Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota Part 82

Color Combinations in the Garden.

MISS ELIZABETH STARR, 2224 FREMONT SO., MINNEAPOLIS.

English books on gardening set forth two princ.i.p.al methods of making a garden: first, to have each part perfect for a short time each year and then let it melt into the background for the rest of the season; second, to have every part of the garden showing some flowers all through the summer.

These two methods suggest the impressionistic and miniature schools of painting. With the first method it is possible to get great ma.s.ses of color and brilliant effects to be viewed at a distance, but it requires a great deal of s.p.a.ce, with a perennial garden at least, for unfortunately most of our perennials are in their greatest glory for only a few weeks at a time. The second method fills more nearly the needs of the small garden, where the vistas are short and the individual plant is under close inspection. The greatest difficulty is this, that the amateur cannot resist the lure of a great variety of plants, and unless a vigorous thinning out is faithfully practiced and the habit of growth, the period of blooming, the height and color of each individual is carefully studied, the effect of the whole is very apt to be mussy and distracting to the eye, whereas the ideal garden is soothing in effect.

I have only been studying the problem for the last five or six years, so that I am still decidedly an amateur, but I have kept a faithful record of the time of flowering of each variety I have grown in my garden and have discovered that the time of blooming does not vary more than five days for each plant no matter whether the season be wet or dry. With this record at hand I can arrange each part of my garden with a view to the succession of bloom throughout the summer. I can place plants with clas.h.i.+ng colors side by side with the calm a.s.surance that they will not clash because their periods of blooming do not overlap. In this way I can completely change the color of certain parts of my garden during the summer if I so desire.

In studying combinations for the garden we must take into consideration the harmony and contrast of color, texture, form, height and the succession of bloom. We must also see that plants requiring the same soil and the same care are put together. In my garden I use both annuals and perennials but am limited in choice to those plants that are perfectly hardy, that will stand infinite neglect, drought, much wind, a stiff soil, that do not require especial protection in the winter, that will be in bloom all summer long and be beautiful. This, as I have found, is a rather difficult task.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Perennial border. Edging of pinks and Shasta daisies, pink canterbury bells and Festiva Maxima peony. Behind, pyrethrum, uliginosum and hollyhocks. Blue flowering flax adds depth to the pink and white.]

There is a great diversity of opinion as to how to set out plants. Some say, "Give each plant plenty of room; let it expand as much as it will."

Others say, "Each six inches of ground should have its plant; set them so closely that no dirt will show between; in this way each individual plant will be finer than when set out singly and the leaves will form a shade for the ground." I have used the latter method, for, since we have no means of watering, the conservation of moisture is an important item.

The chief objection is that there is a constant danger of overcrowding, and it requires a frequent resetting of plants as they increase in size from year to year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Yellow iris against the blue of distant hills.]

I have a border on the north side of my garden that is six feet wide and about seventy feet long. It is my aim to keep this in bloom all through the summer long. There is a background of purple and white lilacs and cut-leaf spirea. The first thing that comes in the spring is poet's narcissus, then groups of Darwin tulips; both of these are naturalized and remain in the ground from year to year. Next comes the perennial blue flax, a half dozen plants set at intervals down the border, that every morning from mid-April until August are a ma.s.s of blue. Clumps of May-flowering iris and then June-flowering iris and four large peony plants make the border bright until the latter part of June, when alternating groups of field daisies and pink and red sweet williams are in full bloom at one end of the border, and summer-flowering cosmos holds sway at the other end, while the flax, bachelor's b.u.t.tons and daisies fill the center with blue and white. By the middle of July the calendulas, coreopsis and annual larkspur make a vivid display where the narcissus was before. These four make a very good combination, for if the bed is well made and the narcissus planted deep, the coreopsis and larkspur seed themselves, and with the exception of a deep raking in the late fall the bed needs no attention except thinning out for three years, and it is in bloom for at least four months of the season.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pink and white pinks, field and Shasta daisies, canterbury bells and hollyhocks.]

In this border I have at last found a place for the magenta phlox that usually fights with the whole garden. I put it in front of a single row of pink and white cosmos, flank it on one side with pink and white verbenas, on the other with mixed scabiosas and in front of all a single row of Shasta daisies. This combination pleases the family as well as the phlox.

On the south side of the garden, against a low buckthorn hedge is a narrower border of sky-blue belladonna, delphinium, b.u.t.tercups and achillea, with an edging of Chinese pinks. I had thought the complementary colors of the delphinium and b.u.t.tercups would set each other off, but it is a very poor combination, for the foliage is so much alike that there is no contrast there, and when the plants are not in bloom it is almost impossible to tell which is which so as to take out the b.u.t.tercups, whose yellow is too bright. Shasta daisies set off the delphiniums to perfection with the wonderful purity of their white and yellow and pleasing contrast of form, foliage and height. With Emperor narcissus bulbs set between the plants, there are flowers in the border the whole season.

Another very poor combination that is in my garden, much to my sorrow, is hemerocallis and siberica iris. They started out about three feet from each other, but the hemerocallis spreads so quickly that now they form a ma.s.s that is almost impossible to break apart. Another mistake I made was to put Shasta daisies and field daisies near together. It is unfair to the smaller daisies, for although they are fully two inches in diameter, yet they appear dwarfed beside the giants.

There is one point in my garden that is vivid throughout the summer.

First comes the orange lilium elegans, then scarlet lychnis and later, tiger lilies. Another bit is gorgeous from the first of August until frost; it is made up of blue and white campanula pyramidalis, that grow quite five feet high, and Mrs. Francis King gladioli.

An important thing to think of is the line of vision from each point of vantage of the house--the endwise view of a multicolored bed of fairy columbines against a light green willow from the sewing room window, from the library the blue of a Juniata iris swaying four feet up in the air in front of a sweet briar, from the front porch pale yellow Flavescens iris through a mist of purple sweet rockets.

The garden is in its glory during the iris season. At a conservative estimate we have about twenty-five hundred of them in our little garden, ranging through all the colors of the rainbow and blooming from April until late June. They may easily make such an increase that it is baffling to cope with, but they are so beautiful and so amenable to the experimenting of an amateur that we feel as though we couldn't get enough of them. Last summer a wonderful effect was achieved by putting dark blue and mahogany-colored pansies beside Jacquesiana and Oth.e.l.lo iris, this repeating the color and texture in different plants.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rocky Mountain columbine against the willow hedge, with perennial candytuft as edging.]

We leave the garden through a wooden arch. Climbing over one side of this is a Thousandschon rose, and on the other side a Dr. Van Fleet grows rank. A wild clematis is planted beside each rose and fills the top of the arch. I am rather dubious about the combination, for I fear the clematis may grow so heavy that it will choke out the roses, but this summer at least it was beautiful, and another summer will come to try other combinations.

Truck Crop and Garden Insects.

AN EXERCISE LED BY PROF. WM. MOORE, ENTOMOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY FARM, ST. PAUL.

There is one insect that probably all those who are in the market garden business are very much interested in, and that is the cabbage maggot. As you all know, in the spring of the year, after cabbages are put out, frequently you will find the cabbages slowly dying, one dying one day and two or three the next day, and so on until sometimes fifty per cent or more of the cabbages die. At first it is not exactly apparent what is killing the cabbages, but when one is pulled up it will be noticed that a little maggot is working in the root of the cabbage. This insect is commonly known as the cabbage maggot.

For a number of years work has been carried on with the cabbage maggot, and all sorts of treatments have been tried, many without any great success. The unfortunate part is that usually the market gardener don't take much thought of this maggot until it is actually doing the injury, and at that time they are mighty difficult to handle.

There have been several different treatments advised, one of which is fresh h.e.l.lebore, about two ounces steeped in a quart of boiling water and then diluted to a gallon and poured upon the base of the plant. It will destroy the maggots, but h.e.l.lebore is very expensive and, as probably most of you know, there isn't a great amount of profit in cabbage; so any treatment will have to be a cheap treatment, or you will use up your profit.

During the last two years I have been working along a line which is entirely different from the treatment of the maggot, and that is based upon the fact that the fly which lays the egg which produces the maggot in the cabbage comes out early in the spring and flies about the field for probably a week or ten days or two weeks before it lays its eggs, and during that period it eats any sweet material which happens to be on hand. With this as a basis we thought we might be able to poison the flies and thus prevent injury from the maggots, and we have tried several different spray mixtures along that line. One mixture which we use is a mixture which is normally used against the fruit flies which are oftentimes injurious to fruit, particularly in the east and in tropical countries. This contains three ounces of a.r.s.enate of lead, two and half pounds of brown sugar and four gallons of water. The idea is to spray this in the field, spraying it on the plants as soon as the plants are put out in the field. We have more or less definite dates for the appearance of the flies in the field and for their disappearance again. But, as you know, the season varies, and the result is somewhat uncertain. So probably the best method is to base it upon the time you plant out your cabbage. In the early seasons you will plant your cabbages early, and in the late seasons later. So plant out your cabbage and then spray them every week until the 10th of May.

You should spray them, not to cover the leaves with the poison, but merely sufficient so that there are a few drops of this poisoned material on the leaves so that the flies can eat it. Flies will come there and feed upon this mixture and die.

It is rather peculiar that we started work here about the same time on the cabbage maggot that they started work on the onion maggot along similar lines in Wisconsin. I don't think that either knew that the other was working towards that end. They used a different mixture, one-fifth ounce of sodium a.r.s.enite, one-half pint of New Orleans mola.s.ses and one gallon of water. This was sprayed over the onions and was very successful in controlling the onion maggot.

I tried their mixture this last year. They published some of their results last year, so it gave me an opportunity to watch their mixture in comparison with the lead a.r.s.enate. They claimed the lead a.r.s.enate did not act as quickly as the sodium a.r.s.enite. That is true, but when you have a ten-day period to kill the fly it don't make much difference whether it dies in ten hours or twenty-four. The flies are not doing any injury. If you take the lead a.r.s.enate and sugar and water and put it in a jar, the a.r.s.enate always sinks to the bottom, and if you were to test it that way, the fly would feed on the top and you might not get a quick result. But if you spray it on, the lead a.r.s.enate will kill as quickly as the sodium a.r.s.enite.

There is an objection to the use of a.r.s.enite in that sodium a.r.s.enite is a soluble poison and will burn the leaves of the cabbage. Of course, that is not particularly serious as those are the first leaves the cabbages have and the cabbage soon gets over any slight injury, but many truck gardeners probably would object to that. In the onion you have a different shaped leaf, and the injury is not so apparent. Last summer I found that New Orleans mola.s.ses would give you a little bit better result than the sugar, and it is cheaper. The objection to the New Orleans mola.s.ses is the sticky nature of the material in handling.

I might mention in regard to opening cans of New Orleans mola.s.ses. If you never opened one and try this treatment, be careful about opening the can. The lid is pushed down tight and under warm conditions, or if the mola.s.ses has been in a warm room there is a certain amount of fermentation and gas under pressure, and if you pry it open quickly you find the lid flies up in the air and you will probably be smeared over with mola.s.ses.

I employed my spray, that is, one ounce of lead a.r.s.enate, one-half pint of New Orleans mola.s.ses and one gallon of water last season. The check plots had cabbages attacked by the maggots, probably 10 or 15 per cent of the plants dying from the attack. Last year was a very good season, that is, many of the plants seriously attacked put out roots again, and those were able to grow again in the sprayed plots. The infestation of the sprayed plots was probably about 30 to 40 per cent. of the plants, but they only contained probably one maggot each, which is very slight and not sufficient to do any damage.

There is one market gardener whose cabbage patch we sprayed, I think, only a part of two rows, and we thought we would leave the rest of his patch as a control. Apparently the amount of material we put on there was sufficient to attract the flies from the whole field. Not a single cabbage died, and he was pleased with the result of the spray.

Mr. Miller: What do you do for root aphis?

Mr. Moore: Root aphis can very easily be controlled with tobacco extract. It is put upon the root of any plant that is affected, a tablespoonful to a gallon of water. There are a number of different tobacco extracts on the market. Some of them contain 15 per cent. of nicotine, some contain 20, some 25 and some 40, and I think there is one brand that contains 45 per cent. You will find that the brands that contain the most nicotine are the most expensive, but in proportion you use less material. Thus 20 per cent. tobacco extract would take two tablespoonfuls to the gallon, while 40 per cent. would take only one. It is the nicotine which is the working portion of it.

Mr. Miller: Then you can use the black leaf forty?

Mr. Moore: It is very good, it is 40 per cent. nicotine. There is another product put out by the same company, a black leaf, only 15 or 20 per cent. This is cheaper, but you have to use more of it. If anything probably the more expensive would be the cheaper in the long run.

Mr. Wintersteen: The maggots that attack the radishes and turnips are the same as the cabbage maggot?

Mr. Moore: Yes, sir.

Mr. Wintersteen: Why is it I have no trouble with the cabbages, and yet I can raise no radishes or turnips in the same ground?

Mr. Moore: The radishes and turnips are attacked and the cabbages are not?

Mr. Wintersteen: Yes, sir.

Mr. Moore: Which do you raise, early cabbages?

Mr. Wintersteen: Yes, sir.

Mr. Moore: What variety do you raise?

Mr. Wintersteen: The Wakefield, generally.