House 
Vol. V 
and Garden 
March, 1904 No. 3 
THE FLOWER GARDEN IN THE SPRING 
By HELENA RUTHERFURD ELY 
Author ot “A Woman’s Hardv Garden” 
W EI'H the first mild day that comes 
in March the thoughts of all garden 
lovers, who spend the winter months in the 
round of city life, fly away to their gardens. 
They know that within the brown earth, 
soon to become soft and warm, the hearts 
of the plants are beginning to stir, and that 
watching eyes will soon see, with each day’s 
sunshine, new tender shoots of green appear. 
Let us then consider first the order of work 
to be followed in an old garden, or in one 
that was laid out and planted the year before. 
Wherever gardens were covered in late 
autumn with a mulch, this should be re¬ 
moved in the spring, the very day that the 
frost entirely leaves the ground, otherwise 
the plants under it may start unnaturally 
and their early growth be injured by late 
spring frosts. When the beds are uncovered, 
the red shoots of the peonies, and the green 
ones of the tulips, daffodils, phlox and hol¬ 
lyhocks, will already have put up their heads. 
All gardeners know the thrill of delight 
with which this first appearance of life among 
the flowers is welcomed. 
After the beds have been uncovered the 
whole place must be carefully raked, and all 
the beds, borders and paths edged, by cut¬ 
ting with a sharp spade or a grass edging 
knife. Wherevemthe grass seemed thin the 
season before, new seed should be sown and 
thoroughly rolled in while the ground is 
soft. In about two weeks this new grass 
should appear; and if some cotton seed 
meal, which is a most excellent fertilizer for 
grass, be sown thinly as soon as it is well 
up, and followed by some wood-ashes along 
in Mav, there should be a fine sod in June. 
If it is a dry spring the newly sown grass 
must be thoroughly watered at least every 
other day. The various mixtures of lawn 
grass-seed offered by the seedsmen are gen¬ 
erally good, but I have found equal portions 
each to the bushel of Rhode Island bent, 
red-top and Kentucky blue grass, to give the 
best results. 
Sweet peas should be sown as soon as the 
ground can be worked. 
During April and Mav every hour of 
every day is filled with work, for the success 
of the garden in summer and autumn de¬ 
pends upon what has been done in these early 
months. 
The climbing roses should now be care¬ 
fully gone over, all the dead wood cut out 
and the loose branches fastened in place. 
Honeysuckle, trumpet creeper, and indeed 
all the hardy vines should be looked after 
in the same way. The hybrid perpetual and 
other roses that were not trimmed back in 
the autumn should now be pruned, all dead 
wood and some of the larger branches cut 
away, and the tops of the hybrid perpetuals 
pruned back so that the bushes are from 
two to three feet in height. The everbloom- 
ing roses can be pruned to a foot in height. 
As soon as the tulips, hyacinths and daf¬ 
fodils are about three inches high the earth 
should be gently stirred around them with 
a small trowel. But beyond this beds planted 
Copyrighted IQ 04 by Henry T. Coates <5ff Co. 
IOI 
