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 litter 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.
To Your Success
Perzina Munroe
http://www.12path.com/HBC/
http://www.babydarest.com