SOME OF THE SUMMER FLOWERS OF MY GARDEN. 819 



been given by writers in the gardening periodicals more than 

 once. This brought failure on my efforts for some three or four 

 years, and I do not know how long I should have gone on with it if 

 Professor Foster had not paid me a visit one spring, and he told 

 me that they must be treated to no decomposed matter, either 

 animal or vegetable. I tried good loam and roadside grit the 

 very next autumn, and the difference has been immense. Of 

 course all my Irises of the Oncocyclus group are dried off for 

 seven or eight weeks in July and August. I put lights over 

 their heads so that no rain can come near them at all, and they 

 are literally baked. But there is one thing more which they 

 meet with in my hands, and which I suspect they do not find 

 anywhere else. It may seem to be a little thing, but on little 

 things great consequences often turn, either of weal or of woe. 

 It is sometimes the little rift within the lover's lute by which 

 great mischief is done. When the bright days of summer are 

 over and the winter rains have begun I fix a small piece of glass 

 securely over the rhizome of an Oncocyclus Iris so as just to cover 

 it and not to do any more. The influence of this is, I am sure, 

 beneficial in the extreme ; it does not interfere with growth, nor 

 does it prevent sufficient moisture being drawn in by capillary 

 attraction for the roots, but it just covers the plant itself. In a 

 very useful and well-known book, " The English Flower Garden," 

 the following passage occurs : " The rhizome of an Iris should be 

 kept comparatively dry, and is very impatient of moisture." I 

 believe those words to be quite true, and this is accomplished 

 for the Irises in their native habitats by a deep covering of snow. 

 But as we cannot have snow at command, it struck me that a 

 small bit of glass might be a sort of apology for it, and this has 

 proved to be the case. Until lately, I never knew how it could 

 be secured over a plant ; there is now no difficulty about this of 

 any kind, and it answers completely. I am sure that Iris paradoxa 

 and several others can seldom live through the winter if they 

 are quite unprotected by any covering at all, but in this manner 

 they seem to be satisfied, and they reward me handsomely for my 

 trouble. I need not say it would not do at all to use garden- 

 lights in the place of these glasses, nor to use these glasses when 

 the lights are desirable. Of course, as spring comes on the 

 leaves of some Irises, e.g. I. Korolkowi, are very much crumpled 

 up under a bit of glass ; but they do not seem to mind that at all, 



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