118 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



in a state of unhealthy excitement, keeping them feverishly awake 

 when they should be at rest. Thus like ourselves when we get no 

 rest during the day and no sleep during night, they grow weak and 

 sickly, losing the fresh robust appearance they wore when we first 

 made their acquaintance. Try, if possible, therefore, to give your 

 plants cool dark quarters during the night, for on this greatly 

 depends your success as a window gardener. Window gardening at 

 hest is plant growing under difficulties ; the more therefore you can 

 assimilate their existence to the life of the same plants in their 

 natural homes the more successful you will be. 



Gas has a most poisonous effect on plants in a room. In fact> no 

 plant can live or thrive in a room where gas is burned. Then it is 

 a necessity to remove them from the room during night, and place 

 them where they will not breathe the poisonous gas. A passage or 

 lobby is a very suitable place till morning, provided there is no 

 danger of frost in the winter. 



Plants growing in a room require a good deal of shifting about. 

 You should never allow yourself to consider this a trouble. The 

 poor plants have life within them, and they appreciate in their own 

 dumb way all attentive kinduesses bestowed on them ; a lover of 

 flowers will understand this plainly, who sees in his plants so many 

 little beings depending upon him or her for their very existence. 

 Be careful and kind to your plants and they will do their very best 

 to please and reward you. 



ANNUALS ADAPTED FOR BEDDING. 



|HE following list of hardy summer and autumn flowering 

 annuals is offered for the convenience of those whose 

 time and limited means prevent their attention to the 

 general class of half-hardy and tender plants for effect, 

 en masse, in flower gardens. The descriptions are in- 

 tended to convey an idea of their average height, colour, and habit. 

 A simple mode of managing these seeds is either to sow in drills, or 

 otherwise broadcast over the entire bed, or border, and cover the 

 seeds slightly with finely- sifted old tan, or friable loamy soil. 



Branching Larkspur. — An ornamental late summer flowering 

 annual, two to three feet high, of erect branching habit, with 

 numerous racemes of variously shaded brilliant blue-coloured 

 blossoms. Admirably adapted for grouping in shrubberies and 

 plantations. 



Cladanthus arabicus. — A neat compact plant, from nine to 

 twelve inches high, of a divaricately branching habit, with dark green, 

 narrow-lobed leaves, richly contrasted with bright golden yellow, close- 

 petalled, chrysanthemum-like flower, about one and a-quarter inch 

 wide. 



Cape Maeigold. — A dwarf compact annual, from nine to twelve 

 inches high, bearing a profusion of snow-white single chrysanthemum- 



