SPRING IN LONDON

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 91, 19 April 1939, Page 11

SPRING IN LONDON

BULBS BY THE THOUSANDS

(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London Representative.)

LONDON, March 23.

Spring is doing its best to compete with the gashes made in London's parks during the autumn, when A.R.P. trenches were* hastily dug. It is estimated that in a very short time 1,000,000 flowers will be blooming in London's open spaces, and soon the harsh lines of the trenches will be softened by colourful surroundings.

This week, with the official arrival of spring, there are magnificent beds of crocuses in Hyde Park, and mauve 'primroses are out in St. James's and Kensington Parks. It will not be long now before spring bedding-out starts, and about 300 men will be digging-in plants in the central parks.

There will soon, be polyanthus, forget-me-nots, wallflowers, red, white, and pink daisies, and all the spring flowers in glowing masses at Victoria Gate, St. James's Park, and in Hyde Park. The rhododendron beds in St. James's Park and Hyde Park have been filled, and the buds promise a good show. Blue and white hyacinths are beginning to show colour in a large, bed at Hyde Park Corner.

Soon more than 100,000 tulips will bloom in the central parks. In front of Buckingham Palace 45,000 City of Haarlem tulips are all above ground. More than 50,000 tulips will border Birdcage Walk, and there will be 25,000 in Kensington Gardens, the remainder in Hyde Park. All these are British-grown bulbs.

In addition, there are 10,000 tulips in ten different varieties of 1000 each, a gift from the Dutch Government to all Governments who took part in the Munich conference duiing the crisis. They have been planted in a border at Victoria Tower Gardens and have the House of Lords as a background.