29 SEPTEMBER 1928, Page 13

PLANT Now.

Perhaps the commonest of all the gardener's sins of omission is postponing till too late a date the planting of his bulbs, especially tulips. It is a liberal education at this season to dig up a piece of ground, in the garden or elsewhere. The activity of the roots is amazing. To give one example, I dug up a Willow Herb that was growing in the wrong place and calculated that it had put out a sum of ten yards of fresh root within the last few weeks. If you dig up a neglected tulip or lily to-day you will find a mass of fresh rootlets. The bulb is making ready for hibernation—and after all bulbs and seeds both hibernate very much as any of the hibernating animals. Here is one of the many parallels in Nature between the vegetable and the animal kingdom.

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