NOW IS BULB TIME. 



[OT THE blossom time, 

 but the time to get 

 ready. In the spring 

 we look at our neigh- 

 bor's flowering bulbs 

 with envy. In the au- 

 tumn we forget that 

 now the foundation 

 must be laid for such a 

 riot of color in our own 

 grounds another year. 

 It is simple gardening. The bulbs can be tucked 

 in any out of the way place, in the back of the 

 border, against the house where it is too hot for 

 plants under summer suns, and around the trees 

 and under the shrubbery where nothing will bloom 

 later. A bed of bulbs is a fine thing, but there is a 

 peculiar charm about a cluster of flowers peering 

 from some unexpected place. The edelweiss is not 

 found by the Alpine traveler with half the pleasure 

 with which he greets the delicate white crocus step- 

 ping out from the edge of the snow banks. Strug- 

 gling over the Simplon early in May, wearied with 

 cold and wind and dashes of hail, crouching low on 

 the diligence as we pass through snow tunnels, a 

 new glacier or towering mountain height gets to be 

 viewed with indifterence, but a bed of crocus, brave- 

 ly blooming among the rocks thousands of feet 

 above the sea level, and with no thought of the 

 warm valleys below, is hailed with fresh delight. 



But it is hardly fair to speak of the crocus before the 

 snow-drop. This pale beauty bows before us between 

 the last snows. If a good lookout is not kept it may be 

 gone before you realize that it has hung out its promise 

 of green lawns and leafy trees and flowers to come soon. 

 It is not the snow-drop, you see when you pluck it. It 

 is all the glory of the summer, on to the harvest home. 



So put in the snow-drop bulb in the warm south bor- 

 der, and next spring it will surprise you with a flower 

 of hope. In the chill days that follow, before hope 

 really wavers, comes the crocus, bold and sure, red, pur- 

 ple, yellow and gaily striped. There is no hanging of 

 this head, but it gives its message frankly. 



"Just put me in anywhere, these October days," says 

 the bit of a bulb, "I ask for no bed prepared for me, 

 nor any care ; scatter me over the lawn or group me at 

 the base of the big elm or in edge of the border. Help 

 me to nestle, and in the spring you need not look for me. 

 I will report myself in hues not to be passed unnoticed, 

 and if my nesting place be among the warm grass roots. 



with their aid I will give you flowers earlier than if 

 planted in the bare, cold ground." 



If you want a line of blue to repeat Heaven's own 

 hue, plant a row of scillas. It is a choice little flower, 

 and goes into your vases with a pretty grace. There are 

 red scillas and white, but the blue are the most desira- 

 ble. There is a sentiment about the snow-drop and the 

 crocus, and this is shared by another bulbous flower, the 

 daffodil. It is not as beautiful as some others of the 

 narcissus family, but it means more to whoever remem- 

 bers the clumps of full yellow heads that grew in the 

 home garden before its more elegant sisters were known 

 commonly. 



About the tulip and hyacinth there is no sentiment. 

 Gorgeous in color, aristocratic in bearing and sweet 

 breathed, they stand solely on their own merits, which 

 are great. They furnish a feast of superb color through 

 long weeks, when they fear no rivals, and seem to re- 

 gard the tender green of the grass and foliage as sim- 

 ply a set-off to their own beauty. These demand more 

 than the earlier bulbs. A good soil and a winter blanket 

 of leaves are needed to induce them to do their very best; 

 but given this, what returns they make ! 



A bulb altogether too much neglected when planting 

 spring gardens, is the anemone. There is a variety of 

 these, double and single, in whites and reds and blues 

 and intermediate shades. They are hardy, easily grown 

 aud good for a shady place. 



But to give a list of the bulbs is not the aim. It is 

 simply to remind you to get them in now that you may 

 rejoice next May. As to the expense, it can be small. 

 Snowdrops cost by the dozen bulbs thirty-five cents ; 

 crocuses, ten cents ; tulips, thirty-five ; scillas, fifty ; 

 hyacinths, sixty cents. Named hyacinths and tulip 

 bulbs can be bought for a few cents each. Narcissus 

 and anemone bulbs cost from five to eight cents. Bulbs 

 once in the ground, if given a place where they are not 

 disturbed, will grow for years without much care, and 

 every spring be a fresh surprise and joy. 



Plant your bulbs in the fall any time before the frosts, 

 say the gardeners ; excellent advice, but I knew a bed 

 last year that was left unplanted till the frost came, and 

 the ground froze and staid frozen two weeks, Then a 

 warm rain softened it somewhat, though the spade turn- 

 ed it up in chunks too hard to crush. In among them 

 went the bulbs, to certain death said everybody, and 

 this spring they rose in as brilliant array as the most 

 seasonably planted. 



Whence come all these bulbs ? Mainly from the 

 land of patience and dykes and windmills. Holland 

 sends the hyacinth and tulip, the crocus, snowdrop and 

 the narcissus. AH the way around from China travels 

 the sacred lily that we grow in water. The easter lily 



