For March plant the snowdrop in the 
partial shade of dusky evergreens 
In April the forsythia or golden bell 
takes the centre of the stage 
German iris is the reigning flower of 
May, if planted in generous masses 
The All-Star Garden of a Business Man 
HOW THE MAN WHO HAS LITTLE TIME TO DEVOTE TO HIS GARDEN MAY HAVE 
AN UNFAILING SUCCESSION OF BLOOM FROM THE BEST THINGS THAT GROW 
by Henry II. Saylor 
Photographs by N. R. Graves, E. J. Hall, the author and others 
I T sounds decidedly paradoxical, does it not, to affirm that the 
man who has the least amount of spare time to spend upon 
the appearance of his home surroundings may have the very best 
that the horticultural world offers ? It really sounds too good to 
be true; yet that is what I am going to try to show. 
I shall never forget the feeling of utter, hopeless ignorance that 
swept over me when my eyes were first opened to the beauty, my 
understanding to the joy, that a garden offers. As I pored over 
book and magazine, seedmen’s catalogues and planting tables, 
there gradually came a realization of the immensity — the real awe¬ 
inspiring depth, of the subject. The terms “annual,” “peren¬ 
nial,” herbaceous shrub,” “mulch” and “scale,” meant as little 
to me as did the portentious Latin 
names of genera and variety. At the 
mere thought that any mind could ever 
grasp all the details of nomenclature, 
the manner of plants’ growth, their re¬ 
spective heights, time and length of 
bloom, color, requirements of soil, 
light, shade and moisture, sowing, 
transplanting, pruning and fertilizing 
—at the mere thought that a single 
mind must be able to coordinate all 
these and many other facts before 
planning a garden that would give con¬ 
tinuous and harmonious bloom, my 
reason fairly tottered. Nor does the 
problem seem much easier on closer 
acquaintance. The really successful 
“garden,” as we understand the term — 
a garden of some extent, in which are 
found at least the main representa¬ 
tives of the floral kingdom, arranged in close and always har¬ 
monious relationship, is never achieved in a day. Only year after 
year of tireless experimenting, with adherence to a single general 
plan for the whole, will bring at least a fair approximation of the 
ideal—never the goal itself. 
But, how, then, is our friend the business man, with little time 
to spare, going to achieve even a reasonable measure of success 
in the setting for his house? In a word, by planting only a few 
things, and those the real giants of the garden—the “stars” of the 
garden stage. 
Did you ever stop to think that every month from early 
spring through the autumn brings at least one flowering plant 
that stands supreme among its fel¬ 
lows—the peony of June, the hardy 
chysanthemum of November, for in¬ 
stance? But mere superiority of ap¬ 
pearance will not be enough as the 
test for those plants that will bring 
success to our business man's garden. 
We must have only those things that 
need little or no care, that are highly 
resistant to the army of garden pests. 
And we shall prefer a variety of form, 
so that all shall not be border flowers, 
or shrubs, or vines. Our business man’s 
garden must not be merely that of a 
collector, having all phloxes or all roses. 
What we do want, then, is a steady 
succession of the really big garden fea¬ 
tures—a variety of them, resistant to 
disease, and each fully capable of oc¬ 
cupying the whole stage at the height' 
Also in May comes the bloom of that dazzling 
shrub. Van Houtte’s spirea 
(2 4 I) 
