198 CALIFORNIA GARDEN FLOWERS 



be lifted and dried well before storing for the winter. This can be 

 done easily by leaving the top growth attached to the bulb and piling 

 loosely under a tree or in an open shed. After this drying, cut off the 

 old leaves, separate the bulblets and store the bulbs and bulblets 

 separately for convenience in replanting. At planting time reset the 

 bulbs in proper blooming form and sow the bulblets thinly in a shal- 

 low trench, for easy cultivation and watering as needed. In this way 

 many of them can be brought along in small space for their blooming 

 in their second or third year. In this way one can soon have all the 

 ready-to-bloom bulbs he can find space for. 



Probably no flower has recently been more actively worked with 

 for new magnificence of bloom than the summer-blooming gladiolus, 

 and every amateur grower should keep track of the latest offerings by 

 the bulb dealers. The amateur can grow seedlings from the newer 

 strains of seeds which are offered and get much joy out of it perhaps, 

 but there is little chance of catching up with the professionals. It can 

 be done as suggested for dahlia seedlings, but one need not fear frost 

 as much. It also takes two or three times as long to get a bloom 

 from seed and there is more chance of wearying of it. 



Hyacinths. Hyacinths are of two general groups: the Roman, 

 which shoots several small clusters of flowers, and the common or 

 Dutch, which gives one large, cylindrical cluster of single or double 

 flowers. Hyacinths are probably better -as potted than as open border 

 plants and are more important commercially that way. Many who 

 plant in the open are disappointed in shortness of the bloom stem or 

 in imperfect development of the cluster. Undoubtedly a part of the 

 disfavor which hyacinths incur as garden flowers is due to late plant- 

 ing and other influences which cause the top-growth to develop before 

 good rooting is secured. If planted quite deep, say not less than four 

 inches in a well drained soil and planted in October and November, 

 there is likely to be a much better root-development than if planted a 

 month or more later, which seems to hasten top-growth too much. 

 Probably another reason for disfavor out of doors is the fact that 

 they bloom at the season when the winter rains are apt to be most 

 heavy and continuous, and a rain-bedraggled and splashed hyacinth 

 bed is a rather sorry sight. Still when planted right and mulched to 

 reduce splashing and the rains light at their season, hyacinths do pro- 

 duce a grand effect and one will find enthusiastic supporters as well as 

 impassioned critics of the flower. On the whole the Roman are more 

 popular than the Dutch: they pretend to less and they accomplish 

 more, usually; and of the Dutch, the single lead the double in favor. 



Hyacinths should not be expected to repeat bloom in place, and it 

 is probably true that it is not worth while to try to save the bulb at 

 all, but to buy new ones each year from the professional propagators, 



