CHAPTER IV 



THE FLOATER AND METAMORPHOSIS 



THE end aimed at in the average flower-garden is 

 a succession of blooms as continuous as possible the 

 year through. Even in the open air it may be 

 managed that the garden shall never be actually 

 without them, though naturally the barest time is 

 in the dead of winter. The amateur gardener must 

 not only admire, but must also study to produce this 

 result ; and in doing so he will realise much more 

 fully than the casual lover of flowers that a period 

 of vegetative activity is a necessary prelude to that 

 of flowering. He will know that the very materials of 

 which flowers are made must be laboriously acquired 

 in all ordinary plants by self-nutrition, for which the 

 green foliage is essential. In the annual plants of the 

 garden this is obvious enough. Germination of the 

 seeds of annuals in spring leads to the establishment 

 of the leafy plant, and it is only after this has attained 

 a certain development that flower buds make their 

 appearance, and finally the expanded blooms. These 



B. 4 



