In speaking of white or pale flowers there is one low shrub with evergreen leaves and bluish-white flowers that I saw blooming in masses for the first time not far from Boston in early May.  There was a slight hollow where the sun lay, that was well protected from the wind.  This sloped gently upward toward some birches that margined a pond.  The birches themselves were as yet but in tassel, the near-by grass was green in spots only, and yet here in the midst of the chill, reluctant promise of early spring was firmness of leaf and clustered flowers of almost hothouse texture and fragrance.  Not a single spray or a dozen, but hundreds of them, covered the bushes.

This shrub is Daphne cneorum, a sturdier evergreen cousin of Daphne mezereum, that brave-hearted shrub that often by the south wall of my garden hangs its little pink flower clusters upon bare twigs as early as the tenth of March.  Put it on your list of desirables, for aside from any other situation it will do admirably to edge laurels or rhododendrons and so bring early colour of the rosy family hue to brighten their dark glossy leaves, for the sight and the scent thereof made me resolve to cover a certain nook with it, where the sun lodges first every spring.  I am planting mine this autumn, which is necessary with things of such early spring vitality.

Another garden point akin to colour value in that it makes or mars has, I may say, run itself into my vision quite sharply and painfully this summer, and many a time have I rubbed my eyes and looked again in wonder that such things could be.  This is the spoiling of a well-thought-out garden by the obtrusive staking of its plants.  Of course there are many tall and bushy flowers—­hollyhocks, golden glow, cosmos—­that have not sufficient strength of stem to stand alone when the weight of soaking rain is added to their flowers and the wind comes whirling to challenge them to a dizzy dance, which they cannot refuse, and it inevitably turns their heavy heads and leaves them prone.

[Illustration:  DAPHNE CNEORUM.]

Besides these there are the lower, slender, but top-heavy lilies, gladioli, carnations, and the like, that must not be allowed to soil their pretty faces in the mud.  A little thinking must be done and stakes suitable to the height and girth of each plant chosen.  If the purse allows, green-painted stakes of sizes varying from eighteen inches for carnations to six feet for Dahlias are the most convenient; but lacking these, the natural bamboos, that may be bought in bundles by the hundred, in canes of eight feet or more, and afterward cut in lengths to suit, are very useful, being light, tough, and inconspicuous.

In supporting a plant, remember that the object is as nearly as possible to supplement its natural stem.  Therefore cut the stake a little shorter than the top of the foliage and drive it firmly at the back of the plant, fastening the main stem to the stake by loosely woven florist’s string.