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GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



mained green are best left until May, or even June, if 

 the soil is late warming up. In planting dormant roses 

 with roots which have not been confined in pots, holes 

 should be wide enough to allow the roots to spread out 

 and deep enough, if "grafted stock is used, to allow the 

 junction of the rose proper with the stock to be two or 

 three inches below the surface. This depth may be 

 greater in sandy soils than in clayey ones. The soil 

 should be well firmed around the roots. Some years ago 

 a story went the rounds of the trade to the eflfect that a 

 woman who had bought a dozen or so roses from a 

 grower, complained that they had all died but one, and 

 this particular one her husband, whom the woman was 

 particular to describe as a very heavv man. accidentally 

 stepped upon. The moral of this story is that if this 

 heavy husband had accidently stepped upon all the roses 

 the chances are that they would have all lived. After 

 making the soil firm around the roots, if it is at all dry, 

 the holes should be left open to a depth of about three 



inches and filled up with water; subsequently they can 

 be filled in and the bed finished off. 



The distance apart to plant depends upon the kind ; 

 tens and their hybrids may be as close as eighteen inches, 

 while hybrid perpetuals should not be less than two feet 

 apart. 



At planting time dormant roses should have the weak 

 growth removed and the remainder shortened to about 

 three buds : the cut should be made closely above an 

 outside bud. ITsually roses out of four- or five-inch pots 

 that are in a growing condition require nothing more 

 in the way of pruning than the removal of weak shoots. 



For planting out of doors roses should not be more 

 nor less than two years old. Never plant roses discarded 

 from a forcing house, however low in price. Up to recent 

 A'ears these worn-out roses were thrown on to the dump, 

 but they are now being sold for bedding purposes for 

 which they invariably prove unsatisfactory. 

 (Concluded in April issue) 



Some of the Earlier Spring Wild Flowers 



FLORUM AMATOR 



N( )\\' the Spring equinox is close at hand when we 

 have days and nights of equal length: the birds 

 are returning from the southlands, where they 

 have been wintering; on the southern slopes of the hill- 

 sides the green blades of grass are beginning to appear. 

 On these slopes, in the woodlands along the banks of 

 the full-flowing brooks, in the protected glens, and amid 

 the rocky ravines, the pretty wild flowers are beginning 

 to bloom. 



On this bank where the soil is so thin and poor that 

 the grass never grows luxuriantly or in this thin unfertile 

 soil covering a flat ledge, if we get down close to the 

 ground and look sharply enough, we may find in mid- 

 February or early ^March a tiny speck, as it were, of a 

 white flower on a little plant one to three inches high 

 and soon succeeded by a diminutive flat oblong to lan- 

 ceolate seed pod. This is the Draba verna, Whitlow- 

 Grass. The flowers are really too small to pluck for a 

 nosegay, but we sometimes gather just a few to show 

 our friends as specimens of one of the smallest flowers 

 which grows and that, too, on one of the smallest plants. 

 Nevertheless this tiny plant usually unseen and down- 

 trodden came sometime, somehow, over the stormy .\t- 

 lantic from Europe. 



Let us betake ourselves down into this swamjj land, 

 sparsely furnished with trees and bushes. Here we find 

 one of the earliest, strangest looking, homeliest and most 

 ill-smelling, yet withal one of the most interesting of 

 the Spring flowers. This ugly flower is the Symplocar- 

 pus fcclidus. A thick, fleshy spathe spotted and striped 

 with yellow and purple and green encloses a large oval, 

 fleshy spadix thickly set with small greenish-yellow and 

 purplish flowers. The common name of this plant is 

 ."^kunk Cabbage. Its odor makes it well deserve the 

 first part of its name, and the great cabbage-like leaves 

 which appear later than the flowers make its last name a 

 fitting one. This is our earliest Spring flower, blooming 

 in February and March. Its flowers by their odor even 

 at this early date attract on warm days small flies and 

 bees. Thorcau writing in April, 18.^.3, speaks of seeing 

 the bees entering the >pathes of the Skunk Cabbage and 



later coming out with "little yellow pellets of pollen on 

 their thighs." 



Up out of the muddy swamp land let us climb onto 

 the rocky and thinly wooded hill side. Here we may find 

 with its foliage half-hidden by the fallen tree leaves 

 another March and April flower, one .of the prettiest 

 of all of them, the Hepatica triloba, Liverwort. The 

 downy scapes rising out of the evergreen three-lobed 

 leaves of the previous season are surmounted by charm- 

 ing flowers varying in color from blue, lavender, and 

 pale pink to white. Of this lovely child of the early 

 Spring the poet Lowell wrote in "The Biglow Papers" : 



'T. cotmtry born and bred, know where to find 

 Some blooms that make the season suit the mind. 

 An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes, — 

 Half vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats." 



Growing in the same location as the Hepatica and 

 blooming in the same month, we find, bearing flowers of 

 pearly white and of great beauty, the Sangiiinaria cana- 

 densis, whose common name is Bloodroot. From the 

 rootstock of this plant, when broken there exudes an 

 orange-red, astringent, acrid juice from whose color this 

 plant has received its name. .'V pretty and interesting 

 feature of Ibis flower which is borne on scapes is that the 

 flower buds arc enfolded in its leaves. 



On the same rocky, wooded hillside we lind two other 

 March and April flowers. The one is Atmnone ncmo- 

 rosa. variety quinqiicfoUa. the Windflower. whose slender 

 stems bearing pretty white flowers with ptuple-tinted 

 edges move with every breeze. Of this flower Hryant 

 wrote: "Gay circles of Ancnomes dance on their stalks." 

 The other is the Aneinonclla llialictroidcs. Meadow Rue 

 .Vnenomc. often growing not far away from the Wind- 

 flower. This ))lant has a leafy stem from whose top 

 spring three to six white flowers much like those of the 

 \\'indflower. 



Growing on the exposed hillsides around this wooded 

 slope, aufl soiuetimes within it, there is another March 

 flower, the V.nrW .Saxifrage, Saxifrai^a ^iri^iniensis. whose 

 (Continued on pa,s:e 91) 



