CHAPTER V. 

 BIENNIALS. 



IN seed catalogues there are comparatively few plants 

 given as hardy biennials. But there are several plants 

 which are really hardy perennials, but which should be 

 treated as biennials. I now propose to give some general 

 outlines of the cultivation of biennials, and to mention 

 a few of the plants grown in this way. 



As the name implies, a biennial is strictly a plant which 

 takes two years to produce flowers and seeds, and then dies. 

 But gardeners often use the term for plants which are sown 

 one year to bloom the next, and which are then pulled up 

 and thrown away. 



One of the uses of certain biennials is for spring bedding. 

 Wallflowers, Myosotis (forget-me-nots), Arabis albida, 

 Arabis albida flore pleno, and Alyssum sexatile, may be 

 used for this purpose. Other biennials such as Sweet 

 Williams, (Enothera Lamarckiana, and Canterbury Bells, 

 find a place in the mixed border. There is no such thing 

 as a " biennial border," for there are not enough kinds of 

 plants to put in. There is one objection, however, to 

 planting Honesty, Sweet Williams, and Canterbury Bells, 

 and that is that they become " over " at an awkward time 

 (July) ; but this difficulty is surmounted by pulling them 

 up and filling their places with late sown annuals. 

 ^Cultivation of Biennials : There are several methods of 

 cultivating biennials. Some raise the plants very early 

 by sowing the seed in January or February like half-hardy 



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