Much is gained by the use of low-growing plants as a border to beds of taller plants. Blue lobelias, dwarf morning glories, English daisies, sweet alyssum, candytuft, all require little root room and add materially to the resulting bloom.
For a screen to mask an undesirable view or object there are several very desirable annuals that are of the easiest culture and of most effective presence. With the stately ricinus all are familiar; less well-known is the tall cleom pungens, with its curious flowers of pure white and white and rose, the long, curving anthers of which have given it the name of "Spider Flower." It is a beautiful and desirable plant, and should be started in the house or hotbed and transplanted where it is to bloom when the nights are warm, setting the plants two feet apart. The Nicotiana Sylvestris is another stately plant, growing to a height of five or six feet in good soil and, unlike N. affinnis, its snow-white blooms remain open all day and are attractive when grown in the rear of beds of salvias. Like the cleom it requires room to develop. Practically all annuals may be sown in the open ground; the only object in sowing in hotbeds or house and transplanting is to bring them forward early so as to have the longest possible season of bloom.
To speak of asters seems superfluous, as whatever flowers may be absent from the annual garden it is a safe venture to claim that the aster will not be missing; that is quite as it should be; there is really no one flower that so completely meets the requirements of scenic effect and cut flower work as the asters. In the stronger colors of crimson, purple and blue it is as effective a flower as one could wish to use for mass planting, while for more refined and delicate beauty no one could ask for anything better than the pure white and delicate shell pinks of the Ostrich Feather and Late Branching whites. The Comet asters are very artistic, attractive flowers but, unfortunately, do not stand up under wet weather—a hard rain reducing them to a dismal, raggy condition. Set the wide branching asters at least a foot apart and see that all asters have clean, healthy soil to grow in to avoid the troubles that arise when conditions are unfavorable. A warm, fibrous loam, well enriched with old manure, is best and water should be given freely during dry weather, especially when the buds are forming. The black aster beetle is the only serious foe of the aster and makes its appearance when the flowers are in full bloom, doing an immense amount of damage in a few hours if not destroyed as they eat the petals of the flowers, rendering them very unsightly. The only satisfactory remedy is hand picking in early morning while the beetles are sluggish. If a pan of hot water or water with a little kerosene in it is carried and the beetles dropped into it as gathered it will not be difficult to control them. Spraying with arsenate of lead will kill them if one does not object to the use of poisons on flowers that are to be brought into the house. Paris green can also be used but discolors the flowers, but hand picking has no objectionable features aside from the labor entailed, and that is by no means prohibitive as it takes but a short time to go over a hundred plants.
Try planting a few salvias on the shady side of the house; they will not make as much show during the summer as those grown in the sunlight but will be in full bloom long after those in exposed positions are cut down by frost.
A few very desirable annuals are plants of one florescence and need to have repeated plantings of seed for a continuous bloom. Most conspicuous of this class of plants is the candytuft in white, purple and red and the charming little schizanthus, which should be sown every few weeks for a succession of blooms. The plants come into bloom in a few weeks from the sowing of seed and are perfect little pyramids of bloom. Sow fresh seed of candytuft when the first sown plants are beginning to form flower buds; used in this way the candytuft furnishes a most useful white for window-boxes and vases, and is unexcelled for edgings of taller plants.
CHAPTER XIX
THE HARDY GARDEN
Is a permanent investment, possible only in the permanent home. It adds dignity and charm attainable from no other form of planting. It is to the outdoor life of the home what the possession of colonial furniture and family heirlooms is to the indoor life, and yet is neither expensive nor tedious in its inception. It may be acquired fully grown, as it were, by an order to the florist for ready grown plants of blossoming size, ready to give seasonal bloom, or it may be developed in a few months, inexpensively and most interestingly, by procuring the seeds of as many desirable varieties of hardy perennials as one has room or inclination for and planting them in the hotbed in early spring, and transplanting into permanent positions when large enough or, better still, by planting the seed in cold frames in August or early September and growing them on until cold weather when they should be protected for the winter and in the spring planted out where they are to bloom. Every hardy perennial set out in one's garden is an asset that will increase in value each succeeding year. Many have the root formation that admits of divisions—as the Shasta daisy, a single two year old clump usually dividing up into from six to ten blooming-size plants. English violets, English daisies, polyanthus, and many other plants may be divided annually until in time one owns large colonies of them, and this is a point well worth understanding,—that a large number of one kind of plant is much more effective and worth while than a large number of kinds of plants, of just one or a few individuals. Many plants which are inconspicuous or ineffective singly or in small groups, surprise one with their beauty when grown in large masses or long rows. The ulmaria—a variety of spiræa of deciduous growth—is a notable example of this. Planted singly it is merely a rather pretty flower; grown in a long row it is a mass of snowy white in late June and July that compels one with its beauty. Its congener, the spiræa fillipendula, a lesser but most graceful growth, also pleases one especially when grown in long rows in front of taller plants. And right here is a point well worth considering in planting a hardy border—the arranging of plants in rising tiers of bloom so that a bank of bloom may be produced. One effective bed that gladdened my heart for several seasons and rose in tier after tier of gracious bloom through several weeks of early summer had an initial planting next the front of tritomas, whose scarlet torches of flame did not come into bloom until late summer, but from then until frost made a brilliant band of color. Back of these was a fine planting of columbine, next a row of scarlet lychnis alternated with white feverfew, and still further back a full planting of the garden spiræa whose feathery heads of pinky-white flowers stood four or five feet high and in turn were topped with fine clumps of physostegias; the whole planting making a beautiful bank of bloom and one not commonly seen. This was a permanent planting requiring little care beyond the removal of all weeds and grass in the spring and an occasional thinning out of the plants when they became too crowded. The physostegia increases rapidly by root division and the lychnis, feverfew and aquilegias all self-sow so the bed practically never ran out or needed renewing and the cost, except for the tritomas, was that of a few packets of seeds—probably a total of fifty cents for some one hundred and fifty square feet of loveliness, and there are many, many combinations as happy and as easily acquired as that.
Lacking the convenience of hotbeds and cold frames, the vegetable garden is a most excellent place in which to start hardy perennials for a permanent garden. Flowers planted in rows among vegetables always seem to do better than anywhere else, the reason being that they are not crowded—usually being in single rows with a foot or more of open space at each side through which the hoe and cultivator can work freely, and where they will receive regular and constant attention throughout the growing season. In a garden of say fifty feet in width, several varieties of flowers may be grown in short lengths of ten feet or more. They should be covered somewhat more deeply than when sown in the hotbed or cold frame and the ground firmed well above them, especially if the weather is dry at the time of planting; when the seedlings appear they will probably need thinning in order that they may not grow spindling, but will not need the room they will require when in permanent quarters. Many kinds of hardy perennials will give some bloom the first year, though, of course, they will not be at their best, but they will be sufficiently pronounced to make it possible to select those most desirable for cultivation. Delphiniums, for instance, will give small spikes of bloom, probably a foot high, the first season and if the Gold Medal Hybrids have been planted some very lovely blooms will result. In the fall the plants may be lifted and set in permanent positions, or they may be left in the ground until spring and then transplanted; probably this is the better treatment providing the ground is not to be ploughed too early, as some of the perennials die down in the fall and may not appear above the ground in time for very early transplanting.