IN MY LADY'S GARDEN 



which were tied around the poles at the height of 3 to 

 6 feet from the ground. This prickly obstacle effectually 

 checked the marauder, for cats do not care to encounter 

 prickly plants. Fly-catchers are most valuable birds to en- 

 courage in the garden, as well as very interesting to watch ; 

 they always select some post or other point of vantage, from 

 which they dart on their prey continually, and as they eat 

 nothing but flying insects their work is most desirable. 

 They are pretty, slim little creatures, with whitish breasts 

 spotted with brown, and always return to the same spot in 

 the spring from which they emigrated to warmer climes in 

 the autumn. 



There is no season of the year without its special group 

 of flowers ; and the spring is pre-eminently the time when 

 bulbous plants, provided as they are with the means to take 

 a long rest in safety, again waken into life with the increas- 

 ing warmth. Snowdrops, crocuses, hyacinths, narcissi, and 

 tulips are, indeed, with us throughout the winter, either in 

 the garden or under glass, and there are some of the beautiful 

 iris tribe which will brave the cold, although these are not 

 so often seen. The rich blue shades of Iris histrioides, too, 

 are very early in the garden ; this is a bulbous iris, as also is 

 I. reticulata, a spring flower scented with the perfume of the 

 violet, which can be grown either in a cool greenhouse or in 

 the open border. I. persica and I. alata are charming in 

 pots, but are too dwarf to do well in the winter garden, their 

 blooms being so easily damaged ; but I. sindjarensis, with azure 

 blue flowers on tall stems, is a delightful bit of colour in the 

 April garden, and should be grown much more extensively 

 than it is. The brilliant blue of the dwarf scillas (bifolia 

 and sibirica), too, is most welcome amongst the yellow 

 flowers of early spring, with Chionodoxa sardensis, each 

 blossom starred with silvery white ; and the grape hya- 

 cinths, both Muscari azureum, a very early variety, and M. 

 coeruleum (var. Heavenly Blue), are very beautiful in colour. 

 These, with the Italian hyacinths in white, blue, and pink, 

 bloom better in the garden than in pots, increasing in num- 

 ber and strength in a light warm soil. They are also 



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