PLANTING OF ALL SORTS 65 



"Lovers' Lane" is richly showing forth its woods 

 gems. Hepatica, bloodroot, rue anemone and 

 tooth-wort precede the trilKums which are in full 

 show by the last week of the month. In the 

 formal garden, the English sweet violet, one of 

 my "weeds," about which I will write later, is 

 opening its flowers, some of which were showing 

 in late March. 



The apricot and the Japanese plums are a 

 wonderful show in mid-April, with their complete 

 cloud of white blossoms. By the time they are 

 faUing-^and making me hustle to spray them — 

 the Norway maples are showing their orchid-like 

 flowers, seen of few, I fear; for their yellow- 

 green clusters overhead, both lovely and sweet, 

 are accepted by the thoughtless as the breaking 

 leaves. There is a threat of opening in the opulent 

 apple buds, which are pink-streaked now, but 

 will need May days to spread them. 



Of the shrubs the forsythia is the only one here 

 to bloom fully in April. Its yellow bells are 

 shaking in the rainy breezes for ten days or so, 

 though the blooms at Breeze Hill have been 

 scantier since a fierce winter that evidently 

 chilled them below the power to live. At the foot 

 of one fine plant which is the April color point of 

 the most important living picture from the south 



