32 LILIES 



Nature, as in so much else that concerns the 

 disposition of plants in the garden, is the best 

 guide. For example, when lilies grow naturally 

 they rise from herbage or low shrubbery. 

 There is never any overcrowding; the stalks 

 have room to bend more or less to the breeze 

 and not a trumpet or bell that does not stand 

 out with individual prominence. You see in 

 short, the lily in all its glory. There is, accord- 

 ingly, no more effective way to plant lilies than 

 among shrubs or, in the case of the dwarf spe- 

 cies, in a low shrubbery foreground. More- 

 over, this plan kills two birds with one stone, 

 as some lilies require, and all prefer, not to rise 

 from bare ground and also to be protected from 

 spring frosts. 



Inasmuch as some of the lilies are particu- 

 larly fond of peat too, the rhododendron bed, 

 or a planting of any of the broad-leaved ever- 

 green shrubs, is one of the best of places. 

 Natural conditions are approximated and at the 

 same time admirable use is made of unemployed 

 ground space, and lilies that prefer not to be 

 disturbed may follow their own sweet will. Of 

 course, the shrubbery must not be too thickly 

 set ; that would crowd out the lilies. Such tall- 

 growing species as the swamp lily (L. super- 



