WINTER-FURNISHING OF FLOWER BEDS. 113 



"With regard to giving a little extra brilliance by a little 

 extra trouble, there are many things that might be employed 

 to help out the effect ; but still where the grounds are ex- 

 tensive it will certainly increase labour, otherwise some 

 annuals might be sown all round the place, and be left pretty 

 nearly to themselves ; such, for instance, as nemophila, core- 

 opsis, convolvulus minor, eschscholtzia, and Zinnia coccinea; 

 and if a little further trouble be not begrudged, dahhas may 

 be planted at intervals, and China-asters, ten-week stocks, 

 wallflowers, sweetwilliams, may at a proper time be planted 

 out. However, all this must be adopted or otherwise, according 

 to the labour at command. Perennials will not occupy a day, 

 where the system of annuals and bedding-out plants would 

 occupy a week ; or in other w^ords, one man may manage an 

 immense border, where nothing but permanent perennial 

 flowers are used, while seven would not be able to do the 

 work for a highly kept border of the same extent, made up 

 with the addition of annuals, biennials, and bedding-out 

 plants. If the latter be adopted, the verbena and scarlet 

 geranium should be propagated in great numbers, because 

 they are never worth taking up after flowering ; it is far 

 better to propagate them in time, and leave them to bloom in 

 the borders until the frost cuts them up altogether. 



It will occur to the reader, that an extensive border, kept 

 up in the style of those neat little borders and beds in the 

 flower garden, would require constant laboui-, and a good 

 supply of the needful seeds and plants ; but that a border of 

 perennials requires only to be kept clean, and the principal 

 work is to cut do^vri and clear away all the upper growth of 

 whatever has decayed, and to prop any of those plants which 

 are weakly in themselves, or hable to be broken by the wind. 

 The chrysanthemums, perhaps, want more of this than any- 

 thing else ; but they are so useful when most other things 

 have gone, that one willingly undertakes the task, only to 

 secure a late bloom. There are seasons when we are denied 

 this — when some envious frost cuts off the flowers almost 

 before they appear, and we lose them ; this we cannot help : 

 it frequently happens, however, that while they are cut off in 

 open places, they escape under plantations, and in particular 

 situations ; so that they are always worth the little trouble 

 they give. Dahlias also require stakes to protect them, or 

 rather strengthen them against the wind, which would other- 



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