April Showers 



Colorado issued a list of many other kinds, besides certain 

 Cereus and Mammillaria species that were reputed hardy, I 

 wrote for that list, and then for those Cacti, and by degrees 

 some of the more ordinary plants have been banished from 

 this bank and the soil replaced by a mixture of all the 

 gritty, moisture-scorning materials I could lay hands on, 

 such as plaster from a fallen ceiling, brick and mortar 

 rubble from demolished buildings, well-weathered cinders 

 from the furnaces, road sand and silver sand, until nothing 

 but a Cactus or other xerophytic succulent plant could 

 be expected to live in it. It is an anxious moment that 

 recurs each Spring when the lights are off, and I can once 

 more get at the fat green lumps I have only been able to 

 gaze at through the glass before, and can poke them gently 

 with a bit of stick to discover whether they are hard and 

 healthy or soft and decaying. By being bold enough to 

 try almost any succulent plant that came my way and of 

 which any reasonable hopes of hardiness could be enter- 

 tained, I have got together a large collection of plants that 

 look as though they have no business to be out in the open 

 air. Sir Thomas Hanbury always took a great interest in 

 this bank when he came to see me, and sent me many 

 baskets of treasures from La Mortola to experiment with, 

 Mr. Lynch helped me from the rich collection grown in 

 front of the houses at Cambridge, and I bought kinds I 

 thought worth trying from the Continental nurseries. It is 

 perhaps as well that about half of them have proved too 

 tender for our winters, or the congestion of prickly things 

 would have been worse than it is now. I greatly enjoy seeing 

 these wrinkled Opuntias swell out in the Spring rains and 

 then show red points where the new growths are budding, 

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