“There is no one who doesn’t love the hepatica.  Before the spring has really decided to come, this little flower pokes its head up and puts all else to shame.  Tucked under a covering of dry leaves the blossoms wait for a ray of warm sunshine to bring them out.  The last year’s leaves stay on through the winter brooding over the little fresh sprouts.  These embryo flowers are further protected by a fuzzy covering.  This reminds one of a similar protective covering which new fern leaves have.  In the spring a hepatica plant wastes no time on getting a new suit of leaves.  It makes its old ones do until the blossom has had its day.  Then the new leaves, started to be sure before this, have a chance.  These delayed, are ready to help out next season.  You will find hepaticas growing in clusters, sort of family groups.  They are likely to be found in rather open places in the woods.  The soil is found to be rich and loose.  So these should go only in partly shaded places and under good soil conditions.  If planted with other woods specimens give them the benefit of a rather exposed position, that they may catch the early spring sunshine.  I should cover hepaticas over with a light litter of leaves in the fall.  During the last days of February, unless the weather is extreme take this leaf covering away.  You’ll find the hepatica blossoms all ready to poke up their heads.

“The spring beauty hardly allows the hepatica to get ahead of her.  With a white flower which has dainty tracings of pink, a thin, wiry stem, and narrow, grass-like leaves, this spring flower cannot be mistaken.  You will find spring beauties growing in great patches in rather open places.  Plant a number of the roots and allow the sun good opportunity to get at them.  For this plant loves the sun.

“The other March flower mentioned is the saxifrage.  This belongs in quite a different sort of environment.  It is a plant which grows in dry and rocky places.  Often one will find it in chinks of rock.  There is an old tale to the effect that the saxifrage roots twine about rocks and work their way into them so that the rock itself splits.  Anyway, it is a rock garden plant.  I have found it in dry, sandy places right on the borders of a big rock.  It has white flower clusters borne on hairy stems.

“The columbine is another plant that is quite likely to be found in rocky places.  Standing below a ledge and looking up, one sees nestled here and there in rocky crevices one plant or more of columbine.  The nodding red heads bob on wiry, slender stems.  The roots do not strike deeply into the soil; in fact, often the soil hardly covers them.  Now, just because the columbine has little soil, it does not signify that it is indifferent to the soil conditions.  For it always has lived, and always should live, under good drainage conditions.  I wonder if it has struck you, how really hygienic plants are?  Plenty of fresh air, proper drainage, and good food are fundamentals with plants.