180 MAKING OF A FLOWER GARDEN 



quire several years to come into sufficient size and 

 beauty to be notable, but bulbs are at their best from 

 the start and require little attention for several years 

 after planting; many of them, especially the narcis- 

 sus, jonquils, daffodils, and hardy lilies, requiring to 

 be left entirely alone until a crowded condition makes 

 it necessary to lift and divide the clumps and reset 

 in fresh soil. 



Crocus are at their best when planted in the grass 

 of the lawn, about trees, and in situations where it 

 will not be necessary to run the lawn mower at too 

 early a day, as they require time to mature their 

 leaves before being cut, otherwise there will be no 

 lovely chalices of white, of gold or of blue the follow- 

 ing spring. In planting it is only necessary to lift 

 a bit of sod and thrust the corm down an inch or 

 more into the soil, pressing back the sod above it, 

 and that is all. Buy the large, mammoth, many- 

 flowered sorts which give a dozen or more blooms to 

 a bulb and plant them singly and in groups in as care- 

 less, natural a way as possible. 



Crocus may also be used to border beds of peren- 

 nials or to fill in beds of larger bulbs such as tulips, 

 hyacinths or lilies and are especially effective with 

 scillas. 



The tulip and the hyacinth are, probably, first in 

 the affection of the flower loving gardener. Certainly 

 they are, of all spring-flowering bulbs, the most showy. 



