72 State Horticultural Society. 



It is customary and proper to bestow flowers as a mark of apprecia- 

 tion, but do not wait until your friends are dead before you awake to 

 the value of their friendship. If they do well tell them so. As some 

 one has said, "I believe in a little more taffy and less epitaphy !" 



Practically, I advise planting beds of all kinds of continuous bloom- 

 ing plants. I am not expected to advise as to arrangement of plants 

 nor as to styles of beds. Flowers of the same variety are pretty when 

 massed in solid colors in same bed, or in mixed collections. Do not plant 

 too closely, for this injures the plants and spoils the effect. Tplips, 

 hyacinths and crocus and all hardy bulbs must be planted in the fall. 

 Some one remarks, "Who does not know that ?" but there is not a spring 

 season that some one does not call for fall bulbs or ask for bulbs in bloom 

 to be furnished them from the open ground. 



Prepare a bed by deep spading; plant the bulbs about two inches 

 below the surface and cover with a mulch of fallen leaves. To prevent 

 the mulch of leaves from being removed I place over all a cover of coarse 

 sacking or burlap pegged down at the sides. Remove the burlap in 

 early spring. Plant pansy seed in the house in flat or shallow boxes, 

 covering seed lightly with fine soil. Sow first seed as early as first of 

 September, transplant into cold frames as soon as plants show second leaf 

 and give protection in coldest winter weather. Verbena seed should 

 also be sown in boxes and transplanted into beds in open ground as soon 

 as heavy frosts are over in spring. Feverfew and phlox may be trans- 

 planted outside before frosts are over in spring. Tea roses endure con- 

 siderable cold weather and should be bedded out early; geraniums and 

 the dazzling scarlet salvia, as soon as all danger of frost is past, giving 

 some protection in cool nights. Cannas have been so much improved 

 that they deserve a prominent place in every collection. These are most 

 effective when grown in clumps or masses. The hibiscus is a great 

 flower, but like all of its class, too soon blows out. Plant passion vines, 

 hardy clematis, moon flowers for covering porches and screens; sweet 

 peas for trellises, lantanas and nasturtiums for variety of color and con- 

 tinuous bloom; ferns for shady nooks, petunias for midsummer flowers, 

 asters and cosmos for unfailing fall bloom, and for the close of the season 

 and the beginning of winter, the flower of all flowers, unending in variety 



