96 
GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 
in the earth to let the superfluous heat escape. If it runs 
below, more manure must be added. Hotbeds are often 
expensively built and elaborately heated ; but a plain frame 
costing nothing but the labor, provided one has stock and 
some pieces of glass, often works wonders. 
Whether one is specializing in vegetables or flowers, a 
gardener will always do well to save a little space for bulbs. 
Bulbs will glorify any sort of garden. They allow themselves 
to be tucked so conveniently anywhere and everywhere, — 
into the corners of a kitchen garden, dotting a lawn, or along 
the curbstone of a little front yard. City people will walk a 
mile and more to see the first purple and yellow crocuses 
springing up on a March day from beneath the patches of 
snow. To say that raising bulbs is easy sounds overconfi- 
dent, but as a matter of fact bulbs only insist upon having 
rich loam, good drainage, and a little judicious care. Failure 
to make them succeed may pretty surely be traced to the 
neglect of one of these conditions. 
Late September , is the time for setting out winter bulbs. 
It is wise to line the holes with a little sand, to prevent the 
earth from getting soggy and thus rotting the bulbs. In 
order to keep them snug and warm during the winter, pile 
on mattings of straw, or boughs, or leaves. Then in the 
spring remove the wrappings, but not too suddenly. Bulbs 
may be left in the ground throughout the year to flower each 
spring during successive seasons, provided the space is not 
required by other plants. If the room should be needed, 
however, store them and later. set them out again. When 
once established, they multiply at a great rate, growing in spite 
of all sorts of drawbacks, so that your stock is bound to 
increase. No plants yield more lovely blossoms for the house. 
For this purpose they may be grown in almost anything that 
allows good drainage. 
