that they will be benefited by it. Wait for them to signify a desire
for more room by filling all the soil of a small pot with roots. A
plant with a small, weak root-system is often seriously injured by
giving it a large pot to grow in, as it is not in a condition to make
use of all the nutriment in a large amount of soil. A plant treated
in this manner will often develop a sort of vegetable dyspepsia as a
result of giving it more food than it can digest properly.
* * * * *
Don't be in too great a hurry to obtain results. Some persons think to
accomplish this by frequent applications of strong fertilizers in large
quantities. This will force plants to a rapid and always unhealthy
growth, from which, later on, there is sure to be a most discouraging
reaction. Be content with a healthy growth, and give your plants a
chance to make that naturally. More plants are injured by overfeeding
than from any other cause.
* * * * *
Don't think that you can learn all there is to know about gardening
from books. Books will furnish the theory. You must contribute
experience in order to attain success.
* * * * *
Don't neglect your plants while they are growing. Then is just the time
to give them the training that is necessary to make them shapely. The
fact is, plants are very much like children in the family. Let them
have their own way about everything while they are growing up and you
will find that when they have grown up they are not at all like what
you would like to have them, in many respects, and you don't see how
you are going to make them conform to your ideas of what they ought to
be, since it is impossible to make children of them again and give you
another chance at their development. Begin with the training of your
plants while they are small, and train them as they grow.
* * * * *
Don't treat all your plants alike. Study their peculiarities and give
them such treatment as will fit those peculiarities. To illustrate this
idea: a calla likes a good deal of water; a geranium is satisfied with
a moderately moist soil; a cactus does best when allowed to get really
dry at certain seasons. If we were to treat these three plants alike,
what do you suppose the result would be? Don't ignore the peculiarities
of your plants if you want them to do well.
* * * * *
Don't neglect to prepare for an annual invasion of your roses by bugs,
worms, and insects. You can safely count on their coming, but if
you are prepared for it you can speedily put the enemy to rout. The
best plan is to act on the offensive. Head off the pests by making
applications of nicoticide before they make their appearance. You can
do this, for, if their advance-agent arrives and finds the tang of
tobacco all over the plants, he will go back and advise the others to
seek more agreeable quarters. Begin to spray your bushes early in the
season, and keep on doing so until after the flowering period is over.
There will be no likelihood of an invasion after that, as the enemies
of the rose do their deadly work early in the season.
* * * * *
Don't get the idea for a moment, as so many do, that all you need to
do to have a fine lot of plants is to put some soil--any kind that
happens to be handiest--in a pot, set out a plant in it, and, presto!
you will have just as fine a lot of plants as your neighbor who
searches here and there and everywhere until she finds just the kind of
soil that experience tells her the plants must have if she would have
good ones. She gives some of her time daily to caring for them, while
you expect your plants to take care of themselves. That will never
answer. If you do your share of the work the plants will do theirs, but
you must not expect them to do all, any more than you must expect them
to make a strong, healthy growth in a soil that is unsuited to their
requirements or sadly lacking in nutriment.
* * * * *
Don't build up a great fire in stove or furnace if you discover
that your plants have been nipped by frost, thinking to save them
by "thawing them out." Heat at such a time is the very thing needed
to complete the misfortune. Put them at once in a room where the
temperature can be kept just a little above the frost-point, and shower
them thoroughly with cold water. This will extract the frost from them
so gradually that it will be possible to save many of them unless they
are badly frozen. Keep them in a cool room for three or four days.
It may be necessary to cut away most, or all, of the branches of some
of them. Unless the degree of cold to which they were subjected was
sufficient to freeze the soil in the pot, many of them will throw up
new shoots from their roots after a little; therefore don't throw out a
plant that has been obliged to part with all its top until it has been
given a chance to make a new start in life.
* * * * *
Don't put your house plants out of doors for the summer until the
weather has become warm and can be depended on to remain so. The first
of June will be quite early enough.
* * * * *
Don't plant them out in the garden-beds, thinking thereby to save
yourself the work of taking care of them during the summer and of
benefiting them at the same time. Of course they will take care of
themselves there, and very likely make a much more luxuriant growth
than they would in pots, but when fall comes and you have to lift and
repot them you will find that more hard work is required of you than
you would have expended on them throughout the summer if you had kept
them in pots. As for the benefit to the plants--where will it come in?
They will have made such a rampant growth of roots that most of them
will have to be sacrificed in reducing the earth containing them to
the size of the pots you put them into, and this at the very time when
the poor plants ought to be at their best in order to successfully
withstand the unfavorable conditions resulting from the change from
outdoors to indoors. Plants treated in this manner receive a check that
they seldom fully recover from during the entire winter. Instead of
saving yourself work and doing a kindness to your plants, you have done
just the contrary.
XIX
A CHAPTER OF HELPFUL HINTS
In some of the foregoing chapters I have had something to say about the
advisability of using seed in which each color is kept by itself in
order to secure the greatest possible degree of color-harmony in the
garden.
Many persons tell us that they cannot afford to pay the extra prices
which the seedsmen put on unmixed seed. It is true that it costs more
than the seed in which all colors are jumbled together, and it is
also true that plants grown from it are really no better than those
grown from mixed seed, but the fact remains that it gives so much
more satisfactory results, from an artistic standpoint, that it is
not throwing money away, as some claim, to make use of it. Of course
if one gets as much pleasure from a mass of color without regard to
harmony as from fewer colors all in perfect harmony with one another,
it would hardly be worth while to invest more money in such seed. But
where the finest possible effects are desired I contend that unmixed
seed is cheapest, in that sense of the term that means the greatest
satisfaction.
There is a way by which unmixed seed can be obtained without its really
costing each person more than mixed seed. Every amateur gardener knows
that more plants of a kind can be grown from one package of seed than
a person cares for in the average-sized garden. Nine times out of ten
only part of the seed in the package is sown and the rest is either
discarded or given away to friends. Now if those who would like to
secure the best results in gardening will get up a seed club among
their flower-loving friends, and confine their selection to packages
in which each color is by itself, the seed in those packages can be
divided among the various members of the club, and each person will
have enough to meet her requirements, and this at a less price than she
would have to pay for ordinary mixed seed if she were to order alone,
because none of the seed would be wasted.
Try the seed-club plan for a season and see if it doesn't work out to
your satisfaction.
If you are likely to have more plants of a kind than you care for,
don't throw any of the seedlings away when you thin them out. There
are poor children in every neighborhood that would be delighted to get
them. Never waste any plants that are worth growing.
If a plant is wanted for low beds under the windows of the dwelling or
near the paths, portulacca is about as satisfactory as anything I know
of. It blooms with great profusion throughout the entire season. Its
colors range from pure white through pink, yellow, and violet to dark
crimson. It is a plant that seems to delight in locations exposed to
the hottest sunshine, and in soils so lacking in moisture that ordinary
plants would live but a short time in it. It is enabled to do this
because of the succulent nature of its foliage. Indeed, the portulacca
is a vegetable salamander so far as its ability to stand heat and
drought is concerned. Those who have had experience with purslane in
the vegetable garden will understand something about the nature of this
plant, for the two are closely related.
In furnishing support for vines that clamber over the walls of the
house, do not use strips of cloth, as so many do. The cloth is good
for a season only. After the vines have become large and heavy their
weight will be sufficient to tear the cloth loose from the tacks that
held it in place, especially after a heavy rain or in strong winds, and
down will come the plant. It will be found impossible to put it back
in place in anything like a satisfactory manner. For supporting large,
stiff vines I make use of screw-hooks, which are easily inserted in
wooden walls. Turn the hooks in until there is just enough room between
their points and the wall to admit of slipping the vine in. Not one
vine in fifty will work loose from the grip of the hooks.
Some vines are not adapted to this treatment. These I support by
using strips of leather instead of cloth. The leather should be
soaked in oil for twenty-four hours before using, to make it pliable
and water-resisting. Do not use small tacks, as these do not have
sufficient hold on the wood to make them dependable. Use nails at least
an inch long, with good-sized heads.
Some persons object to the use of vines about the house, especially if
it is of wood, claiming that they retain moisture to such an extent
as to soon injure the walls. I have convinced myself that facts are
directly contrary to this theory. The overlapping leaves act as
shingles--shedding rain and preventing it from getting to the walls
against which the vines are trained.
Try to interest the children in the making of a fern-garden and a
collection of native plants. A little encouragement at the beginning
will do this, and after the project is well under way it will not need
encouraging, for the little folks will be so fascinated by it that
there will be little likelihood of their abandoning the undertaking.
Take half a dozen or more children to the woods with you, with baskets
in which to bring home their specimens. Show them how to take up the
plants in such a manner that a considerable amount of soil will adhere
to their roots. Help them pack them snugly into the baskets to prevent
their being shaken about in transit, thereby losing the soil taken up
with them. If the day happens to be a warm and sunny one, have them
sprinkle the plants and pack some wet moss about them to keep them
as fresh as possible until they can be planted in the home garden.
Discourage them from taking large plants in preference to small ones,
as they will most likely be eager to do. Explain that the small ones
stand the best chance of living, and that nothing is gained by choosing
large ones, because these will be sure to lose their foliage, and that,
even if they live, which nine out of ten will not, they will receive
such a check by removal that the small plants will soon get the start
of them.
It will greatly add to the pleasure of plant-collecting if you make
a kind of picnic excursion of it. Take along something good to eat,
and spend half a day in the woods, if possible. You will enjoy it as
much as the children will. Don't dig your plants, however, until you
are about ready to start for home, for it is quite important that they
should be planted as soon as possible after being taken up. When they
are set out, water them well and shade them for several days.
Give all plants taken from shady places a location as nearly like that
from which they were taken as possible. A fern that grew in shade will
be pretty sure to die if planted in a place fully exposed to the sun.
It helps matters very much if you can have a load of woods earth drawn
to the home garden to plant these children of the forest in. They do
not take kindly to loam, after having been grown in loose, porous soil,
though many of them are strong enough to adapt themselves to ordinary
garden conditions.
I know of many neighborhoods in which clubs for collecting native
plants have been formed, and the children who are in these clubs have
become intensely interested in their gardens of native plants. This
is as it should be, for we have many beautiful wild flowers that are
better worth growing than foreign kinds for which large prices are
asked. Pride in our home plants ought to be encouraged, and there is no
better way of doing this than by interesting the boys and girls in the
making of a wild garden.
The tuberose is a plant which everybody admires, but which is seldom
seen in amateur gardeners' collections. I think the general impression
is that it is not an easy plant to grow. Such is not the case, however.
It can be grown successfully by any one who is willing to give it a
little attention. Tubers should be obtained in March or April. They
should be planted in pots containing sandy garden loam into which a
liberal amount of good fertilizer has been thoroughly worked. If the
tubers are small, two or three can be put into each seven-inch pot
used. Before planting them the mass of dried roots which will generally
be found adhering to the base of the tuber should be cut away with a
thin, sharp-bladed knife. If this is not done, these roots often decay
and the diseased condition will be communicated to the tuber and cause
it to die, or, if death does not result, to become so unhealthy that it
will fail to bloom.
The plants can be turned out of their pots when the weather becomes
warm, and grown on in the garden through the summer, but I would not
advise this, for it will be necessary to lift and pot them before
frosty nights come, as they are very tender, and a little disturbance
of their roots at this time may cause their buds to blast. I would
urge keeping them in pots throughout the season, as, if this is done,
you always have them under control. The flowers of the tuberose are
ivory-white in color. They are of thick, waxen texture, and have that
heavy, rich fragrance that characterizes the magnolia and the cape
jasmine of the South. They are borne in a spike at the extremity of
tall stalks, thus being very effective for cutting. Because of their
thick texture they last for a long time after cutting. Plants in pots
remain in bloom for a month or six weeks. Every lover of deliciously
fragrant flowers will do well to grow at least half a dozen of them to
do duty in the window-garden in fall.
A second crop of flowers need not be expected from a tuber that has
borne one crop. In order to make sure of bloom it will be necessary to
purchase fresh tubers each spring.
The abutilon is an old favorite among house plants, and its popularity
is well deserved. It is of as easy culture as a geranium. Give it a
good soil--preferably loam--drain its pot well, keep the soil evenly
moist but never wet, and that is about all the care it will require. It
may be necessary to prune it now and then during its early stages of
growth in order to secure symmetrical shape, but this is easily done
by pinching off the ends of such branches as seem inclined to get the
start of others, and keeping them from making more growth until the
others have caught up with them. Pinching back branches that do not
develop side shoots will generally result in their branching freely.
In this way you secure a bushy, compact plant. In order to make a
little tree of the abutilon--and it is most satisfactory when grown
in that manner--train it to one straight stalk until it reaches the
height where you want the head to form. Allow no side branches to grow
during this period of the plant's development. When three or four feet
tall, nip off the top and keep it nipped off until as many branches as
you think necessary have started at the top of the stalk. Allow none
to grow below. By persevering in this treatment you will succeed in
getting a number of branches with which to form a treelike head.
There are several varieties of abutilon. Some have orange flowers,
some red, some yellow, some pink, and some pure white. These flowers
are bell-shaped and pendent. One name for the plant is the Chinese
bell-flower because of its bell-like blossoms. Another is flowering
maple, because of the resemblance in shape of its foliage to our native
maple. There are two or three varieties with beautifully variegated
foliage in which green and white and yellow are about equally
distributed. I am always glad to speak a good word for this plant
because of its beauty, its ease of culture, its constancy of bloom, and
the fact that it is seldom attacked by insects.
Another most deserving old plant is the rose geranium. This used to
be found in nearly all collections of house plants. It is as easily
grown as the flowering geranium. Its foliage is very pleasing, being
as finely cut as some varieties of fern. It is delightfully fragrant.
A leaf or two will be found a most desirable addition to a buttonhole
or corsage bouquet. It can be grown in tree form by giving it the
pinching-back treatment advised for the abutilon, or it can be grown
as a bush by beginning the pinching process when it is only three or
four inches high, thus obliging it to throw out several stalks near the
base of the plant.
Old plants of oleander may easily be renewed when they have become so
large as to be unwieldy, or have outgrown the space that can be given
up to them. Cut away _all_ the branches to within four or five inches
of the main stalk, leaving nothing but a mass of stubs. In a very short
time new branches will be sent out. There will be so many of them
that it will be necessary to remove the larger share of them. If this
pruning is done in early spring, when the plant is brought from cold
storage, the new growth ought to bear a crop of flowers in late summer.
The following season the plant should be literally covered with bloom
during the greater part of summer, these blossoms being as large and
fine in all respects as those borne by the plant when young. I know of
no plant that is more tractable than this one, and certainly we have
few that are more beautiful. Large specimens are magnificent for porch
and veranda decoration in summer. In December they should go into the
cellar, to remain there until March.
Plants with variegated foliage are becoming more in demand yearly.
Japanese maize, with long leaves striped with white and cream, is very
effective when grown in a mass in the center of a bed. The Japanese
hop, with foliage heavily marbled with creamy white, is quite as
attractive without flowers as many of our flowering vines are. Ricinus,
with enormous foliage of a lustrous coppery bronze, will be found far
more "tropical" in effect then the cannas and caladiums we see so much
of nowadays. The leaves of this plant often measure a yard across. If
you want it to be most effective, plant it in some exposed place where
it will have plenty of room to spread its branches.
From what I have said in a preceding chapter it will be readily
understood that I am not an admirer of "carpet-bedding" except where
plants with small, richly colored foliage are made use of. These can be
pruned in such a manner as to keep each color inside its proper limit,
but flowering plants will straggle across the lines assigned them, and
all clearness of outline in the "pattern" will soon be lost. But when
plants are located with a view to securing color contrast, very fine
effects can be obtained from them. A circular bed filled with pink,
white, and pale-yellow _phlox drummondii_ in rows of each color will be
found pleasing, and it has the merit of being easily made.
If a round bed has scarlet salvia for its center, surrounded with
yellow calliopsis, or California poppy, it will afford a mass of most
intense color that will produce a most brilliant effect. A bed of
pink flowering geraniums--pink, mind you, not scarlet or any shade
of red--bordered with lavender ageratum, will be found extremely
attractive if care is taken to cut away all trusses of bloom from the
geraniums as soon as they have begun to fade. If this is not done the
bed will have a draggled, slovenly effect.
Scarlet salvia combined with euphorbia, better known as
"snow-on-the-mountain," will be found very effective, the white and
green of the euphorbia bringing out the scarlet of the salvia most
vividly, and affording such a strong contrast that a bed of these two
plants will always challenge admiration.
The euphorbia will be found a very useful plant for almost any place in
beds or borders where something seems needed to relieve the prevailing
color. It deserves more attention than it gets.
The impression seems to prevail that many plants ought to retain their
old leaves indefinitely. They will not do this, however. Leaves ripen
after a time, and the plant will shed them, as all deciduous plants
shed theirs in fall. Therefore if you find the lower leaves on your
ficus turning, yellow and dropping, don't be frightened. The plant is
simply going through one of the processes of nature.
But if a good many of the leaves fall all at once it will be well to
look for some other explanation of the plant's action. The loss of
foliage may come from lack of moisture in the soil, or the roots of the
plant may be pot-bound. Examination will show if either is the case.
If the soil is found to be dry, more water should be given. If the pot
is filled with roots, repot the plant, giving it more root room. The
owners of plants should take all these things into consideration before
coming to any conclusion as to what the cause of trouble is. Unless
they do so there will have to be "guesswork" relative to it, and that
is never safe or satisfactory. Trouble may come from overwatering,
or from lack of good drainage, or a soil deficient in nutrition. You
see, it is necessary to study these matters from several angles, so to
speak, as the trouble complained of may have its origin in any one of
the conditions mentioned, and not much can be done to remedy matters
until one has made an examination that brings to light the facts in the
case. These known, it will be a comparatively easy matter to determine
the treatment required, for the conditions that are found to exist
will, to a great extent, indicate in almost every instance the remedy
needed.
* * * * *
Some good vines for window-box culture are:
Madeira vine.--Heart-shaped foliage of a rich, glossy green. Very rapid
grower.
Tradescantia.--Green, green striped with white, and olive striped with
Indian red. Quick grower.
Vinca Harrisonii.--Dark-green foliage, edged with yellow.
Senecio.--More commonly known as German ivy. Pretty, ivy-shaped foliage
of a clear, bright green. Very rapid grower. Needs frequent pinching
back to make it branch freely.
Glechoma.--Green, variegated with bright yellow.
Othonna.--Better known as "pickle-plant" because of its cylindrical
foliage, which resembles a miniature cucumber. Has pretty yellow
flowers.
Saxifraga.--Leaves of graying olive sprinkled with white.
Ivy-leaved geraniums.--There are many varieties, some with pink, some
with white, and others with red flowers. These are excellent where
flowering plants of drooping habit are desired. A box edged with these
plants, especially the pink variety, with white Marguerites--better
known as Paris daisies--in the center, will be found especially
pleasing.