Difficulties between, they look far better if not planted formally but in 



of Spring large and small groups. Laying flat stones on the bed and 



Gardening" planting round them is a great help. This is the great difficulty 



of all spring planting avoiding formality and getting the right 



contrast of colour. To achieve these two things is the great 



triumph of Spring Gardening. Tulips do well planted in grass 



in moist soils, but that is not the case in light sand. 



In Summer nature throws her arms about and plays all sorts 

 of unexpected and beautiful tricks, but in Spring everything 

 depends on the imagination of the gardener. Nature brings 

 forth what you have yourself put in ; she does nothing else for 

 you. The aim of the horticulturist for large masses of all one 

 colour and for every bulb to be the same height is, I think, a 

 mistaken ambition, especially in small and informal gardens. 

 These should always be an enlargement of the cottage garden, 

 not an imitation of the stately, formal terraces of large places, 

 such as figure with magnified dignity and all the exaggerated 

 perspective of photography in " Country Life." 



Once the bulbs are nearly over, and when the tall, single 

 Cottage Tulips, graceful and varied, reminding one of the em- 

 broideries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are only 

 straight green seed pods, and the Parrot Tulips bow their heads 

 and lie down to drop their lovely petals on the ground then 

 comes a time of rest and dulness difficult to cope with in almost 

 every garden. Spring is dying, and the lingering cold winds 

 frighten away the approach of Summer. 



The Ranunculus tribe which help to fill the gap are 

 difficult to grow in light soils. R. amplexicaules, so well 

 worth growing, has a tiresome way of disappearing. In a 

 half shady border, full in Autumn of the flowers of the 



