THE GARDEN PRIMER 



turers. In gardening, like in everything else, good tools 

 facilitate good workmanship and are great time-savers. 



Perhaps a glance out of your window over a strip 

 of ground that now appears bleak and dreary to you 

 will suggest that another January should find a tree, 

 or a clump of shrubbery, with bright stems to give 

 some sense of color and winter design to the landscape. 

 It is just that difference between the monotony of 

 snow-covered prairies and snow-blanketed woodlands 

 that brings Nature to teach man some of her decorative 

 arts. 



A clump of Spireas will bring you both color and 

 decorative form in winter Spir&a ariefolia, which 

 retains its dead flower clusters a long time, a pleasant 

 contrast of brown against the white snows, and Spirted 

 Lindleyana, whose bright colored stems also enliven 

 the lines of the gray landscape. 



Start the tuberous plants, Gloxinias and Begonias, 

 now, if you would have them bloom early. Put them 

 in flats, thickly together, and cover lightly with sandy 

 earth. Avoid their rotting, and pot as soon as roots 

 are developed. 



Winter mice and rabbits may be girdling your trees. 

 If so, bind strips of tar-paper around each tree thus 

 attacked, high enough, however, to be above the prob- 

 able snow-line. 



80 



