“It is evident from study of these plants how easy it is to find out what plants like.  After studying their feelings, then do not make the mistake of huddling them all together under poor drainage conditions.

“I always have a feeling of personal affection for the bluets.  When they come I always feel that now things are beginning to settle down outdoors.  They start with rich, lovely, little delicate blue blossoms.  As June gets hotter and hotter their colour fades a bit, until at times they look quite worn and white.  Some people call them Quaker ladies, others innocence.  Under any name they are charming.  They grow in colonies, sometimes in sunny fields, sometimes by the road-side.  From this we learn that they are more particular about the open sunlight than about the soil.

“If you desire a flower to pick and use for bouquets, then the wild geranium is not your flower.  It droops very quickly after picking and almost immediately drops its petals.  But the purplish flowers are showy, and the leaves, while rather coarse, are deeply cut.  This latter effect gives a certain boldness to the plant that is rather attractive.  The plant is found in rather moist, partly shaded portions of the woods.  I like this plant in the garden.  It adds good colour and permanent colour as long as blooming time lasts, since there is no object in picking it.

“I suppose little children would not have a perfect spring without the dog’s tooth violet.  The leaves are attractive and almost make the beauty of a bouquet.  It is sometimes called trout lily.  The mottled effect of the leaves accounts for the trout part of the name, and as for lily, it is a lily, and never belonged to the violet family at all.  Dig the plant up, and the bulbous root tells the story.  It really does belong to the lily family.  The nodding yellow flower is pretty, too.  These, when picked, last a long time in water.  They like to grow in the neighbourhood of the brook.  A moist, half-shaded half-open piece of land is their delight, and therefore in many gardens the trout lily might have to be left out.

“There is a sweet little flower called the wood anemone, or wind-flower.  It is another modest little flower, white in colour.  The constant nodding of the petals stirred by even a breath of wind gives it the name of wind-flower.  These also grow in colonies.  Have you noticed how social, but clannish, our wild flowers are?  Especially is this true of the real woods flowers, rather than of the wayside flowers.  The anemone grows in open places by the woods or the hillside.  They are a sort of border plant evidently trying to leave the woods, but still bound to it.

“If in your yard there happens to be a big old fatherly tree or a decaying stump, plant wind-flowers all about it.  You may make the flowers feel that they are on the edge of the woods.