Heirbloom Beans, what are they? Heirloom beans are the ones that our fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers have been growing year after year here in New England. They have selected them over a long period of time to suit the climate and soil and to give them a quality that New England people like. They are mostly either green shell or dry shell beans – usually colored, rarely white and seldom to be bought excepting occasionally on local markets. They come under such names as Jacob’s Cattle, Job’s Cattle, Trout, Coach Dog, Boston Beauty, Horticulture, Arlington, Wild Goose and Soldier. These are just a few of the names. There are many more.

I was first attracted to the multiplicity of types and varieties when judging beans at the county fairs in New Hampshire. Whenever I judged a plate of beans I had never seen before, I put a small handful in my pocket, and in this way I have collected perhaps 150 or 200 samples all told – beans that were grown by somebody, somewhere, and in nearly every case beans that could not be bought from seed companies.

In many cases, these beans are really the best and most productive ones that can be grown in the neighborhood. The navy has always refused to buy colored beans with the possible exception of the red kidney. I do not know why the navy, and for that matter all the armed services, specified white beans. I suspect it was because they could tell bad beans better when the color was white than when it was spotted. But, the home gardener did not mind a colored bean. In fact, I think most of the home folks are like myself; they take pleasure in the thousand and one designs which are found in colored beans. They are interesting as well as nutritious.

Most of these beans have been handed down to us from the Indians. I am told that the Indians were fond of colored beans and, perhaps, carried them around in their pockets the same as I do when I see pretty ones in the Fall. To me, the most striking design is that of Jacob’s Cattle, or Trout – a beautiful white bean spotted with red. It is, perhaps, the second most widely grown bean in New Hampshire. I often wondered where the pattern came from. At a Fair in New York I saw an exhibit of Incan beans that had exactly this same Jacob’s Cattle pattern. Of course, you might say that the Peruvians, noticing the striking pattern and beauty of this bean, bought some of our New Hampshire beans, but I am more inclined to think that it is a pattern which was cultivated thousands of years ago in the mountains of South America.

The Indians are also said to have a sharper sense of taste than the white man, and they prefer colored beans to white beans. In any case, I am sure that all the different types, the ones with spots on them, the ones with stripes on them, the Soldier type of beans and the different colors were common with the Indians long before the white man came to this country. We do have a definite history of the Great Northern bean, which is not a New England Heirloom. It was cultivated by the Mandan Indians of North Dakota previous to the white man’s appearance. The white man simply grew it in large acreages and sold it to the government for navy beans.

In New Hampshire the most widely planted of these beans is the Soldier. This is a bean of kidney shape, with the figure of a soldier around the eye, a jaunty figure in a brownish uniform with square shoulders. It is really a striking design. However, this same design is also found on the Improved Yellow Eye, which is a marrow type bean grown largely in Maine. The Yellow Eye, by the way, is one of the few Heirloom beans that has found its way into commerce.

Then, there is the Horticulture group of beans, and I have often wondered how I could describe or differentiate the Horticultural group. They usually have brownish or reddish stripes. They make fairly acceptable string beans, most excellent shell beans, and are also used by many people as dry beans. They come in many sizes and shapes. Some are pole, some have short runners, others are dwarf. Some have long red pods, others have short, yellowish pods.

I was attracted by a reddish bean of the Horticulture type with beautiful long pods, a shell bean which was shelled and sold in pint boxes on the roadside markets in southern New Hampshire. The bean looked very good to me, but I found that the women folks (lid not buy it because the pods were yellow instead of red. When the bean itself was shelled it had the most beautiful red shells imaginable. Why not cross this productive, long-podded Heirloom bean with a bright colored one like French’s Horticulture, which was hard to shell in the first place and which, when shelled, had white beans? The cross was easily made, but it took about 10,000 plants to produce one that had both red pods and red beans. This cross has gone out on the market as a true dwarf, which is called Flash, and a runner bean which is called Brilliant.

However, in trying out the various types of Horticulture beans that were sent hi, one in particular that came from Littleton, New Hampshire, seemed to stand out. This is called the Littleton Horticulture and is now on the market as a high yielding, resistant bean for New Hampshire. The red colored Horticulture bean I found out afterwards was grown all over New England. One person from southern New Hampshire said that her great grandfather had obtained it in a store in northern New York from a shipment of white beans that had come into New York from Canada, perhaps 75 or 100 years ago. There were just a few of these red beans which granddad took home and planted, but they had been in the family ever since. This bean goes under the name of Souhegan in southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts. In Vermont, it is called the Vermont Cranberry and in Maine, King of the Earlies. It is also called Dora and often by such local names as the Gage bean.

One of the most interesting beans that came in seemed to be a mixture of this King of the Earlies, or Vermont Cranberry, and red kidney. It came to us from Woodstock, New Hampshire, under the name of Joshua Smith bean. We picked out the red kidney ones and soon developed a red kidney type of bean which is two weeks earlier and yields higher. We think it is of much better quality than the real red kidney.

The Jacob’s Cattle is really my favorite because of its pretty spotting. There are many types: some early, others late; some which grow on small, dwarf plants, others on larger ones. One strain that we had grew five feet tall, the largest dwarf bean I have ever seen. By the way, a dwarf bean is a runnerless or bush bean. It is, perhaps, the second most widely grown bean in the state of New Hampshire.

Then, there are many pole beans. ‘the story about these is that they were brought over from Europe in the late ’60′s and ’70′s. The good ones survived; the poor ones fell by the wayside and survived only as Heirloom beans. Some of these are of the Horticulture type, beautiful, large-seeded, high quality beans. Others are true string beans with small and practically inedible beans, being good only for snap purposes. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Wild Goose, famous because of the legend, not because of any particular value. The legend is that a hunter shot a wild goose that had these beans in his crop. He saved them and planted them. I do not think much of the legend myself. In the first place, geese do not eat beans, and in the second place, if they did, ornithologists tell me that they would digest them in an hour or two.

The quality of these beans varies considerably. Some of them are pasty, very much like the California pea bean. Others are dry and rather .coarse grained, perhaps more like the Soldier or Jacob’s Cattle type. Whether you like them or not depends upon your taste. We found practically all of them good, but it seems to me that your taste for them would depend almost entirely upon whether you were accustomed to them.

by R Hepler

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Many persons have exclaimed with delight over a brilliant patch of the little red-crested lichen, or British soldiers, growing on sterile soil, and have gathered it for dish-gardens and table decorations; or have noted the widely-spreading, grayish green tufts of the so-called reindeer “moss,” one of the commonest of the soil lichens.

But the soil lichens are not generally so attractive nor so prominent as the rock-lichens. These rock-rosettes, or “doilies,” form an adornment on bare rocks and cliffs which are visible for great distances. Many of these attractive species are within easy reach of one who walks afield, except in the region of cities, for lichens cannot grow where the air is tainted with smoke or with the fumes of industry. The rock-lichens are especially noticeable on humid, damp, or rainy days.

Just what is a lichen? A lichen is a partnership between a fungus and an alga; a close association between a mass of fine fungal threads, entangling a multitude of little green cells of an alga. The algae most commonly present in this alga-fungus combination belong usually to the Blue-green Group, Cyanophyeeae or to the Green Group, Chlorophyeeae. The algae are able to live “wild” without the fungus; but in general the fungus threads soon perish if they do not come across the appropriate algae.

The body of many of the rock-lichens, generally of a rosette-form, consists of a particularly tough and resistant sheet of tissue made up of closely-felted fungal threads that completely protect the delicate little algal cells enmeshed within. The fungal threads afford shelter to the algal cells, and the algal cells manufacture food for the fungal threads, so “they live happily ever after.”

Of all the members of the plant world, the lichens possess the greatest capabilities of adapting themselves to the most widely divergent conditions of climate, altitude, moisture, drought, heat, and cold. They spread from the tropics to the poles, and their numbers increase from the equator northwards and southwards.

These are the first growths to appear on naked rocks and bare cliffs that offer neither foothold nor nourishment for other kinds of plants. With their acids, the lichens are able to dissolve the rock-forming minerals and thus break up the rock itself and secure a firm footing. They are, therefore, the pioneers which prepare the substratum upon which mosses and other minute growths can secure an anchorage and food. They live partly upon mineral solutes, and partly upon microscopic air-borne particles, but chiefly upon the products of the photosynthesis of their entrapped algal cells. After a. period of growth, rock-decomposition, and decay, these hardy pioneers have thus prepared the surface of the rock for the succession of higher plants which follow, and which further carry forward the transformation of the rock into soil.

Lichens are the most widely disseminated of the larger plant forms. One species, of interest in this respect, is the green map lichen, Rhizocarpon geographieum, or Leddea geographica, (shown in the drawing) said to be the most universally distributed larger organism of any kind. It is found literally to the ends of the earth. It is the highest-growing of any of the plants of the Alps, and was the only plant growth found by Agassiz near the summit of Mt. Blane. It has been collected at the elevation of 19,000 feet in the Himalayas, where it occupied the very last outpost of vegetation. The same species has been reported from Mt. Chimborazo in the Andes. This is the little lichen that so attractively colors and makes more cheerful the forbidding bare summits of our Adirondacks, Green Mountains, White Mountains, and others; splashing its little rosettes of bright apple-green thickly over the naked rocks. But other species also lavishly decorate the austere cliffs and ledges of our northern mountains.

It was reserved for the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition to discover the most southerly existence of plant life. This was in the form of tiny lichens (not yet, I believe, determined as to genus or species) – lichens no bigger than the heads of pins, growing on the northern exposure of a mountain. Here for only a week or so in midsummer does the temperature rise above the freezing point. This short time, then, is the only growing-season for these minute atoms of life.

As to our known rock-lichens, it has long been supposed that some of them may attain to a very great age, though on this subject the records are fragmentary and scattered. One fmds such statements as these, for example: “Some species growing on the primitive rocks of the highest mountain ranges of the world are estimated to have attained the age of at least 1000 years.” (Lindsay). “One crust lichen, Vadolaria, has been known to increase one-half millimeter in size between the end of February and the end of September.” (Elliot). Some lichens “grow two or three years rapidly. Some have been known to he 45-years-old before beginning to fruit.” (Creevey). “We have no data from which to ascribe the age of tartareous species which adhere almost inseparably to the stones. Some of them are probably as old as any living organisms on earth.” (MacMillan). This authority also hazards the opinion that some rock-lichens may date back to the retreat of the last glacier. In this country this would mean something between 25,000 and 50,000 years.

Our longest and most careful study was made of three plants of the Parmelia genus, the commonest genus of rock-rosettes on mountains. The plants selected were three closely associated individuals of Parmelia centrifuga, a tightly adherent, thin, resistant species, that grows at a higher altitude than most other members of the genus. The botanical and mathematical details of this study were reported in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club in January, 1948. The gist of this study is that the average growth-rate of all these plants together, measured over a seven-year period, was only 0.85 millimeters a year. This was at an altitude of 2,100 feet, where growing-seasons are much longer. Higher, above 3,200 feet, on Mt. Chocorua, New Hampshire, we found large rosettes whose age must have been 1,500 years or more. Through binoculars on inaccessible cliffs some 10,000 feet or more in altitude, in the Alps, we have recorded far larger patches which we judged may have begun growing some 10,000 years or so ago. So it seems reasonable to suppose that lichens represent the oldest living beings on our earth. Of course, this does not mean that the plant tissue we see now has been in existence over that period of time, for the central point of original growth in these great rosettes has disappeared, and only a ring of younger growth may persist. The inner portion of the rosette is often occupied with subsequent concentric frilly lobes, or mosses which have lodged upon the decomposing tissue of the original earlier zones of lichen. But, however that may be, these plants carry downward the succession of an age-long chain of constant growth.

The life of such lichens is maintained tinder the most trying of conditions. On the very lofty mountains, growth must be exceedingly slow, half, quarter, or probably much less than a quarter of the rate we found by measuring the New Hampshire lichens already described. Moreover, it is known that lichens are able to live for long periods, probably many years, in a static condition, with no growth. Hence the notion advanced by some botanists, and now upheld by the present investigations, that some lichens may date back for their beginning of growth to the time of the retreat of the last glacier is not fantastic.

The life of the rock-clinging lichens of mountains consists of a very short growing period. For part of the time they are frozen solid, and again are baked to a fierce hot state of desiccation by the sun blazing down upon the rocks through the rarified atmosphere. We measured the temperature of the surface of the rocks next to several lichen patches we were studying in the mountains, and found it to be in excess of 144 degrees Fahrenheit – a temperature almost unbearable to the hand. The lichens in the vicinity were baked into a hard, apparently absolutely moistureless condition. They crumbled in the hand into a dry powder! And yet there must have been viable, soft, living protoplasm within the cells, for when clouds enveloped the mountain for a few hours and soaked all the rocks, out the lichens came, bright and soft and fresh.

by H Hausman

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Despite all that may be said or that may be read, most of us learn by example rather than by precept. Visiting a garden is usually a most enjoyable occasion and very frequently a most profitable one, for the opportunity to make one’s own appraisal as to the value of practices and material is not to be ignored by any gardener.

The first garden visit that I can distinctly remember was as a child to a garden of an elderly couple. The garden was on a rather steep hillside and, as we proceeded hand in hand, I noticed that all the better specimens were on the upper side of paths. That was an elementary lesson in planning that has been of great value to me in later years.

Years ago my attention was called to a distant garden by a friend who knew of my interest in garden problems. This garden had been started by a grandfather and mother who, in breaking the sod of the prairies, would bring in plants for their garden. Through three generations the garden had been augmented by contributions and exchange almost always in the form of seeds from friends far and wide. The garden was large and apparently without form or plan, nor was there evidence of great care, but I have never seen a garden or a display that could be more aptly described as a riot of color.

The time of the first visit was in early Spring when wild flowers were at their best and the profusion of bloom from volunteer seed was remarkable. This garden was visited repeatedly at various times of the year so that the nature of the material in the garden varied greatly, yet always there was the same impression – a profusion of bloom with little conflict. Most gardeners realize in time that the production of viable seed and securing good germination are not simple matters.

Passion For Iris and Peony Hybrids

When we stopped at the garden gate of the elder brother, whose contribution of iris and peony hybrids has been so valuable, he greeted us by saying “You have come to see the flowers; no one has ever done that before.” While he had already introduced some of his peony and iris seedlings in the East he was practically unknown as yet in the mid-West. His garden was in a rather extensive farm orchard, and it was already apparent that his increased interest in flowering plants left little time for other forms of horticulture. Everywhere between the trees were rows and plots of seedlings while evidently all the seed stalks on the older plants were tagged to indicate the nature and time of crossing. At that time he was hybridizing many varieties of plants rather than devoting all of his efforts to a few.

There are those who become so absorbed in what they are doing that there is but little time to put into words that which is done. Gladly would the gardener show us what he was doing, but the significance of what was to be seen depended largely upon the visitor’s ability to comprehend. In time there developed an understanding that was unspoken yet it served its purpose in a better manner.

With improved roads and better vehicles, the range of garden visits increased mightily. While I have enjoyed seeing exhibition gardens, their problems are not my problems nor is my garden like theirs. Nor do I care for vast fields of flowers grown and maintained for seed or bloom, and gardens composed largely of a single kind of plants do not especially appeal to me.

Having been long interested in wild flowers, perhaps three visits to gardens in the Smoky Mountains should be mentioned. The first of these was very complete, well-kept and planned and we saw things that we shall probably never see again, but a stop along the mountain roadside could have been somewhat more interesting. The second garden indicated very great skill, yet that skill had been used to display native plants in an unnatural manner. Upon our second visit we found that the garden had been taken back to the forest on the mountain side. I doubt whether a tactless remark on my part had anything to do with this as wild flowers can generally speak for themselves.

I shall always remember the third garden as an approach to perfection. There were really four gardens rather than one and no one was at home – which can be an advantage. The first garden was simply an outcropping of gray granite slabs with little, gray-leaved native plants in every crack and crevice. The second was a rock fall from an overhanging ledge and, in falling. the rocks had brought along plants with just enough color to give life to the garden. The third was an excellent collection of azaleas and rhododendrons so skillfully arranged that it was hard to believe that it was a made garden. The fourth garden was perhaps the most difficult, consisting as it did of those taller, more robust perennials that are natives of the southern highlands.

Perhaps some day I may by good fortune be permitted to see gardens such as these again. I dread to think of what might have been done with the materials and opportunities. In the dryer and higher prairies of the West there are regions so difficult in rainfall and humidity that it is necessary to keep the land fallow in alternate years if a crop of wheat is to he raised. One would hardly look for a garden containing those plants that show a preference for gray skies, fogs and frequent drizzles. Apparently, however, there are gardeners, for I know a few, who are indifferent to hot winds, droughts, and intense sunshine.

Most of us have found out that in gardening it is not always easy nor is it possible to repeat a happy experience no matter how hard we try. It is not always possible to learn much through a garden visit but, nevertheless, it is always worth-while to try.

By A. Rapp

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The name LOTUS has many different meanings in various parts of the world. Poets speak of the “lotus eaters”; this plant is believed to be a jujube, possibly Zizyphus. Here in America, the word has been given to various water-lilies, including even the Nymphaea, of which our lovely white water-lily is the most familiar example. More commonly, the name is now applied to species of Nelumbium. Most properly, the name lotus should be used chiefly for the East Indian species, Nelumbium nelumbo, often and erroneously known as the Egyptian lotus. In color, the gorgeous flowers vary from white to red and make a charming water plant for large gardens. The native species is Netumbium pentapetalum, often called water chinkapin. The flowers are a pale yellow and graceful as well as delightful in every way. It grows wild in New England and adjacent territory and also in the mid-West. Unfortunately, it is found infrequently, although usually abundantly in ponds where it has survived. It is perfectly hardy in gardens, provided the water is deep enough to prevent the roots from freezing.

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July brings the first long-awaited opportunities to sit back, in your porch rocker or lawn chair, and enjoy your garden’s rewards in beauty and flowers. With most chores completed, you may now concentrate on maintenance and watering.

Enough emphasis cannot be placed on watering as much of the progress or failure of your garden depends on it. Get in the habit of taking the nozzle off your hose so the watering can deep and penetrating. A simple rule to remember is: water thoroughly or not at all.

Continue your battle against bugs and blights on your roses. Insecticidial soap or Neem Oil will take care of rose bugs and Japanese beetles, and sulphur dust or a fungicide will protect against black spot and mildew.

Speaking of mildew the flowering period of phlox begins this month. Blooming plants with mildew-free foliage should be the pride of every late Summer perennial border. Continue with your sulphur sprays started earlier; if you overlooked this need, it. is better to start now rather than not at all.

Make room for a crape-myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica, in your garden if you are lucky enough to live where it is hardy. Enormous, rose flower panicles appear in the late Summer. Of easy culture, crape-myrtle does well as far north as Baltimore, and though it will survive as far north as New York City, it suffers from Winter injury or fails to bloom because of insufficient Summer heat. Variety elba is white.

For continuous bloom, keep the faded flower clusters of polyantha and floribunda roses cut off. Canes of rambler roses which have just flowered should also be cut to the ground. Food will then be directed to the present season’s canes which are to flower next year.

This is the time to sow delphinium and hollyhock seeds as soon as they are ripe. Seeds of biennials – foxglove, sweet William, forget-me-not, canterbury bells, English daisy, mullein and evening primroses – should also be started during the next two months.

Seeds of beets, turnips, string beans, lettuce, Chinese cabbage and carrots may be still sown. Late celery, cauliflower and cabbage plants may also be set out.

If your dahlia tips wilt, stem borers are most likely to blame. Cut off and burn affected portions, and spray or dust plants with rotenone.

Your house plants are probably enjoying their Summer vacation in the garden or porch. Water them with liquid fertilizer biweekly, and their response will be amazing. Cuttings for next Winter may be started during this month – geranium, begonia, coleus, philodendron, patient plant, ivy, and the like.

Cut off delphinium flower heads after blooming and permit plants to rest for a few weeks before watering and fertilizing for a second flower crop. Stalks should be cut at the base after they turn yellow and show signs of withering.

Tall perennials – phlox, asters, liatris, hibiscus, plume poppy, etc. – should be staked before they begin to bend over. There are many inexpensive supports on the market designed to be neat, durable and inconspicuous.

Wisteria pruning should be tended by cutting back the long, season’s shoots to three or four eyes. This promotes the development of small, flowering spurs. Vines will also appreciate an application of well-rotted manure.

If your growing season permits, gladiolus may still be planted for late flowers. A complete fertilizer should be mixed with the soil.

Watch out for Japanese beetle grubs in the lawn – they need to be controlled.

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The bloom pageant of early summer has now reached its peak. Soon the growth cycle that is initiated about midsummer will begin. Buds on trees, shrubs, vines and fruit trees will become vegetative (producing shoots) or fruitful (producing flowers). Some growth can be influenced by culture, some cannot. Cutting back the long green shoots of wisteria to three leaves will spur the formation of flower buds, as will summer-pruning of fruit trees. Espaliered fruit trees should be pruned by cutting back the spring shoots to three leaves. Another way of influencing the cycle is to cease feeding fruit trees and to reduce the supply of moisture. Overfeeding at this stage leads to vegetative growth. On the other hand, rhododendrons and azaleas, especially newly planted ones, are benefited by watering, so that they may make full use of nutrients in developing flower buds.

Vegetables and flowers will need both feeding and watering. Midsummer brings a slowing up of available plant nutrients unless the soil was well supplied at the beginning of the season with plenty of organic matter. The moisture will be all but depleted. Unless rain is plentiful you will have to water. Watering means soaking the soil. Early morning or evening is the best time for watering, as there is less surface evaporation. Conserve soil moisture by covering all exposed soil surfaces with a mulch. Weeds make a good mulch so long as they are not ripening seeds. Sawdust is excellent but before applying it give an application of 5-10-5 fertilizer or one of the dried manures.

Feeding

Liquid feeding is the most efficient and least expensive method. Use a high-analysis fertilizer such as 15.30-15 or 13-26-13. Follow directions carefully.

Very little and often is the rule. If it is overdone it is not only wasted but it may make many crops and plants soft and prone to disease. Fertilizers such as 5-10-5 are best applied dry; these low-analysis fertilizers do not mix readily with water. Apply in a 3-inch band around single tomato or cabbage plants and pole beans. Apply on either side of root crops and closely spaced crops such as lettuce or celery. One pound should cover 20 running feet. An important factor is an adequate amount of moisture in the soil. Rake or scratch the fertilizer in and apply water. Do not allow fertilizer to touch foliage.

Peas are about finished in the warmer sections but still bearing farther north. Depending upon the region, replant this area with late cabbage, corn or winter celery. The fertilizer and manure given the peas will, with an additional application of any all-purpose fertilizer such as 5-10.5 be ample for another substantial crop. Get in main crops of beets, carrots and rutabagas. Continue sowings of snap beans, lettuce and radishes. Endive and Chinese cabbage may be sown in the cooler regions, but it’s too soon for the warmer sections. These like cool weather. Chihli is an excellent variety of Chinese cabbage. Sow where it is to mature. as it does not transplant easily. Keep tomato plants tied up and see that the soil for these is well supplied with moisture. Maintain a mulch but avoid overfeeding.

Summer Operations

In sections where gardeners enjoy a long fall, late annuals – zinnias, cosmos, Phlox drummondi, candytuft and alyssum – sown now will provide autumn bloom. Divide clumps of bearded iris. If you wait until August to do this, you will run the risk of checking basal buds which will be forming for next year’s bloom. Plants divided now will proceed with normal development. Replenish the soil with organic matter and add lime or a good dressing of bonemeal. Prune climbing and rambler roses, removing the canes which flowered and tying in the new ones for next year. Do not prune climbing hybrid teas, perpetuals or polyanthas. These are pruned in the spring before flowering.

If you want young strawberry plants, sink 2-inch pots filled with soil in the ground near the plants. Set a young runner plant in each pot, holding each in place with a hairpin. When fully rooted the new plants may be severed from the mother plant and planted out in a new bed.

Eradicate lawn weeds and others with 2,4-D but keep it away from other plants. Poison ivy is best eliminated with Ammate, a trade name for ammonium sulfamate. If the ivy is growing on a tree trunk detach it before applying Ammate.

Insects, Disease

Step up the campaign against black-spot of roses, mildew and other diseases and against the various insect pests. Sulphur dust or any of the better fungicides will hold the diseases in check if applied systematically, especially before or after a rain or during foggy weather. All-purpose dusts or sprays designed to control both insects and disease are convenient and easy to use. If you use the dusting method, it is best to wear a respirator; many cases of irritation to throat and nostrils from dusts are reported every year.

Few plants give more results per unit cost than perennials, yet I often wonder if we get from perennials the returns they are capable of. Seeds sown this month have a long season for development. Many of the new introductions – marked improvements over the old-time species and varieties – offer the gardener the rare and unusual. The many new strains and varieties of columbine are so different and contain such beautiful flowers that no comparison between these and the old-time kinds is possible. The long-spurred Scott Elliott hybrids run through a dozen lovely colors. The longissima hybrids are a result of the crossing of the Scott Elliott hybrids with the species longissima. Chrysantha is a tall golden yellow; Clematiflora has flowers like clematis blossoms. The new Jaetchau is a variety of Chrysantha and there are many others worth trying.

Perennial scabiosa and the Russell lupine are not successful where the summers are hot and humid. But in the more northerly sections they should be things of beauty.

Culture

Good seed from a reliable concern is the first step; proper soil conditioning is the second. The ideal spot for sowing is a coldframe. By shading the glass, moisture and temperature can be controlled. But conditions comparable to those in a coldframe can be simulated to a large extent by preparing a 5-foot wide bed, breaking down the soil to a fine texture and mixing some well decayed compost, leafmold or peatmoss into the top 3 inches. Scatter 1 heaping teaspoon of superphosphate per square yard before the final raking. Draw 1/2-inch deep drills across the bed and fill several times with water. Sow seeds when all water has subsided, covering them 1/2 to 1/4 inch deep with fine soil. Drive 18-inch stakes around the bed. Surround the bed with burlap or cheesecloth and make a canopy, resting it on wire or string attached to the stakes. The cheesecloth may be left on after germination because the light can penetrate it. The burlap must be removed at the time. of germination, although it may serve to provide some shade during the hot part of the day. A light covering of hay could be substituted for the above materials; the seedlings will come up through the hay covering.

Allow the true leaves to show well before transplanting, in order to insure an adequate root system which will survive the warm temperatures of this season. Transplant to well prepared soil. Transplanting to rows 6″ x 9″ will allow for better culture until fall, when the plants may be set in the places where they are to flower or left until spring.

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For many years it was taken for granted that the gladiolus was a non-fragrant flower. The first natural impulse when one sees a flower is to smell it. As a result of this impulse some people began to detect slight odors and fragrance in certain gladiolus. Research disclosed that many of the original species used in producing our modern gladiolus were fragrant, but in selecting for size, color and form, this quality had been neglected.

The attempt to produce fragrance in gladiolus has followed two distinct methods. One group has gone hack to the fragrant species and by crossing them among themselves and on standard gladiolus. has sought to produce varieties carrying the qualities of our modern gladiolus, plus the fragrance of the species. The species Gladiolus tristis, was used in many hybrids.

The drawback to this approach to fragrance in gladiolus is that you lose much of the progress made in the last 150 years in breeding for size, color and form; as the fragrant species are small in size of floret and spike. These South African species are also Spring-flowering, like tulips, which adds to the difficulties of breeding and producing normal Summer-flowering gladiolus.

The other method of producing fragrance in gladiolus is based on the fact that many of our common varieties of gladiolus still carry recessive strains of fragrance from their original ancestors. By diligent and patient “sniffing”, these fragrant gladiolus were discovered, and began to turn up in commerce in the 1930′s.

Probably the first one to be advertised as a fragrant gladiolus was Mibloom, an early white with a red spot in the throat. Then came Incense, a small pink with yellow throat, which was widely heralded for its fragrance. It was fragrant but not much else could be said for it. Then some one discovered that New Era was slightly fragrant, as well as being a good gladiolus, and it was added to the list. Later a creamy white sport of New Era named Frilled Fragrance, was offered for sale. It was identical with New Era except in color. Summer Fragrance, a Queen of Bremen seedling, was a small ruffled rose pink with a light fragrance. Mora, a Shaylor seedling, is a light pink with a large contrasting red throat. To me this has an odor rather than a fragrance, but you definitely can smell it.

All of the above are of unknown parentage, or were chance crosses in which fragrance appeared. Among the “chance” fragrant crosses two others should probably be included. Diadem, of New Era and Vista Bonita parentage, was one of the largest in the fragrant class. It is a rose pink, but the fragrance is light and elusive. The other is Gwen, a seedling of Rose Marie Pfitzer and Meanly, is also a large rose but with a more persistent, though light fragrance.

In 1941 Brauer produced Perfume by out-crossing with Mibloom and then recrossing those seedlings. Perfume was a ruffled cream white with a rose dart in the throat and is still one of the most fragrant gladiolus in commerce.

I have over 150 selected seedlings under trial with varying amounts of fragrance.

I predict that within the next 10 years you will be selecting your new gladiolus by the type of fragrance they carry as well as by the color and size.

by OE Spencer

Related posts:

1. Growing Baby Gladiolus
2. Preserve a Jar of Garden Fragrance

Question: I have been told that when the field hedge rose was planted near a hybrid tea rose that the hybrid tea blossoms reverted back to a single wild rose in form, but retained their hybrid color. Could this happen? RG, Wisconsin

Answer: Your hybrid tea rose will not be changed in any manner by its proximity to other roses. Often a grafted rose sends up shoots from below the graft. These shoots are very vigorous and soon kill out the part of the rose that is above the graft. Then all you have is a wild rose of the sort used for grafting the hybrid tea. Always watch for shoots appearing below the graft and remove them promptly. They are easily identified since their foliage and stems are quite distinct from the growth above the graft and since they develop from below the surface of the soil.

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Answer: Steamed bone meal is an excellent, slow acting, organic fertilizer carrying about 20 per cent phosphorus and two per cent nitrogen. Five pounds per 100 square feet, applied in the early spring, is the average amount used. It is safe to use, and where a quick acting fertilizer is not required, it is to be recommended and should be of benefit to almost any plant, especially those having bulbs, corms, tubers or rhizomes.

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Answer: Quack grass is one of the worst pests in the lawn or garden. Only digging and removing every bit of the rootstocks will control its spread in your lawn. If one will take the trouble to remove every spear of quack grass for one entire growing season it will be eliminated from the lawn.

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