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For the different parts of one’s garden there are many good varieties of Lychnis. Two of these are known as Agrostemma. Double Ragged Robin and Cuckoo Flower are both common names of Agrostemma, Lynchis Flos-cuculi. This plant, with narrow, grass-like, grayish foliage, grows from 12 inches to 18 inches high, forming a tuft, and producing many small, delicate, tassel-like flowers […]
There are many kinds of Anemones found growing in cultivated gardens, as well as in the wild of our woods. Some are among the first flowers to bloom along the river banks in the Spring and some bloom even after the early frosts of autumn. All thrive under cool conditions and in many cases the ground should be covered with […]
The Chinese Balloon Flower is very closely allied to the Campanulas. It grows erect and the stems are rigid. The flowers have five petals and open out rather flat, but when in bud they look like inflated balloons, from whence the common name is derived. The flowers are both single and double. They are blue and white in color and […]
Aster – Michaelmas Daisy The American who reads English books about gardens is thrilled by the love of the British for Michaelmas Daisies. He immediately hunts his own roadsides and delves into catalogs to acquire some of these lovely flowers. For the wild Asters are truly lovely and are an asset to any garden, many of which bloom at a […]
Polemonium – Jacob’s Ladder, Charity, Greek Valerian Jacob’s Ladder is a very ornamental and graceful flowering plant of early Spring and Summer. The flowers are blue, or white, flat or bellshaped, and are borne in spikes; the foliage is very finely cut, much resembling fern fronds. Polemonium caeruleum or the Greek Valerian is rather bushy with long spikes, about 2 […]
There is hardly a group of flowers which possess such rare beauty as does the large genus of Campanulas. There are many sorts, some growing inches high and some from 4 feet to 6 feet high, but all have more or less bell-shaped flowers in lovely colors: white, clear pink, blue, rose, purplishrose, violet-blue and lavender. All of them are […]
The Chelone is sometimes confused with the Bearded Tongue (Pentstemon), to which it is closely related. It is a late Summer plant, coming into bloom about the middle of August, and lasting for six or seven weeks. The Shell Flower (Chelone glabra) has clusters of flowers of a light creamy white. The plants grow about 3 feet tall. The Turtle […]
Among our pernicious weeds is one whose seeds are provided with hooks which catch in our clothing when on a Summer walk through the woods. This is a Geum. It is a surprise, therefore, to find several excellent perennial flowers as its relatives. The common species, Geum coccineum, or chiloense as it is more properly called, grows from 12. inches to […]
The names of this flower are interesting to the garden lover with imagination. It is called Columbine, some say because the flowers appear like the cap of a court jester; others have suggested that the spurs of the flowers causing them to appear like a ring of doves (Colombo) about a dish. And its name Aquilegia, is it from aguilegus, […]
The grace of the Dicentras charms us whether in the woods or the garden. The Bleeding Heart, Dicentra spectabilis is one of our most showy old-fashioned flowers which everyone loves. It grows from 2 feet to 4 feet tall and spreads out almost the same distance. The leaves, which are a light, transparent green, are very neat, exceedingly graceful, and […]