LILIES AND THEIR WHIMS 265 



valley, while I would keep an earth border free from 

 silver birches, on the sunny side of your tumble-down 

 stone- wall rockery, for late tulips and narcissi; and 

 grape hyacinths, scillas, trilliums, the various Solo- 

 mon's seals, bellworts, etc., can be introduced in 

 earth pockets between the rocks if, in case of the 

 deeper-rooted kinds, connection be had with the earth 

 below. 



It is much more satisfactory to plant spring bulbs 

 in this way, in groups, or irregular lines and masses, 

 where they may bloom according to their own sweet 

 will, and when they vanish for the summer rest, scat- 

 ter a little portulaca or sweet alyssum seed upon the 

 soil to prevent too great bareness, than to set them in 

 formal beds, from which they must either be removed 

 when their blooming time is past, or else one runs the 

 risk of spoiling them by planting deep-rooted plants 

 among them. 



The piece of sunny ground in the angled dip of the 

 old wall, which you call "decidedly squashy," inter- 

 ests me greatly, for it seems the very place for Iris of 

 the Japanese type, lilies that are not lilies in the exact 

 sense, except by virtue of being built on the rule of 

 three and having grasslike or parallel- veined leaves. 

 But these closely allied plant families and their differ- 



