May Lilac Time 



Laburnum vulgare, is usually planted, there are one or 

 two others to which attention may worthily be drawn. 

 One called Parksii has remarkable flower bunches from 

 12 to 15 inches in length, while the Scotch Laburnum, 

 too, is handsome, and rather earlier than the common 

 kind. An extraordinary Laburnum is that known as 

 Adami ; it is not a true Laburnum, but a graft hybrid 

 between Laburnum and purple Broom, and resulted 

 after the Broom had been grafted upon the Laburnum. 

 The tree bears some flowers like the Laburnum, some 

 like the Broom, and still others which are intermediate 

 between the two. The Laburnum requires no regular 

 pruning, though at this season old and weakly shoots 

 may be cut out, if that is deemed necessary. The tree 

 is readily raised from seed sown as soon as ripe ; in 

 fact, self-sown seedlings are often common. 



Another attractive and popular flowering shrub in 

 May is the Judas Tree (Cercis siliquastrum) ; it bears 

 small rose-red blooms, not only on the younger shoots 

 but even on the oldest branches, and sometimes on the 

 stem. 



The Mexican Orange Blossom (Choisya ternata) is 

 a beautiful evergreen, now laden with its bunches of 

 fragrant white flowers ; in mild districts it may be grown 

 as a bush in the open, but in other places needs the 

 protection of a wall.' 



The Mock Orange, or Philadelphus, which many 

 people still call Syringa (really the correct botanical 

 title of Lilac), is an indispensable flowering shrub of 

 June, and among the easiest of all to grow. It thrives 

 in ordinary soil, and all the pruning required is to cut 

 out a few of the oldest shoots, if that should seem 

 necessary, as soon as the flowers are over. The blos- 

 soms are produced with the greatest profusion upon 

 shoots of the previous year. Such cross-bred sorts as 

 Lemoinei, Avalanche, Boule d' Argent, and Rosace give 

 the best results if the shoots that have flowered are cut 

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