ardens be had in bloom
all the year round. This is saying a great deal, but it is true; indeed,
it is questionable if we have any other popular garden flower which is at
once so showy, so hardy, and so continuous in its blossoming. A friend
beside me says: "Ah! but what of violas?" To which I reply: "Grow both in
quantity, since both are as variable as they are beautiful." But when
viola shrinks in foggy November from the frost demon, anemone rises
Phoenix-like responsive to the first ray of sunshine. Besides, fair Viola,
richly as she dresses in velvet purple or in golden sheen, has not yet
donned that vivid scarlet robe which Queen Anemone weareth, nor are her
wrappers of celestial azure so pure; and blue is, as we all know, the
highest note of coloring in floral music. But comparisons are not
required, Anemones are variable and beautiful enough to be grown for
themselves alone. No matter whether we look at a waving mass of sparkling
windflowers in a vineyard or cornfield by the Mediterranean, or walk knee
deep among the silvery stars of A. nemorosa in an English wood--"silvery
stars in a sea of bluebells"--they are alike satisfying. I believe that
there is any amount of raw material in the genus Anemone--hardihood, good
form and habit, and coloring alike delicate and brilliant; and what we now
want is that amateurs should grow them with the attention and care that
have been lavished upon roses and lilies and daffodils. But, alas! we have
some capricious beauties in this group. A. coronaria and some other
species succeed well treated as seedling hardy annuals, and others, as A.
apennina, A. Robinsoni, A. Pulsatilla, A. dichotoma, and A. japonica, may
be multiplied _ad infinitum_ by cuttings of the root. It is when we come
to the aristocratic Alpine forms, to A. alpina, A. sulphurea, A.
narcissiflora, etc., that difficulties alike of propagation and of culture
test our skill to the uttermost. Tourists fond of gardens walk over these
plants in bloom every year; they dig up roots and send them home; but they
are as yet very rare in even the best of gardens. Nor is it easy to rear
them from seeds. A year ago I sowed seed by the ounce each of A. alpina
and of A. sulphurea, but as yet not a single plantlet has rewarded me for
my trouble. Even freshly gathered seeds of A. narcissiflora will not
germinate with me, but I live in hopes of surmounting little difficulties
of this kind, and in the mean time, perhaps, others more fort