THE HARDY LILY BED 176 



depth and a handful of clean, sharp sand placed in 

 the bottom; on this place a little pad of sphagnum 

 moss and on this set the bulb and pack about it suffi- 

 cient sand to cover it and fill in the hole with earth 

 and place a stick or stone to mark the location of 

 each bulb. A good sized stone placed at one side of 

 each point, so that the lilies may come up on the 

 same side of each stone is a safeguard when clearing 

 off the bed in the spring and is less apt to be de- 

 stroyed than a small stake. 



Where the drainage is not naturally good it will be 

 time well spent to excavate the bed to a depth of two 

 or more feet and fill in several inches of broken stone 

 and gravel, discarding the subsoil, if undesirable, 

 especially if it contains clay or hardpan and using the 

 surface soil in its place and adding a good garden 

 loam, leaf mold and some sharp sand to the surface 

 layer. Worms and ants — two chief enemies of lilies 

 — are much less apt to exist in well drained soil 

 than in damp or unwholesome earth. 



For low beds of solid color or for borders on beds 

 of taller lilies the little Siberian lily, tenuif olium, is 

 exceedingly interesting and satisfactory. It grows 

 only about a foot high and its dainty, recurved blos- 

 soms are of the most dazzling vermilion scarlet imag- 

 inable. It is one of the first to bloom and is per- 

 fectly hardy. The bulbs are small and should not 

 be planted quite so deep as the larger varieties. 



