210 MY GARDEN 



Hurriedly slipping on her clothes, also by this soft 

 effulgence, is that baby of the great Spiraea family, S. 

 Thunbergii, a fluffy, appealing mite, seldom growing 

 more than a yard high and covering itself in early spring 

 with a smother of tiny white flowers and reddish leaves. 

 This is a pretty shrub to grow in front of Forsythias, 

 with drifts of purple and white and yellow Crocuses 

 around and beneath it. 



The beauty of Magnolias in early spring is well known 

 to most garden lovers. The great M. Yulan and the 

 purple-stained M. Soulangeana are spoken of in the 

 chapter on flowering trees, but snowy M . stellata has a 

 place among the earliest shrubs of the year. It is sel- 

 dom seen more than four feet high, but blooms at so 

 early an age and presents so solid a mass of gleaming 

 whiteness that it frequently looks like a forgotten snow- 

 drift lying upon the wet brown earth or the freshening 

 grass. The fragrant flowers are composed of about a 

 dozen strap-shaped petals, loosely grouped, and the 

 leaves do not appear until after the blossoms are past. 

 This Magnolia, like most of its kin, is best suited with a 

 rich, porous soil, and if it may be protected from the 

 rowdy gales of the young year by wall or taller shrubs, 

 it is grateful. 



Pyrus or Cydonia Japonica (Chenomaler) , which blooms 

 in early April, is one of the most brilliantly effective shrubs 

 of the entire year. The gay scarlet flowers cling along the 

 crooked, thorny bushes most artistically, and in spite of 



