lo TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING 



in them that the poor things are allowed to wither on 

 their stems, either parched with thirst or frozen with 

 cold. One would almost prefer the sight of the clean, 

 quite empty flower-box, which does, at any rate, give 

 a sense of rest. 



Can nothing better than this be done ? Why should 

 not everybody who owns a window-box make and enjoy 

 a spring garden in it ? Nothing is easier, and it may be 

 done in an endless variety of ways. To begin with, a 

 whole chapter could be written about Bulbs for the 

 window-box. These friendly little plantlets, if we invite 

 them, will keep us bright for the first three months or 

 any year. 



Gold, white, and blue, — these are the colours we will 

 choose, and we will start with a very cheap and simple 

 scheme. Nothing is better for planting at the same time 

 (quite early in the autumn) than Winter Aconites, 

 Snowdrops, and blue Scillas. These give us brilliant 

 colours in quick succession, and, what is more, they 

 overlap each other, and the grass that belongs to each 

 plant helps to make a background for the rest. In 

 planting Snowdrops I would counsel everybody to put 

 in two kinds, not one double and one single (to my mind 

 a Snowdrop doubled is a Snowdrop spoiled). What we 

 like is to place a long-stalked and a short-stalked flowerlet 

 side by side, so as to give the same appearance of lightness 

 we aim at in the arrangement of cut flowers in the house. 

 For a long-stalked Snowdrop, Mr. Barr's Galanthus 

 Whittalli could not be improved upon. It never looks 

 prettier than when rising from a bed of its lowlier sisters, 

 just the little common kind we are so familiar with in 

 London shops and baskets, where, for some inscrutable 

 reason, they are generally bound up stiffly with twigs or 

 box, which do their best to overpower the fresh sweet 

 scent that properly belongs to every Snowdrop. 



If our window-box is in a sunny position, these little 



