Daffodils, which up till now have been unaccountably absent from our garden plans, are to be heavily indulged in this year. Besides what appears in the above list we are venturing on another thousand from a certain Mr. Telkamp, likewise in the land of windmills.
The following is the order which we have just dispatched to him:
“1000 Daffodils for naturalization. 100 Retroflexa Tulips, soft yellow. 100 Bouton d’Or Tulips, deep golden yellow. 100 Caledonia Tulips, orange, dark stems. 100 Golden Eagle Tulips, fine yellow. 200 Count of Leicester, yellow orange tinted.”
He advertises a thousand Daffodils for ten shillings—two and a half dollars! Miraculous, if true! It is worth the plunge.
We have decided to take a slice off the kitchen garden to be kept entirely for bulbs and tubers for cutting. There a hundred “Madonna” Lilies, three dozen Auratum, a hundred Tigrinum, and a few hundreds of other kinds shall be given all the chances that completely fresh soil and good exposure can afford. Five hundred Parrot Tulips, three hundred “Thomas Moore,” and a hundred “Bizarres” are to make a field of glory for the harvest. The hundred Gladiolus Brenchlyensis and the hundred Hollandia will rear their scarlet and pink spears; and Iris shall stand in ranks.
The Mistress of the Villino has still an hour of bliss before her in picking out Iris for her list. The “Florentina” shall certainly be largely of the company, and preference is to be given generally to the misty blue and purple kinds. Then the speculation in cheap bulbs provides a thousand mixed May flowering Tulips.... Adam’s face will be a study when he finds how much of his cherished potato and cabbage land will be required. But what a span of beauty it will make; and what sheaves of delight for ourselves and our friends!
Every year the extravagant woman above mentioned, who has got the vice of garden-gambling into her very system, extends her ambitions. But how much is there not still to be accomplished before she is satisfied, if ever a garden-lover is satisfied!
For a long time she has dreamt of a shady pool—somewhere. And, after beholding the adorable vision before described in Messrs. Wallace’s exhibit at Holland House this summer, she had been quite sure that it would be difficult to exist another year without a nook with Irises about it and a sunk basin, and a little statue mysteriously contrived in the green. Coming across an advertisement in _Country Life_, where an artistic firm of garden-decorators offers just what she wants, a small round stone pond with a Faun sitting cross-legged on the brim of it, it becomes quite clear to her that there are cravings which must be satisfied. She is willing to give up the vision of a new Azalea dell ‹for this year only, of course› and of a paved walk with Cypresses on each side, ending in a _rondpoint_ hedged about with more Cypresses, with a stone bench in the middle, for the more immediately alluring claim. But, O, ye gods and little fishes, how insatiable are still the needs of the Villino on the hill!