Daffodils among Junipers where Garden Joins Copse.
Border plants are pushing up vigorous green growth; finest of all are the Veratrums, with their bold, deeply-plaited leaves of brilliant green. Delphiniums and Oriental Poppies have also made strong foliage, and Daylilies are conspicuous from their fresh masses of pale greenery. Flag Iris have their leaves three parts grown, and Pæonies are a foot or more high, in all varieties of rich red colouring. It is a good plan, when they are in beds or large groups, to plant the dark-flowered Wallflowers among them, their colour making a rich harmony with the reds of the young Pæony growths.
There are balmy days in mid-April, when the whole garden is fragrant with Sweetbriar. It is not "fast of its smell," as Bacon says of the damask rose, but gives it so lavishly that one cannot pass near a plant without being aware of its gracious presence. Passing upward through the copse, the warm air draws a fragrance almost as sweet, but infinitely more subtle, from the fresh green of the young birches; it is like a distant whiff of Lily of the Valley. Higher still the young leafage of the larches gives a delightful perfume of the same kind. It seems as if it were the office of these mountain trees, already nearest the high heaven, to offer an incense of praise for their new life.
Few plants will grow under Scotch fir, but a notable exception is the Whortleberry, now a sheet of brilliant green, and full of its arbutus-like, pink-tinged flower. This plant also has a pleasant scent in the mass, difficult to localise, but coming in whiffs as it will.
The snowy Mespilus (Amelanchier) shows like puffs of smoke among the firs and birches, full of its milk-white, cherry-like bloom—a true woodland shrub or small tree. It loves to grow in a thicket of other trees, and to fling its graceful sprays about through their branches. It is a doubtful native, but naturalised and plentiful in the neighbouring woods. As seen in gardens, it is usually a neat little tree of shapely form, but it is more beautiful when growing at its own will in the high woods.
Marshy hollows in the valleys are brilliant with Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris); damp meadows have them in plenty, but they are largest and handsomest in the alder-swamps of our valley bottoms, where their great luscious clumps rise out of pools of black mud and water.
Adonis vernalis is one of the brightest flowers of the middle of April, the flowers looking large for the size of the plant. The bright-yellow, mostly eight-petalled, blooms are comfortably seated in dense, fennel-like masses of foliage. It makes strong tufts, that are the better for division every four years. The spring Bitter-vetch (Orobus vernus) blooms at the same time, a remarkably clean-looking plant, with its cheerful red and purple blossom and handsomely divided leaves. It is one of the toughest of plants to divide, the mass of black root is like so much wire. It is a good plan with plants that have such roots, when dividing-time comes, to take the clumps to a strong bench or block and cut them through at the crown with a sharp cold-chisel and hammer. Another of the showiest families of plants of the time is Doronicum. D. Austriacum is the earliest, but it is closely followed by the fine D. Plantagineum. The large form of wood Forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica major) is in sheets of bloom, opening pink and changing to a perfect blue. This is a great improvement on the old smaller one. Grouped with it, as an informal border, and in patches running through and among its clumps, is the Foam-flower (Tiarella cordifolia), whose flower in the mass looks like the wreaths of foam tossed aside by a mountain torrent. By the end of the month the Satin-leaf (Heuchera Richardsoni) is pushing up its richly-coloured leaves, of a strong bronze-red, gradating to bronze-green at the outer edge. The beauty of the plant is in the colour and texture of the foliage. To encourage full leaf growth the flower stems should be pinched out, and as they push up rather persistently, they should be looked over every few days for about a fortnight.
