Round the Year in the Garden 



suitable for planting out of doors are best put in the 

 ground in early autumn to ensure their flowering the 

 following season. However, if bulbs can be obtained, 

 there is no reason why others should not be put in 

 now, if autumn planting was neglected, but they may 

 not bloom during the coming summer. 



Iris and Montbretia. Spanish and English Irises, 

 though suitable for autumn planting, are often put in at 

 this season ; they are easy bulbs, and so gay as to be quite 

 indispensable in both the flower beds and borders, and 

 here and there in the rock garden ; the colours of the 

 Spanish Iris are chiefly blue, white and yellow, while 

 flowers of the English Iris are chiefly white and of 

 purple, blue and mauve shades: they may be left 

 undisturbed for several years, until, in fact, the clumps 

 become crowded, which they are likely to do in three or 

 four seasons. Ixias are well worth trying out of doors in 

 well-drained, warm places in the rock garden, or in a 

 sunny border ; they will not thrive in cold, heavy soil, 

 but, providing leafmould and sand are freely mixed 

 in, and the border is drained, they offer little difficulty ; 

 some protection in winter is advisable. Needless to say 

 they thrive admirably in pots in the greenhouse. 



Montbretias are invaluable for spring planting ; their 

 showy flowers, in shades of orange and yellow, add 

 greatly to the gaiety of the garden when the chief 

 summer flowers are waning. It is not necessary to 

 disturb the roots in autumn, though some growers take 

 them up each year, and replant in spring. Probably one 

 gets the finest flowers in this way, since an opportunity 

 is offered of sorting the roots and replanting in the show 

 beds only the biggest that are sure to bloom. I grow 

 them in rather heavy, loamy soil, some in sunshine, some 

 in shade, and they are only taken up and replanted every 

 three years. There are some lovely new named varieties 

 obtainable, though these are expensive in comparison 

 with older kinds, such as Pottsi and aurantiaca ; the roots 



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