S WEET dis¬ 
course had 
we this month at 
Helen Brinker- 
ley’s from a lady 
whose success 
with everything 
indoors is per¬ 
fectly phenome¬ 
nal ; and she told 
us what to bring 
in from the gar¬ 
den and how to 
treat them when 
we got them in, 
and what to ex¬ 
pect of them if 
we brought them 
in and treated 
them properly. 
“Echoes of the 
garden’’ she poet¬ 
ically said we 
might have, dur¬ 
ing the major 
portion of the 
winter, if we fol¬ 
lowed her direc¬ 
tions. For every one of the things she told about she declared 
she has tried herself. And it seems likely that she has, for Helen 
got hold of her through some friend of the people she is visit¬ 
ing. So she is not a professional—and has nothing to sell! 
She told about bringing in a great many more things than 
most of us have—or are ever likely to have, I fancy. I, myself, 
do not care much for house plants and would rather most of 
the things fancied by the fanciers were conspicuous, in my win¬ 
dows, by their absence. But, of course, her lists could be boiled 
down as much as we wished; and mine, after boiling, contains 
the following—as the collection advertisers say: some baby 
crimson rambler roses—Mine. Norbert Levavasseur is the name 
of this really nice little thing; some heliotrope; some mignonette; 
Paris daisy, both yellow and white, and lavender and rosemary 
and mint. And—oh, yes, of course! — the chimney bell flower, 
which is Campanula pyraniidalis. Really I do not know where 
I shall put all these, but I am half promising myself a sort of 
window-extension make-believe little greenhouse, on the south 
side of the dining room. It really can be managed without much 
expense, and I do not see how I am to do without it. Which is, 
of course, the next best thing to having it. 
If I cannot have it, however, I shall cut down on my list and 
not attempt to have more than the one or two things that I 
like the best—one rose and probably the heliotrope, and some 
pots of lavender and mint and rosemary. Whatever else I do 
not have, I must always and will always have these. I am doubt¬ 
ful about getting any of the heliotrope into pots from the gar¬ 
den, for it is impatient of transplanting. So, lest its impatience 
gets the better of its constitution and carries it off in a rage, I 
am starting some new seedling in pots, and these shall be my 
special care—for the heliotrope fragrance is of all the most deli¬ 
cious I think—especially when I am smelling heliotrope! 
Some rosemary and lavender from seed of my own sowing I 
have stuck around here and there in the borders, and this needs 
only to be lifted and potted to come indoors. Nothing ever gets 
the matter with it, and the dark, strap-like leaves of the first on 
branches that twist themselves somehow down on to the earth 
of the pot and over its edges are attractively colored, as are 
the gray-green plump little leaves of the second — and both have 
a fragrance that 
i s indescribably 
delicious! A pot 
of one or the 
other in every 
room is my rule. 
And a pot of 
mint in the kit¬ 
chen. 
The crimson baby 
ramblers, she said, 
flower for her ac¬ 
tually all the time. 
It seems a pretty 
tall story, but I 
know they bloom 
all the time in the 
border, and prop¬ 
erly taken care of 
I suppose they 
may keep it up. 
Put the plant in a 
ten-inch pot, she 
said, with fully 
two inches of 
drainage material 
in the bottom, 
and then just or¬ 
dinary good garden soil, with a sprinkling of bone meal in the 
top layer of it. Then give up a sunny window to it, where the 
temperature is about sixty-five degrees, watch it for red spider 
and spray whenever one of these critters appear, water it when¬ 
ever the top of the soil looks dry—and cut the roses as fast as 
they fade. 
With some of my pink baby ramblers I may do the same, al¬ 
though she did say that the only one that fully repaid the trouble 
was this crimson one. No harm to try, however. 
It is quite impossible to transplant mignonette! But, as it 
comes from seed in about two weeks and reaches the blooming- 
period in between four and five months, it is not too late to be¬ 
gin with a few pots of it, if anyone loves its fragrance. I do,, 
and so I am starting four little tiny pots, two inches across, with 
seed. The earth for this she directed to be made very fine and 
soft, just as in flats for seed; then in a little hollow in the mid¬ 
dle of the pot two or three seed are to be dropped and covered 
ever so lightly with earth. When they are all up and you can 
see which one is the huskiest, pull up the others, giving this 
fellow the entire place. Before very long the pot will be filled 
with roots; this is the signal for carefully getting the whole mass- 
of roots and earth out of this pot and putting it into one twice 
the size, without disturbing it in the least—a ticklish job, it seems 
to me. 
But it seems if you pick the pot up and put your hand flat 
across the top of it, second and third fingers enough apart to- 
let the little plant come up between them, but not far enough apart 
to let a bit of earth fall through, then turn pot and all upside 
down and “tunk” on the bottom of it, the earth and root ball will 
cleave from the sides of the pot perfectly and come out. Then 
it can be turned back over and lowered into the four-inch pot 
which is waiting with earth already in it and some additional 
to sift around the sides after the root ball is in position, without 
being disturbed in the slightest degree. But all this will not hap¬ 
pen as calculated, she warned us, unless the earth around the plant 
is as moist as a previous day’s thorough watering will make it. 
When these four-inch pots get full of roots the same perform¬ 
ance must be gone through with again, shifting this time into 
(Continued on page 247) 
Editor's Note: The garden club is a great factor in neighborhood betterment. Here is a true story of the work 
of a certain such club and its accomplishments, taken from the diary of one of its members. What this club actually 
did should be a stimulus to all who love gardens, and a guide to the ways and means of improving our towns and 
villages. These chapters began in the February issue, when the organisation of the Club was discussed. Each install¬ 
ment shows how the program oi activities zvas followed out. 
(225) 
