HARDY FLOWER CULTURE. 79 



tions of similarity. Snowdrop and crocus, Seillas and dog's-tooth 

 violets are perfectly liappy and infinitely more at home planted 

 in association with trees and shrubs. They often perish from 

 disease, if not killed by disturbance in the deeply dug manured 

 border, yet associated with trees and shrubs and left undisturbed 

 they will go on from year to year increasing and multiplying in 

 numbers and beauty. A colony of the beautiful blue Scilla 

 Sibirica that comes up each spring may be cited. A few bulbs 

 were ])lanted originally among some Rosa rugosa ten years ago, 

 and nothing has been done since but to annually prune the roses. 

 Each spring the Seillas appear and blossom profusely. They 

 have greatly increased, not only by natural multiplication of the 

 bulbs, but the flowers seed, which ripens and germinates, and the 

 offspring grow on and flower in due course. A week or ten days 

 this Scilla picture lasts and they retire to rest beneath a thicket 

 of rose growth unthought of and forgotten, it may be, till they 

 reappear the following year. Does not this suggest a pretty way 

 of having huge colonies of spring bulbs in the garden? Gems of 

 beauty that we commonly ignore because they are not adapted 

 for use in conventional methods of flower gardening. Doubtless, 

 long before a flower has graced the garden in spring you liave 

 gone into the woods and worshipped the spring beauty, the 

 hepatica, and the yellow dog's-tooth violet. They need no 

 cultui'e and know no care, and if we wish it in just the same way 

 we can make permanent additions to the interest and beauty of 

 the garden by natui-aliziug these gems from the woods and 

 meadows of Europe and Asia. 



As these early harbingers of spring fade away the floral pi-oces- 

 sion is continued with flowers of greater stature and more strik- 

 ing beauty. Of these let us look for a while at the great group 

 of daffodils. It is essentially a European family, but they need 

 not be strangers to our gardens. The double Von Sion and 

 Emperor and Horsfieldii we sometimes see in beds after the usual 

 fashion. The home of the daffodil is in the grass ; in fact, some 

 of the prettiest species refuse to live more than a year or two in 

 cultivated ground, yet in the same garden planted in grass, con- 

 tinue from year to year with proportionate increase. May we 

 not have a grass garden too, and plant therein some of these 



