My Garden in Spring 



the hot sun and old age will tell on the Darwin and 

 English Tulips that still remain, and it will be time to go 

 round snapping off the fat green seedpods. It is rather 

 fascinating to place a forefinger on the stalk, and then, 

 pressing it towards you, bend over the seed head with your 

 thumb in the opposite direction, until you feel the sudden 

 snap with which the juicy stalk breaks, and it is good to 

 think that you are thereby aiding the ripening of a fat 

 bulb for next season, but I much prefer gently opening 

 the segments of a half-expanded new variety to see what 

 sort of eye it has, and feeling that its full beauty is still to 

 come. Well, "them's my sentiments" about earlies and 

 species, and now we had better move on and look at the 

 May flowerers before snapping-off time comes upon us. 

 First, then, to the Terrace beds. The shape of the first 

 one we come to is a semicircle, and it is bounded on the 

 straight side by a dry wall built up by the side of the 

 flight of steps and which has a cascade of Rosa Wichuraiana 

 hanging down over the stones and mingling with Othon- 

 nopsis cheirifolia, a good, grey-leaved, succulent plant that 

 thrives in this dry garden in a way that often astonishes 

 people from warmer but moister climates. It is a large 

 bed, and takes a good deal of filling, so we use three kinds of 

 Tulips of orange shades, La Merveille, Billietiana " Sunset," 

 and Gesneriana aurantiaca, but, excepting this and the two 

 central beds, all the others are filled with one variety only. 

 Thus the next contains Mr. Farncombe Sanders. Tall, 

 and of dazzling rose-scarlet with immense blooms, I do not 

 know a better Tulip for distant effect, and can only charge 

 him with one fault, and that is, he loses his head in sudden 

 danger, for a heavy shower coming quickly after sunshine 

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