera 
Jamesoni hybrida), bearing flowers with stems 20 inches long in 
brilliant colors shading through yellow and browns to reds. 
There is also the gorgeous perennial orange Cosmos, in the sum¬ 
mer and fall wonderful in mass. 
Other annuals growing most successfully from October to 
May in order of bloom are the Marigold, Balsam, Cosmos— 
followed soon (weather conditions being as usual) by Calendulas, 
Gaillardia, Dianthus, Acroclinium. With the first warm spring 
days of late January or early February appear the Phlox, 
Dimorphotheca, followed soon by the Arctotis and Stock, and 
a little later by Cornflower, Salpiglossis, and Snapdragon. 
Scabiosa refuses to awaken its buds before April no matter how 
early its seeds are planted, and Zinnias hold forth in the summer 
season. 
At the Flower Shows held in Winter Park on February 28th, in 
1922, and on March 15th of this year, all these annuals were 
exhibited together with Roses, and Sweet-peas, and Amaryllis, 
and Gladiolus. 
Perhaps the greatest flower opportunity for this region is going 
to be with Amaryllis, Gladiolus, Easter Lilies, and the Callas 
(white and yellow) and other bulbous plants, as many growers 
are planting these by the millions. One man, not a professional 
grower, planted a thousand Easter Lilies last year and cut 14,000 
blooms—an average~of fourteen to a bulb. Dahlia bulbs set ouf 
in January produce bloom all the spring, but there is no attempt 
as yet to grow them for exhibition; but perhaps that is a de¬ 
velopment for the increasing activities of the clubs to foster. 
TROPICAL WATER-LILIES 
FOR OPEN POOLS 
A. W. ROE 
Varieties that Flourish in the Sunken Gardens at San Antonio, Texas, Where 
They Redeem an Erstwhile Rubbish Dump that Has Become a City Park 
HE Sunken Gardens of Brackenridge Park are the 
realization of a dream—the dream of Ray Lambert, 
commissioner of city parks, San Antonio, Texas. 
Eight years ago when Mr. Lambert made a survey 
of the land in the vicinity of the park where the Gardens 
now are, all that he found there was an abandoned stone 
quarry in which the city sanitation department had placed an 
incinerator used to dispose of rubbish—a sight unpromising 
enough! 
To-day the question put to every visitor in the Alamo city, 
is: “Have you seen Brackenridge Park and the Sunken Gar¬ 
dens?’’ For these gardens with their winding Japanese bridges 
and walks and their walls of native limestone are a famous fea¬ 
ture of the Southwest. In summer or in autumn the gigantic 
leaves of the Victoria regia, floating idly in the lily pond, and 
dozens of quaint Water-lily blossoms, peeping out from nests of 
glossy leaves, create a scene never to be forgotten. 
“We find the growing of Water-lilies pretty much like the 
growing of other plants,” said Mr. H. R. Gerhardt, for six years 
gardener at the lily pond. “ We give ’em what they like and 
just let ’em grow. Our method might be called the natural 
method, and I do not know that it is worth explaining. The 
growing of fine Water-lilies is, though, somewhat of a particular 
business, so I am glad to relate what we do here. 
“To be at all successful, a water garden should be about three 
feet deep in water when hooded and the soil in the plant boxes 
two feet in depth. We use heavy boxes, made of strong 
hardwood timbers, floored and fitted well together so that the 
soil will not run out though crevices. We place sand or pebbles 
on top of the soil to keep it from rising and boating out of the 
boxes. 
“ For soil, a rich garden loam with which plenty of sand is 
mixed and no commercial fertilizer except dried blood, which has 
the good quality of sinking in water and mixing with the soil in 
the boxes before it dissolves. We apply not more than two or 
three handfuls to a plant about every four months during the 
