Grow a dogwood for its beautiful pink or white blooms, brilliant red autumn berries, and rich mahogany foliage. A dogwood grows fast and, if five or six feet tall to start, may well bloom the year after transplanting.

The Sargent cherry flowers in late April; the blooms appear ahead of the bronzy young foliage, and seem literally to hide the branches and trunk. No wonder the Japanese have festivals at cherry blossom time! (more…)

Each cup-shaped blossom has six petals. The outer three are white, and the inner three striped green. Deep in the cup is a small cluster of yellow stamens. The blossoms hang down, so be sure to tip one up so you can observe the charming formation within. If you have a magnifying glass handy, take a really good look. The inner rims of the double flowers are “scrunched” and crinkled pale green.

Plant snowdrop bulbs 3 inches deep and about 3 inches apart and have about eighteen to a square foot. They also do best if allowed to form a good root growth before winter deeply freezes the soil, so set them out at the same time as the eranthis. (more…)

Only a narrow strip of mowed green grass surrounds our house. The rest of the “lawn” is all meadow-sunny meadow. Parts are high and dry, parts are low and boggy.  A stone wall stretches along one boundary-a wall where maples, ironwood, laurel, elm and wild cherry grow. Nearly 200 kinds of wild flowers thrive through the seasons in the meadow. Many were there when we moved; some we have added. Other new ones have simply appeared. In the nine years of our occupancy the flowers have doubled in quantity and quality-largely, I suspect, because we have delayed the annual mowing of the meadow from June till late August which gives the plants a chance to reseed and multiply. And what a wealth of material is here for indoor bouquets.

When you begin dealing with wild plants, just about anything can happen, most of it good, and much of it a surprise. Down in the meadow, I often find some new flower I have never seen before. Rushing to one of my books on wild-flower identification, I soon make the acquaintance of the meadow’s new inhabitant. (more…)

The only thing predictable about March-as a few million people have already noted-is its complete unpredictability. Here in Connecticut we can be pretty sure of snow during the month.

But through all the weather’s vagaries we had the surprise and joy of a lovely little winter flower garden beside the front door. The gap between winter and spring was gaily bridged by this garden’s rainbow of color. While on our place we have a minimum of cultivated areas and flower beds, I wouldn’t be without this one little garden spot even if it demanded a lot of care-which it doesn’t. (more…)

Whatever your previous concept, one thing is sure: If you are looking for a guaranteed low-labor method of soil improvement, hay can be one of your best allies. A thick layer of ordinary field hay will actually prepare any area for planting, literally transforming a piece of nubby ground into soft soil ready for growing things. And no digging and sod removal are involved. All this will occur in eight months to a year, depending on how tough the field is.

Suppose you have a desire to plant flowering shrubs, or a hedge of the self-sufficient multi flora roses at the wilderness edges of your place, or where the area is thick with weeds, field grass, heavy turf. Perhaps the very thought of plunging a spade into such matted earth fills you with dismay. A disc harrow and tractor seem needed to penetrate. Suppose you would like to set out some fruit trees, but the place for each tree must be dug and prepared at least 3 feet in diameter, which is a prospect to give you pause. But with the hay treatment it will be easy to prepare these or any areas you wish to plant. (more…)

White, pink and mauve flowers with fringed and tangled petals —fragrant always. These long-lasting lovely little harbingers of early summer are utterly irresistible.

Consider the area where you’d like to naturalize dianthus. They need full sun, will hold their own in field grass if given a good start. They like light sandy soil but will thrive in poor soil if it is on the sandy side, not clay. When you have selected a possible area for your project, buy a few plants and set them out and see what they do the next year. This we did in a part of our meadow where the black-eyed susans and daisies grow. The few plants thrived so we started our project. (more…)

There are endless possibilities in gloxinia hybridization. Most of the species will cross successfully with hybrid forms. And since the species have a richness and flexibility of foliage that is lacking in modern forms, they should be good material for you to use in your hybridizing program.

Should some of your hybrids impress you and your customers as really choice, you may want to work on the strain. Do it by self-pollinating the plants or by pollinating the hybrids with one of the parents, depending on which trait you wish to encourage and enlarge upon. (more…)

Interrupted-fern (Osmunda claytoniana, 4 ft.) is very like the cinnamon fern but the identifying feature is its freedom from tuft at the base of the pinnae. On the sporophyll the orderly march of pinnae up the stem is interrupted by a section of twisted curled dark brown spore cases—a most interesting feature and, of course, the reason for its name. Very hardy, very easy, very beautiful.

The lady fern (Athyrium filisfemina, or Asplenium filis-femina, 3 ft.) though delicate to look upon, is tough, and a rank grower. By fall it becomes raggedy and loses its color, but all summer its soft green fronds and feathery look make it a must. The curved fruit dots are one of its identifying features;
also, the pinnae increase in length sharply from the tip of the frond to the base, giving it a triangular look.

Maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum, 1-3 ft.) is a delicate, lovely species that grows in rich moist leafy soil. It will be content in a rocky, well-drained location, especially on a steep bank. In the spring the fronds uncurl in small wiry button¬hook designs of a deep magenta color. These fronds open into a sort of semi-circle pattern. The whole effect of the plant suggests, in color and texture, wild columbine, or meadow rue. This is the fern that dances. The fluttering delicate pinnae are ever in motion, so susceptible are they to every breeze. New fronds constantly emerging from the running rootstock produce fresh green foliage from April to September. This is one of the most beautiful of all ferns in its swirling patterns, its rhythms, and dancing grace.
The marsh fern (Dryopteris thelypteris, 2 ft.) grows under the speckled alders, or perhaps you’ll find some plants in a sunny bog among the cattails, facing their fronds helter skelter in any old direction. This is a rampant grower. Its lower pinnate are very long, and the pinnules of the sporophyll appear pointed because of reflexed edges.

The New York fern (Dryopteris noveboracensis, 1-2 ft.), though related to the marsh fern, is different in that the fronds taper at both ends. New Yorkers are said to burn their candles at both ends, hence its name! The fronds, thin in texture, grow erect and are arranged in parallel ranks facing the light. Stems are smooth and scale-free. What a pleasant odor the fern emits when crushed, and what a fine ground-cover it creates, multiplying and spreading rapidly. Look for the fruit dots on the margins of the pinnules. (more…)

If you have but three trees and a little shade, ferns will convert this to a real woods setting, small in scale perhaps, but genuine in feel and atmosphere. Whatever small wooded area they grace, ferns seem to enlarge it. They even bring the feel of woods where no woods exist at all, as when planted on the north side of a wall, in the lea of a building, or in any protected shady place.

What’s more, you can dig almost any fern you need from the wild; few species are on conservation lists. (Check first, just to be sure.) (more…)

At any rate, it all began one recent April—with spring fever in the air, warmth penetrating the soil, and three delightful primrose plants in a grocery store window. Large and lush and yellow they were as they caught the sunlight that golden morning. It was one of those days when anything could happen and all of it good—but how could I have anticipated where just three primroses would lead?

They traveled home, packed carefully among the butter and carrots and chile sauce. The groceries disappeared in due course. But by the second season those three primroses, planted informally in the wooded area along our brook, had doubled their size and number of blooms. Obviously they liked their environment. In England the hedgerows glow with primroses which receive only ordinary care. Why not have an “English Woods” on our Connecticut acres, with not dozens but hundreds—maybe someday even thousands—of primroses running riot in sweeps, in clusters, and with utter abandon? Why not indeed? (more…)