Part 3

Some perennials require to be planted two feet apart, and in some, like peonies, three feet is close enough, for in time their tops will meet. Eighteen inches apart is enough to allow for the majority and some slender ones require but one foot. All this should be taken into consideration when determining the width of the bed.

Starting with the proposition that the average plant requires eighteen inches headroom, and that the first row may be planted six inches within the bed at the front--nine to twelve is better--and the second one back eighteen inches, and six from the back, we find that with rows two plants deep it requires a bed two feet and a half in width. This should be the narrowest allowance you should make. In a four-foot bed you can place them three deep, and one five and a half takes four plants. In other words, you increase your width in jumps of eighteen inches at a time. While this is not actually necessary, it is best and applies only to the widest and narrowest points. The intervening curved lines will vary from this measurement but it makes no difference, because you do not plant in straight rows from back to front as one would cabbages.

In planting at boundary lines or at buildings, the taller ones should be used at the back, but the semi-tall ones--say three feet in height--should occasionally be brought well toward the front in order to avoid stiffness and to add irregularity to the general effect. If a house or fence is at the back, flowering vines like the Clematis paniculata, or C. flammula, or any annual flowering vine, may be used here and there. In detached beds which may be seen from all sides, the taller plants are set in the middle.

The effect is much better if you plant in groups of four, six, or more of one kind. It relieves the effect of spottiness. Plant in an irregular manner so as to avoid stiffness or lumpiness, and let one group run in behind another. If you plant large groups in a pear-shaped form with the narrow stem end slightly curved and let the larger end of the adjoining pear-shaped group run up to the narrow stem of its neighbor, you will produce the effect I suggest. The plants you buy, being small, if planted as suggested will not occupy all the ground the first year. These spaces may be carpeted with annuals for a year or so, or planted with gladioli, lilies or Hyacinth candicans.

I will not attempt to discuss the fighting and clashing of colors sometimes seen in plantings. The acknowledged head of the house--she who is probably the one who desires the flower border--is generally an authority on pleasing color combinations.

Securely staking tall-growing plants is necessary if one desires neatness and effectiveness in the garden. We care for a plant twelve months in the year for the benefit we derive from its short season of bloom, and to allow it, then, to be sprawled upon the ground by passing storms seems cruel. Broom handles and ash rods, half an inch in diameter, used by basket makers, may be obtained from dealers in broom material. Bamboo canes are useful, as well as the painted stakes sold by seed houses. The stakes should be forced well down into the soil. Often, in dry weather when the ground is hard, they are not driven down far enough and the first hard rain softens the soil around them, and, if a strong wind exists, the plant may topple over and carry the stake with it. In tying them don't hug them as you would a long-lost brother; give them some natural freedom. In large groups, place the stakes around them, three or four feet apart, and string from stake to stake, running cross strings through the plants or between them. A single large plant generally requires at least three stakes. Do it before they are broken down by storms, for once broken it is hard to make a good job of it, especially if left down for some time. Then the growing ends turn up for light and harden in that bent condition.

If you raise the perennials yourself it is best to grow them one year in a reserve bed, say in the vegetable garden, because but very few will bloom the first year from seed. Purchased plants should have blossoms the first year, as they are supposed to be one-year-old seedlings or are divisions of old plants. These may be set out in the first position upon arrival. Seedlings in the reserve bed may be planted in rows, each row a foot apart, and the plants six inches apart in the rows; thus planted, they take up but little room and in the early fall or next spring they may be removed to their permanent quarters.

In transplanting, be sure to expose the roots as little as possible to the sun or drying winds. When plants arrive with the started foliage looking wilted, sprinkle them overhead and set them in a shady sheltered position for a while--say an hour. This will generally revive them enough to go on with your planting. If you have reason to suppose the plants were frosted in transit, set the box in a cool cellar over night. A gradual thawing out may rejuvenate them, while a sudden thawing is dangerous.

In planting, it often helps an amateur to take a few stakes and place one at each point he desires to set a plant. If you set six or more stakes, plant six or more plants, pulling up the stakes as you proceed to set out more. Make the holes in the bed wide enough to allow the roots to go in without crowding, and after filling in the soil, press it down firmly around the neck of the plant, and over the roots, and water well when all the bed is planted.

When dry, hot weather comes, and you think artificial watering necessary, soak the bed well and then let it alone for some time, although, in the evening, after a hot sunny day accompanied by a strong, drying wind, if the foliage looks wilted somewhat, a showering overhead is beneficial. The day after a good soaking it is well to go lightly over the bed with a hoe or rake and stir up the soil, breaking the crust produced by the watering. This makes a mulch that will conserve the moisture and protect the roots from the hot sun. Frequent slight waterings keep the moisture at the top and the roots are then inclined to grow upwards to meet it. If you then neglect to water, the soil soon becomes dry and the roots suffer.

WINTER MULCHING

When winter approaches, if you desire tidiness, cut the tops down (except evergreen-foliaged plants) even if the frost has not already done this work for you, and cover the bed with well-rotted manure, but it is really better to allow the tops to remain all winter, especially in the case of hollow-stemmed plants. Well-decayed manure needs but little going over in the spring, requiring only the removal of the foreign material and the straw chaff it may contain. What remains is generally the color of the soil, thus unnoticeable and acts as a mulch during the summer. Fresh manure may be used--in fact it is better, because the plants receive the benefit of the leachings, which is pretty well spent in old manure. In large grounds there is, however, considerable labor attached to the removal of this fertilizer in the spring, as it must be taken away for neatness' sake. While this manure has the greater part of its strength leached out, it is well worth saving for the humus still in it, and it may be dug in in the vegetable garden, or placed in a large flat pile about two feet high while still loosely spread. Melons, squash, pumpkins or similar sprawling vines may be grown in it. For each plant dump about one-half a wheelbarrow of good soil on the top, level and sow in it, or set out plants, if the seedlings are started elsewhere. The roots of these plants like the loose run the open manure allows. In extreme dry weather the growing squash or pumpkins should be well watered. In the fall this manure has become fine in texture and makes a splendid winter's mulch for snowdrops, crocus, etc.

Do not be in a hurry about removing the winter's covering when the first warm days of spring appear. More damage is done in early spring than in settled cold weather. It is the alternate freezing and thawing that does the most damage, and the surface water lying over the crowns of plants, which the frozen ground underneath does not allow to go down. I have seen roots of shallow-rooted plants, Lobelia cardinalis for instance, growing in clayey soil, lying on the surface of the ground in spring--pried out by soil expansion. Part of the covering may be removed quite early but enough should remain to shade the ground.

SUMMER MULCHING

Shallow-rooted plants like the cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) and the tall, fall-flowering hardy phloxes, dislike the hot sun beating down on their roots. Being surface rooters, and at the same time fond of moisture, they suffer when the surface soil is dried out. They should have a summer mulch to intercept the radiation of moisture from the soil.

The spent manure I mentioned as fine for covering bulbs, is splendid for this purpose and as it is of the same color as the soil, its presence is hardly noticeable; besides it adds humus. Almost any open material may be used, that will not offend our ideas of tidiness in appearance. Grass clippings from the lawn-mower may be used.

Some plants are late in appearing above ground in the spring, Platycodons for instance, and there is danger of their being dug up by impatient amateurs who have either forgotten their presence or imagined they were dead and the ground vacant. It is well, therefore, to place in the fall some cane stakes at each plant or in a row around a group of this class to indicate their presence. I also place stakes at each lily as they generally occupy open spaces between perennials, and I seldom wish to disturb them if it becomes necessary to remove one of the perennials.

With few exceptions--peonies and the gas plant, for instance--perennials need dividing and resetting every two or three years, which should be done in the early fall or early spring, but never when the soil is very wet, because in the subsequent manipulation of the soil to replenishing its food supply, it should be dry enough to break up into fine particles. The Japanese anemone should be replanted only in the spring. It is in bloom and in active life in the fall. The best way to proceed is to work one section at a time--say a ten-foot strip. Cut back the foliage, take up the plants and lay them aside, covering with burlap or some material to keep the sun and wind from their roots. Then dig the bed up, deeply, and add some well-rotted manure, rake smoothly and replant. While it is probably best not to set the same plants back in the same position occupied before, it may be done, for if the soil has been well worked up it is apt to have changed its position. Then take up another section and do the same. In the meantime all large roots are divided. Some may be pulled apart, but more often they have to be cut through with a sharp spade or a butcher knife. Discard all evidence of decay and use only the healthy outer rim, possessing well-developed roots. They generally show the stalk buds for next year's growth. Three to five of these buds will make a good plant. Sometimes, in the case, perhaps, of a cherished but not over-robust larkspur, you find part of the original root decayed, but if it has a few good roots attached to it, dust powdered sulphur on the decayed part--it often checks decay--and you may eventually restore your pet to a healthy condition.

If you want a delightful recreation and lots of fun, and would like to possess some plant producing a flower entirely new in color or form, and, certainly in your estimation finer than any your rival neighbors have ever seen, make a reserve bed in some sunny spot and raise hybrid delphiniums. In fact any one possessing a good collection of perennials should have a reserve plantation to draw from in order to fill up gaps that will be found in the main bed after any hard winter. It is especially useful for keeping up a stock of that charming but short-lived perennial, the columbine (Aquilegia), which seldom can be depended upon after the second year. I am speaking of the finer forms.

These hybrid delphiniums, or garden larkspur, possess the blood of two or more species and as a result are inclined to "sport," producing flowers of various forms and colors, entirely different from those of the parents. The word "sport" as used by gardeners is applied to any plant that displays a marked contrast in foliage, flower, form or habit of growth, from the type or normal aspect of the original species. The well-known golden glow is a good example, being a double form of the single-flowered Rudbeckia laciniata, a tall member of the Black-eyed Susan family, and known as one of the coneflowers. The flower head of the type is composed of two parts--the outer row of yellow "ray florets," which is not a part of the flower proper, except that it might be likened to the fringe that borders a curtain, and the dark brown cone in the center, which is composed of numerous minute, individual flowers like the dandelion, each perfect and capable of producing seed. Nature is slyly freakish at times, and in this instance she changed the individual flowers into ray florets. Fortunately some observing flower lover saw this one original plant, for undoubtedly the freak occurred in one plant only, and transplanting it to his garden, eventually gave to the floral world the now common golden glow. If not noticed by some one, the plant would have lived its allotted term and died unknown to the world, for it produces no seed.

The delphinium sports into various forms of flower, color and shape--the tones of color being a mingling of blues, pinks and mauve, some in the most lovely combinations imaginable. They will all bloom the first year from seed if sown in February or March in a greenhouse or hot-bed, but will not all bloom at once, so that for at least a period of one month, new blooms are opening each day. One's main pleasure is in expectancy. You are always looking and hoping for something better, and you generally get it. It is best, when a plant does not produce a flower up to grade, to dig it up and discard it, but those that are good should be marked in some manner to identify them. A label placed at their side will do, but the better way is to get some small sheet-lead tags, bearing stamped-in numbers or letters. Attach to wire pegs ten inches long and force down near the plant, recording its number in your "Garden Book" with a description of the flower. This enables you at any planting time--spring is the best for delphiniums--to plant in groups of light blues, dark blues, etc. You may be undecided sometimes as to whether you consider a plant good enough to keep or not. In this case keep it, but mark it a "hold-over." Some plants do better the second season. They may be sown outdoors in May, but will hardly bloom the same year.

PLANT COMBINATIONS

Many combinations may be used whereby a certain area may be made to produce a double crop of bloom, and thus prolong the flowering season within that area. Peonies, which are planted two and a half to three feet apart, may have the Lilium superbum, the later varieties of gladiolus, or Hyacinth candicans planted in between them; the last two should be taken up each fall as they are not hardy in all sections. The lilies will require resetting every few years, as they travel around in their new growth, and may invade the peony roots. These will flower above the peony foliage. Fall is the best time to plant any lily.

The shooting star (Dodecatheon media) may be planted between the spreading dwarf plants of that admirable bell flower (Campanula Carpatica). The bell flowers may be planted eighteen inches apart and, in the spring, when the shooting stars are up and in bloom, the foliage of the campanula is hardly in evidence, but during the summer it occupies all the space between them.

After flowering, all that part of the shooting star above ground turns brown, dies back and disappears to return again next spring.

The Virginia bluebell (Mertensia Virginica) is another charming plant of the same habit, and as it is worthy of cultivation in groups, it often becomes a question where to place it so that the bare ground it leaves behind is not an eye-sore. Besides colonies I have established in my ravine, where the overhanging underbrush hides its absence later on, I grow it under large bushes of forsythia. Both bloom at the same time and the pink buds and open blue bells of the Mertensia, when seen through the fleecy mass of the golden bells of the forsythia, make a charming picture. After flowering, the forsythia hides the disrobing Mertensia with its heavy sheet of foliage.

Some perennials--the bleeding heart and the perennial poppy--have ragged foliage after blooming and require some tall bushy plant to be placed in front and around them to hide their shabbiness. Strong-growing perennials, asters or the biennial Rudbeckia triloba, are good for this purpose.

Some instances occur where a low hedge of perennials might look well, for instance in a small yard where all the lines are formal and a straight walk leads from gate to house. A floral hedge might be placed at each side of the walk by making beds eighteen inches to two feet wide and deep. The best perennial hardy plant I know for this purpose is the gas plant (Dictamnus fraxinella), which, when once established, remains a joy, almost forever. Some people are still enjoying the blooms of plants set out by their great-grandmothers. This plant is slow in increasing its size, but a row planted twelve inches apart will in time make a compact hedge with a dark green, lustrous foliage, over two feet tall and fully as broad. The flower spikes are borne well above the foliage, some pink, deeply veined a darker hue, and some white. A mixture of the colors is desirable. On account of the slow habit of its increase, the bed will look scantily furnished for a few years. This can be remedied by growing at each side of the row of plants any spring-flowering bulb, or by carpeting in summer with sweet alyssum, sowing seeds in the bed. Any low-growing annual will do, but it must be low-growing or it may injure the Fraxinella.