XXIV 



TRANSPLANTING IN AUTUMN 



When autumn approaches, to plant or not to plant is the 

 question before the gardener. There are, of course, those 

 plants which, like magnolias among trees and chrysanthemums 

 among herbaceous plants, have strongly expressed preferences 

 for spring planting; and there are the others, such as the 

 spring-flowering bulbs, whose preferences are even more strongly 

 expressed for autumn planting these are, as one might say, 

 plainly labelled. But besides these are evergreens and a vast 

 number of deciduous trees and hardy plants which are listed 

 in catalogues as "planted in either spring or fall," and the be- 

 ginning gardener wonders which. Garden books and nursery- 

 men's catalogues are sure to insist on the wisdom of autumn 

 planting, and one's amateur friends usually say "Don't." 



WHERE THE TROUBLE LIES 



If ours were a climate of regular and orderly habits, such 

 as the English climate, if things would always freeze December 

 1, and stay frozen until March 1, if warm weather would come 

 in May and stay until September, if March and April and 

 October and November were cool and equable and moist, 

 one could make the nicest of planting schedules with a clear 

 conscience; the plants manage to bring out their blossoms 

 fairly on time even if they are killed as a result of their punc- 

 tuality. But the climate has no idea whatever of schedule 

 time or of consistency; it is as perilous a thing to give an exact 

 date for the planting-out of tender things as to give a calendar 



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