BULBS 263 



On the other hand, America ought to excel England in wild 

 gardening because we have more land and wealth and a greater 

 variety of climate, soil, and plants. Eventually we must grow 

 our own bulbs so that they will blossom in every door yard in 

 the land. 



The best English effects with bulbs are easy to reproduce in 

 America, because all we have to do, in most cases, is to plant the 

 bulbs in good soil this fall and they will bloom next spring. In 

 other departments of gardening it is necessary for us to use many 

 substitutes or equivalents. In the case of bulbs we can generally 

 use the identical varieties grown in England. 



WOODLAND EFFECTS WITH BULBS 



I must confess that I reached England too late for the daffo- 

 dils, and my conceptions of their April effects are therefore drawn 

 from their books and magazines which I have tried to follow for 

 the last fourteen years. The best way to consider them is month 

 by month. 



In February they have snowdrops (plate 89) and sometimes 

 the winter aconite which makes sheets of yellow there but not 

 here. 



In March they have a great variety of little blue flowers, 

 especially scillas, glory of the snow, and the dainty little grape 

 hyacinths. 



The first flowers of good size and many colours are crocuses, 

 which are said to look thoroughly wild in some places. I can well 

 believe it, for crocuses seed freely here, though most people do not 

 know it, because the seed pods are formed near the ground. In 

 the lawn crocuses cannot sow their own seed, but in the woods they 

 have a chance to multiply in this way, as well as by the corm. If 



