HARDY ANNUALS. 353 



colors of the Portulacca, the fine-cut and curiously-marked 

 leaves of the Schizanthus, the sweet perfume of the 

 Mignonette and Sweet Pea, or the delicate pencillings of 

 the Salpiglossis ! 



The treatment of annuals is very simple ; they may be 

 divided into two classes. 



Hardy annuals, which may be sown in autumn and come 

 up, surviving the winter and blooming early the next sum- 

 mer ; or which may be sown in spring, in the open border, 

 for summer bloom. 



Half-hardy annuals, which are sown after the ground be- 

 comes warm in the spring, blossoming the same summer. 

 This latter class may again be subdivided, according to the 

 treatment required, into garden annuals and hot- bed an- 

 nuals ; the former rapidly coming to perfection when sown 

 in the garden, about the first of May ; the latter requiring 

 a longer season, and thus needing to be started and brought 

 forward in a hot-bed, and then transplanted to the 

 garden. 



Strictly speaking, annuals are plants which live but one 

 year, that is, spring up, make their growth, bloom, and 

 perfect seed in one season ; but many plants treated as an- 

 nuals may be preserved many years in a frame or green- 

 30* 



