I believe the main trouble in growing Verbenas is in not getting them started early enough. They grow very slowly at first and if they are not good strong plants when set out are almost sure to die. If you get them started late do not think to hurry them by putting them out with the others that grow faster. Wait patiently until they are at least an inch and a half high and their quick growth will surprise you. And I will say to comfort some one who can not have flowers because the pigs sometimes get out, that I have never seen a pig touch a Verbena though I have lost Pinks and other flowers growing beside them. There is another flower that grows wild here that covered a quarter of our pasture last fail yet was not touched. The leaves resemble a Verbena some but are wider and not so thick; the main stalk is about two feet high when full grown and the branches run like a Verbena. The flowers are red and yellow mixed and about the size and shape of Rose Moss. They last one day and a hollow sphere-shaped seedpod takes their place. Can anyone tell me what the name is?—Mrs. Nellie Fitzgerald, So. Dak.
FLORIDA
Editor Mayflower:
I thought that I would write an account of the curious freaks of Weigelia Eva Rathke received from Floral Park and transplanted to my grounds two years ago this winter. On the near approach of spring it began to grow rapidly, and soon bore its first crop of flowers. And such flowers as they were it was a rare treat to behold. Their five-petaled corollas, faultless in form, and each perhaps an inch and a half in diameter, were of the darkest and most intense red; a color that is almost unrivaled by any other, and which it retains till the last, is one of its attractions. About a month later it bloomed again, and kept up a continuous growth, which did not end till frozen down to the ground in the following December, after it had attained a height of over two feet. So I came to the conclusion that being a Northern shrub, and full of sap, it was undoubtedly killed out, root and branch. The next spring, when the ground had become well warmed up, I beheld two delicate, tiny looking sprouts from the root, which I immediately took charge of, giving them shade and an occasional watering. After awhile their growth became more vigorous; and after having attained a height of about eighteen inches they formed their terminal buds in early autumn, and ceased growing. At present both of them are alive along their entire length and all their buds are plump and dormant. I shall make a strong effort to push this shrub when warm weather comes again, as it looks as though under favorable circumstances it ought to thrive in the South. I also believe that Weigelia Rosea would likewise be at home here, as it is a thrifty large growing shrub in the North, and has every appearance of being an iron-clad.—Joshua Morris.
