168 



THE ILOWEE G-AEDEV. 



APEIL. 



Make everything smart to welcome summer ; gravel- 

 walks rolled; beds neatly raked ; spring flowers shown 

 to the best advantage ; not the ghost of a dead leaf 

 remaining ; primings and trimmings swept away, to be 

 burnt ; edgings trimmed and mended ; summer-houses 

 and garden-seats painted, repaired, and cleansed from 

 cobwebs ; tumble-down rockwork, dovetailed together 

 again, and the wounds healed with kouseleek. lovechain, 

 or saxifrage ; unsafe bridges rendered passable ; leaning 

 Pisa-tower-like posts and palings restored to their proud 

 perpendicular. '•'April showers bring May flowers ;" ; but 

 if you don't sow and plant the flowers, they can't ; like- 

 wise if you let them be scratched up by hens and pecked 

 to morsels by sparrows. Therefore, any forgetf illness 

 now, and previously, will rebuke you with its woful blank 

 face staring at you by-and-by. Better provide yourself 

 with too much than too little ; cuttings (with a little 

 bit of root to them) of cupheas, verbenas, heliotropes, 

 petunias, anagallises, fuschias, pansies. and many more, 

 can always be exchanged, or given away. Tie the full- 

 bloomed stems of hyacinths to sticks as you want them. 

 Sow Phlox Drummondii in a little heat : it makes an 

 exquisite bed. Make as sure as you can that wireworms 

 do not attack your Carnations and Pieotees ; for this, the 

 compost must have been looked over by handfuls. It 

 may seem a long and expensive task to do so : but it is 

 true economy, if you grow high-priced varieties. If your 

 garden is decorated with vases, see that they are rilled 

 with proper soil, and that you have wherewithal to plant 

 in them. A mixture of plants with a long succession of 

 bloom — some of pendent and trailing growth, others stiff 

 and sub-shrubby like geraniums — produce the most 

 artistic effect. Let your gardener look at a flower-piece 

 painted by one of the first-rate masters, and he will 

 catch the idea, if he is not a blockhead. He will see it 

 well worked out at Kew. Water transplanted trees and 

 shrubs, if drought threatens. Plant out wallflowers. 



