226 



MY GARDEN. 



top-spit loam. This month (January, 1872) we have a grand display 

 .of these flowers. 



No garden can possibly do without its Wallflowers (CJieiranthus 

 Cheiri, fig. 436) for early spring blossoms. The odour and the colour 

 are charming ; and the power of the plant to grow from the per- 

 pendicular side of a dry chalk-pit, or on the top of a dreary wall, 

 renders it a plant which every horticulturist must love. I prefer the 

 common mixed seedling wallflowers. Others like the German varie- 

 ties, but nobody can fail to delight in the double yellow greenhouse 

 wallflower, which can easily be propagated by cuttings, though it is 

 now much neglected in gardens. 



FIG. 436. Wallflower. 



FIG. 437. Doronicum caucasicum. FIG. 438. Variegated Lily of the Valley. 



There is a valuable spring plant which is net often grown, but 

 which makes a great display, called the Doronicum caucasicum 

 (fig. 437). The beautiful harmony of colour between its bright 

 yellow flowers and the peculiar yellowish green tint of its leaf, is 

 particularly refreshing, when contrasted with some of the distortions 

 of form and colour produced in many flowers by modern floral art. 



Early in the spring, the florists' varieties of the Daisy (Bellis 

 pirennis) show their flowers ; which, however, are immeasurably 

 coarser and less refined in their character than the wild daisy of the 

 fields which children delight to gather, and make into wreaths where- 

 with to adorn themselves. 



In the month of May the Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis) 

 is the favourite flower. It is one of our native plants, is readily 

 propagated by division, and, when planted, it should be left alone 



