Asters (hardy)

The so-called aster, grown by florists, and in general gardens, is not a true aster, but is known botanically as Callistephus Chinensis, introduced from China in 1731, and is a hardy annual. Why it received the common name of aster I have never been able to find out. The true aster is named from its star shape, and in England is much prized and is called the Michaelmas Daisy, because they are in full bloom at the time of the feast of St. Michael. As they grow wild nearly everywhere in the States, they are not grown so much in gardens here. All good catalogues list quite a number of good varieties for one to choose from. Being tall they should be planted at the rear.

Aconitum—Monk’s-hood, Helmet Flower

This plant, the roots of which are poisonous, should not be grown where children are apt to get at its roots, and when transplanted care should be taken not to allow any of its small, beet-like tubers to lie around, the surplus being burned. They grow about four feet high, blooming in the latter part of summer. A. autumnale and A. Napellus are among the best.

Anemones—Wind Flower

Anemone Pennsylvanica is a native, growing a little over a foot in height, producing in profusion fairly large white flowers in July and August. Having a “woodsy” look, it seems at home in semi-shaded positions, where it does well, but will thrive in full sun. The king of the tribe, however, is the Japanese variety, A. Japonica, especially the variety Alba, with large, showy, pure white flowers, blooming late in the fall, often after the first slight frost, and at a time when all others are gone. For this reason they should be planted where they may be seen from some house window, and thus be enjoyed when it is too chilly to be out-of-doors. If planted eighteen inches apart, cup and saucer Canterbury bells may be planted in between them and removed when through blooming. The anemones do not require the room before that.

Arabis Alpina—Rock Cress

Rock cress is an early spring, white-flowering plant. Its low-growing habit makes it suitable for edging. In the fall plant Chionodoxa Luciliæ in between them. This is a blue-flowering bulb, hardy, cheap and in flower at the same time the rock cress is.

Aquilegia—Columbine

These have been mentioned in connection with the article on reserve beds. The Rocky Mountain columbine (A. cærulea), a bright blue form, is probably the handsomest one of the family, but it seldom lasts long. The golden columbine (A. chrysantha) seems to be the sturdiest of the group and lasts several years. It belongs to the long-spurred class, all of which are good.

Campanula—Bell Flower

Nearly all of this family, as well as the allied Platycodons, are good. They are slender, upright growers, as a rule, but C. Carpatica, already mentioned in the text, grows but eight inches tall. The species macrantha persicifolia, rotundifolia (Blue Bells of Scotland) and Trachelium, are the most reliable among the group. The cup-and-saucer, and the chimney bell flower, are biennials, blooming but once, and have to be wintered the year prior in a coldframe.

Centaureas—Hard-heads

Like an open sunny position. C. macrocephala is the best, bearing thistle-like golden yellow flowers.

To be continued…

Leyden.

“The green and graceful Fern” (filices) with its exquisite tracery must not be overlooked. It recalls many noble home-scenes to British eyes. Pliny says that “of ferns there are two kinds, and they bear neither flowers nor seed.” And this erroneous notion of the fern bearing no seed was common amongst the English even so late as the time of Addison who ridicules “a Doctor that had arrived at the knowledge of the green and red dragon, and had discovered the female fern-seed.” The seed is very minute and might easily escape a careless eye. In the present day every one knows that the seed of the fern lies on the under side of the leaves, and a single leaf will often bear some millions of seeds. Even those amongst the vulgar who believed the plant bore seed, had an idea that the seeds were visible only at certain mysterious seasons and to favored individuals who by carrying a quantity of it on their person, were able, like those who wore the helmet of Pluto or the ring of Gyges, to walk unseen amidst a crowd. The seed was supposed to be best seen at a certain hour of the night on which St. John the Baptist was born.

We have the receipt of fern-seed; we walk invisible,
Shakespeare’s Henry IV. Part I.

In Beaumont’s and Fletcher’s Fair Maid of the Inn, is the following allusion to the fern.
–Had you Gyges’ ring,
Or the herb that gives invisibility.

Ben Jonson makes a similar allusion to it:

I had
No medicine, sir, to go invisible,
No fern-seed in my pocket.

Pope puts a branch of spleen-wort, a species of fern, (Asplenium trichomanes) into the hand of a gnome as a protection from evil influences in the Cave of Spleen.

Safe passed the gnome through this fantastic band
A branch of healing spleen-wort in his hand.

The fern forms a splendid ornament for shadowy nooks and grottoes, or fragments of ruins, or heaps of stones, or the odd corners of a large garden or pleasure-ground.

I have had many delightful associations with this plant both at home and abroad. When I visited the beautiful Island of Penang, Sir William Norris, then the Recorder of the Island, and who was a most indefatigable collector of ferns, obligingly presented me with a specimen of every variety that he had discovered in the hills and vallies of that small paradise; and I suppose that in no part of the world could a finer collection of specimens of the fern be made for a botanist’s herbarium. Fern leaves will look almost as well ten years after they are gathered as on the day on which they are transferred from the dewy hillside to the dry pages of a book.

Author: David Lester Richardson, 1855.

Heavily scented flowers, such as hyacinths, lemon and auratum lilies, polyanthus narcissus, magnolias, lilacs, and the like, should be avoided.

Such is the advice of “Barbara”, a.k.a Mabel Osgood Wright, who wrote about flowers in 1906. Here are her recommended combinations for dressing up your table with beautiful blossoms.

• Snowdrops and pussy-willows.
• Hepaticas and moss.
• Spice-bush and shad-bush sprays.
• Trailing arbutus and sweet, white garden violets.
• Double daffodils and willow sprays.
• Crocus buds and moss.
• Blue garden scillas and wild white saxifrage.
• Black-birch catkins and wind-flowers.
• Plants of the various wild violets, according to season, arranged in an earthen pan with a moss or bark covering.
• Old-fashioned myrtle, with its glossy leaves, and single narcissus, or English primroses.
• Bleeding-heart and young ferns.
• English border primroses in small rose bowls.
• Lilies-of-the-valley, with plenty of their own leaves, and poets’ narcissus.
• Tulip-tree flowers and leaves.
• The wild red-and-gold columbine with young white-birch sprays.
• Pinxter flower and the New York or wood fern.
• Jack-in-the-pulpit with its own leaves, in a bark or moss covered jar.
• Pink moccasin-flowers with ferns, in bark-covered jar.
• Pansies with ivy or laurel leaves, arranged in narrow dishes to form a parterre about a central mirror.
• Iceland poppies with small ferns or grasses.
• May pinks and forget-me-nots.
• Blue larkspurs and deutzia (always put white with blue flowers).
• Peonies with evergreen ferns, in a central jar.
• Sweet-william, arranged in separate colours for parterre effect or in a large blue-and-white bowl, with graceful sprays of honeysuckle flowers.
• Wild roses with plenty of buds and foliage, in blue-and-white bowls.
• Roses in large sprays with branches of the young leaves of copper beech—or masses of Chinese honeysuckle.
• Roses with short stems arranged with their own or rugosa foliage in blue-and-white dishes that have coarse wire netting fitted to the top to keep the flowers in place.
• White field daisies, clover, and flowering grasses, in a large bowl or jar.
• Mountain laurel with its own leaves, in central jar and parterre dishes.
• Nasturtiums, in cut-glass bowl or vase, with the foliage of lemon verbena.
• Sweet peas of five colours with a fringe of maiden-hair ferns, the deepest colour in a central jar, with other smaller bowls at corners, and small ferns laid around mirror and on cloth between.
• Japan lilies, single flowers, in parterre dishes with ivy leaves, and sprays in central vase.
• Balsams arranged in effect of set borders.
• Asters in separate colours.
• Spotted-leaved pipsissewa of the woods with fern border, in bark-covered dish.
• Red and gold bell meadow lilies, in large jar, with field grasses.
• Gladioli—the flowers separated from the stalks and arranged with various leaves for parterre effect, or stalks laid upon the cloth with evergreen ferns to separate the places at a formal meal.
• Sweet sultan, in separate colours, in rose bowls, with fragrant geranium or lemon-verbena foliage.
• Shirly poppies with grasses or green rye, in four slender vases about a larger centrepiece.
• Margaret or picotee carnations with mignonette, arranged loosely in a cut-glass vase or bowl.
• Green rye, wheat, or oats with the blue garden cornflower—or wild blue chickory.
• Wild asters with heavy tasselled marsh-grasses.
• Goldenrods with purple iron weed and vines of wild white clematis, arranged about a flat dish of peaches and pears.
• All through autumn place your central mirror on a mat made by laying freshly gathered coloured leaves upon the cloth.
• Wallflowers and late pansies.
• White Japanese anemonies and ferns.
• Grass of Parnassus, ladies tresses, and marsh shield ferns.
• Garden chrysanthemums, in blue-and-white jars and bowls, on a large mat of brown magnolia leaves.
• Sprays of yellow witch-hazel flowers and leaves of red oak.
• Sprays of coral winterberry, from which leaves have been removed, and white-pine tassels.
• Club-mosses, small evergreen ferns, and partridge vine with its red berries, in a bark-covered dish of earth.

The real rock-garden, however, is a place in which to grow plants. The rocks are secondary. The rocks should not appear to be placed for display. If one is making a collection of rocks, he is pursuing geology rather than gardening.

Yet many of the so-called rock-gardens are mere heaps of stones, placed where it seems to be convenient to pile stones rather than where the stones may improve conditions for the growing of plants.

The plants that will naturally grow in rock pockets are those requiring a continuous supply of root moisture and a cool atmosphere. To place a rockery on a sand bank in the burning sun is therefore entirely out of character.

Rock-garden plants are those of cool woods, of bogs, and particularly of high mountains and alpine regions. It is generally understood that a rock-garden is an alpine garden, although this is not necessarily so.

In this country alpine gardening is little known, largely because of our hot dry summers and falls. But if one has a rather cool exposure and an unfailing water supply, he may succeed fairly well with many of the alpines, or at least with the semi-alpines.

Most of the alpines are low and often tufted plants, and bloom in a spring temperature. In our long hot seasons, the alpine-garden may be expected to be dormant during much of the summer, unless other rock-loving plants are colonized in it. Alpine plants are of many kinds. They are specially to be found in the genera arenaria, silene, diapensia, primula, saxifraga, arabis, aubrietia, veronica, campanula, gentiana. They comprise a good number of ferns and many little heaths.

A good rock-garden of any kind does not have the stones piled merely on the surface; they are sunken well into the ground and are so placed that there are deep chambers or channels that hold moisture and into which roots may penetrate. The pockets are filled with good fibrous moisture-holding earth, and often a little sphagnum or other moss is added. It must then be arranged so that the pockets never dry out.

Rock-gardens are usually failures, because they violate these very simple elementary principles; but even when the soil conditions and moisture conditions are good, the habits of the rock plants must be learned, and this requires thoughtful experience. Rock-gardens cannot be generally recommended.

~L.H. Bailey, 1910

Our lady friends should gather pretty, delicate specimens during the summer, and get them nicely started before cold weather. The best way to keep them through the winter is under a bell-glass.

Take a young plant, with one or two delicate sprays. Find a pan of some kind, which will look presentable in a sitting-room, then get a little peat-soil and silver sand, and a few crocks or broken clinkers. Put these last in the bottom, not to do their usual work-for there need be no drainage from the pan-but simply to form a receptacle into which the surplus water may fall from direct contact with the roots.

Plant the specimen in the centre, raising the soil towards that point, and making it a little rough with a few bits of sandstone, &c.; put on the glass, and the thing is done.

The result will be one of the most beautiful objects ever seen in the garden or in wild. Every tip of the finely divided frond will have its little perl of dew, and when this ceases to be the case it is time to water again-a labor of once in six months or less. These filmy ferns, that naturally grow in still and very moist places, are, above all others, those most suitable to indoor cultivation, no ventilation, no complication of any kind being necessary.

Ferns for the House is an adaptation of a small article that appeared in Arthur’s Home Magazine in 1868. The photograph of the Victorian lady gathering fern specimens is from the 1899 edition of How To Know The Ferns, by Frances Theodora Parsons. The bell jar illustration is from Window Gardening, Edited by Henry T. Williams, 1881.

Very often it happens that the grower of flower would like a screen in front of some path or unsightly object, perhaps to mark the boundary between flower and vegetable garden; or it may be necessary to have a fence or hedge in the background. We have few plants which grow large enough to form such a fence or screen without support, and this makes it imperative to use climbing plants which can be trained to a height of several feet, if desired, or if height is not considered can be extended in each direction so that considerable space will be covered with foliage. In order to make neat jobs of this kind of work it is quite necessary that the gardener should have something substantial and neat in design to work with. Vines will grow over a screen of brush or clamber up a stick, but the effect is never quite satisfactory, and until the support is covered the objects used as such are always unsightly, and obtrusive to such an extent that the gardener with an eye for neatness is always annoyed by them.

No. 1 shows a very simple but pleasing panel. It has the merit of being strong, while combining angles and curves in such a manner as to produce a very satisfactory effect when set in place. The upright pieces should be of inch stuff. The cross strips should be of lath. The center can be made from barrel hoops or wire fastened with wire to the cross strips. The frame should be put together with wire nails, which should be clinched on the back. This can be done by laying the frame, when nailing it, on a piece of iron. Driving the nail through the wood, against the iron, will cause the end of it to double down against the wood, thus making a rigid joint. The strips of wood should be planed neatly. In doing work of this kind instruct the boys, or whoever is doing it, to aim at neatness, as the effect is much better where you have well-made panels, because they must remain uncovered through the early part of the season, and while they are in this condition it is desirable to have them look as attractive as possible. It is advisable to paint them well for two reasons:

They look better, and last longer; and if these panels are housed in fall, they will last for several seasons if well made. In painting them choose some neutral color which harmonizes with the vines to be trained over them. Do not paint them red or white, or any color that will be obtrusive.

No. 2 shows a frame made by fastening barrel hoops to posts set in the ground. To make them firm and secure wire them to the posts and to each other. This makes a cheap screen frame, which can be rapidly constructed, and has the merit of being so easy to make that any woman can put it up. Nos. 1 and 2 can be fastened together at the junction of each panel, when set in place, by hooks and screw-eyes. Or they can be wired together or tied.

In training vines over them, some discrimination should be made in selecting plants for the different styles of frame. For No. 1 a vine which does not branch much is most appropriate, as the long growth can be trained around and around the hoop until it is covered, and the outline of’ the frame preserved ; while with a branching vine the frame would soon be completely covered and all distinctness of outline lost. For this purpose Maderia vine and German ivy are useful. A charming effect is secured by training these two vines along the cross-pieces, and using the scarlet flowering bean for the hoop. The contrast of colors will be very fine. Be sure to confine the bean to the hoop. If it seems disposed to straggle, clip it back. In a short time you will have a solid circular mass of pretty green foliage and scarlet flowers which seems to be supported on bars of green.

Reader Suggestion: George from Australia offers the following suggestions…

For hoops, try entering hoola hoop into ebay - I found Australian hoops for 99.

You might also try using old bycicle wheels (without the tyres). You should be able to pick these up for next to nothing on ebay or even, for free on clean up days when people do throw outs.The advantage of the bycylce wheel is that you can get all sorts of sizes. If you dont like the spokes - these are fairly easy to remove as well - although I would imagine that they would provide excellent support for plant growth.

Thank you George, these are great tips!

No. 3 is so simple in construction that it requires no special description.

No. 3 is especially adapted to morning glories, sweet peas and nasturtiums. A hedge or screen of the latter flower is a most brilliant sight, and will be sure to give great pleasure. With No. 2 a most delightful effect can be secured by using white morning glories for one hoop, blue ones for the next, then white, then pink. It will require considerable care and attention to keep the colors from running into and blending with each other, but it can be done, and the result will repay all labor.

Morning-glory seeds were planted along the end of the fence by the outbuilding and all around it. After these climbing things began to grow the pretty effect of the vines was amazing.

Many times one has to train vines so they will grow where one wishes. In such cases drive small stakes into the ground back of where the vine is planted. Tie a cord or string to the stake and carry this up to where you wish the vine to go. The string may be attached in the best way, according to the place. If it is to an old building, drive a nail into the side, roof or peak of this. Some people make latticed trellises. These may be made from laths.

A neighbour gave Philip some canna bulbs which he planted in an old sieve filled with rich dirt. Canna bulbs look much like sweet potatoes. Usually a bit of stalk is left on the bulb. Leave this in planting above ground for about one-half inch. Dig a hole large enough to place the canna bulb and deep enough so the stalk comes above the ground. Place one big, fat bulb, or two or three little chaps in one spot. Leave about one foot between plantings.

In the fall after frost cut off the stalks about two inches above the ground, dig up the bulbs, shake all dirt off, and put into a box with a little thoroughly dry dirt until spring. Leave this box where it is dark and cool.

It would have been far better had Philip planted the cannas either in the round bed or against the fence as a screen. As a general rule the planting in tubs, kettles, kegs and similar receptacles is not only inartistic, but gives the plant very confined and cramped quarters. When possible plant right out in the ground. Window boxes and roof gardening in boxes is “another story.”

The cost of Philip’s flower garden was 25 cents. He bought five-cent packages of each of the flower seeds. The cannas cost nothing. The shrubs were $1, the cement 70 cents, and the water-lily roots 50 cents. So the total cost for changing an ugly yard to a mass of flowers was $2.46.

Philip’s clearing up seemed to be catching for the girl across the street started in with her work. For ten cents she bought a collection of flower seed. These seed were planted in three-foot beds. The beds were banked up or supported by strips of board. This same girl planted flowers in two old kettles and set one upon an empty cask and the other on an old drain tile. But she later decided very wisely that this was not after all so very pretty. Kettles are better for potato boiling than for flowers.

But such a good time as she had all summer in her own green, pleasant backyard! And so had Philip, too! “Just a few cents and some hard work will change your backyard into something beautiful,” Philip was heard to say one day to a group of city boys.

Ellen Eddy Shaw, 1911. Photograph: Mary H. Northend.

If you have a greenhouse be careful about regulating the temperature of it during the day. After eight o’clock on sunny days shut off all artificial heat. The sun will furnish more than is necessary. It will be necessary on most days to open the ventilators in order to secure a proper temperature. About four o’clock on cloudy days it may be advisable to turn on a pipe to make sure that the temperature does not fall too low at night. This applies to the extreme northern range of states. Further south fire heat will be unnecessary, unless in exceptional cases. Great harm can be done by keeping a greenhouse too warm. It causes a weak, unhealthy growth, and so lowers the vitality of the plants, that they often become diseased to such an extent that they fail to recover from it all summer. Sixty-five to seventy-five degrees during the day, and sixty to sixty-five degrees at night, is about right for a mixed collection.

WATCH your plants, when growing actively, and when you see a branch starting out where none is needed, nip it off. Do not let it grow for weeks and then cut it off, because, by so doing, all the vitality of the plant which went to the production of that branch is wasted. If “nipped in the bud,” this strength would have been thrown into the plant and thus saved. If one branch seems inclined to get the start of others, pinch off the end of it promptly. This will temporarily check it, and the others may be enabled to gain on it sufficiently to hold their own by the time it gets started again. All lovers of flowers like to have finely formed plants, but they seldom have them, because they neglect them at the growing season. Then is the time to train and prune them, for your plant is developing from day to day, and this development can be controlled by patient watchfulness and attention.

IF you have seedlings growing in pots or boxes, be sure to put them out of doors every day when the weather is pleasant, where they may get the benefit of the fresh air. This accustoms them to outdoor conditions before the time comes to put them in the beds, and helps to harden them. If kept in the house all the time they will become spindling and weak, and when they are transplanted to the garden beds many of them or most of them will die because they haven’t sufficient vitality to “pull them through” the change. During the early stages of its existence, a plant is much like a child, and must have more care and attention than later on, because it is developing, and everything depends on a healthy development.

THERE will be such warm and pleasant days in April that quite likely you will be deluded into a belief that it is time to go to work in the garden. But don’t do it just yet. “One swallow does not make a summer,” you know. Wait until the weather can be depended on to stay warm. A warm and sunshiny April day is quite likely to be followed by a very cool or frosty night. May is quite early enough, at the north, to begin garden work.

Eben E. Rexford, Editor; Philadelphia, 1892