64 
House Garden 
AN AUTUMN GARDENER’S RESUME 
Fall Brings Ideal Garden Weather, and Fortunately—For There are Many Preparations 
to be Made for Winter, and Many Things to be Planted 
ROBERT STEEL 
T he first frost has come. Unobtrusively 
slipping into the lower corner of the 
garden between dark and dawn of a still, 
star-sprinkled night, it has brought half the 
dahlia show to a sorry end and sent the 
salvias to that heaven whither all good 
plants must go when they have had their 
fling of play and flaunting colors. 
A day of regrets? Yes, as one regrets the 
passing of any kind of beauty; but not a 
time for lamentations. For to the true gar¬ 
den lover those “melancholy days” of 
poetic tradition are a misnomer, a jaundiced 
viewpoint upon a season that is full of pleas¬ 
ures. Golden days lie ahead, days replete 
with the glory of Michaelmas daisies and 
cosmos, of chrysanthemums and cone- 
flowers. The vegetable garden and the fruit 
trees are yielding their abundant harvest. 
Memories of past loveliness in blossom and 
leaf are still fresh, prospects of new enchant¬ 
ments will soon be realized. No, decidedly it 
is no time for lamentations. 
Ever since the days when the Hesperides 
invented arsenate of lead spray to keep the 
curculio worms out of Gaea’s golden apples, 
fall has been clean-up time in the garden. 
There are the dead flower and weed stalks 
to be gathered and burned along with the 
other inflammable refuse, that wintering- 
over disease germs and insect pests may not 
have that whereon to lay their heads. Tree 
leaves lie in deepening windrows waiting 
to be raked together and stored under cover 
for later use as mulch for the herbaceous 
border. Root crops are ripe and ready to be 
stored in boxes of dry sand in the cellar or 
packed amid hay in the root-house; toma¬ 
toes are waiting to be picked before frost 
kills them, that they may ripen slowly in¬ 
doors and bring September freshness to the 
November table. The gladioli, dahlias and 
other tender bulbs need digging, labeling 
and laying away where freezing weather 
cannot touch them, and the withering stalks 
of corn call for cutting and stacking in order 
that the tender trees and shrubs and roses 
may not lack protection against the win¬ 
ter’s harshness. 
AND then, there are the thousand and 
one things, great and small, which 
bear more obviously upon the success of 
next year’s garden. If you would have hun¬ 
dred-percent roses, for example, make up 
their bed before the ground freezes, digging 
it out to a depth of 2' and refilling with good 
loam into which has been mixed one-third 
its bulk of well-rotted manure. Again, 
should there be a bit of uncultivated ground 
which you plan to use next spring, plow or 
spade it over now, that the mellowing effects 
of the snow and frost may release its plant 
foods and loosen up the sods and clods. 
Only those who have muttered unutterable 
things over grass-land that has been up¬ 
turned one day and planted the next can 
appreciate the full curse of such a garden’s 
cloddiness. 
It is incontrovertible that much actual 
planting is best done in autumn. Indeed, fall 
is the only time for the. successful setting of 
certain things, such as the spring-flowering 
bulbs. Consider the logic of the situation 
for a moment; 
Bulbs are complete plants in capsule 
form, in a manner of speaking. Within 
them are stored stalk, leaf and bud, but 
these cannot develop in full health unless 
roots are ready to gather and transmit food 
for their sustenance. If a tulip or narcissus 
or lily bulb becomes impatient and seeks to 
attain Nirvana without a good, solid under¬ 
pinning of roots, disappointment will be its 
lot. It may start, but it won’t get there. 
S O we plant in the fall, when the lower 
soil is still warm enough to start root 
growth which will be ready for renewed 
activity in the spring, but the upper has 
been sufficiently chilled to retard or entirely 
prevent development of the top growth. 
And we plant so that the crowns of the bulbs 
will be well below the surface—3" to 4" for 
the various narcissi, 3" to 5" for the hya¬ 
cinths, 4" to 6" in the case of the May¬ 
flowering tulips, and as much as 12" where 
the lily bulbs are of the largest size. 
Then, too, if we want flowering bulbs in 
the house this winter, we plant them in 
large and well drained pots six weeks or so 
before hard freezing weather, sinking the 
pots to the ground level and leaving them 
there until the near approach of winter 
warns that it is time to bring them into the 
house warmth and thereby start their upper 
growth. If such pots are planted and 
brought indoors at intervals they will do 
much to supply a succession of blossoms at a 
time when most garden products are con¬ 
spicuous by their absence. 
It would be presumptuous, even did space 
permit, to set down here a list of the named 
varieties of hardy bulbs that your garden 
should include. There are so many superla¬ 
tively desirable narcissi, tulips, and so on, 
that selection had much better be left to 
individual taste and to the announcements 
which the best bulb growers are begging to 
send us about this time of year. Only one 
word of advice: buy good stock, even though 
it may seem expensive. There is no economy 
in spending half as much money for poor 
bulbs and getting one-tenth of the results. 
In the matter of herbaceous perennial 
flowers, the great majority of which are 
similarly adapted to fall planting for the 
simple reason that they are now making no 
top growth which would be harmed by in¬ 
terruption of root activities, it is possible 
to be rather more specific. Even though you 
cherish no desire for a garden rivaling Jo¬ 
seph’s coat in its variety of hues, you really 
ought to give more than a thought to: 
Tall Perennials: Anchusa (variety 
Dropmore), deep blue; Delphinium, various 
shades and combinations of blue and white; 
Foxglove {Digitalis), good foliage and vari¬ 
ous combinations of white, pink, rose and 
mottled flowers; Hollyhock, in a wide 
range of colors; Mallow {Hibiscus), enor¬ 
mous pink blossoms; Michaelmas Daisy 
(hardy aster), in many shades of blue and 
purple combined with white or golden yel¬ 
low. 
Medium Tall Perennials: Canterbury 
Bells {Campanula), largely blues and whites, 
with some pink and rose; Columbine, blues, 
yellows and whites; Cornflower {Centaurea), 
blue, thistle-like flowers; Japanese Wind¬ 
flower {Anemone japonica), late blooming 
and white; Phlox in variety, but avoid the 
magenta shades; Iris and Peony, which are 
discussed elsewhere in this issue; Oriental 
Poppy, with gorgeous scarlet and black 
blossoms; Sweet William in many colors and 
combinations; Lemon and Orange Day 
Lilies {Hemerocallis); Gaillardia (perennial 
hybrids), yellow and crimson flowers. 
Low Growing Perennials: Arabis al- 
pina, early blooming and snowy white; 
Clove Pink {Dianthus plumarius), fragrant 
and combining many shades of red, pink 
and white; Candytuft {Iberis sempervirens), 
white; Gold Dust {Alyssum saxatile), yellow 
flowers in early spring; Moss Pink {Phlox 
subulata), lavender-pink, early; Coral Bells 
{Heuchera sanguinea), white, pink, rose and 
crimson flowers. 
Twenty-four of them, you see—and two 
hundred and forty more that are just about 
as deserving of mention have been omitted! 
Well— 
W HEN the perennial flowers have been 
set out, either fresh plants or sections 
divided from the clumps that you already 
have (they should be planted six weeks or so 
before hard freezing weather, so that their 
roots may have time to become reestab¬ 
lished), the various trees and shrubs have 
their turn. Nursery stock of many kinds is 
ready now—deciduous ornamental and 
fruit trees, bush and cane fruits, flowering 
shrubs in wide variety. The only trouble 
is in deciding what to select from the 
available hundreds. 
Among the large sized ornamental and 
shade trees for the lawn or driveway the 
Norway and sugar maples are excellent. 
The European linden, too, attains magnifi- 
{Continued on page 98 ) 
