62 
House & Garden 
THE MARVELS of MID-SUMMER PLANTING 
The Genii oj Landscape Gardening Now Make Gardens Spring 
Lp in Full Bloom Almost Over Night 
D id June find you with your garden 
plans still unfulfilled? 
Have you been unable to do your plant¬ 
ing during the usual spring season? 
Have you perchance been abroad or have 
you perhaps just bought a house and found 
the grounds c^uite at sixes and sevens— 
with trees scattered all about and the place 
without a garden? 
Shall July find you still in the same 
predicament ? 
It would seem impossible at first, to do 
anything but wait until the following 
spring, but, thanks to modern study and 
methods of handling growing plants, it is 
quite feasible to plant a garden in July or 
August and have it in its full beauty for 
the rest of the season. 
The gradual evolution of a garden is al¬ 
ways full of interest as it progresses through 
the early stages of thought, plans, con¬ 
struction work and planting to the time 
when our mental picture is fully realized. 
A spring planted garden always has prom¬ 
ises of fine mid-summer and autumn effects, 
but to know that what was smooth turf one 
day, in a hot July, was turned in the 
course of ten short days, into an established 
flower garden has surely the touch of ro¬ 
mance. I have in mind such a garden where 
during July and August flowers actually in 
bloom and shrubs in full leaf were suc¬ 
cessfully transferred. Columbines were 
blooming in this garden, Japanese irises 
were in flower, foxgloves were there with 
their handsome flower spires, larkspurs 
were there, and even full grown hollyhocks. 
The planting of one special hollyhock in¬ 
tended for a strategic position in the garden 
was particularly interesting. It was a beau¬ 
tiful plant, fully 8' high, with seven stout 
stalks covered with pink blooms. It was 
carefully watered the day before moving, 
and was dug with a ball of earth covered 
with canvas and lashed on a platform, just 
as if it were an evergreen. Its stalks were 
swathed in tissue paper. It was delivered on 
a truck all by itself. I would have liked 
to have seen it when it arrived. There must 
have been a regal entry! 
T hough planted at such an unusual 
time, the subsequent effects in this gar¬ 
den were very much what one would nor¬ 
mally expect. In August came the phloxes 
and various annuals. K host of Lillium 
auratum made a magnificent show though 
a bit exotically late on the first of Septem¬ 
ber, and heleniums and asters and chrysan¬ 
themums in great numbers made a final 
grand display, running well on towards the 
first of November. 
Although you have, no doubt, often 
moved about a few plants in your gar- 
ELSA REHMANN 
den, even in full bloom and in very hot 
weather, it is a matter which must be care¬ 
fully and thoughtfully worked out when 
the number of plants required reaches the 
thousands. They must, of course, be as¬ 
sembled from various sources; some will be 
field grown, others pot grown; and much 
thought must be given to their particular 
likes and dislikes. Pot grown plants are of 
course easier to handle in hot weather than 
field grown clumps and most nurseries now- 
a-days have a goodly assortment of perenni¬ 
als in 4" and 6" pots for late comers. For 
this garden the hybrid columbines, lark¬ 
spurs, foxgloves, and Lillium auratum were 
pot grown, but the greater majority of the 
material was only obtainable in field grown 
stock. By watering this material the day 
before it was taken, by digging each plant 
with a ball of earth and wrapping it in 
paper, and by delivering immediately in a 
covered truck, it was possible to have the 
plants arrive at the garden without being 
wilted or dried out. They were planted 
immediately and thoroughly watered. When 
the sun was brilliant, artificial shade in the 
form of burlap tacked on laths was pro¬ 
vided for a few days. 
T he whole success of mid-summer 
planting depends upon quick action. 
There can be no delays in shipping, no 
heeling in for convenient planting time, no 
trusting to the weather for sufficient water. 
Water, dig, plant and water again in rapid 
succession 1 
Watering should be continued at least 
every forty-eight hours and for the dura¬ 
tion of at least one hour in the normal 
sandy loam of our eastern seaboard unless 
rain of sufficient intensity occurs to take 
the place of this artificial moisture. Avoid 
mere sprinkling of the surface. Set a good 
lawn fountain in the garden and go away 
and forget it for an hour, and then move 
it to another spot. In this way the water 
will penetrate to the same depth as a good 
shower, and the roots of plants remain away 
from the surface. Light watering brings 
the roots to the surface and then a dry day 
makes the plants suffer. 
It is desirous, if possible, to omit from 
such planting all plants which are normally 
difficult to move, although it should be 
stated emphatically that if sufficient care 
in digging and planting is taken, there is 
no plant which cannot be transferred at 
this mid-summer season. However, in or¬ 
der that the care may not become too bur¬ 
densome, it usually is advisable to omit 
plants with tender foliage and plants with 
coarse, fleshy roots such as Ah'ssum saxa- 
tile, anchusa, columbines, lilies, gyposo- 
phila, hollyhocks and mallows. It is also 
advisable to omit until fall many of the 
spring flowering things which do not look 
particularly well after their blooming 
period is over. Some spring flowering 
plants, however, are found desirable for 
their foliage effectiveness even when their 
flower display is ever. Bearded irises and 
peonies, some of the gray foliaged plants 
and some of the edging plants are valuable 
in this respect. 
So satisfactory was the flower planting 
of this garden that it was decided to carry 
out the background planting around it. 
Inkberry—Ilex glabra—was used as a 
hedge. It is very interesting and rather 
unusual material for this purpose. Its 
beautiful glossy evergreen foliage and its 
general habit remind one of boxwood and 
for this reason make it an excellent sub¬ 
stitute for old boxwood without its pro¬ 
hibitive cost. During August, too, large 
evergreens were planted as a screen be¬ 
tween the garden and the street. White 
pines, cedars, red pines and hemlocks, from 
8' to 30' in height, formed this boundary. 
In this way the garden started in mid-July 
was completed before the first of Septem¬ 
ber. 
This one example will show that mid¬ 
summer planting is not limited to flowers 
but that very interesting and successful 
July and August planting of shrubs and 
trees is possible. 
S hrubs are comparatively easy to move 
in mid-summer. The treatment is 
similar to that used for flowers. The 
plants are watered before the digging is 
done; then they are balled and burlapped, 
transported quickly and planted with a 
great deal of water so that the shrubs find 
themselves quite literally in a mud puddle. 
Viburnums, spiraeas, weigelas, in fact all 
shrubs with fibrous root systems can be 
moved in this way. On the other hand, 
such plants as bayberries, scrub-oak, sweet 
fern, sumac, beach plum, aralias, and ben¬ 
zoin have been found difficult to move in 
summer. The reason is that they have such 
long tough roots with very few fibrous 
branches which do not hold a ball of earth 
when dug and necessarily dry out very 
quickly. The scarcity of fibers also makes 
it difficult for the plant to reestablish itself. 
It is possible to collect wild shrubs and 
move them successfully in mid-summer if 
they happen to be growing in a shallow 
swamp where the roots can be dug with a 
ball of peaty soil adhering to them. It is 
often possible to find these brush swamps 
containing viburnum, azaleas, clethra, 
aronia and similar shrubs in great abun¬ 
dance. The layer of peat in which the 
{Continued on page 82) 
