128 
House & Garden 
And you know 
what coal costs! 
Fifty-one G-E electric 
locomotives are now 
doing the same work 
which 130 coal and oil¬ 
burning engines used to 
do on the 650 mile elec¬ 
trified sections of the 
Chicago, Milwaukee and 
St. Paul. 
Engineers estimate that 
the complete electrifi¬ 
cation of our railroads 
would save over 100 
million tons of coal a year. 
GENERAL ELECTRIC 
Saving coal is im¬ 
portant, but saving 
human energy is 
much more impor¬ 
tant. General Elec¬ 
tric Company de¬ 
signs and produces 
the equipment by 
which electricity 
does both. 
Red Ho 
(Continued jr 
onii is a handsome subject, with a 
yucca-like appearance; its flowers, soft 
orange, scarlet, and yellow, have a 
splendid appearance carried well above 
the broad grey leaves. K. Tuckii is 
somewhat like the last named in its 
foliage, but it is June flowering, and 
has rich red flowers that pale to yellow 
with age. K. Macowanii is a charming 
plant of dwarf habit and excellent for 
certain positions in a rock garden; it 
is rarely more than 2' high, and though 
the flower heads are in no sense mas¬ 
sive, they are produced more or less 
continuously during August and Sep¬ 
tember; the tips of the coral-red flow¬ 
ers are slightly reflexed. 
There are many other species, and 
each one has a special charm or inter¬ 
est; but it is quite possible to have a 
glorious autumn display of torch lilies 
by the use of only garden-raised sorts. 
Raisers here have been busy during 
recent years, notably those in England 
and on the Continent. 
These varieties vary greatly in height, 
t Pokers 
om page 126 ) 
density, and color. A few of the best 
of these include Lord Roberts, very 
robust, and having massive heads of 
rich scarlet flowers; Lachesis, apricot 
yellow, Sj4'; Goldelse, citron-yellow, 
slender spikes, blooms all through late 
summer and autumn; Torchlight, flame 
color, 3'; corallina, coral-red, 3'; Obe- 
lisque, orange-yellow, 4J^'; Ophir, 
golden yellow, 4J4'; John Benary and 
John Waterer are among the finest of 
the K. aloides type; Star of Baden- 
Baden, pale yellow, will produce spikes 
as much as 7’ high; Leda, orange-red, 
and early flowering, is about 4' high; 
while Matador is a bold and robust 
red-flowered variety. 
No doubt the abundance of available 
species and varieties will astonish those 
who have not noticed the progress 
made with torch lilies, but there are 
many more than those enumerated, 
and therefore sufficient for anyone who 
cares to make a kniphofia garden, or 
who may be tempted to make a hobby 
of torch lilies. 
THE COLORF 
A NNUALS have gained a new signifi¬ 
cance in the garden of to-day. They 
are no longer merely the experimental 
element in the garden. While they are 
still the fillers of bare spots, while they 
still devise new color effects in minor 
details for a change in the garden each 
year, while they can still give the gar¬ 
den new interests without disturbing its 
old perennial vigor, annuals have as¬ 
sumed a new importance. Their lux¬ 
uriance of bloom, their lavish coloring, 
their long periods of flowering, their 
constant effects make them very valu¬ 
able for the summer and autumn gar¬ 
den, and as important for it as the 
more permanent perennials. In fact, a 
summer garden can be planted entirely 
with annuals for, while the bloom of 
perennials comes and goes with the ebb 
and flow of the weeks, annuals joy¬ 
ously flood the garden with a bloom 
that lasts throughout the summer 
months. Annuals, too, rescue the spring 
bulb garden from oblivion for they can 
be planted right over the hibernating 
bulbs. 
Annuals are accommodating, to say 
the least. With an early start they will 
be in bloom early in July or, if you’d 
rather, they will not bloom until Au¬ 
gust for you. If by chance you decide 
to spend August in the mountains you 
can cut down your annuals to approxi¬ 
mately 6" and by the time you get 
back they will be abloom again. An¬ 
nuals will even continue in bloom pretty 
nearly all through the season if care is 
taken to snip off the dead blooms. 
The idea that a few packets of seed 
will make a garden is a charming bub¬ 
ble that generally bursts before it is 
half blown. I should say that it only 
happened in our grandmother’s day 
when she personally did all the work in 
her garden. Times change and despite 
the charm of the old-fashioned garden 
medley we are interested in other effects 
that are not always so easily attained. 
It is, then, a good deal easier and 
surer to start seeds outside the garden 
in a place set apart for them and then 
when they are ready, to transplant 
them into the garden in the same way 
that we transplant perennials. 
Sometimes, to be sure, this is not 
possible. Some annuals, like poppies and 
California poppies, lavertera and sweet 
alyssum and candytuft and ragged sail¬ 
or do not bear transplanting and must 
be sprinkled on the ground thinly where 
they are to grow. Sometimes, too, there 
UL ANNUALS 
are no facilities for growing annuals 
outside the garden. I have that prob¬ 
lem myself and must choose such annu¬ 
als that are easy to raise right in the 
garden border. Last year we made an 
early sowing of annual larkspurs, sprin¬ 
kled very freely in long drifts through 
the border for a July effect, and we 
made a little later sowing of zinnias and 
marigolds in scattered groups for later 
effects. 
The general run of annuals can be 
easily started in a cold frame, some¬ 
times a hot bed is of value, a great 
many can be started in the open 
ground. Some gardeners like to start 
everything in the greenhouse and for 
early effects, especially, greenhouse- 
started plants are very welcome. There 
are, of course, certain tender plants, 
such as snapdragons and pentstemon, 
ageratum and heliotrope, verbena and 
lobelia and salvia farinaceae, that have 
to be started in a greenhouse. If you 
haven’t a greenhouse your florist will 
often start such plants for you if he 
hasn’t them in stock. 
I like to see annuals in the cutting 
garden each planted in its own row. I 
like to see annuals in the vegetable 
garden. The very finest vegetable gar¬ 
den I know looks like a wonderful 
flower field for there is a row of flowers 
between every two of vegetables. As I 
think of it, now, I wonder if that isn’t 
the perfect proportion between useful¬ 
ness and beauty. 
I like to use annuals as bedding 
plants but I hope I wear my rue with a 
difference. The old system of bedding- 
out plants, wholly out of keeping with 
the herbaceous planting of our modern 
gardens, is rapidly becoming obsolete, 
but in its place a new type is being 
created with a new and fresh value. 
The new bedding has none of the ri¬ 
gidity of the old one, it is more flexible. 
It is no longer laid out by rule in fixed 
lines and geometrical grotesques but in 
its new freedom it has acquired the 
spontaneity of the herbaceous border. 
As for its color, the old-time gaudiness 
is giving place to colors that are in deli¬ 
cate adjustment with the rest of the 
garden. This has been made possible by 
the freer selection of the flowers that 
are to be used as bedders. 
The uniformity of the bedding effect 
has its advantages. There is a fulness 
of bloom, a neatness, an all-over 
patterned effect. Our new bedding is 
(Continued on page 130 ) 
