30 
Your June Garden Record 
These two columns have been reserved for your own garden record for the month. Make 
notes on what should be done next year at this time; new plants added this month and 
many other reminders that will be of value in your gardening operations. The SAIER’S 
GARDEN MAGAZINE is designed to be useful next year as well as this and copies will 
be valuable for future references. Indexes will be provided in later issues so that a 
puick reference can be made to items of interest, especially descriptions and culture. 
THE 
“TRIS PUMILA. 
The following letter was received from Mr. 
Welch regarding the article on page 8 on the 
possibility of Iris pumila losing iis very 
dwarf characterists by being grown in rich 
soil because in its natural habitat it “grows in 
a poor stoney soil”. There is a lot of thot 
in Mr. Welch’s letter. 
The so called Iris pumila is merely derivat- 
ives or I. chamaeiris or chamaeiris varieties. 
There is no I. pumila blood in them. To 
state that their added height is due to culture 
or soil conditions is a misconception. No 
form of I. pumila ever grows over six to sev- 
en inches under the most perfect conditions 
and to consider twelve inches in height is 
absurd. . aE 
I grow all of the various forms of I. pumila 
under the best of conditions and practically 
all of them are from three to four and a 
half inches high. If you must be convinced 
by other means than mere height, I recom- 
mend that one study their ‘“pumila’’ plants 
and note the other charasteristics than 
mere height. I. pumila is very early bloom- 
ing, coming 2 week to ten days before the 
main crop of chamaeiris varieties; it is 
about two to three inches high, in other 
words you will find the seed pod at the bot- 
tom of the stalk instead of the top, it is 
practically resting on the rhizome. It has 
rather small spathe valves, loosely wrapping 
and shapeless, the upper parts almost scarious 
and often tipped with reddish color remines- 
cent of an onion skin. 
There are several other distinguishing 
marks but this should suffice to show that 
these plants are not the true I. pumila. Also 
I recommend that I. pumila be grown in rich 
soil, with some compost and limestone added 
for best results, and one will still get plants 
from three to five inches high. 
By Walter Welch, Indiana. 
WHERE THE SEEDS COME FROM. 
We often have as many as 5,000 different 
kinds of seed on hand and where these are 
all grown, is a quite common question. 
Naturally, no one could grow that many 
kinds of plants for seed purposes. 
However, we do try to grow many of the 
hard-to-find species, but we are limited as 
to help, proper soil or climate as well as oth- 
er causes. Then there are the large commer- 
cial growers who grow such flowers as the 
Zinnias, Asters, Sweet Peas, etc. This source 
is always reliable, certain and very econom- 
ical. Next comes the many private growers, 
who make a speciality of certain flowers. 
But on many of the rarer sorts we depend 
upon collectors, all over the world. We 
might mention here, too, that these are two 
classes of collectors, viz., the person who is 
an experienced botanist and able to go into 
remote sections, and collect the different, 
kinds. The other collector is he who lives in 
a section where a certain flower is native. 
Many of the Penstemon species have been 
secured in this way. 
We are always glad to contact readers who 
are so situated. It will be the means of dis- 
tributing flowers in every section of the world, 
