It would be a strange situation if a gardener did not value most highly the first little spear of life that starts the spring show.
Yet I have so long taken the snowdrops, crocus, and Siberian scillas for granted to be planted abundantly and thereafter left to their devices that I am not sure of being able to do justice to them when I approach the matter of their contribution to the glory of spring.
However that may be, it must have become evident long ago to those who read what I write that I like a variety of things.
I look with interest, but not with envy, upon those people who can satisfy themselves with a whole garden of just one item from all the countless varieties with which God has made this earth so fruitful.
Every man’s garden, to be sure, is his own, but such deadly monotony is something I could not stand.
And so it is that at Breeze Hill we have all the various classifications of bulbous plants that make spring the glorious season it is.
As soon as we have passed the season of the small or “minor” bulbs as some catalogs list the crocus, seines, chionodoxa, and their like we come to the wonderful season of the daffodils, and every year I expect to be asked whether this or that flower, to which a pointing finger turns, is a daffodil or a narcissus.
And of course, every year I smile, as one must always do in a garden, and explain that the two words refer to the same thing, narcissus being the Latin or botanical name and daffodil being the English or common name.
Naturalizing Daffodils
Whenever the subject of daffodils comes up, my suggestion always is to obtain as many good new varieties as possible and to plant them with some reference to one another and with even more reference to how they will enhance the section of the garden in which they are to bloom.
In the old garden that I still inhabit I have for many years tended toward the “naturalizing” of daffodils so that they may be considered as fully possessing the land they occupy.
Incomparabilis Variety
The spring season was indeed notable for its great abundance and richness of daffodil bloom, and I will admit to having been more pleased this year than ever with the varieties that have come from the Backhouse hybrids.
The incomparabilis variety Dick Wellhead, in particular, even now provides a vast amount of pleasure when I recall its brilliant flowers.
Theodore A. Havemeyer, another incomparabilis, with the very short crown in a yellow flower, if also good, and Fortune adds to a lemon perianth a golden yellow trumpet just a little suffused with red-orange.
Havelock, still another incomparabilis, seems almost even in color because of how the two shades join together.
Barri Class
La Rianti, a barri class, introduces a white perianth and short crown with striking color contrast. Another barri is Saturnus, with a 3-inch perianth of cream turning white as it ages and a short, crinkled crown with an orange, edging.
Tunis, in the leedsi class, otters a cream perianth with a light yellow trumpet. Verger, a barri, introduces us to a flower of cream-white, with a very short, very frilled red-orange crown.
Sidario, incomparabilis, has a cream trumpet and golden yellow perianth. Pomona, a barri with the white perianth, has broad, rounded segments and a short, deep yellow crown, very much crinkled and with reddish-orange tints.
Monique, incomparabilis, is cream with a medium yellow crown slightly edged orange-yellow. In the same class is Clamor, with a dominating cream tone and a deep yellow crown-edged reddish orange.
Another very striking incomparabilis is Scarlet Elegans with its deep yellow perianth and two-color crown touching upon deep orange-red.
Prejudice Against Daffodils
One of the things of which I should perhaps be ashamed is having heretofore expressed an unreasonable prejudice against many-petaled daffodils.
We call them “double,” and many, including this erring mortal, have usually thought of them based on the little old, excessively formal kinds of a generation ago.
But now we have come to have varieties that are gracious and beautiful, with no disadvantages in their persistent blooming habit. Holland’s (dory is representative of these good sorts of double daffodils.
The Tulips
The tulips, just at their height as these words are being written, really “ring the bell” among bulbous plants.
When my eye roams from the showy display put on by Keizerskroon, with no shred of modesty about it, to all the others that bloom at the same period, so that the borders are .alive with brilliance, I get an unmatched show of color that I should not want to do without.
I’m afraid, though, that the spare will not permit me to go on naming tulip varieties as I have one with the daffodils, but I do want to put as much emphasis as I can on the way tulips can be placed and esteemed in the garden.
It happens that Breeze Hill is much visited, and I believe I am entitled to whatever interest I can derive from the way people are impressed by our various plaidings.
Thus I can be delighted if someone is enthralled by the effects of the sun’s efforts in creating gorgeous open flowers among some of our great tulips, or I can be amused or disappointed if someone shows only an attitude of disregard.
My thought regarding tulips is to place them, when the bulbs are planted or when they are moved about from year to year so that the adaptability of the varieties is served and the beauty of the garden increases.
I am especially partial to the open flower of a tulip, and so my mental pictures or futon planting schemes usually have the wide open bloom as their major ingredient.
Lilies For America
Having come to tulips, I cannot help briefly mentioning lilies. I believe in lilies for America, and I believe all the troubles that have restrained gardeners from fully enjoying lilies in the past can be “contained” to use the war phrase, if we stick to lilies that belong to America.
The federal government has done a great service in its study of lily growing at the great Beltsville, Maryland, station where Dr. Emsweller, the chief horticulturist, knows lilies exceedingly well.
He is looking out for the gardens of America as well as for our greenhouses, and we are going to know more about his work when his great lily book, which is now “in the works,” makes its appearance and thus helps another important plant family go upward under American influence.
44659 by J Mcfarland