_Spangle, Wash._
The Osage orange is a native of Texas, and consequently needs warm
weather to make its growth. The seed should be planted at the time
of corn planting in northern localities. A month previous to sowing
place the seed in a dish of water and let it remain covered with water
until ready to sow. If kept in water the length of time stated it will
germinate in ten or fifteen days after planting. If kept dry and planted
in that condition it will start only after six or eight weeks, and very
unevenly. When planting time arrives drain off the water and mix the seed
with dry sand and sow it thinly in drills in good soil. When the plants
are up hoe them and keep them clean or work them with a cultivator, if
on a sufficiently large scale. The first season’s growth should make
them large enough to set in a hedge. They can remain standing in the
seed-bed until spring and then be lifted early to be planted. Cut back
the tops and the roots so that each shall be about five inches in length.
The ground where the hedge is to stand should be well prepared by deep
plowing, and dragging fine and smooth. If plowed up the year before and
cultivated with some cleaning crop such as potatoes or carrots it will
be all the better fitted. Having stretched a line for the course of the
hedge the plants can be dibbled in along it, at a distance of six inches
apart, or they can be set in with a spade; another way is to open a
trench about six inches deep along the line and set the plants in it,
one person placing the plants while another fills in a spadeful of soil
against each one; then the soil is firmed with the foot against each
plant and afterwards the trench filled. The after culture for the first
year is to hoe and keep the ground clean. The spring of the following
year before growth starts cut the plants down to within six inches of the
old stock. The following year do the same; an annual rise of six inches
is sufficient. At the second year’s pruning and afterwards cut the side
shoots so that those at the base shall be longest, giving the hedge a
broad base narrowing to a line at the top.
Vase in Cemetery.
I have a large reservoir vase twenty-five inches in diameter
for the cemetery. Last summer I had it arranged by one of our
home florists and it did not do nicely at all and was not in
the least satisfactory. Will you please advise me what plants
to use in it this summer? I thought I would put around the edge
to droop, ivy geraniums, double petunias and nasturtiums and
anything else you may suggest. I have a pink ivy geranium and
would like a white one, and thought I would like the petunias
of some different colors, perhaps one variegated and some
other. The nasturtiums I shall raise from seed, and I suppose
I might use a little sweet alyssum and lobelia. What would you
recommend for the center plants? Of course I know it is too
early to start it yet, but I want it all settled so that I can
get it ready as early as possible.