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Fourteen Favorites Among the Perennials

Arabis (rockcress) is usually thought of distinctively as a rock-garden plant, but gardeners who have tried it in the perennial border have found it so absolutely satisfactory that it is destined to become a highly valued inhabitant of the hardy garden. Once you have given it a chance to prove its worth in the spring planting scheme, you will never want to be without it. It is an amazingly useful little thing and clumps of it seem to be needed everywhere. It is excellent as an edging plant; it combines well with forget-me-nots as a bedding for the early spring bulbs; it helps to face down some of the taller plantings and its welcome white blooms help to separate inharmonious colors.

The plants are raised very easily from seed which may be sown at any time from spring until midsummer. It may also be propagated by cuttings taken from the young shoots immediately after its flowering season is over. The plants reach a height of six to eight inches, growing slightly taller in very fertile soil. The foliage is a cool, soft, gray-green in tone, and the flowers are pure white. The plants prefer a position in full sun and thrive best in a slightly sandy soil, although any good garden loam seems to be quite satisfactory. Arabis alpina is the best-known variety and may be obtained in both single and double forms. A clump of bleedingheart, with the Darwin tulip Clara Butt and white columbine planted nearby and arabis and forget-me-nots in the foreground, is a delightful bit of color planting.

Hardy Asters It makes one feel rather ashamed when one realizes that the gardeners of England have taken so many of our native American asters and, after spending years of careful labor in improving them, are sending back to us such poetically named varieties. It only goes to prove again that a flower is not without honor save in its own country; in Japan they grow our despised dandelion in their green-houses.

Among the best of the recent aster introductions are:-- Gray Lady, which bears large semidouble flowers of a distinct opal shade, unusual and rather beautiful.

Elta is a new double variety with flowers of pale lilac, an admirable plant. Climax, of the Novibelgi group, is one of the older and better established varieties. It is very lavish with its bloom and reaches a height of about five feet, bearing large showy flowers of lavender-blue.

St. Egwin, also of the Novibelgi group, produces a profusion of small rosy pink flowers and reaches a height of about four feet. Maid of Colwall is considered the best of all white asters, producing long, loose spikes of large flowers.

Glory of Colwall bears medium-sized flowers of ageratum blue, half double in form.

Little Blue Boy is of dwarf habit, reaching a height of about two feet, and is one of the earliest asters to come into flower. It is a rich blue in color. The hardy autumn asters are of exceedingly easy culture and one's efforts are more apt to be directed toward keeping them within bounds and curbing their enthusiasm than in struggling to make them grow. One of the secrets in the growing of hardy asters is to lift and divide the old clumps every three or four years. The plants are not particular as to soil, but will respond well to congenial conditions. Although they prefer full sun, they will thrive fairly well in a location that is shaded for a portion of the day. As they do not come true from seed, it is best to purchase plants if one wishes to obtain varieties of a given color. The wise course to pursue is to order a few choice named varieties and to propagate one's own plants by means of divisions or cuttings. The division of old clumps should be done in early spring and the cuttings should be taken from the fresh young shoots soon after growth starts. They root readily in sand and by autumn will be vigorous young plants, ready to set in their permanent location.

Hardy asters are valuable in the garden for their autumn bloom and they offer a wealth of lovely material for cut flowers. The tall-growing kinds, if left to their own devices, often grow so spindly and the lower portions of their stiff woody stems become so unsightly that they seem to detract from rather than add to the beauty of the garden. One tries in vain to arrange lower plantings in front of them to face them down, but it proves a difficult task at this season of the year. Some clever and ingenious gardener, however, has conceived the idea of bending down and training the unruly stalks, and it has worked a miracle in the appearance of many an autumn garden. This training must be done while the stems are green and pliable, before they have become in the least woody. A heavy wire staple, such as is used in putting down tape on a tennis court, is a most useful and satisfactory thing with which to fasten down the branches. Side shoots will develop and flower stalks will be thrown out all along their prostrate stems, and in the autumn the plants will be a veritable sea of bloom.

In the average small garden one does not feel that one can allot very much space to the hardy asters, and if one wants a really fine display some place should be selected, perhaps outside the confines of the garden, where a large massed planting can be grown. Such a planting can sometimes be skillfully worked into the landscape scheme in front of a shrubbery border, or along a drive, or close to a fringe of woodland. Dwarf, medium, and tall-growing varieties should be used and wonderfully beautiful blendings of color can be had.