There is an Eastern legend telling that when Paradise was fading from earth an angel plucked and saved a single rose, which from that day has transmitted to its kind an immortal fragrance.
No other flower has so many intimate relations to our humanity. It goes to the altar with the bride—to the tomb with the dead. Young happy hearts rejoice at its coming, and aged pulses ("slowed down" by Time's relentless hand) quicken anew with memories of long-past Junes. In the primal garden Eve herself must have given it its lovely, fitting name, and Juliet was wrong—by no "other" would it "smell as sweet."
CHAPTER X
Border Bulbs
The Salvias, grouped in the perennial border, make a fine color show. Coming when the earlier brightness of the season has passed, their scarlet clumps last from late August to the time of frost. Raised from seed their flowering season is briefer, and, as the plants are comparatively inexpensive, it is well to get their full worth by setting out well-grown Salvia plants in early June.
The Gladiolus is another effective flower, and should find place in the perennial borders. Plant bulbs about the middle of May, and again in July, and thus secure a long flowering time, as a light frost does no harm to the plant. Gladiolus prefers a light loam, or a moist sandy soil. Fresh manure will prove injurious. Mr. Allen tells us, in his book on "Bulbs, etc.," that "flowering bulbs of this plant may be produced from seed with a certainty of a greater variety and a chance for some remarkable forms. There is," declares he, "no other pleasure in gardening equal to that which comes from the growing of Gladiolus from seed." It is claimed for the Gladiolus that if cut for decorative use when the first flower on the stalk opens the spike will develop better in water than if left out in the open sun. I have no experimental knowledge of this assertion. Take up early in October, and store bulbs in cellar.
"The Gladiolus belongs to the genera Iridaceæ. The genus contains about ninety species, nearly all of which are natives of the Cape of Good Hope."