My Garden in Spring 



a slightly increased number of petals and all of them about 

 half the proper width. I have such a form here, but do 

 not like it as well as the wide-petalled ones. I also have 

 a rose-coloured form, but I find that only in certain 

 seasons is there any trace of the rose, and only then on 

 newly-opened flowers. I have no wish to see Niagara or 

 New York sky-scrapers, but I should like to stand in a 

 wood full of Bloodroot when the flowers are wide open. 

 The blossoms do not last long, but to catch a clump with 

 fifty or so widely agape is a treat worth lingering over, 

 perhaps even a camp stool and a long visit, for it is only 

 on a really fine warm Spring morning it deigns to open, 

 and if a few days of bad weather follow you may find 

 every petal lying on the ground by the end of them. 



Magnolia stellata in full flower is not unlike a magnified 

 Bloodroot growing on a bush. I have only one specimen 

 in the garden, but it is a large one, about 12 feet high by 

 13 feet through, and being in the rock garden and too 

 near a path I am obliged to cut off large boughs at times. 

 It seems a dreadful thing to do, but if done early in the 

 season, just after the last flowers have gone, the vigour of 

 the new growths resulting from air and space and an extra 

 allowance of sap quite makes up for the removals, and the 

 increase being in more convenient parts of the tree adds 

 to the beauty and size of the specimen. In 1912 I 

 realised for the first time how strongly scented the flowers 

 are ; a delicious whiff of bean fields reached my nose and 

 set me sniffing around to locate its origin, and I tracked 

 it down to the Magnolia. The bruised bark emits quite a 

 different scent ; you might shut your eyes and think 

 Homocea was being used to touch some injured spot. 

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