MY GALLANT GARDEN 

 OF EARLIEST SPRING 



LUCY ELLIOT KEELER 



Fruitful Results to be Had from Present Planting of Bulbs 

 and Herbaceous Plants with Early Flowering Shrubs 



£$SN MY sixty-five-year old garden many experiments 



h have been made. Here, too, half a century earlier 



Johnny Appleseed planted the apple trees, treasured 



JO^ remnants of which still remain. Some of the family 

 have gone in for rarities and some for popularities, some for 

 specialties and some for whimsicalities — but all for love. By 

 successive steps the present keeper has settled down to such 

 plants as have proved they like both climate and soil, and has 

 ceased struggling to grow Azaleas and Rhododendrons that 

 hate limestone and other plants that dislike clay. Also I have 

 learned that the most welcome flowers are those " which come 

 before the robin dares." The ecstasy with which I gaze upon 

 the first Aconites and Violets in my northern garden far exceeds 

 the thrill given me by cutting bushels of Roses, tubs of Lilies, 

 and handsful of Freesias in warmer lands. Furthermore, 1 have 

 discovered that by careful selection and location 1 can have an 

 abundance of outdoor bloom while neighboring gardens are still 

 deep and cold in their winter mulch. 



Those who would share the joys of a super-spring garden must 

 prepare for it early this fall. Choose the immediate vicinity of 

 the house, so that you may gaze upon your treasures from inside 

 the windows and from steps and porches, without setting foot 

 on cold and muddy ground. The south side of the house must 

 be chosen, sheltered angles and the sunny side of an evergreen 

 or thick deciduous shrub, and especially under windows the 

 glass of which will attract and reflect the sunlight. Soil being 

 usually sour and barren near foundations must be renewed with 

 liberal supplies of wood ashes, and bonemeal the special food of 

 bulbous plants. 



THE earliest flowers with me are the Winter Aconite (Eran- 

 this hyemalis), preceding Snowdrops and the Christmas-rose 

 by several days. Each buttercup-like flower, rising three or four 

 inches from the soil, is surrounded by a green frill, and as the 

 plants increase from self-sown seed great patches can soon be 

 obtained. Associated with Aconites are Snowdrops, taller 

 growing to peer down into the yellow cups, and colonies of Cro- 

 cus. The old yellow, with mahogony wraps (C. aureus), heads 

 the procession, followed in a few days by whites, lavenders, 

 and purples. Named varieties are much finer than the mixed 

 bulbs, and should be planted in separate groups, in thick central 

 masses with outlying smaller groups, as though spreading 

 naturally. Among the lavender and white Crocuses 1 have 

 patches of the wee pink English Daisy, kept pink by fre- 

 quent selection; while the white Daisies carpet the purple and 

 yellow Crocuses and the Aconites. Often January sees Daisies 

 and Aconites in bloom, snuggling up close to a south wall, while 

 snow-banks lie a few feet away around the corners east and west. 

 In a place by themselves, a two-foot bit of sloping ground 



THE DAZZLING WHITENESS OF THE ROCK-CRESS 



Whether Arabis albida, which is somewhat the better, or A. alpina 



be used there will be sheets of glistening white flowers to lighten up 



the earliest days of spring, followed by a low carpet of gray green all 



summer. There are double forms of both species 



CARPETING THE WOODS WITH BLUE 



The English Bluebell or Wood Hyacinth makes a wondrous sheet of 



blue in the spring time. Its native setting here seen suggests its 



planting under deciduous shrubs 



formed by porch and steps, grows the little Iris reticulata, which 

 blooms with the Crocuses and is annually greeted by my friends 

 with astonishment verging on incredulity. This bulbous Iris, 

 reddish purple with gold markings, grows about six inches high 

 and is deliciously fragrant. It rises up through the tiny white 

 Sweet Violet (V. blanda), with flower stems only an inch or two 



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