THE GARDEN CALENDAR 99 



where in March; it is too late to use them by digging under and every 

 weed is robbing the soil of moisture. Therefore, even if you have to begin 

 in March with the garden, try your best by diligence and activity to atone 

 for the delay otherwise a start in March will be disappointing. 



Seed of pansies, asters, stocks, cosmos can be sown in open ground if 

 the grower has not learned .the advantage of earlier box-work under glass 

 or cloth. Pansy plants from the boxes should be set out in blooming places 

 and mulched well. Sweet peas should be given supports if one wishes great 

 quantities of straight-stemmed flowers. Rooted carnations should go into 

 the open ground and more cuttings still put in for later blooms. New 

 violets can be made from runners or by dividing clumps. Bulbs which have 

 bloomed in pots for house decoration will be ready to be transferred to 

 open ground to make good foliage and thus allow the bulb to recuperate. 

 This should be done as soon as the freshness of the bloom passes. 

 Freesias and some other bulbs are helped by removing spent flower stems 

 to prevent seed formation. 



APRIL. 



April is the month of most riotous growth in the California garden. 

 The increasing heat causes the plants to drink deeply of the abundant 

 moisture which the soil retains from the generous rainfall of the preceding 

 months and the few April showers help also to bring April flowers for the 

 California April showers need not wait for May temperatures as in the 

 east. The raindrops glisten upon the rose petals and upon the pansies, 

 which bloom freely now from seed sown last autumn, while tulips and 

 other cup-shaped blooms may overflow with accumulations from warm 

 rains. But April showers are sometimes very light and sometimes absent, 

 and the newcomer is surprised at the speed with which his flowers, vege- 

 tables and early fruits advance in the clear warm sunshine. As early as 

 April in California there "come perfect days" balmy and ecstatic to the 

 senses and effective in the garden for pushing forward plants whose root- 

 ing has been deeply made from earlier planting. But an April start in the 

 garden, though it may seem very early from an eastern point of view, is 

 very late in California and may be disappointing with many things usually 

 grown from seed, and the newcomer is apt to lay upon the climate the 

 blame which belongs to his own delay. In California gardening an early 

 start is half the battle. 



And yet April is one of the greatest of the planting months, because 

 even the tenderest things are safe, except in exceptionally frosty places, 

 and because it is the planting time for midsummer blooming bulbs, tubers 

 and roots. Dahlias, tube-roses, tuberous-rooted begonias, tigridias, and 

 others should be taken from their dry, cool storage places and well set in 

 the warm, moist soil. Seedlings of balsams, cosmos, asters, centaureas, 

 nasturtiums, poppies and the rest of the blooming host, should be removed 



