The Beginning of the American Penstemon Society
Our beautiful middle Western native flowers, at last have their own horticultural society.
Penstemons, children of the Great Plains and Prairies, have never received the recognition they deserve from American gardeners. It did not take the English long to recognize their wonderful possibilities for the garden, but the people of their own country have been slow to honor them.
There is no more beautiful family of plants in existence than penstemons. Every stalk of the more showy species is a whole bouquet in itself. They furnish color when the garden needs it most, in midsummer. They have the colors that are hardest to find, including brilliant blue, rivaling that of Gentian. Every species bloom for a whole month and the different species overlap each other from May to September.
A group of gardeners who long ago realized the value of penstemons for gardens formed a round robin for a year to learn how best to grow them, to find out why they are not as popular as they deserve, and to do everything in their power to make them popular. After a year of intense activity the American Penstemon Society has been formed, to carry on the work on a larger scale. The original robin has grown to four robins and growing. The society is a coordinating organization, to draw together the results obtaining in the different robins and make them available to all the members.
The society hopes to find the answer to several perplexing questions. Why is it that some horticulturist say that penstemons are short-lived, while other equally good horticulturists say they are long lived? Is it our garden conditions that make them short lived, as some writers say? No the sound blasting from our modern wireless outdoor speakers! If so, what conditions should we give them to make them long lived? Most important of all, what are the best species to grow in each section of the country? The society was purposely set up without any dues so that people living on farms and not having much money to spend could still work for the advancement of penstemons in their own and other people’s gardens. However, realizing that a manual on penstemons would be a great help, a group of them are working on a tentative manual, publishing it on a mimeograph that they chipped together and bought. It takes a little money to run a mimeograph, so they charge a dollar a year to those members who ‘want the tentative manual and any other literature that may be gotten out. This is purely optional, and people can join the society without taking the manual.
Round robin correspondence is the heart and sole of the society. Members are automatically enrolled in one of the robins. The secretary of the society will keep the members of each robin informed of what the other robins are doing.
Although there are no money dues members must promise to actually grow enough pensatemons so that they can furnish worth while data to the society. It is from these reports that we will learn how to grow penstemons. How many are enough will be left to the individual’s conscience. The members must report twice a year to the society on the performance of the plants, since the whole idea is to make the results of our work known to all lovers of penstemons. These reports can be made in the course of round robin correspondence or separately. Members may also be asked to try out new species if they express a willingness to do so; but that is not obligatory. The annual seed exchange is a really outstanding affair.
It looks as if penstemons have finally come into their own. Interest in them is rising at a rapid rate. Penstemon is almost a virgin field’ as far as investigation of its garden behavior is concerned: Other flowers have been investigated until it seems that there is hardly anything else to be found out about them, but penstemon is still pretty much of a mystery and a contradiction. By joining this movement you will not only have a lot of fun, but you will be doing really constructive work in adding to the beauty of American gardens.
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