The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming Part 32

Popp-mallow Crimson Sept. 9 in. Blooms nearly 12 weeks.

Colour does not harmonize with others.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ PERENNIALS OF MEDIUM HEIGHT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NAME COLOUR TIME HEIGHT SPECIAL POINTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bleeding Pink May 1-1/2 ft. Long lived and long of Heart bloom. Graceful.

European Crimson May 3 ft. Earliest of peonies. Poor Peony White appearance in the fall.

Sweet Red June 12 in. Self sows. Flowers at their William Pink best the second year.

White

Chinese Crimson June 2-1/2 ft. Long-lived. Very Peony Pink satisfactory. Plant White in September.

Foxglove Purple June 3-3-1/4 ft. Spire-like cl.u.s.ter White of flowers.

Oriental Blue June 2-3 ft. Best blue perennial. Cut Larkspur flower spikes as soon as they fade.

Oriental Red June 3 ft. Self sows. Flowers 6 in.

Poppy across.

Gaillardia Red June 1 ft. Flowers more freely than Yellow Nov. any other perennial.

Cover plants after ground freezes.

Late Phlox All best Aug. 1-1/2 ft. Fragrant in the evening.

Blue Sept. Many colours of bloom.

and Yellow

Hardy Blue Sept. 3ft. Long season of bloom.

Chrysanthemum Scarlet Nov. Deep rich soil and sunny exposure for best results.

XI

THE WILD-FLOWER GARDEN

"A wild-flower garden has a most attractive sound. One thinks of long tramps in the woods, collecting material, and then of the fun in fixing up a real for sure wild garden.

"If the wild garden is to be a school affair, then I certainly should plant the different kinds of flowers together. The north corner near the building is a suitable place. But if the garden is to be at home--your own private little garden--I am inclined to think it would be better to plant the wild flowers here and there among the cultivated ones.

"A wild-flower garden is a joy each year, because up it comes without constant replanting of seed. It is a hardy garden. As Nature often covers her wood-flowers over with leaves preparatory to winter, so you might copy her and do the same.

"Many people say they have no luck at all with such a garden. It is not a question of luck, but a question of understanding, for wild flowers are like people and each has its personality. What a plant has been accustomed to in Nature it desires always. In fact, when removed from its own sort of living conditions, it sickens and dies. That is enough to tell us that we should copy Nature herself. Suppose you are hunting wild flowers. As you choose certain flowers from the woods, notice the soil they are in, the place, conditions, the surroundings, and the neighbours.

"Suppose you find dog-tooth violets and wind-flowers growing near together. Then place them so in your own new garden. Suppose you find a certain violet enjoying an open situation; then it should always have the same. You see the point, do you not? If you wish wild flowers to grow in a tame garden make them feel at home. Cheat them into almost believing that they are still in their native haunts.

"Wild flowers ought to be transplanted after blossoming time is over.

Take a trowel and a basket into the woods with you. As you take up a few, a columbine, or a hepatica, be sure to take with the roots some of the plant's own soil, which must be packed about it when replanted.

"The bed into which these plants are to go should be prepared carefully before this trip of yours. Surely you do not wish to bring those plants back to wait over a day or night before planting. They should go into new quarters at once. The bed needs soil from the woods, deep and rich and full of leaf mold. The under drainage system should be excellent.

Then plants are not to go into water-logged ground. Some people think that all wood plants should have a soil saturated with water. But the woods themselves are not water-logged. It may be that you will need to dig your garden up very deeply and put some stone in the bottom. Over this the top soil should go. And on top, where the top soil once was, put a new layer of the rich soil you brought from the woods.

"Before planting water the soil well. Then as you make places for the plants put into each hole some of the soil which belongs to the plant which is to be put there.

"I think it would be a rather nice plan to have a wild-flower garden giving a succession of bloom from early spring to late fall; so let us start off with March, the hepatica, spring beauty and saxifrage. Then comes April bearing in its arms the beautiful columbine, the tiny bluets and wild geranium. For May there are the dog-tooth violet and the wood anemone, false Solomon's seal, Jack-in-the-pulpit, wake robin, bloodroot and violets. June will give the bellflower, mullein, bee balm and foxglove. I would choose the gay b.u.t.terfly weed for July. Let turtle head, aster, Joe Pye weed, and Queen Anne's lace make the rest of the season brilliant until frost.

"Let us have a bit about the likes and dislikes of these plants. After you are once started you'll keep on adding to this wild-flower list.

"There is no one who doesn't love the hepatica. Before the spring has really decided to come, this little flower pokes its head up and puts all else to shame. Tucked under a covering of dry leaves the blossoms wait for a ray of warm sunshine to bring them out. The last year's leaves stay on through the winter brooding over the little fresh sprouts. These embryo flowers are further protected by a fuzzy covering.

This reminds one of a similar protective covering which new fern leaves have. In the spring a hepatica plant wastes no time on getting a new suit of leaves. It makes its old ones do until the blossom has had its day. Then the new leaves, started to be sure before this, have a chance.

These delayed, are ready to help out next season. You will find hepaticas growing in cl.u.s.ters, sort of family groups. They are likely to be found in rather open places in the woods. The soil is found to be rich and loose. So these should go only in partly shaded places and under good soil conditions. If planted with other woods specimens give them the benefit of a rather exposed position, that they may catch the early spring sunshine. I should cover hepaticas over with a light litter of leaves in the fall. During the last days of February, unless the weather is extreme take this leaf covering away. You'll find the hepatica blossoms all ready to poke up their heads.

"The spring beauty hardly allows the hepatica to get ahead of her. With a white flower which has dainty tracings of pink, a thin, wiry stem, and narrow, gra.s.s-like leaves, this spring flower cannot be mistaken. You will find spring beauties growing in great patches in rather open places. Plant a number of the roots and allow the sun good opportunity to get at them. For this plant loves the sun.

"The other March flower mentioned is the saxifrage. This belongs in quite a different sort of environment. It is a plant which grows in dry and rocky places. Often one will find it in c.h.i.n.ks of rock. There is an old tale to the effect that the saxifrage roots twine about rocks and work their way into them so that the rock itself splits. Anyway, it is a rock garden plant. I have found it in dry, sandy places right on the borders of a big rock. It has white flower cl.u.s.ters borne on hairy stems.

"The columbine is another plant that is quite likely to be found in rocky places. Standing below a ledge and looking up, one sees nestled here and there in rocky crevices one plant or more of columbine. The nodding red heads bob on wiry, slender stems. The roots do not strike deeply into the soil; in fact, often the soil hardly covers them. Now, just because the columbine has little soil, it does not signify that it is indifferent to the soil conditions. For it always has lived, and always should live, under good drainage conditions. I wonder if it has struck you, how really hygienic plants are? Plenty of fresh air, proper drainage, and good food are fundamentals with plants.

"It is evident from study of these plants how easy it is to find out what plants like. After studying their feelings, then do not make the mistake of huddling them all together under poor drainage conditions.

"I always have a feeling of personal affection for the bluets. When they come I always feel that now things are beginning to settle down outdoors. They start with rich, lovely, little delicate blue blossoms.

As June gets hotter and hotter their colour fades a bit, until at times they look quite worn and white. Some people call them Quaker ladies, others innocence. Under any name they are charming. They grow in colonies, sometimes in sunny fields, sometimes by the road-side. From this we learn that they are more particular about the open sunlight than about the soil.

"If you desire a flower to pick and use for bouquets, then the wild geranium is not your flower. It droops very quickly after picking and almost immediately drops its petals. But the purplish flowers are showy, and the leaves, while rather coa.r.s.e, are deeply cut. This latter effect gives a certain boldness to the plant that is rather attractive. The plant is found in rather moist, partly shaded portions of the woods. I like this plant in the garden. It adds good colour and permanent colour as long as blooming time lasts, since there is no object in picking it.

"I suppose little children would not have a perfect spring without the dog's tooth violet. The leaves are attractive and almost make the beauty of a bouquet. It is sometimes called trout lily. The mottled effect of the leaves accounts for the trout part of the name, and as for lily, it _is_ a lily, and never belonged to the violet family at all. Dig the plant up, and the bulbous root tells the story. It really does belong to the lily family. The nodding yellow flower is pretty, too. These, when picked, last a long time in water. They like to grow in the neighbourhood of the brook. A moist, half-shaded half-open piece of land is their delight, and therefore in many gardens the trout lily might have to be left out.

"There is a sweet little flower called the wood anemone, or wind-flower.

It is another modest little flower, white in colour. The constant nodding of the petals stirred by even a breath of wind gives it the name of wind-flower. These also grow in colonies. Have you noticed how social, but clannish, our wild flowers are? Especially is this true of the real woods flowers, rather than of the wayside flowers. The anemone grows in open places by the woods or the hillside. They are a sort of border plant evidently trying to leave the woods, but still bound to it.

"If in your yard there happens to be a big old fatherly tree or a decaying stump, plant wind-flowers all about it. You may make the flowers feel that they are on the edge of the woods.

"While I have numbered bloodroot among May flowers, it often does appear in April, and before the wood anemone. The silvery, white blossom pushes its head above the leaves in a fine fashion. They are sensitive flowers, closing partly in cloudy weather, and actually dropping to pieces in a rainstorm or under severe winds. The leaves are large, rather coa.r.s.e, but pretty with their light under surfaces. The stems have tinges of red on them, a dark red sap in the roots. These roots bleed when disturbed.

The Indians used to stain their faces with this orange sap-blood. You will find bloodroot growing in rich soil either in open woods or on rocky slopes.

"In a nice, rich, moist place put a few Jack-in-the pulpits. This flower is much like a child's jack-in-the-box. It is so different from most of our plants that it has the effect of the joker in a pack of cards. Push back the flap over Jack's face and you will see a club like a policeman's billy. Along this club the inconspicuous flowers are borne.

Later, in the fall, the fruit forms, and inside, instead of rather uninteresting flowers, are bright red berries. So Jack jokes again.

"There is always a great feeling of joy when the first trilliums, or wake robins, appear. Walking in the deep, moist woods suddenly one sees a ma.s.s of big leaves and white flowers. The same irresistably lovely trilliums have come again. Three big leaves, then a flower stalk shooting up from the centre of this whorl of leaves, and on top the crowning glory--the three-petaled trillium flower. A fragrant white or pink form is called the nodding wake robin. These in a glance tell their wishes. The plant sometimes is nearly two feet high. So a clump of these could easily go toward the back of the wild-flower garden in shade and moist soil.

"Another wild flower of striking beauty is the May apple or mandrake. It comes very early in May, often in April. This plant grows to about the same height as the trillium. Only the big spreading leaves of the mandrake are visible at first sight. Beneath these, and daintily hung in the junction of the leaf stalks, is the lovely, waxy, white blossom.

Late after the fading of the blossom the fruit appears. So its name of May apple comes from this fruit, which has a sickly sweet taste. The leaf and stalk part of the May apple are of a poisonous nature. This flower, too, likes rather low, moist, shaded places.

"The false Solomon's seal is found in woods where moisture is. During June and July this plant is in blossom. After the white flowers the fruit, or berry, appears. The berry changes from green, to white, to red. There is a two-leaved Solomon's seal called the false lily-of-the-valley which is found at this same time. It has usually two little lily-like leaves and a blossom stalk running up from these. Tiny fragrant flowers are borne on this stalk. These plants grow in moist woods, also. One might plant these two near together in the garden, for the soil conditions are the same for both.