The Flower Garden

by Ida D. Bennett

Dahlias are much more easily wintered, doing well in any cellar that will keep potatoes in first-class condition. All roots wintered in cellars should be placed on elevated shelves or tables away from the low temperature of the floor—on a swinging shelf, if the cellar is frequented by rats and mice.

Gladioli will keep perfectly if stored in flour-sacks and hung from a beam or post near the ceiling. Montbretias may be wintered in the same way.

When the Cannas, Caladiums, and other summer plants are out of the way the beds may be prepared for the fall planting of bulbs for early spring blooming. The vacant foliage-beds on the lawn offer the best place, as the bulbs will have played their part and passed on by the time these are needed again for the summer occupants.

If the beds have been lowered owing to limited water-supply haul on a few wheel-barrow loads of very old manure and earth, and mix thoroughly with the soil, raising them sufficiently to shed water. If permanent bulb beds are preferred (which may be planted with annuals in the summer) choose an exposure slanting toward the south, if possible, as this will insure earlier flowers. See that the soil has good natural drainage, or, if this is lacking, supply it by excavating to a depth of eighteen to thirty inches, and placing several inches of broken stone or crockery in the bottom for drainage. Return the soil to the bed, making it mellow and fine. The earlier the bulbs are planted the more roots will be started before the ground freezes, but late fall or winter planting, providing the ground is not frozen, is preferable to spring planting. Spring-planted bulbs rarely amount to anything, having lost much of their vitality by being so long out of the ground.

A bed facing the south is warmer and earlier than any other, hence it is sometimes liable to a set-back—if not actual injury—from a sudden sharp frost after the plants have started in the spring, and the litter should not be wholly removed until it is entirely safe to do so. An ideal bed for early bulbs would be one on the south side of the house, sloping slightly toward the south, with a frame around it somewhat higher at the back, over which a canvas attached to hooks could be drawn on cold nights and days. The frame should be made so that it could be readily lifted on the approach of warm weather.

Hyacinths, Tulips, and Narcissi look far better when planted each in a bed by themselves, as they are not at all in harmony. Plant Hyacinths seven inches apart and four inches deep, either in beds of vivid colours without other order than a regular distance apart, or according to some colour arrangement or geometrical design. Tulips should be planted four inches apart each way and four inches deep. A good arrangement is to draw lines across the bed forming squares—four inches for Tulips, seven for Hyacinths—and set a bulb at each corner. The centre of the square may be filled with Crocus or Scillas, which will have finished blooming before the larger flowers are out. Only Tulips of the same height and season of bloom should be set together.

Scillas and Crocus together make a bed that can hardly be surpassed in bulb planting. The effect is best where only the white Crocus is blended with the blue of the Scillas.

Protect the bulb beds with rough manure, leaves, and evergreen boughs during winter. Remove the protection gradually in the spring, and leave the finest of the manure to enrich the soil.

When through blooming in the spring, and the foliage has ripened, the bulbs may be lifted, dried, and stored away in a cool place until fall. All these bulbs increase rapidly, both by multiplying and by seed. Neglected beds of Tulips seem to multiply and perpetuate themselves indefinitely, but the new plants will be found to be all from seed, as the Tulip forms its new bulbs at the base of the old, and if they were not frequently taken up and reset they would grow so deep in the ground that all the strength of the plant would be exhausted reaching the surface, and there would be no bloom. The seedlings make robust plants, and do not deteriorate materially.

The seed formation of the Crocus is very interesting. If dug a few weeks after its season of bloom is over, under the ground, below the blossom, the stem will be found to have expanded into a long chamber or cell as large around as a lead-pencil and an inch or more in length. Open this and it will be found full of exquisite pink pearls; these are the seeds. As they ripen they become nearly black, the cell bursts, and the earth receives them. The Scilla lengthens its flower-stems until they lie on the ground, forming large seed-pods filled with white pearls. When the plants are taken up, if these little seeds are saved the stock will increase much more rapidly.