PLANTING BULBS OUT-DOORS 47 



drops or daffodils or tulips, plant these in abundance and at 

 the same time plant also a few bulbs of some of the flowers 

 you are not so familiar with, and perhaps you will thus be able 

 to extend your range of enjoyment. For a liking for flowers 

 depends very often upon our knowledge of or our experience 

 with them, and it is always worth while to increase one's 

 garden experience. The earliest of the spring flowering 

 bulbs are the crocuses, snowdrops, and scillas, all of them 

 low-growing plants which are desirable to put along the 

 borders of hardy perennial gardens or the more formal beds 

 of tulips or hyacinths. The crocuses are very desirable for 

 planting in the lawn, especially in a sunny situation near a 

 building or fence where they will come into blossom long 

 before the snow disappears, thus greatly extending the period 

 of the out-door flower gardens. All that is necessary is to 

 make a hole with a pointed stick in the sod about three 

 inches deep, and to push the crocus bulb right side up down 

 into the bottom of this hole, firming the soil over it when it 

 is thus planted. The snowdrops and scillas may well be 

 planted in small groups to a depth of about t^vo inches. 



For starting an annually recurring display of flowers no 

 bulbs are so satisfactory as the daffodils. Of these the single 

 Trumpet Daffodils are the best, although the Poet's Narcissus 

 is also well worth very general planting. These daffodils 

 are very desirable to grow beneath shrubbery, where they will 

 become naturalized and produce beautiful flowers. They 

 will do better, however, if the groups of these bulbs are dug 

 up and replanted late in summer or early in autumn about 

 once in three years. In this way crowding is prevented and 

 the soil may be again thoroughly fertilized. 



For a striking display in early spring the early single 



