28 
The Garden Magazine, September, 1923 
Soon after the Snowdrops begin to bloom come the Siberian Scillas 
or Squills. They are a brilliant blue, ultramarine according to the 
paint-box, and can be had also in white. However, the latter do not 
increase with the rapidity of the blue sort and are a little washed-out 
looking though quite charming in combination with an early lavender 
Crocus. When planted near the blue kind the bees mix the pollen, and 
as they seed freely one gets quite a variety of shades. I have a delight¬ 
ful pale blue one that appeared in this way and which has been worth 
separating. For early Crocus 1 enjoy Sir Walter Scott, Margot, Maxi¬ 
milian, purpureus grandiflorus, Dorothea, and Lord Duncan. T his 
latter is charming, a soft lavender, and increases well when grown 
in the grass. Of course, one must not mow the grass till the leaves of 
the bulbs have ripened. 
Of Chionodoxas I have C. gigantea or grandiflora in both blue and 
white. The latter are quite scarce as they do not increase freely. The 
blue are of a delightful “china” hue and are always greatly admired. 
1 'hey increase also “from both ends.” The varieties C. Luciliae and 
sardensis are good; the latter is a darker blue. The flowers are 
smaller in these sorts and more fringy and the stems longer and more 
graceful. 1 have C. Luciliae in white, but it is a poor doer. 
These rarer sorts would be splendid in a rock-garden as they would 
be less likely to get lost through carelessness of people weeding and 
“cultivating.” 1 put my small bulbs along the edges of the borders 
and let weeding go until the tops are quite dried off, by which time the 
seed is scattered and one can loosen the surface of the soil with -a small 
hand fork and sprinkle a bit of Alyssum seed. It is not wise to let 
any deep-rooted plant start above these tiny bulbs, but a sparse growth 
of shallow-rooted plants is not very harmful. 
Pushkinia libanotica is another charming, low-growing, early plant. 
It resembles a pale blue Hyacinth and is allied to both Scilla and 
Chionodoxa. The little bells are in reality almost white, but there are 
numbers of fine blue stripes (hence their popular cognomen of 
Striped Squill) so that from a distance one thinks they are blue. Per¬ 
haps porcelain blue most nearly describes their color. They are very 
easy to raise from seed, and 1 grow some near the large purple Crocus 
where the contrast in color is rather intriguing. 
EREMURUS ROBUSTUS 
These hardy desert plants with their flower-stalks sometimes taller 
than a man are among the most striking objects in the choicer 
gardens of the North and East; florets, white, yellow, or rosy 
AUTUMN CROCUS (Colchicum autumnale) 
“More perhaps, than any other flower they seem to belong to the air rather than the 
ground, with their faint, pale stalks and their fragile petals unconfined by leaf or calyx’’ 
before the leaves. It is large in proportion to its height, 
being about three and a half inches tall, and looks pretty 
with early white Violets, though it is hard to get any 
green thing to come early enough here to be up at the 
same time. 
Next to arrive are the Snowdrops Galanthus nivalis 
and G. Elwesi and a dainty double variety. They all 
increase tremendously with me. I use them on the edges 
of shrubbery beds, at the feet of hardy Azaleas, etc., and 
planted them originally about two and a half inches 
apart in wavy borders. They looked thin and spotty 
the first year, but afterward were all right. They 
evidently increase from the bulb as well as from seed. 
After eight or ten years they became too crowded to 
bloom well, so when the foliage had died down, 1 dug 
them up and replanted the largest bulbs in the same 
places, the original distance apart. The next size smaller 
were also painstakingly planted in the same way. 1 
made a shallow trench the shape they were to appear 
in the following spring, and set each one nicely upright, 
filling the soil in by hand. Then 1 had thousands 
of tiny fellows, small as and smaller than peas, so 1 made shallow 
trenches and patches and sowed them in it, covering with the 
soil, using a shovel, and they grew finely. Of course the babies 
were too small to bloom the first year, but the second some did, 
and this year there was a great show. I sowed Glory-of-the- 
Snow (Chionodoxa) in the same manner and with splendid 
results. 
Grape Hyacinths and the Later Squills 
L ATER Scillas that are a delight to the eye and that blend well 
with T ulips and Phlox divaricata canadensis are the cam- 
panulata kinds. Of these there are a number; Excelsior, a pale 
wisteria lavender, is the first to open, closely followed by Blue 
Queen and still later by Czar Peter. These three are very 
