Never in the history of gardening have so many kinds of flowering plants been as easy to obtain as they are today. The assortment is so rich and varied that it is not always easy for experienced gardeners to decide which plant to use in a particular garden location. Who can imagine the dilemma new … Read more
Among the small secondary trees, few, if any, bloom in as great profusion as the redbud. The best-known species is Cercis canadensis, native from southwestern Ontario to New York, New Jersey, and Florida, and west to Texas, eastern Kansas, and Nebraska extending northward to north central Illinois. It may grow to 30’ feet or more, … Read more
If you want a graceful, lacy tree festooned in midsummer with great sprays of yellow flowers, choose the golden rain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata) for your lawn or parkway. It is the ideal ornamental tree, not only for summer but for each month of the year. When red-buds, wild plum, and forsythia bloom, the China tree, … Read more
Birds serve to maintain balance in nature by keeping in check insects, rodents, reptiles, and amphibia, the overpopulation of any one of which could drive a man from great areas of the earth. Birds also reduce the competition of weeds with cultivated plants by consuming millions of weed seeds. Warbler The warbler is probably our … Read more
In recent years, a disease, steadily increasing in severity, has ravished many pine plantings. The Austrian pine is the most seriously affected species in the Midwest, with older trees dying by the hundreds. The disease is called Sphaeropsis tip blight of pine and is caused by a fungus, Diplodia pinea. The pattern of infection reveals … Read more
To visit England is to visit a land of gardens—the most beautiful gardens in the world. And a large proportion of these gardens is open to the public, either for a charitable cause or on behalf of the National Garden Scheme to help impoverished owners keep them up. No article about this ancient and widely … Read more
A landscape is a picture that makes its own frame. Roofed by the sky, rimmed by trees, and floored with the solid earth. Every part of a garden composes itself into a picture that changes from hour to hour as the sun moves, from day to day as the seasons succeed one another, and from … Read more
“We weren’t going to kill ourselves gardening,” said Lewis Gannett in his book “Cream Hill.” “Just a vegetable garden the first year and a few ferns was our motto. But the flat stones about the water barrel outside the door after the barrel had been removed and the water turned into the house looked even … Read more
If you own a fine piece of woodland, you have three choices before you: to leave it a tangle of virgin growth, to “pretty it up” artificially, or to tame it gently to accent its natural beauty. We chose the last. Before making any plans, it is wise to learn exactly what you have. What … Read more
There is often a strip of ground in a garden that can only be put to good purpose with more labor than we can devote to it. It may once have been a lawn, which means mowing; or a long border, which needs weeding and upkeep; or merely a strip along the boundary fence in … Read more