Amateur Gardencraft, page 149 by Eben E. Rexford
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ar if let alone.
If the season happens to be very dry, some of your plants--Dahlias, for instance,--will have to be watered if you want them to amount to anything. These must have moisture at their roots in order to flower well.
Other plants may be able to get along with a mulch of grass-clippings from the lawn. Most of our annuals will stand quite a drouth.
If one is connected with a system of waterworks it is an easy matter to tide a garden over a drouth. But where there is nothing but the pump to depend on for a supply of water, I would not advise beginning artificial watering except in rare cases, like that of the Dahlia. We always find that so much work is required in supplying our plants from the pump that after a little we abandon the undertaking, and the result is that the plants we set out to be kind to are left in a worse condition, when we give up our spasmodic attention, than they would have been in if we had not begun it.
It is well to use the hoe constantly if the season is a dry one. Keep the surface of the soil open that it may take in all the moisture possible. On no account allow it to become crusted over.
Seed of perennials can be sown now to furnish plants for flowering next season.
Look to the Dahlias, and make sure they are properly staked.
Be on the lookout for black beetle on Aster and Chrysanthemum. As soon as one is discovered apply Nicoticide, and apply it thoroughly, all over the plant. Promptness is demanded in fighting this voracious pest.
During the latter part of summer, when the extreme hot weather that we have at the north sets in, cut away nearly all the top of the Pansy-plants. This will give the plants a chance to rest during the season when they are not equal to the task of flowering, because of the hot, dry weather which is so trying to them. Along in September, when the weather becomes cooler, they will take a fresh start and give us fine flowers all through the fall.
Look over the perennials and satisfy yoursel