Annuals 243 



flowerpots, newspapers, umbrellas, or any improvised canopy before 

 they begin to wilt. Calliopsis, sweet alyssum, cornflowers and 

 poppies, to name a few lusty monopolists, will so quickly overrun 

 their allotted plots and come up where they are not wanted that 

 sometimes, alas! they must be treated with the discourtesy shown 

 weeds. The usual trouble with some plants once started in a 

 garden is not how to grow, but how to get rid of the charming 

 things. 



If the amateur gardener can think of no better way to grow 

 annuals than to cut up a lawn into geometric beds, planting circles 

 within circles, or row after row of ageratum, lobelia, coleus, cigar 

 plant, geraniums, dusty miller, asters, and salvia, it would be 

 better for the appearance of his place that he never grew a flower 

 at all. A lawn may be framed by flowers, but cutting it up into 

 beds not only contracts its apparent size, but spots it over with 

 patches of unrelated colour that mean nothing but bad taste and 

 hard work. Annuals may be most artistically displayed when 

 disposed in much the same way that perennials are planted 

 in front of shrubbery or hedges that serve as a foil to their rich, 

 high colours. Indeed, all that was said in the previous chapter 

 about the arrangement of perennials applies to annuals as well. 

 The two classes of plants admirably supplement each other when 

 used together. Oftentimes annuals will supply just the tints 

 needed to bring harmony into a perennial border. Or, they may 

 be set out with punctilious nicety in formal parterres where a 

 continuous performance, a vaudeville show of flowers, is required, 

 one lot of plants being hustled into the ground after another as 

 its beauty departs. But arranging annuals for rapid succession 

 in the same beds throughout a season is work that the novice need 

 not attempt. It implies a staff of skilled gardeners, and to all 



