Talks About Hardy Perennials 
are planted, but the tobacco plants will not be set 
out until | une. 
Now here is what I expect to obtain. Early in the 
spring, just as the blue-birds come, over eight hun¬ 
dred sprays of the lovely blue chionodoxas will herald 
the coming spring and remain in bloom until the 
Mertensias take up the refrain, and about the time 
they commence to fade the exquisite blue of the 
columbines will appear and before they are gone the 
wood phlox sends out its lilac blue flowers. This 
carries the bloom well into July and for the last 
month the ripening, disappearing foliage of the 
chionodoxas and the Mertensias present rather a 
ragged appearance, but by this time the foliage of a 
bed of peonies, situated some fifteen feet in front of 
the group, hides from the general view all of this 
short period of untidiness. 
Before the growth of the peonies and when 
the bulbs were in their prime, the view was un¬ 
obstructed. About the middle of June the tobacco 
plants will be set out and by the time the peo¬ 
nies have done flowering, both the Rudbeckias 
and tobaccos will be in bloom and remain in 
flower until frost cuts them down. This group 
makes a garden in itself, flowering from early 
spring almost uninterruptedly until frost. 
THE WHITE CRANE’S BILL 
G ERANIUMS are represented by over one 
hundred species distributed over the tem¬ 
perate regions of the whole world, but few of 
them being worthy of cultivation. The name is an 
old one used by Dioscorides, derived from geranos, a 
crane, referring to the long beak which terminates the 
carpels. This same feature suggested the only com¬ 
mon name the plant seems to possess, viz., crane’s bill. 
The geraniums used by florists for bedding out and 
for porch boxes, etc., are not geraniums, but prop¬ 
erly speaking, Pelargoniums, and are not included in 
this article. One of the best known is Geranium 
sanguineum, a native of Europe, growing some 
eighteen inches high but rather spreading and 
decumbent in its habit, bearing single crimson- 
purple flowers about an inch in diameter, flowering 
for a long period. Its white form, here illustrated, 
is one of the most charming of our garden friends, 
especially when planted on a slight elevation and 
allowed to spread over and drop clown from a rock. 
The only variety I grow in addition to the above 
is our native G. maculatum , that grows so freely in 
slightly moist open places in the woods. When 
collected, brought into one’s grounds and massed 
it produces a much admired effect. 
A splendid companion to the white geranium above 
mentioned, for rock work or dry banks, is Stellana 
Holostea, reveling in a host of common names, 
among them being all bone, bird’s tongue, break- 
bones, Easter bell, great star-wort, and snap-stalk. 
It is a British hedge plant belonging to the chick- 
weed family, blooming early and profusely. Flowers 
white, star-shaped, three quarters of an inch in 
diameter. The foliage is light and airy and de¬ 
cumbent in habit, a hardy perennial well able to 
take care of itself, even in dry banks. 
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