House and Garden 
Garden Correspondence 
W. C. EGAN 
PLANTING WILD FLOWERS 
/^UR country house is on a place of eighty acres 
in Cooperstown, New York, with frontage 
on the lake. There is a beautiful brook and I 
should like some suggestions as to planting wild 
flowers along its course which is shaded by fine 
trees. Can daffodils be sown or planted along the 
lake margin with chances of success, if left to them¬ 
selves I mean ? Please give me the address of re¬ 
liable gardening firms for flowers and vegetables. 
W. E. G. 
You are fortunate in having a place that evidently 
must have many possibilities for charming effects. 
Being large in area, and having the unusual advan¬ 
tage of water effects of two distinct characters, with 
all their changeable and varied forms, it is best that 
you employ some reliable landscape engineer to visit 
it and suggest the planting. Light and shade, eleva¬ 
tions, surroundings, and so many things, enter into 
the proper conception of what should be done, that 
to do it right, one should be on the spot to study 
its characteristics. If you employ any one, be sure 
he is one who understands his business. Get a 
landscape engineer of reputation. A carpenter may 
be a good carpenter, but you would not trust him to 
design your house; so, too, a gardener may be a good 
gardener but fail when he comes to landscape work. 
If you want to have the fun of laying out the place 
yourself, and stamping it with your own individuality, 
you will find a world of pleasure in it. Alfred Austin 
says, in “The Garden That I Love,” “The moment 
I enter a garden I know at once whether it is the 
owner’s garden or the gardener’s garden. Nearly 
all large and costly gardens are gardener’s gardens 
and for my part I would not take them as a gift.” 
Note what wild flowers are there and the positions 
they occupy. Save seed from them and raise young 
plants, or obtain the same plants elsewhere, and plant 
with those in place, endeavoring to plant in masses or 
colonies. Then obtain from some reliable nursery¬ 
man any of the following hardy perennials which 
should do fairly well in the situation you describe: 
Globe flowers — (Trollius), hemerocallis, several 
varieties; tall garden phlox, iris, especially the Ger¬ 
man and Siberian varieties; asters, loose-strife (Lys- 
tmachia clethrotdes and L. punctata), golden rods, 
Galega, in variety; everlasting pea, yarrow, ferns— 
especially the ostrich fern, Monarda didyma; helen- 
iums, lobelias, hibiscus (crimson eye), and others the 
nurseryman may suggest. 
You can grow the narcissuses on the bank where the 
moisture will not injure them in the winter. Narcissus 
Barrii conspicus is one of the most robust and lasting. 
TREATMENT FOR A CITY BACK YARD 
I am about to move into a city house on a fifteen 
foot lot, the house facing south and would like to find 
out through your correspondence department the 
proper treatment for the back yard. It is in New 
York. It is surrounded by a high wooden fence and 
measures fifteen feet by twenty-five feet. There is a 
grass plot in the center and at the east and west sides 
are strips of earth with half dead grass one and one- 
half feet wide and at the north end is a strip about 
six feet by fifteen feet, also grass. The earth is poor 
and stony. 
What can I do to raise grass in the center plot 
It does not get very much sun as you see. I wish to 
have flowers or shrubs at the sides and back that will 
bloom before July ist and after September 1st. Can 
you advise me what to plant and how to prepare the 
earth and when to plant Mrs. K. W. 
The situation is certainly one surrounded by diffi¬ 
culties. If the grass in the center plot looks fairly 
well I would wait until spring and then give it a good 
dusting of pulverized sheep manure. Before doing 
so rake the surface most thoroughly with a sharp 
iron-toothed rake in order to get out all moss, 
creeping and other weeds. Obtain from a seedsman 
a grass seed for shady places, sow it over the raked 
plot, and roll it well before putting on the manure. 
The narrow sides are too shady for almost any 
grass. Spade them up deeply and add plenty of 
well-decomposed stable manure and let the surface 
remain rough all winter to obtain the benefit of the 
action of the frost. Treat the six foot strip the same 
way. You want plants that bloom before July 1st 
and that will stand some shade. Try the columbines. 
The most reliable are Aquilegia Canadensis, A. 
chrysantha, and its hybrids and the common 
European A. vulgaris, but it is better to renew them 
about every second or third year. For fall blooming 
plant the improved Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia 
triloba. This is a biennial that self sows freely. 
Vinca minor, the myrtle, will grow there and make a 
good carpet and in the way of shrubs, the wild roses 
Rosa lucida and R. blanda, should do fairly well 
and bloom before July. 
In the six foot strip try Lonicera fragrantisima, 
deutzias, the Missouri currant, Rubus odorata, and 
perhaps the Clematis paniculata against the fence if 
it will obtain any sun a few hours a day. I would 
pave or cement the space between the grass plot 
and the house, as it evidently gets no sunshine. If 
you should grow the columbines, I would smooth 
the surface of the beds and after staking out where the 
columbines are to be placed in the spring, plant this 
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