72 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



anemone Hobinsomana is doing better this year. Now 

 that it has taken hold, I hope it may spread. 



All the early tulips and some of the later are out ; 

 what delicious things they are ! None are better than 

 Gesneriana greigi and sylvestris. The beautiful Parrot 

 Tulips will come later. Ornithogalum nutans is a weed 

 most people dread to get into their borders, and not un- 

 naturally ; but if put in a place where spreading does no 

 harm, or planted in grass, where it does not flourish very 

 much, it is a bulb well worth growing. It blooms better 

 if divided every two or three years. The flowers are very 

 lovely when cut, and, like all their tribe, they last well in 

 water, looking most refined and uncommon, and are es- 

 pecially good to send to London. I do not make many 

 remarks here on the lovely family of spring bulbs Tulips, 

 Scillas, Hyacinths, Daffodils, and Narcisses for the same 

 reason that I passed casually over the forced ones in 

 February. We can all grow these easily enough by mark- 

 ing the catalogue and paying the bill. Anybody who 

 does not understand their cultivation will find every detail 

 on the subject in the older gardening books, as I have 

 stated before. Of all the Dutch nurserymen from whom I 

 have bought bulbs, J. J. Thoolen at Overveen, near Haarlem, 

 is the cheapest, though I do not say that he is better or 

 worse than any other. In my experience, all the finer 

 kinds of bulbs are better for taking up in June or July, 

 well dried in the sun, and planted again in September. 

 When they are planted in grass they must, of course, be 

 left alone to take their chance. Nothing can be more 

 delightful than the spring bulbs. I grow them in every 

 way I can in pots, in beds, in borders, and in the grass. 



Besides the Bulbs, the Arums, and the Azaleas, I have 

 in the little greenhouse next the drawing-room several 

 very pretty Primula sieboldii : they remain in the frames 

 in pots during the summer, to die down entirely, and are 



