HOUSE AND GARDEN 
July, 1915 
26 
to make lusty normal growth and nothing 
is forced or artificial, and, together with 
the wide acres extending back from it, 
constitute ‘‘The Manor Farm.” The 
Slide and Overlook mountains, seem¬ 
ingly near, and the whole atmosphere of 
freedom and space, make this garden 
at any time unusual, and especially so 
when the blooming season is at its height. 
In late June, July and August the 
perennials here are at their best. It is 
during these months that Canterbury 
Bells, white and in all shades of pink, 
purple and blue, and foxgloves in all 
colors, so rejoice the eye that one is 
ready to declare that they are the queens 
of all flowers — though when the Japan¬ 
ese iris is in bloom a new conclusion is 
reached. 
In this garden this beautiful 
grown in great masses. It is 
shade of purple and heliotrope and in 
white. The white, opulent in size and 
fairy-like in its delicacy, is especially 
beautiful. In its big bed — white and 
colored in solid phalanxes—this iris in 
full bloom is not unlike a great company 
of unusual orchids. True, it does not 
blossom for more than a month or six 
weeks; but even so its beauty is a joy to 
recall and to look forward to all the rest 
of the year. 
As all familiar with its culture know, it is not counted quite 
easy to raise Japanese iris from the seed, but that it can be 
successfully done, and with no very great difficulty, has been 
demonstrated here. The plants are expensive, while the seed is 
not, and if sown in drills, in proper soil, and kept well wet down, 
the result is all that can be desired. It must have, several times 
each week, a thorough drenching; in fact, the soil should not 
be permitted to become really dry at any time, since it halts 
growth and often prevents successful bloom. 
ins is 
in every 
Here the terraces are tied together by a ribbon of flowers that, were it made straight, would be an eighth of a 
mile long. Zinnias, phlox, larkspur, delphinium, and a host of others are included in it 
The cost of such a perennial garden as this is really negligible, 
and the work required to keep it in order is much less than in 
making and caring for an ordinary garden. Of course, it is the 
personal equation which counts — to know what to do and how 
to do it — in this as in other things. Such a garden can be man¬ 
aged without a gardener — this one was a sheep pasture and has 
been made the thing of beauty it is by its owner, with the occa¬ 
sional assistance of a workman and the good offices of a little 
Griffon terrier. When a plague of moles threatened to undo all 
that had been done, the terrier took a hand — that is, if a 
dog can be said to take a hand — and the moles were 
vanquished. 
The owner of this garden has made some interesting 
and successful experiments. This she has done by becom¬ 
ing en rapport, as it were, with her flowers in her intimate 
work among them — her sole reason, as she states it, for 
having a garden being her love for flowers and her pleasure 
in being with them. One simple and interesting experiment 
she has made is in deferring the bloom of certain flowers 
for a month or more by carefully taking off the buds as 
soon as they appear. She states that the retarded blossoms 
were as opulent and profuse as those which matured at the 
usual time. 
As unusual as is this perennial garden, or the one which 
is walled in, are two which are terraced and held together 
by such a ribbon as never yet was woven. If its waving 
curves, along the edge of the first terrace, were made 
straight, it would be nearly, if not quite, an eighth of a 
mile long. In it are an uncountable number of zinnias. 
These, in all the pastel shades, form the ground. Em¬ 
broidered on these, in clottings and groupings, are Phlox 
Drummondi in all the new varieties—primrose, salmon- 
pink with red eyes, shades of lilac, pink striped with white 
and others which are unusual. As the heads of these are 
The garden of “The Manor Farm" is devoted to perennials—an old-fashioned corner care¬ 
fully maintained in which many interesting flower experiments are tried 
