GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS 



beautiful and perhaps rare vegetation, of which not one item in ten 

 will be put to any good use. Sometimes the waste is quite wanton, 

 for nothing is more frequent in the case of Bluebells than to see 

 on the ground gathered handfuls that have been idly picked and then 

 flung away. Many thoughtless people say that picking flowers does 

 no harm if the plants are left, forgetting that if the flower is taken the 

 plant can form no seed. From this cause many copses where a few 

 years ago Primroses were in tens of thousands have now but few, and 

 in a few years will have none at all. Legitimate botanical study in the 

 field is well enough, but our flora is too precious to expose to the 

 thoughtless collecting by those to whom " botanising " is perhaps a 

 mere passing fancy. It has suffered much in the past so much so 

 that many beautiful flowers are almost extinct. 



Bulbs, Planting in Grass. Here are answers to two very practical 

 questions about this: (i) An important one, where bulbs by the 

 thousand or ten thousand are concerned, is how to plant the bulbs 



FIG. 67. Diagram showing general method of planting bulbs in grass in long drifts. 

 The outer hard line is only a guiding line to be temporarily marked by rope 

 or whiting. 



easily and expeditiously and yet suitably. (2) What will happen to 

 them when planted, if sheep and cattle come their way. There is a 

 classical authority for believing that the domestic cow can be induced 

 to eat the pretty Cowslip ; will she, even without encouragement, lunch 

 off Chionodoxa Ludllice and dine on Narcissus poeticus ? Or can these 

 and such like bulbs be planted with safety not only in orchards and 

 copses, but in parks and meadows ? As for the shape of the planting, 

 there can be little doubt that in fair-sized spaces the most pictorial 

 effect is gained by planting in long drifts, something like the way leaves 

 are blown into drifts along road edges or on to the ground that lies in 

 long informally parallel ridges. Or imagine some very long slender 

 fish, 20 to 50 feet long, with pointed tails as well as heads laid 

 irregularly on the ground with their heads all one way, or, better still, 

 look at the illustration. For the actual manipulation sticks could be 

 placed at the ends where dots are shown, and ropes laid to show the 

 outside of the drifts, and two or three bulbs put into spade cuts any- 

 where within the limits. Or the turfing "racer" can be run along one 



