Planting a Wildflower Garden

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Planting a Wildflower Garden

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Total visits: 124
Posted on: 2nd Feb 2014

A wild-flower garden has a most attractive sound.
One thinks of long tramps in the woods, collecting
material, and then of the fun in fixing up a real
for sure wild garden.

Many people say they have no luck at all with such
a garden. It is not a question of luck, but a question
of understanding, for wild flowers are like people and
each has its personality. What a plant has been
accustomed to in Nature it desires always. In fact,
when removed from its own sort of living conditions,
it sickens and dies. That is enough to tell us that we
should copy Nature herself. Suppose you are hunting
wild flowers. As you choose certain flowers from the
woods, notice the soil they are in, the place,
conditions, the surroundings, and the neighbours.

Suppose you find dog-tooth violets and wind-flowers
growing near together. Then place them so in your own
new garden. Suppose you find a certain violet enjoying
an open situation; then it should always have the same.
You see the point, do you not? If you wish wild flowers
to grow in a tame garden make them feel at home. Cheat
them into almost believing that they are still in their
native haunts.

Wild flowers ought to be transplanted after blossoming
time is over. Take a trowel and a basket into the woods
with you. As you take up a few, a columbine, or a hepatica,
be sure to take with the roots some of the plant's own
soil, which must be packed about it when replanted.

The bed into which these plants are to go should be prepared
carefully before this trip of yours. Surely you do not wish
to bring those plants back to wait over a day or night before
planting. They should go into new quarters at once. The bed
needs soil from the woods, deep and rich and full of leaf mold.
The under drainage system should be excellent. Then plants are
not to go into water-logged ground. Some people think that all
wood plants should have a soil saturated with water. But the
woods themselves are not water-logged. It may be that you will
need to dig your garden up very deeply and put some stone in the
bottom. Over this the top soil should go. And on top, where the
top soil once was, put a new layer of the rich soil you brought
from the woods.

Before planting water the soil well. Then as you make places for
the plants put into each hole some of the soil which belongs to
the plant which is to be put there.

I think it would be a rather nice plan to have a wild-flower garden
giving a succession of bloom from early spring to late fall; so let
us start off with March, the hepatica, spring beauty and saxifrage.
Then comes April bearing in its arms the beautiful columbine, the
tiny bluets and wild geranium. For May there are the dog-tooth violet
and the wood anemone, false Solomon's seal, Jack-in-the-pulpit, wake
robin, bloodroot and violets. June will give the bellflower, mullein,
bee balm and foxglove. I would choose the gay butterfly weed for
July. Let turtle head, aster, Joe Pye weed, and Queen Anne's lace make
the rest of the season brilliant until frost.

Let us have a bit about the likes and dislikes of these plants. After
you are once started you'll keep on adding to this wild-flower list.

There is no one who doesn't love the hepatica. Before the spring has
really decided to come, this little flower pokes its head up and puts
all else to shame. Tucked under a covering of dry leaves the blossoms
wait for a ray of warm sunshine to bring them out. These embryo flowers
are further protected by a fuzzy covering. This reminds one of a similar
protective covering which new fern leaves have. In the spring a hepatica
plant wastes no time on getting a new suit of leaves. It makes its old
ones do until the blossom has had its day. Then the new leaves, started
to be sure before this, have a chance. These delayed, are ready to help
out next season. You will find hepaticas growing in clusters, sort of
family groups. They are likely to be found in rather open places in the
woods. The soil is found to be rich and loose. So these should go only in
partly shaded places and under good soil conditions. If planted with other
woods specimens give them the benefit of a rather exposed position, that
they may catch the early spring sunshine. I should cover hepaticas over
with a light liter of leaves in the fall. During the last days of February,
unless the weather is extreme take this leaf covering away. You'll find the
hepatica blossoms all ready to poke up their heads.

The spring beauty hardly allows the hepatica to get ahead of her. With a
white flower which has dainty tracings of pink, a thin, wiry stem, and
narrow, grass-like leaves, this spring flower cannot be mistaken. You will
find spring beauties growing in great patches in rather open places. Plant
a number of the roots and allow the sun good opportunity to get at them. For
this plant loves the sun.

The other March flower mentioned is the saxifrage. This belongs in quite a
different sort of environment. It is a plant which grows in dry and rocky
places. Often one will find it in chinks of rock. There is an old tale to the
effect that the saxifrage roots twine about rocks and work their way into them
so that the rock itself splits. Anyway, it is a rock garden plant. I have found
it in dry, sandy places right on the borders of a big rock. It has white flower
clusters borne on hairy stems.

The columbine is another plant that is quite likely to be found in rocky places.
Standing below a ledge and looking up, one sees nestled here and there in rocky
crevices one plant or more of columbine. The nodding red heads bob on wiry, slender
stems. The roots do not strike deeply into the soil; in fact, often the soil hardly
covers them. Now, just because the columbine has little soil, it does not signify
that it is indifferent to the soil conditions. For it always has lived, and always
should live, under good drainage conditions. I wonder if it has struck you, how
really hygienic plants are? Plenty of fresh air, proper drainage, and good food are
fundamentals with plants.

It is evident from study of these plants how easy it is to find out what plants like.
After studying their feelings, then do not make the mistake of huddling them all
together under poor drainage conditions.

I always have a feeling of personal affection for the bluets. When they come I always
feel that now things are beginning to settle down outdoors. They start with rich,
lovely, little delicate blue blossoms. As June gets hotter and hotter their colour
fades a bit, until at times they look quite worn and white. Some people call them
Quaker ladies, others innocence. Under any name they are charming. They grow in
colonies, sometimes in sunny fields, sometimes by the road-side. From this we learn
that they are more particular about the open sunlight than about the soil.

If you desire a flower to pick and use for bouquets, then the wild geranium is not
your flower. It droops very quickly after picking and almost immediately drops its
petals. But the purplish flowers are showy, and the leaves, while rather coarse, are
deeply cut. This latter effect gives a certain boldness to the plant that is rather
attractive. The plant is found in rather moist, partly shaded portions of the woods.
I like this plant in the garden. It adds good colour and permanent colour as long as
blooming time lasts, since there is no object in picking it.

There are numbers and numbers of wild flowers I might have suggested. These I have
mentioned were not given for the purpose of a flower guide, but with just one end
in view your understanding of how to study soil conditions for the work of starting
a wild-flower garden.

If you fear results, take but one or two flowers and study just what you select. Having
mastered, or better, become acquainted with a few, add more another year to your garden.
I think you will love your wild garden best of all before you are through with it. It
is a real study, you see.


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