FORETASTES OF PARADISE. 



599 



Among these genera, Fremontia, Carpenteria and snow-plant from its habit of shooting up and blooming 



Spraguea are familiar to cultivators. The generic name as soon as the snow melts away in spring. The plant 



of the snow-plant, Sarcodes, means "flesh-like." and the occurs only in the Sierra Nevadas of California, at an 



specific name, sangtiinea, refers to the blood-red color of elevation of from 4,000 to 9,000 feet. There is only the 



the entire plant. It derives its vernacular name of one species known. L. H. B. 



FORETASTES OF PARADISE. 



THE AUTUMN AND THE SPRINGTIME THE BLISSFUL DAYS IN GARDENS AND FIELDS. 



T WOULD seem to be one of the 

 kindly provisions of nature that, 

 at the very time when, if ever, 

 she may be said to be depressing 

 by reason of the outward sem- 

 blance of death and mourning 

 which she wears, the minds of those of her lovers 

 who delight in gardening are distracted from gloomy 

 autumnal thoughts by visions of a resurrection of 

 beauty in the coming spring. For who that has 

 loved and tended a garden, does not dream of its 

 possibilities another year as soon as the frost and 

 winds begin to dull its brightness ? The cool, invig- 

 orating air, the bright sunshine of these autumn 

 days, invite one irresistibly out of doors ; and stand- 

 ing over her desolate flower-beds, the mistress of 

 the place (who, let us take it tor granted, is her own 

 head-gardener) plans her little plot of ground anew, 

 and finds a partial solace for her losses in studying 

 how best to repair them. 



When one considers not only the delight and benefit 

 to be derived from work in the open air at this season, 

 but also how much success depends upon it, it is sur- 

 prising that so few amateur gardeners attempt it. The 

 argument that fully one year's time is saved by planting 

 shrubs and nearly all hardy plants in the autumn 

 would be sufficient, one would think, to drive every 

 Phyllis to her trowel. The action of the frost on the 

 upturned soil in the borders will make them doubly 

 productive another summer ; moreover, certain plants, 

 such as irises, lilies and paeonies, which, if set out in 

 the spring, will not bloom the same year, yield an 

 abundance of blossoms if planted in the fall. 



The beds and borders being deeply and loosely 

 spaded and well enriched, the ne.xt thing to be done, 

 obviously, is to decide upon what to put in them. 

 Judging from the way most gardens are made, this can 

 not be a very perplexing question. That it is one 

 which deserves much more thought and consideration 

 than it receives, no one will dispute who has noted the 

 poverty of ideas, the monotony of arrangement in the 

 gardens of suburban and many village homes — a star 

 monogram, or motto of variegated colors, a round bed 

 of scarlet geranium, encircled with alyssum, perhaps, 

 or, quite as often, a sort of crazy-quilt border, in which 

 plants of endless variety crowd each other without the 



slightest regard for form, harmony of colors and gen- 

 eral effect. This is the type of garden that is to be 

 seen a hundred times during a drive through the 

 suburbs of any large American city. Strangely enough, 

 these geometric designs . and hodge-podge flower-bor- 

 ders are found very often about the homes of women of 

 refinement, disciples of Burne-Jones and Oscar Wilde in 

 matters of interior decoration, but followers of some ig- 

 norant, color-blind gardener of a by-gone generation, who 

 invented the ribbon-bedding system of spoiling lawns. 



By all means let the gardens abound with hardy 

 flowers. A small investment in a well-selected stock 

 of plants that will endure our northern winters pays a 

 compound interest year after year in constantly in- 

 creasing loveliness and beauty, and what a pleasure to 

 hunt for the first peep above ground of our old favor- 

 ites as soon as the snow is gone ! It is but a tran- 

 sient love, after all, that we have for the tender 

 annuals, lying limp and black after the first frost. The 

 hardy flowers take root more deeply in our affections 

 after a well-tested friendship through fair and stormy 

 weather, and finally become as much a fixed part of the 

 home as the pillars to the porch or the books on the 

 library shelves. 



"Infinite riches in a little room" might well refer 

 to these curious sacks of spring-flowering bulbs, which 

 are exported in such quantities from Holland. At 

 least one of these sacks should find its way to every 

 garden, however small. Its treasures are inexhaustible 

 and inexpensive. Snow-drops and scillas that bloom 

 before the first robin has come, surprising one with the 

 news that spring is already here, in s.pite of bleak winds 

 and gray skies ; crocuses ' ' of shades, " as the Dutch cata- 

 logue describes them ; tulips, "a host of yellow daffo- 

 dils," narcissus in many exquisite varieties, hyacinths and 

 sweet-scented jonquils — these must all be planted in the 

 autumn before the ground is too much frozen to be 

 easily worked. The ordinary garden soil, well-drained, 

 suits these flowers admirably, a little sand sprinkled 

 around each bulb being the only needful addition to it. 

 It need scarcely be said that these flowers — and the rule 

 has but few exceptions — are most effective when planted 

 each kind by itself. A bed of large yellow crocuses in 

 the April sunshine looks like a mound of molten gold, or 

 the famous dome of Boston's state house, and what could 

 be more dazzlingly gorgeous than tulips in a mass ? Even 

 the proverbially bad taste of the Dutchman does not ex- 

 tend to mingling other flowers with his beloved tulips. 



