202 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT . , 



frage, so handsome in its tinted winter leafage, 

 so welcome in spring, with its curious mingling 

 of pink flowers upheld by vivid scarlet stems. 



There is plenty of space in the spring garden 

 for many bulbs. The graceful, nodding fritillaries, 

 native wild flowers though they be, are so prettily 

 quaint in their chequered livery that we cannot 

 do without them or their less frequent white and 

 sulphur-coloured comrades. Only a few people 

 grow the fine Cilician species, F. aurea, whose 

 solid golden bells are only slightly flecked with 

 black, and droop upon stems scarcely six inches 

 high ; but it is a very precious bulb, and quite 

 hardy, and might well be admitted to a place in 

 our spring garden, for we are supposing that this 

 spring garden is devoted to the purpose, and will 

 not have much disturbance or replanting during 

 the rest of the year, except perhaps from the judi- 

 cious introduction of a few annuals by and by. 



There are a good many blue-eyed bulbs that 

 flower about the same time in early spring squills 

 of various sorts and chionodoxas, with their equally 

 if not more cumbersome English name of glory 

 of the snow. These scillas are more difficult to 

 place rightly than almost any other bulbs. Their 

 shades of blue will not even agree to differ. S. 

 sibirica, with its vivid metallic tone, for instance, 

 must not be seen within speaking distance of the 

 softer hue of S. bifolia. But in such a spring 

 garden there would be room enough and to spare 

 for little colonies of the different species at opposite 

 poles, where they need never come into collision. 



It is easy to run through the list of favourite 



