Part 12

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.

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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.