Portcullis

“ On loose sandy soil, it might even be unnecessary to break up the soil in any way; the furrows may be dispensed with, and the seed sown broadcast after the land is harrowed. After the plants have come up, they should be thinned so that they stand 6-8 ft. apart. When the young trees have attained the height of 3-4 ft., the lower branches should be pruned off, and every effort afterwards made to keep the stem straight and clear, in order to facilitate the stripping, and induce an increased yield of bark. ”

“ Pigweed: Portulaca, or the native purslane, a creeping annual of a reddish-green colour and an excellent vegetable.
Triodia: Sometimes called spinifex, or porcupine grass, is a true desert plant, and at the end of each leaf it is so armed with short prickles that horses dread going through it, and stock never touch it except when it is very young or they are starving.
Gidya: A native name; the botanical name cannot be given without a specimen.
Western-wood Acacia: Same as Gidya.
Roley-poley: An annual salsolaceous plant. It grows in the form of a large ball, several feet high, on rich soil. ”

“ The partridges always led their little chicks to the very best feeding grounds. Well they knew where the plump little red partridge berries grew thick in their deep green beds of moss, and also they remembered where in the deep mountain slashes the luscious red raspberries hung in ripe clusters; and sometimes they had to do battle with the screaming blue jays to drive them off, providing they reached the feeding grounds first. ”

“ The growth of plant life is marvellous after the fall of soft rain on the warm rich soil. Portulaca, known as pigweed, is among the first of the plants to spring up, and grows in great masses; the seeds form a principal article of food for the birds that frequent the plains, the young plants are also used by stock, and are not despised by man in an emergency. All life, vegetable and animal, revives suddenly after the surface of the earth has been saturated with the life-giving element ”

“ If they wish to breed quarrels in an enemy’s house, they put the seeds of the amaltās or the quills of the porcupine in the thatch of the roof. The seeds in the dried pods of this tree rattle in the wind, while the fretful porcupine raises its quills when angry. Hence the seeds will impart the quality of noise to the house, so that its inmates will be noisy, while the quills of the porcupine will similarly breed strife between them. ”

“ Now if you gather a ripe poppy-head on a fine dry day all these holes are open, and if you hold it upright and swing it vigorously from side to side the tiny seeds come flying out of the holes and will be thrown to a considerable distance. The stalk is supposed to swing in a high wind, and the seeds are really slung or thrown out of the holes. But if, when you come home, you put your poppy-head in water, or look at the plants in the garden on a very wet day, you will find that every hole closes or is shut up, because the small door mentioned above expands so as to close the opening. ”

“ A perfect pond-lily is the most satisfactory of flowers. Besides these, I gather whatever else of beautiful chances to be growing in the moist soil by the river-side,—an amphibious tribe, yet with more richness and grace than the wild-flowers of the deep and dry woodlands and hedge-rows,—sometimes the white arrow-head, always the blue spires and broad green leaves of the pickerel-flower, which contrast and harmonize so well with the white lilies. ”

“ There are other species than those I have named, but the above-mentioned are not only the more distinct, and well represent the genus, but as flowers they form a richly beautiful trio of colour, so that, when grown side by side, their effectiveness is much enhanced; as cut bloom they answer well for furnishing old vases. Either growing or cut, their flowers and leaves are pleasant, but if bruised the odour is too powerful; they, however, when used in moderation, form a valuable ingredient of pot pourri.
They may be grown in ordinary soil, and in any position but a too shady one. ”

“ Lilies must never be crowded; a foot or twenty inches is about right. The soil should be dug deep and mixed with old rotted manure and sand liberally, unless the soil is naturally sandy; if heavy, clayey soil, it ought to have in addition to sharp sand, leaf mold and bog muck. Plant the bulbs from six to eight inches deep, according to the size. Last autumn, in planting my Lily, Tulip, Hyacinth, and other bulbs, I made a little bed for each of pure sand, and then covered well with soil, over which was put a blanket of old dressing, then, before snow, a covering of boughs. ”

“ The Porcupine Prickly Pear grows at high altitudes and will endure temperatures below zero without injury.
How to grow
A popular beauty in gardens, it grows readily from mature cuttings planted at almost any season. If planted in early spring, they should blossom the same season. The cuttings should be dried off first to give the cut time to heal over, planted in gravelly or loamy soil with about one-half of the cutting covered, and watered once a month during the growing season. The species may be grown also from seed in flats or pots in moist soil with partial shade but with dry air. ”

“ It grows chiefly on sandy heaths, or on dry poor grounds, which few other plants will agree with; it is common in Pensylvania, but particularly in New Jersey, and the province of New York, it is scarce in Canada; its leaves stay the winter; the flowers are a real ornament to the woods; they grow in bunches like crowns, and are of a fine lively purple colour; at the bottom is a circle of deep purple, and within it a greyish or whitish colour. The flowers grow as aforesaid, in bunches, round the extremity of the stalk, and make it look like a decorated pyramid. ”

“ She carried two slips from Ohio, where they were given to her by a man who had brought the trees as tiny things from the holy Land. She planted both in this way, one in her dooryard and one in her cemetery. The tree on the hill stands thirty feet tall now, topping all others, and has a trunk two feet in circumference.
Mrs. Porter's mother was of Dutch extraction, and like all Dutch women she worked her special magic with bulbs, which she favoured above other flowers. Tulips, daffodils, star flowers, lilies, dahlias, little bright hyacinths, that she called "blue bells," she dearly loved. ”

“ Sow on raised beds of light soil, the more sandy the better; and in seasons which speedily burn the life out of other plants, Portulacas will display their beauty, no matter how fiercely the sun may beat upon them. Water will occasionally be necessary, but it should never be given until there is obvious need for it. Portulacas are easily grown in pots or window-boxes, and they will bloom profusely where many other flowers only wither and die. ”

“ Pusley, or Purslane, is one of the commonest garden weeds; everybody knows how difficult it is to keep the spreading rosettes out of gravel walks, and we are all familiar with the gaudy, ephemeral flowers of the cultivated Portulaca. ”

“ For making patches of colour, without paying special heed to the size of flower or development of individual plants, annuals may be sown thinly broadcast, raked in lightly, and, if the beds or borders are not too wide for reaching, thinned out as soon as four or five leaves [Pg 76] appear. Portulaca, sweet alyssum, Shirley poppies, and the annual gaillardias belong to this class, as well as single petunias of the inexpensive varieties used to edge shrubberies, and dwarf nasturtiums. ”

“ He started a thicket along the opposite bank of Singing Water where it bubbled past her window, and in it he placed in graduated rows every shrub and small tree bearing bright flower, berry, or fruit. Those remaining he used as a border for the driveway from the lake, so that from earliest spring her eyes would fall on a procession of colour beginning with catkins and papaw lilies, and running through alders, haws, wild crabs, dogwood, plums, and cherry intermingled with forest saplings and vines bearing scarlet berries in fall and winter. ”

“ Grains that bore into sheep or dogs or the sand.—Porcupine grass, Stipa spartea, grows in dry soil in the northern states, but more particularly on the dry prairies of the central portion of the United States. This grass, when ripe, has a very bad reputation among ranchmen for the annoyance the bearded grain causes them. ”

“ The bank that surmounts this attempt at cultivation is crowned with the late foxglove and the stately mullein; the pasture of which so great a part of the waste consists, looks as green as an emerald; a clear pond, with the bright sky reflected in it, lets light into the picture; the white cottage of the keeper peeps from the opposite coppice; and the vine-covered dwelling of Hannah Bint rises from amidst the pretty garden, which lies bathed in the sunshine around it. ”

“ The side porch has a great curving, bulging iron trellis for the honeysuckle, and I keep the vines so thinned out that I can have boxes of flowers growing on the porch railing, which only need what sunlight comes filtering through the honeysuckle. By cutting the blossoms every day I obtain the result I wish, and on this occasion I had cut all I could reach, and I asked Jimmie to cut those which were beyond me. ”

“ March 10.--We had slight drizzling showers towards sunset; the night very cloudy till about ten a.m., when it cleared up. The variety of grasses is very great; the most remarkable and succulent were two species of Anthistiria, the grass of the Isaacs, and a new one with articulate ears and rounded glumes. A pink Convolvulus, with showy blossoms, is very common. Portulaca, with terete leaves, grows sparingly on the mild rich soil. ”

“ It is much more satisfactory to plant spring bulbs in this way,—in groups, or irregular lines and masses, where they may bloom according to their own sweet will, and when they vanish for the summer rest, scatter a little portulaca or sweet alyssum seed upon the soil to prevent too great bareness,—than to set them in formal beds, from which they must either be removed when their blooming time is past, or else one runs the risk of spoiling them by planting deep-rooted plants among them. ”

“ The porcupine is a denizen of the woods. He rarely leaves his woodland home for the fields unless there be some choice tid-bit in the way of tender lily pads in a nearby pond or a tasty morsel that will lure him from his leafy retreat. ”

“ I sent them to Narragansett and amused myself thereafter by sowing several pecks of garden seeds along the country roadsides; never, to my knowledge, did one seed live and produce a plant. I watched eagerly for certain plantings of Poppies, Candytuft, Morning-glories, and even the indomitable Portulaca; not one appeared. I don't know why I should think I could improve on nature; for I drove through that road yesterday and it was radiant with Wild Rose bloom, white Elder, and Meadow Beauty; a combination that Thoreau thought and that I think could not be excelled in a cultivated garden. ”

“ The Lombardy poplar, a variety of the black poplar of Europe, is a familiar tree figure along roadsides, and often marks boundary lines between farms. Each tree is an exclamation point, its branches short and numerous, rising toward the zenith. The roundish leaves that twinkle on these aspiring branches make the tree pretty and interesting when young—just the thing to accent a group of round-headed trees in a park. ”

“ The leaves are simple, alternate, broadly triangular, pointed and coarse toothed on the edges, 3 to 5 inches across, thick and firm supported by flattened slender petioles, 2 to 3 inches long. The winter buds are large and covered with chestnut-brown shining resinous scales.
The flowers are in catkins, of two kinds, on different trees and appear before the leaves. The fruit ripens in late spring, appearing as long drooping strings of ovoid capsules filled with small seeds. These strings of fruit, 5 to 8 inches long, give to the tree the name of “necklace poplar.” ”

“ One is the Lombardy Poplar, which grows tall and slender like a church spire; its branches rise upward like the flame of a torch, and the tree trunk is clothed to the very ground with withered branches, which never spread outwards, but grow close to the main stem. ”

“ This climber rises with a shrubby stalk to the height of many feet, is very prolific in branches, and produces flowers abundantly from July to September, which are succeeded by ripe seed-vessels and seeds.—As the plant is easily propagated by cuttings, as well as by seeds, it will soon become common to our greenhouses, though it is rather better suited to the conservatory; if its blossoms, which have a great affinity to those of the Foxglove, had more colour in them, the plant would be more desirable: at some future period such may probably be obtained from seeds. ”

“ Along the moist, shaded banks of the wood road, or on decaying stumps, keen eyes will discern frequently the tiny green prothallia, although they are somewhat difficult to find except in the green-house where one can see them in abundance either in the boxes used for growing the young plants, or on the moist surfaces of flower-pots, where the spores have fallen accidentally and have germinated. ”

“ The second region extends from lat. 27° 18', a little north of Hanson's Gap, to Newcastle Water, in latitude 17° 36'. The vegetation that characterizes this vast area is chiefly a coarse grass of a pungent flavour, having very sharp prickly-pointed leaves, and therefore called by the settlers the porcupine grass. There are several species of this grass, It is the spinifex of Stuart's journal, the Triodia pungens of Gregory. The cattle will eat its tall thin seed stalks. It grows usually in the scrubs, and is always the indicator of a poor soil. ”