File:American homes and gardens (1912) (17967638870).jpg

Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar91912newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York : Munn and Co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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HAT a month of joyfulness is June in the garden! It seems only yesterday that we were coaxing Mother Nature to lift her white blanket that Spring might awaken to new life the sleeping plants that lend their color to the season. We are reminded of all the poets of the garden, Wordsworth, Tennyson, even old Geoffrey Chaucer, who sings in one of his prologues: "When almost ended was the month of May, Along the meadows green, whereof I told, The freshly springing daisy to behold, And when the son declined from south to west, And closed was this fair flower, and gone to rest, For fear of darkness that she held in dred, Home to my house full hastily I sped; And, in a little garden of my own, Well-benched with fresh-cut turf, with grass o'ergrown I bade that men my couch should duly make; For daintiness and for the Summer's sake, I bade them strew fresh blossoms o'er my bed."
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Every corner of the lawn and garden deserves the careful attention that has been given to this attractively planted terrace nook We will find the lovely Columbine blossoming this month yellow or scarlet or red or purple or white, that flower of strangely contrasted names, borrowing Columbine from the Latin columba, a dove, and Aquilegia (its scientific name), from aquila, an eagle! In the old, old days of yore, credu- lous folk called it Lion's Herb, believing that it was the favorite food of these fierce animals of the desert and jungle. And nowadays we fondly couple the name Colum- bine with Columbia, and even find an association of enthu- siasts who seek to propagate the idea of its adoption as America's national flower, just as the Rose is for England and the Lily for France. Monkshood will be blossoming in June too. It is a lovely plant, but a sinister one. It was brewed by Medea to fill the poisoned cup offered the wary Theseus. It was with the juice of Monkshood (Aconite) that the ancients used to anoint their weapons when pre- paring to do battle, and the old-time Greeks were wont to tell how Chiron, the Centaur, discovered its dreaded powers by dropping upon his hoof an arrow that had been dipped in the juice of the plant, his death accompanying his dis- covery. They believed too that Monkshood was sown in the garden of Hecate by Cerberus, the three-headed mon- ster who guarded the place of shadows. But June's garden will find within its borders flowers of less sorrowful an ancestry,—Campanula (Venus's Looking-glass), Iris (the Lily-of-France), Honeysuckle, Hollyhock, Jasmine (to the Arabs the flower of love), Linden (the holy tree of the old Germans), the Rose, Pyrethrum, Salpiglossis, Schizanthus, Sedum, Spirasa, Sweet Alyssum, Sweet Pea, Veronica, the Violet (sacred to Venus when the gods were still upon Olym- pus), and the Larkspur, though that beautiful plant has al- most as sorrowful a history as the Aconite. This was the flower the marks of whose petals formed the letters A I A, signifying Ajax, terror of the Trojans, for it was believed that the blood of this disappointed hero dropped upon the earth, and from it the Larkspur as Delphinium Ajacis sprung forth. OF course there may be those to whom a garden means just plants—vegetables to eat or flowers to sniff at— prosaic persons who are so busy just living to-day that it never occurs to them that yesterday makes it possible and to-morrow will make it profitable. Why, when the whole world is full of interesting things about everything, should anyone be content to know almost nothing about anything? And isn't it true that we know too little about the things in our gardens, though we may pride ourselves greatly on the knowledge we have acquired of the subject of getting them in. TO care for the poetry of things does not mean deserting practical problems. Thus it comes to pass that if we would have beautiful flowers to talk about (and fat vege- tables—-what a temptation the mundane is, after all!) — we must go about the business of completing the manual

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