Bulbs, Tuberous Plants and Grasses 259 



and yellow crocuses, everyone who has spring flowers at all must 

 have. At three dollars a thousand, who would not spangle his 

 lawn with them and "paint the meadows with delight" ? "Bulbs 

 have a mission in life," says Wilhelm Miller. "They seem to 

 have been divinely appointed to entertain us from the moment 

 when winter becomes too tedious for words until the trees leaf 

 out and spring strikes high C." 



Where shall the small early bulbs be planted ? Flowers that 

 must withstand buffeting spring winds do not erect themselves on 

 tall stems only to be snapped off, but hug the earth. They appre- 

 ciate shelter. Too inconspicuous and ineffective to be planted 

 singly or even by dozens, but happily cheap enough to be used 

 by the hundred or even by the thousand on large estates, snow- 

 drops, scillas, crocuses, grape hyacinths, and the lovely little 

 star of Bethlehem, a late bloomer, perhaps never look so well as 

 when naturalised in the grass. They seem to require the green 

 background. Seen against bare earth in the flower border they 

 lose half their charm. Their narrow, pointed leaves, shaped 

 like knife blades to cut the wind as it whistles harmlessly by, 

 can scarcely be told from the surrounding grass. Later in the 

 summer, after the bulbs have stored up potential energy and 

 beauty for another year and prepared for a long rest, the leaves 

 dry up and disappear. But woe betide the bulbs if a mowing- 

 machine cuts off the leaves while they are still working! Who- 

 ever would see his lawn gay with crocuses in March must defer 

 cutting it for a month. Even so, crocuses die out after a few 

 years when planted among grass, whereas they multiply in a 

 garden. On the other hand, the star of Bethlehem might run 

 out the grass from a lawn and should never be planted in one. 

 It spreads prodigiously. A gently sloping, half-shaded bank or 



