Flowers by the Ten Thousand 
THE EASIEST, THE LEAST EXPENSIVE AND THE MOST ARTISTIC WAY OF GROWING MYRIADS OF FLOWERS 
By J. WILKINSON ELLIOTT 
T HE most inspiring floricultural idea of the last quarter of a century is the naturalizing of flowers by the thousand in 
situations where they need absolutely no care after planting. It is the easiest kind of gardening, for there is no 
weeding, watering, hoeing, staking or tying. It is the most artistic form of gardening, because the flowers fit perfectly 
into the landscape. It is the most effective kind of gardening, because nothing can surpass in beauty a continuous sheet 
of flowers all of the same variety. (No matter how numerous they may be, these wildings never seem gaudy or vulgar.) And, 
finally, it is the least expensive way of getting hosts of flowers—flowers like the stars of the Milky Way in multitude. A thou¬ 
sand narcissus bulbs! The thought takes one’s breath away; yet a thousand bulbs of the poet’s narcissus cost only five dollars, 
—a mere nothing compared with the vision of loveliness which it makes possible. And the first cost is the only cost. Compare 
the frontispiece of this magazine with the pretentious "Italian” gardens of today, which cost a fortune to maintain and never 
fit into an American landscape. Which style do you prefer? The accompanying illustrations must be a revelation, even to the 
initiated, of the wonderful pictures that have already been created in America, by the wholesale naturalization of flowers in 
woods and meadows. 
Small city places do not offer many opportunities for naturalizing, but some of the spring flowers can bo used in this way 
on the smallest lots. Snowdrops and Scilla Sibirica can be planted in the grass of the most closely shaven lawn; they are so 
dwarf and bloom so early that the bulbs ripen perfectly and will continue to bloom year after year. This is not true of crocuses, 
which are frequently planted on lawns. If the grass is mown, the crocuses must be replanted at least every two years. 
When small bulbs are planted on lawns, care must be taken to arrange them in natural-looking groups. Often I see 
crocuses scattered over the entire surface of a lawn a foot or two apart; the effect is extremely bad. In naturalizing bulbs or 
hardy plants, each variety should be held together in irregular-shaped groups, which should be closely planted in the center and 
more thinly as the margin is approached (see bluet picture). It is a good plan to scatter the bulbs over the surface of the 
ground before planting any of them. I stand in the center of the proposed group, dropping some of the bulbs at my feet and 
throwing others out in every direction, planting them where they fall. Circular groups should be avoided. They may be made 
of almost any irregular shape but always longer than they are broad. The arrangement largely depends upon the situation; a 
bay or recess in the shrubbery may be thickly and entirely filled with one variety of bulbs, a sloping bank may be a mass of 
narcissi or tulips, or an orchard in which the grass is not mown until after July first will afford opportunities for many groups 
and a succession of bloom for two months or more. 
The great advantage of using flowering bulbs in this way is that the plantings are permanent and need never be renewed 
but increase in size and beauty year after year, which is much more satisfactory than the present annual waste of millions of 
bulbs used for inartistic beds on the lawn. These bulbs are all destroyed, as they must be removed before they are ripened, 
in order to plant the undesirable bedding plants which follow them. It must always be remembered that the foliage of bulbs 
must not be cut off before it has ripened, but this does not prevent them from being planted in orchards and meadows, as 
the foliage is ripened by the time the grass is ready to cut for hay. 
The only tool we use in planting bulbs is a good, strong garden trowel, with which a hole is dug for each bulb. Wo cover 
•From Country Lite in America. Copyrighted, 1904, by Doubleday, Pago & Co. 
(3) 
B ELLIS PEBENNIS NATURALIZED ON THE BANK OF A POND 
