THE HAEDY PEEENNIAL BOEDEE 



PAPER READ BEFORE THE C. H. A. CONVENTION BY 



MR. A. ALEXANDER, 



PRESIDENT OF THE HAMILTON HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



Fig. 2504. Samuel Aylett, 



Supt. of Trade Exhibit, C. H. A. 



THE subject of hardy herbaceous plants 

 and their use in the ornamentation 

 of private grounds and public parks 

 has received a good deal of attention dur- 

 ing the past few years, and the numbers 

 of new species and varieties of these 

 plants suitable for the hardy perennial bor- 

 der are being multiplied at a rapid rate. 



When your Vice-President, Mr. C. M. 

 Webster, asked me to prepare something to 

 read before this convention I felt it would be 

 presumptuous in an amateur to stand up be- 

 fore a number of practical and intelligent 

 horticulturists and tell them anything they 

 did not already know about hardy plants. 

 However, as he told me something brief. 



just to introduce the subject for discussion 

 would do, I agreed. I was the more willing 

 to do this as the earliest and sunniest recol- 

 lections I have in connections with flowers 

 hover over the borders and beds of my child- 

 hood home, which were filled exclusively 

 with old fashioned perennials. There were 

 lilies stately and tall in large groups, great 

 masses of Sweet William, primulas in end- 

 less variety, scarlet lychnis, saxifraga, 

 phlox, paeonies, hollyhocks and lots of others 

 too numerous to mention. These were all 

 interesting as they one by one opened their 

 blossoms in the floral procession, but to me 

 there was and is still in the yearly miracle of 

 their re-awakening, in watching the tips pierc- 



FiG. 2505. T. Lawson, 



Secretary Hamilton Gardeners' and Florists' Club. 



