Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women - Wise Acres Yearbook (Ambler, PA)

Page 33 text:

Miss Jekyll, although she says she is an old woman, walks with a vigorous step, and is still laying out gardens and writing books. One of her clients came in while we were there and she had to leave us to show her plans. Miss Jekyll has also felt the pinch of the war very keenly. We noticed the effects of the war very often in tffe fact that the gardens in many places had become somewhat overgrown from lack of labor. Weeds had crept in and plants which should have be,en divided had been left to themselves. Very little was said about it, the condition had gone on too long to be commented upon. At Frogmore, in the royal gardens they lacked about 40 men. They had had women during the war and the gardener had found them very satisfactory. I gathered from his manner that there was something in the labor sitaution which prevented his employing them at present. (To Be Continued.) ELIZABETH LEIGHTON LEE. AUTUMN Keen, live air, with a tang of frost And a hint of Winter storms, Royal meadows, all purple and gold, And wee, living things in swarms. The tree-covered hills, all burning red. Or glowing russet and gold, And everywhere a song of joy— Oh, Nature knows how to grow old! HARDY CHRYSANTHEMUMS By JOHN C. WISTER The Hardy Chrysanthemum is one of the most important of our garden flowers because it brightens up our gardens when all our other flowers have been killed by frost, and it is easily grown and kept from year to year. Plants may be propagated inthe garden by division ; or whole clumps may be taken from the garden in December, and placed in a cold frame, and brought into th greenhouse about the 15th of January or the first of February. Such plants will produce good cuttings by the first or fifteenth of March. Oniy strong cuttings two or three inches long should be taken and if greenhouse conditions are good all of them should root within five or six weeks. They may then be potted in two and one-half inch pots, placed first in the greenhouse ; then hardened in frames and afterwards planted in the garden as danger of frost is over early in May. These plants should have one pinching when four or five inches high, either before or after setting in the open ground and should be pinched once or twice more to make the growth stocky, once in June and once in July, preferably not later than the middle of July. If this is done most varieties will not need staking. The plants should be well cultivated and kept growing fast. For slight infestation of aphides, a simple syringing with water may be sufficient, but if such attacks continue the plants should be sprayed occasionally. 7

Page 32 text:

Miss Ellen Willmott is now one of the .leading authorities in England upon all sorts of horticultural subjects. She has a wonderful place not far from London, at Brentwood in Essex. We had the good fortune to be entertained by Miss Willmott at tea and supper, and herNgenerous invitation was extended for the night also. ‘‘The Gardens of Warley Place are regarded as a Mecca by all plant lovers” “Miss Willmott’s collec- tion of living plants including varieties as well as species probably exceeds one hundred thousand.” She showed us her nursery where she propagates shrubs and trees to perpetuate her interesting collection. The place was at one time the property of John Evelyn, the “diarist.” He first laid out the gardens and planted the chestnuts and walnuts which are still there. As he sold it in 1655 these trees claim,'great age- Miss Willmott has developed and added to the gardens, and knows every stick and stone, bush, tree, flower and herb on th,e place. Her rock garden is one of the loveliest 1 have seen. A sunken garden with an informal outline and irregular paths and stones ov.er which the rock plants climb, droop, form a mat or stand sturdily as is their habit, with a pool of water, also irregular in outline, at the base. It is hard to confine'oneself to one’s subject. I could write a whole paper on rock gardens in England. But 1 must mention one or two more things about Miss Willmott. She has had a number of plants named for her. The tulip Miss Ellen Willmott we all know, late, pale yellow and a lov.ely combination with the Darwin tulips Rev. Ewbank (lilac) and Clara Butt (pink). The little campanula Miss Willmott, just the thing for a rock garden, a mass of blue bells close to the ground in a mat' of color, we saw at a number of places. There is also a lovely potentilla, Miss Willmott, intense scarlet. Miss Willmott has written a most valuable book on the “Rose,” with profuse illustrations. It is a rare and valuable book and embraces all that one could wish to know on the subject. lt is selling for . 1 hope very much that some copies can be sold in this country, as Miss Willmott has been financially hampered by the war and the high taxes. A copy of it is now at the Farm and Garden ofnce in New York, 414 Madison avenue, and may be seen there. Miss Gertrude Jekyli at Godaiming is a well-known and delightful writer on gardening. Her house, as everyone knows who has read her books, is built from timber cut on her own place, and all the beams are adzed by hand. The charming house is so well hidden rrom the road that it took us some time to discover it, and we finally entered on a venture a small gate, almost entirely hidden by shrubs. Penetrating through the shrubs for only 10 or 15 fe,et we found ourselves almost at the door of a low gray house with many interesting gables. We spent a long-to-be-remembered afternoon going over the place with her. We saw the long border she describes in her book and it was indeed lovely. The piace is divided by hedges into gardens for different seasons, and various effects—the wild garden, the spring garden, the garden of herbs. At both Miss Willmott’s and Miss JekylTs we saw a campanula which was new to us and verv effective—Campanula Lactifiora—a inll plant 5 to 6 feet high, pale pinkish lilac in color and he main flower stalk “Hied like a candelabra- We saw this aiso at Frogmore. 6

Page 34 text:

with some tobacco solution, such as “Black Leaf 40”. This is also recommended for the new chrysanthemum midge. In dry seasons the plants are benefited, by occasional heavy waterings, and they can, if desired, be given liquid fertilizer such as liquid manure or a weak solution of nitrate of soda, or dried blood, once in September and perhaps again in early? October, but this is not at all necessary. When the blooming season is over the tops should be cut and burned and the plants mulched lightly with straw, strawy manure or pine bows. The so-called September blooming varieties will come to bloom in the middle States in ordinary seasons about the first of October and last for several weeks, and as they fade the usual Pompon varieties will be coming in, and they will be at their best early in November, and should last until the 20th of November or even later, according to the season. The length of the season and the profusion of the flowers depends upon the weather, the white or pink varieties being easily hurt by heavy rainstorms or frost, while yellow and bronze varieties will stand a great deal of bad weather without being injured. 1'he matter of having good chrysanthemums, therefore, comes down to a large number of varieties suited to individual requirements. The American nurseries today offer several hundred varieties of chrysanthemums under the head of “Hardy Chrysanthemums,” “Hardy Pompon Chrysanthemums,” “Hardy Out-Door Chrysanthemums.” and do other headings, but it is unfortunately true that most of these varieties are not? at all suited to the ordinary garden. The older of these varieties are of foreign origin, and some of them are more suited to foreign climates than to ours, and the newer varieties are the work of painstaking breeding by American florists, who have made great advances in the beauty of this flower; it is apparently not realized, however, by most gardeners that this breeding has most unfortunately been done for the sake of growing more beautiful varieties which the florists may sell as cut flowers, rather than with the idea' of giving us plants better suited to garden culture. The breeding has necessarily been carried on under glass, as chrysanthemums, to all practical purposes, will not produce seed outdoors in this climate. Therefore the florist has grown them almost entirely under glass, choosing from his seedings those which appear to be the most beautiful or the best growers, or which, bloom at a season when the demand for cut flowers is particularly good. In making this long explanation I wish to point out that in most cases our florists have failed to produce plants suited to garden use, not because they are incapable of producing such plants, but became they happen to be producing plants for a totally different purpose. This will continue until the gardeners of America demand better varieties for their gardens and make it worth while for the florist to grow them. A visit to any chrysanthemum specialist or to a wholesale flower market in chrysanthemum season will convince one that the florists’ achievements with the small flowered chrysan- •» themum have been splendid, yet when these same varieties are grown under out-door conditions nine out of ten times they will be a disappointment. Some of the florists’ varieties like “Diana” and “Fairy Queen” will have their delicate texture ruined by the! first rain storm or frost, so that it is hardly more than twice in a ten-year period that they are seen in profusion outdoors. This applies unfortunately to nearly all the beautiful single, semi-double and anemone flowered varieties ; other beautiful varieties of the greenhouse like “Julia Lagravere” and “Souvenir d’Or” bloom so late that they can never be 8