Your Garden in Early Spring

You are bound to ask, madam, what should be done as soon as you have finished digging the soil of your garden and preparing it for the spring season. For the second step is to decide where and what to plant among the many different kinds of flowers and shrubs.

You can, madam, put in the seeds of the lovely annuals quite easily and at no expense whatever; but that may delay the speed with which the results of your planting appear, and your pride in its produce, which need not lag more than four or six weeks. In either case the result will be the same. For speed's sake, you should see that the flowers you wish to plant are strong-rooted, or take divisions of the annuals, which will grow and flourish with wondrous speed. If you want to make your garden full of color, try to fill each corner of it with one particular kind of blooming flower — sweet peas, pansies, stocks, dahlias, marguerites, gerberas, roses, and countless others besides. And let the bed you set apart for each of these flowers have all it requires of air, sun, and water.

Do not leave a single corner of the garden empty of life; rather, try to bring greenery to the whole house — planting, for instance, shrubs whose climbing branches cover the walls or twine around the woodwork of the stairs and the door. These are among the things that beautify the house and its outward appearance, among the touches that fill it with life and bloom.

You can also plant flowers in earthenware pots, which — if they are of a size and color suited to the color of the flowers in them — will spare you the use of vases and the cutting of flowers. So do not forget, madam, to set in the corners of your parlor and sitting room earthenware pots in whose soil life stirs; you will add cheer and color to the house.

If, however, you wish to cut flowers from your garden, see that the ground they grow in is moderately dry — neither freshly watered nor parched with thirst. It is best that the cutting be done in the early morning or at sunset. Use sharp shears for the cutting, to sever the flower quickly without tearing the cells exposed to the air and without bruising the skin. Cut the blossoms that have not yet fully opened, or that opened no more than a few hours before; and leave each with a stem of a length suited to the vessel in which it will be placed.

If you succeed, madam, in making your garden bloom with cheerful colors and pleasing sights, and can choose the few flowers and roses suited to their vases, and know how to arrange them in the vases — then you will have made of your home a paradise brimming with light and life.