Wild Flower Garden
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 neighbors.
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 color 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
color and permanent color 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.
About the Author: D. Benjamin is the owner of
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