My Garden in Spring 



Miranda by Mr. Fairer (but with a big query at present, 

 and which I owe to his generosity, for it goeth not forth 

 for pelf at present), the rounded bells of which are a pearly 

 grey of indescribable delicacy to see all these so con- 

 tiguous and so happy makes my visitors wonder and fills me 

 with pride in my fish hatchery. The New River is so close 

 to the top of it that it is an easy job to pour a can or two 

 of its contents into the mouths of my two drainpipes, and 

 this done once a day even in the hot dry time of the last 

 summer proved sufficient to keep the lower soil moist. 



That, then, is the history of my moraines. I call the 

 first granite chip one the " Farrer " moraine, the second 

 the "sand" moraine, and the "lead pipe bed" and "fish 

 hatchery" will refer to the others. 



Now to go back to the Bulbocodium, which flourishes 

 in the lead pipe bed, but do not imagine, in spite of this 

 lengthy digression, that the moraines were made on 

 purpose to accommodate it. I put it in there because 

 I was so pleased to see the way it grew among the 

 Gentians in certain gullies by the Mt. Cenis lake, and then 

 found my little purple friend liked it. I am hoping it 

 will also agree with the Spring-flowering Merendera 

 caucasica and sobolifera, for although the autumnal M. 

 Bulbocodium is fairly happy here the other two require 

 frequent renewal, and I am so fond of their quaint wee 

 flowers, so much like a Colchicum when first open but so 

 ragged and untidy when the segments part company after 

 a day or two of prim neatness. The mark of this genus 

 is the lack of a perianth tube : the segments are connivent 

 at first opening, that is, they hang together at the throat, 

 but when they rise a little out of the leaves each segment 

 JIQ 



