This is the time of year in which to re-arrange your hardy garden. Divide crowded clumps of perennials and plant new ones in accordance 
with your experience of the past season 
Plant Perennials Now 
by Ida D. Bennett 
P hotographs by Nathan R. Graves and others 
T HERE is much to be said in favor of the fall planting of 
hardy perennials, bulbs and seeds. The early fall frosts 
are usually followed by several weeks of delightful weather, 
in which all forms of out-door occupation prove delightful. 
Sufficient damage usually results from the first cold wave to 
destroy the garden’s beauty, and if left in this condition it is 
an unpleasant sight at best. It then becomes desirable to clear 
away all dead plants and damaged foliage and restore the gar¬ 
den—as far as possible, to its spring-time condition of order 
and culture. 
It is impossible to suggest a month or day on which such 
operations should begin. Usually the first frosts do not put in 
an appearance until the first week in October, but I have known 
killing frosts as early as the 21st of September. Obviously one 
will not care to tear up one’s garden while still beautiful with 
plants and flowers, nor will it be for the best interest of the 
plants to disturb them until they have fully completed their sea¬ 
son's growth. However, one may safely calculate on beginning 
the fall planting by the middle of October at the latest, and 
continuing for two or three weeks, according to the weather and 
latitude. 
In deciding what plants may be safely moved in the fall one 
should consider their time of bloom. Plants which bloom early 
in spring are best moved in the fall. Among these may be cited 
such plants as the Arabis Alpinia —our earliest blooming peren¬ 
nial, the hardy Primroses and Polyantha — most charming spring 
flowers. The various Saxifrages, especially the early-blooming 
Megaseas, the Dielytra, Hibiscus, Iris in variety, and all those 
plants which make a dense root-growth, like the Peonies, Phlox, 
Dictamnus and the like, and are more or less impatient of dis¬ 
turbance. These require to make considerable root-growth be¬ 
fore blooming, and this the fall planting enables them to do. 
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