4 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER 
: JUNE 1, 1903. 
he Flower Garden. 
~St seer 
OPERATIONS FOR JUNE. 
‘The work in this department is of a 
purely routine character, and there is little 
to add to the advice given in recent Issues. 
Digging, trenching, shaping; remodelling, 
and reforming flower beds and borders, re-- 
newing and enriching the soil, and-a gene- 
ral overhauling’ of every part of the. garden 
is the principal work to be done. - 
are for the most part in a dormant state, 
and are able to bear with removal, so that 
many reforms can be safely’ undertaken. 
Better jpositions can ‘be allotted to sub- 
jects unsuitably placed or where better ef- 
fects can be obtained by the transference. 
Many large gardens manage to accumulate 
2 lot of rubbishy trees and shrubs, which, 
of course, in the first instance, were intend- 
ed.to be ornamental, but through injudi- 
cious grouping and ecrewding become un- 
sightly and diseased, and prejudice the 
healthy appearance of handsomer plants. 
Tiiese should be remorselessly banished. 
Crowding is a fatal mistake with ornamen- 
tal trees and shrubs, especially where form 
and outline is their principal merit. Every 
subject should have the opportunity of de- 
veloping its characteristic habit of growth — 
without being forced into unnatural and 
fantastic shape by close contact with its 
neighbor. Scale and other jpests are al- 
ways rampant where light and air and rain 
are excluded. Rose pruning can commence 
this month where early growth and bloom 
are desired. 
Many deciduous climbing plants and 
shrubs require their annual pruning or 
thinning at this season; a knowlédge and 
observation of their habit of growth is 
first necessary. Some of the Tecomas, T. 
Mackenni, for example, are benefited by 
being barbered after flowering. While, on 
tlie other hand, subjects like Forsytheas, 
Dentzias, Weigelias, and Philadelphus 
flower on the wood of the preceding year's 
growth, and, therefore, require careful 
pruning. It chiefly consists in the removal 
of old, weak, and exhausted wood and a 
little thinning. Only in cases where plants 
are known to bear their flowers..on wood 
of the same season's growth can severe 
pruning be practised. 
Above all, avoid trimming all shrubs 
after the same pattern: Each has a grace- 
ful outline more or less peculiar to itself, 
and this charm of individuality in the plant 
is rather to be encouraged, rather to be 
accentuated than destroyed. 
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Plants. 
The Fern Garden. 
PSEOosesotr 
The garden is not quite complete with- 
cui somewhere, partially concealed by 
creepers, in the coolest, shadiest, portion 
of the ground, is found a fern garden. It 
is just the finishing touch. Without its 
piesence there is something to be desired, 
“with it our sense of joy and satisfaction in 
tlie garden should be well nigh complete. 
It affords a cool, delicious retreat from the 
noon-day glare, from the hot sun, from the 
Lcisterous winds. We cannot quite ex- 
clude these from our flower garden; they 
. dodge the trees and the creepers, and make 
their disturbing, inharmonicus presence 
felt. In the ideal fernery there should be 
none of these. It should be peaceful, 
restful, the twilight after the glare, ard. | 
just a suspicion of gloom, the gloom ofthe 
forest depths and a stillness like that “be- 
fore the winds were made.” The sunlight 
must just filter through the leafage above. 
The air should be moisture-laden, soft, and 
misty. ‘The wind must be tempered to the 
fern. The clustering creepers are the cus- 
todians of the treasure house, and they 
contend among themselves for the office. 
By their order and interference the wind 
transforms itself into a gentle breeze, 
which softly caresses and kisses the ferns 
that sway and ripple responsive to its 
touch, 
There is such variety, too, infinite 
variety in the form and color of the ferns. 
We realise what variations and gradations 
that wonderful color is capable of, and the 
innumerable changes nature can ring on 
her universal green. The supreme 
achievement of a fern is its frond. All 
its wonderful, mysterious powers are con- 
centrated on that effort, and what other 
miracle in nature can compare with th 
peculiar grace and beauty of this unique 
production. When we watch Nature’s pro- 
cesses as exemplified in the fern, when we 
investigate its most subtle and mysterious . 
methods of reproduction, we are in won- 
derland. Even if we are not susceptible 
to the beauty and refinement of the fern, 
we cannot remain quite adamant to its 
associations. It is the connecting link that 
binds us to its native home. It brings 
with it a sense of repose, a suggestion of 
that world of moisture and shadow, of 
soft perfumed vapors, trickling, purling 
_streams—that secluded fairy-like world 
whence it comes. It is the special pre- 
rogative of the fern to look and fresh. 
Its fronds are the coolest of greens. It 
never launches out into gay colors, but 
occasionally varies its.tints with a deli- 
cate silver variegation or the richness of 
gold. -If we create a little fermm,world in 
our garden we are brought into more im- 
mediate touch with nature’s fern world he- 
yond, and we cannot seek the seclusion of 
the fernery, with its miniature gullies, its 
moist atmosphere, and the ferny forms, | 
without recalling similar scenes on a gran- 
der and more lavish scale to which we 
are indebted for many a hint and sugges- 
tion. 
* Ferns it would seem are naturally artis- 
tic in their tastes, for they almost in- 
variably elect to grow where nature is 
loveliest and most attractive. Even where 
she is wild and rugged in her aspect they 
are there, as it were, to tame her mood, 
to soften and round off her jagged out- 
lines, and to present one of those sharp 
contrasts so satisfying to the artistic sense. 
But they love better the mountain gully, 
where the water trickles at their feet, 
splashing and bedewing them as it gushes 
past, the depth of the greenwood shade, 
Nature’s dreamy solitudes, where there is 
partial gloom and everlasting repose, or 
where they are lost amid a wealth of tropic 
vegetation, where heat and humidity af- 
ford an ideal environment and give them 
“a delicacy of form and texture and a bril- 
liancy of coloring not attainable elsewhere. 
-In such places they grow to perfection 
and multiply their kind, adapting them- 
selves so to varying positions that no poy- 
tionremainsuncl sthed. So diverse are the r 
tastes and predilections that they will dis- 
tribute themselves freely wherever a de- 
posit of leaf mould offers them an abode 
or means of sustenance, between the forks 
of the trees, on the rocks, at the foot of 
the rocks, in the crevices, on the slope of a 
mound, or the bank of a stream. 
In the foregoing remarks we have sought 
not only to appreciate the fern, but to 
conyey a hint as to its treatment and dis- 
posal in the fern garden. It is far better 
_to be one’s own fern collector as far as 
possible, for then one hag the opportunity 
of noting the conditions under which it 
grows, and a visit to a fern gully is the 
Aest possible guide in the formation of a 
fernery. The picturesque irregularities, 
the variety of form in these places, and the 
observation how in nature every logs is 
made to subserve the gain of another form 
of vegetation, are all interesting and in- 
structive in the extreme. The lifeless 
trunk of a tree that has fallen across the 
stream becomes a bed of ferns, and every 
plant in the gully is revelling in genera- 
tions of mould, the result of former vege- 
tation. 
In constructing a fern garden it should 
be borne in mind that the essentials to 4 
their healthy growth are shade, moisture, 
a certain degree of warmth, good drainage, 
and a variety of positions to suit their 
varying tastes. The sides of the structure, 
especially those more exposed to the sun 
and wind, should be clothed with fairly 
cempact evergreen creepers, but not so 
dense as to completely exclude the air, 
Deciduous creepers should form ia light 
canopy over the top, letting in only the 
requisite amount of sunlight and air, as 
' the lacy branches of the forest trees do_ 
in their native homes. Overarching trees 
have an advantage over creepers, unless 
the roof of the structure be very lofty, be- 
cause of the dome-like space they afford 
for the free play of light and air. The 
annual fall of leaves from these trees will 
supply the soil with a natural mulch, and 
a rich accumulation of leaf mould should 
a 
