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Elliott Nursery Company, Pittsburg, Pa 
Spring-flowering Bulbs 
From " Garden and Forest ” 
This is the season of the year when the catalogues of the Dutch bulb growers should be carefully studied, and when people should 
determine what bulbs they will plant for the decoration of their gardens in spring, and where and in what manner they should be 
planted. The bulbs need not be placed in the ground until October, but it is well, in all that relates to the garden, to take time by the 
forelock, and not to put off the planning of planting operations until the planting time actually comes. 
The cultivation of hardy spring-flowering bulbs is one of the most delightful, as it is one of the most satisfactory, of all fonns of 
gardening. Many of the plants classed under this head yield flowers which no inhabitant of the tropics can excel in delicate charm or 
gorgeous splendor. No plants are more easily cultivated, and none give so much pleasure for the small amount of money which they 
cost. Many of them increase and multiply without care beyond the first planting, and, once established, go on flowering year after year 
almost indefinitely. There is a charm in these early spring flowers, appearing among the melting snows, the first indication that the long 
winter has come to an end, which each year grows stronger and stronger, and which no other feeling inspired by the contemplation of 
nature’s workings ever quite resembles. Men tire of the most splendid orchids of the tropics, of the masses of color which modern 
horticulture spreads over the Chinese azaleas, of all the garden show and gorgeousness of these later days; but who has ever tired of a 
snowdrop or a daffodil in early spring ? 
There is a much larger variety of hardy spring-flowering bulbous plants than is usually met with in American gardens, which, by 
a proper selection, may be made gay or interesting with them from March until July, or from the time when the earliest snowdrops and 
crocuses appear until the 
blooming of the so-called 
Spanish and English irises 
in midsummer. Many new 
species and varieties of the 
crocus have been intro¬ 
duced into gardens of late 
years, and the blooming 
period of the plants of this 
genus has, in this way, been 
materially prolonged. 
Among scillas there are 
m any charming flowers 
blooming in succession dur¬ 
ing six or seven weeks. 
The number of different 
narcissi which can now be 
grown is almost endless. 
The attention which has 
been bestowed upon these 
plants of late years in Eng¬ 
land, by botanists and by 
gardeners, is one of the 
most interesting phases of 
modern horticulture. It has 
resulted in the reintroduc¬ 
tion of many species of 
narcissi long lost to gar¬ 
dens, and the production of 
many new hybrids of more 
than passing interest and 
value. The tulip and hva- snowdrops clustering around a tree trunk. -From English "Country Life.” 
cinth are too well known to need mention here, except to call attention to the fact that many of the species of tulip (late - flowering 
tulips) which have been described at different times in the columns of this journal exceed in beauty, as they certainly do in interest, 
those of the more familiar garden races. They should find place in every garden, with quantities of narcissi and scillas, alliums 
and snowdrops, snowflakes and crocuses, fritillarias and dog’s-tooth violets, ornithogalums and lilies-of-the-valley. There never was 
a garden in which there were too many of these plants, or in which some corner could not have been found which might have been 
made more attractive by their presence. 
All bulbous plants, however, cannot be satisfactorily used in this way. A garden tulip or a garden hyacinth planted in the grass 
appears as much out of place as a dock in a trim parterre : but all the narcissi look better in the grass than in a border, especially the 
Poet s narcissus and the jonquil. Crocuses are more attractive when planted in this way than in formal beds or as edgings, although 
they harmonize less perfectly with their surroundings than scillas, all of which look their best when allowed to run wild. Many bulbs 
last longer and increase more rapidly when left to themselves in this way than when planted in borders, from w r hich it is often neces¬ 
sary to remove them. It is essential, however, that all these plants should be allowed to thoroughly mature and ripen their foliage. 
They cannot, therefore, be planted in grass which is cut early in the season; and even if this were not the case, such plants, springing 
from closely cut turf, look less at home and less natural than when they grow among tall grasses or the wild plants which are found 
along the borders of woods or on rocky banks. These bulbous plants delight almost universally in deep, rich soil, and, if they are to be 
naturalized, and are expected to flower year after year, and to increase, it should be provided for them when the bulbs are first planted. 
If this is done, no further care or attention need ever be paid to them, and every year, when they bloom, the fortunate possessor of a 
garden in which such plants thrive will rejoice with a new and ever-increasing joy. 
