The Iris Family. 
f no class of plants, hardy or tender, is there a greater wealth of variety and beauty than in the 
Irises. The varieties are almost without number, and a great majority of them of the easiest 
culture and entirely hardy, and many of them can be used in ordinary garden beds or borders, or 
as semi-aquatics. Some varieties, like the German, can be naturalized in the grass and allowed to 
take care of themselves. Their diversity and uniqueness of color and form, the numerous 
varieties of distinct habit, and covering a very long blooming period make them as well worthy a 
collector's ambition as Orchids or any other high-priced plants. 
For the fine engraving of Japanese Iris we are indebted to the courtesy of Garden and 
Forest , Tribune Building, New York, whose description of the bed we herewith give. Perhaps 
no better opportunity will offer to express our appreciation of this able gardening journal. 
It is devoted to the higher gardening, and is sincere in advocacy for an improved taste in 
American gardens. 
“One of the most attractive features in Mr. John L. Gardner’s beautiful garden, in Brook¬ 
line, Massachusetts, is the bed of Japanese Iris (Iris laevigata, or kaempferi), which forms the 
subject of our illustration. The plants, which were selected in Japan with great care by Mrs. Gardner, represent the best 
named Japanese varieties. They are arranged according to color, in the Japanese fashion ; each row across the bed con¬ 
sisting of one variety, those with white flowers at one end, and then all the intermediate shades to the dark blues and 
purples at the other end. The bed is sunk eight or ten inches below the surface of the surrounding lawn, and is furnished 
on one side with a perforated water-pipe so that the plants can be irrigated during the growing season. It is eighteen 
inches deep and consists of a rich compost of loam and thoroughly-rotten cow manure, and ever)- year it gets a good top 
dressing of manure. Every pleasant morning after the middle of May the water is turned on at nine o’clock and allowed to 
run till three or four o'clock in the afternoon ; by that time the bed is thoroughly saturated and covered to a depth of two 
or three inches with water ; the supply is then shut off until the next morning. Some of the varieties, under this generous 
treatment, grow to a height of five or six feet, and have produced flowers fully ten inches across, and surprising in their 
profusion and beauty. While irrigation is doubtless necessary to develop the greatest perfection of the Japanese Iris, it can 
be successfully grown in this country in ordinary seasons in any good garden soil and without artificial watering. Very 
fine flowers have been produced without special treatment by Mr. Parkman and other American growers, who have raised 
good seedling varieties of this plant without giving to it more care than is required by other Irises. The Japanese Iris is 
one of the handsomest of the whole genus, and when in flower, one of the handsomest of hardy perennial plants. It is 
beloved by the Japanese, who make holidays to visit the Iris beds when plants are blooming, and who have devoted infinite 
pains to its improvement. The flowers are hardly surpassed in delicacy of texture or in beauty of color, and it is hard to 
imagine anything more beautiful than a mass of these many-tinted flowers like that which our illustration represents, and 
which certainly has no equal in the United States, either in the varieties which it contains or in the perfection with which 
they are cultivated," 
Next in importance to the Japanese Irises are the German varieties, which are quite as interesting and have as many 
distinct kinds, but bloom in May instead of June and July. One strong consideration in their favor is their availability. 
I here is hardly any soil, situation or treatment under which they will not thrive. Coming into bloom immediately after the 
German varieties are the Iris Siberica. They offer but a small range of colors, but among these are some of the finest blues im¬ 
aginable, which, with their remarkable hardiness and distinctive character, make them a desirable addition to the finest garden. 
Native Asters as Garden Plants. —It is only within the last few years that our native Asters have been considered 
fit subjects for the herbaceous garden, although in England they have been long appreciated, and Michaelmas Daisies, as 
they are there commonly called, form a part of the stock of the best nurseries. Flowering as they do very late in the season, 
it cannot be denied that their decorative value is of the highest order, for they defy cold weather, and are but little injured 
by the fall rains. Long after their more tender rivals have succumbed to the severe frosts, these Asters bloom away as though 
they rejoiced in the chilly weather, and seem many times more beautiful from the contrast with their brown and frost¬ 
bitten neighbors. If we have made a judicious selection of species and varieties, and exercised proper judgment in 
planting them, the garden will be a source of pleasure for a long time after the more costly, and often less beautiful, 
exotic summer plants have been cut away. 
But the value of these plants does not lie entirely in their sturdiness and their ability to prolong the season of flowers, 
for they have an intrinsic beauty that compels our attention. Few people question the beauties of the perennial Phloxes as 
they are now grown, but we have to look back but a few years to find these much-admired plants represented by a few dull 
purplish-pink and white varieties, with small flowers and narrow petals. In their wild state the flowers of Phlox paniculata 
and Phlox maculata (the parents of our garden varieties) are quite inferior to many of the wild Asters, which undoubtedly 
are fully as capable of improvements, for, naturally, most of the Asters vary to a surprising degree, and, by careful searching 
one may find varieties far superior to the types, and these should be carefully transplanted to the garden. It is best to 
collect them while in flower, for the best varieties may then be selected, and by transferring them to nursery rows they can 
be tested before placing them in a permanent position. * * * * 
1 hey need about the same treatment as would be given to the perennial Phlox, many of them doing much better when thin¬ 
ned out annually, as they are subject to mildew if grown too thickly,especially if they are somewhat shaded .—Garden and Forest. 
