i88i.] ANNUALS. 155 



and some of them have long been admitted and recognised as standard 

 bedding-plants ; but the list may be largely increased, even at the 

 present day, when so many fresh flowers have been added to our 

 gardens. There are instances where bedding is entirely carried out 

 with Annuals; but these cases are of limited number and not gener- 

 ally known, though those who have seen such gardens at the height 

 of their beauty agree in estimating their effect as bedders. But 

 setting aside the suitability of many Annuals for effect in masses, a 

 selection of good sorts should be a feature in every well-stored garden. 

 Their cultivation is of the simplest. Half-hardy Annuals, also, are amen- 

 able to a much simpler mode of cultivation than is commonly practised. 

 The following list of hardy and half-hardy Annuals, all of which may 

 be sown any time during the first half of the present month, is made 

 up of sorts which are certain to please when properly managed. The 

 under-named form the selection of hardy Annuals : Double Dwarf 

 Scabious, Collinsia bicolor, Clarkia integripetala limbata, Clintonia 

 elegans. Convolvulus minor (dark-purple var.), Delphinium cardio- 

 petulum, Gilia tricolor, Godetia, Lady Albemarle, Leptosiphon roseus, 

 Limnanthus Douglasi, Linum grandiflorum rubrum, Love-lies-bleeding, 

 Dwarf Blue Lupine, Mignonette, Nasturtium Kuby King, Nemophila 

 insignis, Double White Pyrethrum, Saponaria calabrica and white 

 variety. Blue Stonecrop, Yenus's Looking-glass, Oxalis tropseoloides, 

 Sweet Peas, and Viscaria cardinalis. If the following conditions are 

 followed out, these will not cease flowering until the approach of 

 winter stops them. They require, as a primary necessity, a deeply- 

 worked and rich soil : though Annuals are short-lived, they require 

 high living for that short period to secure continued success till the 

 last. Thin sowing is another item of importance, with small seeds 

 especially — the percentage of seeds sown over what is necessary is 

 something enormous. Next to a rich soil, room for the plants to 

 grow is of most importance ; and if a swarm of seedlings are allowed 

 to fight out amongst themselves the battle of the fittest, all preparation 

 of the soil will have been thrown away. This applies to all the plants 

 named — Sweet Peas with the rest. Mignonette is a common instance of 

 the evil effects of thick sowing. In such circumstances wiry, little, single- 

 stemmed plants are produced, which flower and ripen their tiny crop 

 of seed as if they were in a hurry to get the business done, and then 

 the Mignonette-bed is a blank, or worse than a blank, for the remainder 

 of the season. But in rich soil and a thinly-seeded bed, plants 18 

 inches to 2 feet through will be produced before they have stopped 

 growing, and very little urgency shown as to the production of a crop 

 or seed. This tendency of Annuals to run to seed makes it a necessity, 

 in dry seasons more especially, to go over the plants and gather off all 

 seed-pods at least once in the season. This is not such a formidable 

 undertaking as it may appear, and it adds in a very material degree to 

 the continued prolificness of the plants. 



