278 THE GARDEN, YOU, AND I 



be starting, and you will have a forest of cool green 

 leaves and such flowers as it takes much money to 

 buy. Not the first season, of course, but after that 

 forever, if you thin out and fertilize properly. 



In the back part of your lily-of-the-valley bed plant 

 two or three rows of the lovely poets' narcissus (poeti- 

 cus). It opens its white flowers of the "pheasant's 

 eye" cup at the same time as the lilies bloom, it grows 

 sufficiently tall to make a good upward gradation, 

 and it likes to be let severely alone. But do not for- 

 get in covering in the fall to put leaves over the 

 narcissi instead of manure. Of other daffodils and 

 narcissi that I have found very satisfactory, besides the 

 good mixtures offered by reliable houses at only a dollar 

 or a dollar and a quarter a hundred (the poets' nar- 

 cissi only costing eighty cents a hundred for good 

 bulbs), are Trumpet Major, Incomparabilis, the old- 

 fashioned "daffy," and the monster yellow trumpet 

 narcissus, Van Sion. 



The polyanthus narcissi, carrying their many flowers 

 in heads at the top of the stalk, are what is termed 

 half hardy and they are more frequently seen in flo- 

 rists' windows than in gardens. I have found them 

 hardy if planted in a sheltered spot, covered with 

 slanted boards and leaves, which should not be removed 



