Lilies at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

This year in our garden we had a display of spring bulbs began on April 8 and lasted until the second week of June. Later in the season came the charming English iris, Japanese iris, the many flowering onions (seven different species), a host of lilies and daylilies, gladiolus of all colors, and for one year at least, the charming I hardy cyclamen. And in pots gathered on the terrace and out around! the sundial, the awesome devil's tongue, wand flowers from Africa,] calla lilies, and a magnificent, white lily-of-the-Nile. Finally there are late-blooming lilies, autumn crocus (see page] 42), and for Christmas, Amaryllis and all the wonderful forced bulbs j of winter.

The little water garden was a success. The lilies bloomed, t spike rush grew into a healthy fountain of green tipped with brov non-flowering buds, and the dwarf cyperus shot up 2 1/2 foot stei topped with a Fan of leaves. Once autumn arrives and temperatures start to fall, the wal garden should be emptied until the following spring. Hardy wai lilies will survive outside if the water above them never freezes sol: But in a tub exposed to the weather this will be the natural order things. If you wish, the lilies can be kept over the winter in a need not be kept in water. The papyrus can be a happy houseplant if kept warm (62 to 80°F.), in maxium light, and moist soil. As to the >pike rush, I do not know, but I suspect it, too, will keep indoors if given plenty of light and at least six weeks of temperatures averaging .

Third Sunday in June; Nola (near Naples). The Feast of the Lilies features a gay procession of huge artificial lilies. July 11-15; Palermo. The Feast of Santa Rosalia, patroness of the Sicilian metropolis, culminates with an earnest and colorful pilgrimage to the saint's shrine on lofty Monte Pellegrino. The whole city is temporarily absorbed in its saint-with-the-lovely-name.