192 



The Canadian Horticulturist. 



CULTURE OF GLADIOLUS. 



OR some years I have been cultivating and experimenting with the 

 Gladiolus, and the longer I raise it the more fascinated I become 

 with its culture. The first year I raised it I met with rather indif- 

 ferent success in getting the plants to bloom ; although I thought 

 I planted blooming sized bulbs, still, upon many of them no flowers 

 appeared. Now I am rarely troubled in that way. I have of late 

 years selected a sunny situation for the planting of the bulbs, and 

 I always have the ground manured and well plowed under the fall previous. 

 Then in the spring have it well spaded to a good depth, and the ground tho- 

 roughly pulverized. I believe firmly in deep planting ; the bulbs attain a greater 

 size, and are better enabled to endure some of the great drouths which visit so 

 many portions of our country. If you have a number of bulbs, plant in rows 

 from fourteen to eighteen inches apart and four inches apart in the row, 

 and make it a rule to thoroughly cultivate between the rows until the leaves are 

 too high to admit of it. I never allow a weed to be seen, neither do I plant 

 any low-growing plants between, such as Alyssum, etc., as a mulch. 



Then they are so easily cared for during winter. A dry, frost-proof cellar 

 is all they require, and that is no more than is required for the commonest 

 vegetable. I put mine in cloth bags and hang to the cellar ceiling to keep from 

 mice. He who is induced to grow these lovely lily-like flowers one year wil' 

 want to get out of the city if he lives there, into the country where he may grow 

 them as he chooses by the acre, so great will his love for them be, and there are 

 so many varieties of them, he will want them all. — Vick's Magazine. 



I THINK it is wise for the florist and the 

 gardener to bear in mind that the art of mak- 

 ing a garden appear beautiful rests mostly with 

 his ability to make an effective use of material 

 at his disposal. One may have all the best 

 things in great plenty, and yet fail to place 

 them together so they will not lose their true 

 value. Sunflowers may be grown so their untidy 

 feet shall be hidden by nasturtium and alyssum ; 

 blue delphiniums may be relieved by a bed of dwarf 

 whitephlox, and a dozen cannas can make an equal 

 show with fifty if they are each one given a fair 

 chance ; but if sunflower, delphinium, and canna 

 are crowded together without regard to color and 

 form, if the ground beneath them is left bare 

 and encircled by a prim ribbon border of dull and 

 bright leaved colcus then one may bid farewell to 

 artistic endeavor and cultivate the acquaintance of 



— ScARLKT Gladioli mechanical ingenuity. — American Florist. 

 White Aster. 



