HARDY ANNUALS. 11 



HAKDY ANNUALS. 



We have hitherto given this interesting class of plants far less attention than their 

 merits entitle them to. This apparent neglect has not, however, arisen from any 

 doubt of their value, but rather from an impression that they less needed the aid of 

 illustrations than many other plants of slower increase, the abundance of seed ripened 

 by most annuals generally ensuring their speedy diffusion. 



The adoption of late years of the bedding system in most gardens of any extent, 

 has contributed somewhat to the disuse of annual plants ; but although their 

 blossoms may lack the brilliancy and duration of the Scarlet Geranium and Verbena, 

 they are exceedingly useful, as we have elsewhere remarked, at that early period of 

 the summer when no bedding plant is in flower. How bald is the effect produced 

 by a bed of verbenas when first planted out ! Now this might be almost if not 

 entirely obviated, by filling the bed in spring with autumn-sown annuals, trans- 

 planted from a reserve ground. These would many of them be in flower by the 

 middle of May, and the Verbenas or other plants with which it was intended to 

 occupy the bed for autumn flowering, would, if planted between the annuals, receive 

 that protection which they so often need in our changeable spring weather. As the 

 bedding plants advanced in growth, the annuals could either be thinned out, or 

 entirely removed, as circumstances might dictate. 



To cultivators of limited means, the small cost at which a display of flowers may 

 be effected with annuals, forms no slight recommendation ; and we know no class of 

 subjects which so well deserve to be termed emphatically plants for the million. 

 We intend figuring in the present volume several new and interesting species ; and 

 in the meantime, the following list of some of the most showy and desirable of those 

 now in cultivation, may be of service to such of our readers as are inexperienced in 

 this class of plants. 



A few of those in our list such as the Schizanthis, Calendrinia, and others, are 

 often treated as half-hardy annuals ; but they succeed much better when sown in the 

 open borders, the protection of a furze bush being afforded them in the earliest stage 

 of tbeir growth, as suggested at page 3 of the present number. 



