Evergreen boughs make the best winter covering, especially when rested against some support with the tips downward, so as to shed rain. They do not mat down into a sodden mass as do leaves which have a tendency to smother and rot plants with an evergreen crown of leaves, but protect from sun and cold winds, at the same time admitting sufficient air to the plants to keep them in good condition.
When immediate effect is desired from hardy perennials which must be produced from seed, considerable time may be gained by planting the seeds in flats in the house in early February, giving them as light a position as possible, a south window being preferable, and transplanting the little seedlings to the hotbed when that is started in March or early April. This will often force along the blooms and will certainly produce strong, well developed plants by fall, plants that should stand the winter and come out in spring in fine condition, ready for a notable season of bloom.
While hardy perennials are generally thought of in connection with such herbaceous plants as die down to the ground in fall, reappearing again in spring, and the few that make a crown of winter foliage, like the hollyhocks and delphiniums, no perennial garden could be considered complete without an abundance of lilies. These may be planted here and there, singly and in groups among the perennials and shrubbery and will need little attention, increasing in numbers year by year. This is especially true of the candidum or annunciation lily, which once planted continues to increase for many years, but should have the clumps broken up once in three or four years and spread out to give more room. Failure to bloom successfully always calls for investigation of the condition of the bulbs. Usually it will be found that decay has set in or that worms or ants have invaded the bulbs. In either case the bulbs should be lifted and cleaned and all diseased scales removed, saving the scales for replanting; reset in clean soil, packing a handful of clean, sharp sand and a pinch of charcoal about each bulb. Candidum lilies should not be set more than an inch or two below the surface of the ground, but most other lilies, especially the auratums, speciosums, Brownii, and giganteums should be planted six or more inches deep and well padded with sand. A little pad of sphagnum moss under each bulb is excellent as it supplies the necessary drainage. Auratum bulbs and bulbs of the Japanese lilies are not as permanent as the candidums and tiger lilies, usually lasting a maximum of five years, if left undisturbed.
It is not much use to plant lily bulbs, tulips and hyacinths in ground infested with moles. The moles should first be eradicated, and then bulbs may be planted safely but it is little satisfaction to make an extensive and costly planting of bulbs only to have them become food for the moles and ground mice. I have known plantings of several hundred tulips to be entirely destroyed during a single winter. In one such planting of five hundred bulbs only three appeared above ground the following year. A good mole trap is invaluable where moles are in evidence.
CHAPTER XX
THE PLANTING OF FALL BULBS
The time for planting of hardy perennials and shrubbery is optional with the gardener, many things doing quite as well when planted at one season as at another, but in the planting of spring blooming bulbs less latitude exists; these must be gotten into the ground in fall if any measure of success is desired. The handling of this class of plants is one of the luxuries of gardening, as they come all ready to commence root growth, but in a perfect dormant condition, and may be gotten into the ground very much at one's convenience, and regardless of weather; the earlier they are planted the stronger root growth they will be able to make before the ground freezes, which makes for stronger bloom in the spring.
Crocus, scillas, narcissi, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and the like may be planted from the time they can be procured from the florist (which is usually in September) until the ground freezes. They will grow and bloom to perfection in any good, well-drained garden soil, providing it is not infested by moles and ground mice but beware of these, as they seem to possess an insatiable appetite for bulbs and once they have entered a bed will seldom leave it until they have exhausted its resources.
I recall that a few years ago I planted, in an empty canna bed on the front lawn, some five hundred choice, named tulips. The following spring just three tulip plants appeared above ground—the moles having destroyed the other four hundred and ninety-seven. In the flower garden where other hundreds of bulbs had been used to border beds of hardy perennials, they fared somewhat better, the greater part coming up, but many had been destroyed and still others carried far from the place of their planting, coming up as much as three feet away in the middle of paths and in sod.