ANNUALS WORTHY AND UNWORTHY 75 



bone to stand 'alone or will the plant flop and flatten 

 shapelessly at the first hard shower and so render an 

 array of conspicuous stakes necessary ? Stakes, next to 

 unsightly insecticides and malodorous fertilizers, are the 

 bane of gardening, but that subject is big enough for a 

 separate chronicle. 



By ability to stand alone, I do not mean is every 

 branchlet stiff as if galvanized, like a balsam, for this is 

 by no means pretty, but is the plant so constructed that 

 it can languish gracefully, petunia fashion, and not fall 

 over stark and prone like an uprooted castor bean. 

 Hybridization, like physical culture in the human, 

 has .evidently infused grace in the plant races, for 

 many things that in my youth seemed the embodi- 

 ment of stiffness, like the gladiolus, have developed 

 suppleness, and instead of the stiff bayonet spike of 

 florets, this useful and indefatigable bulb, if left to 

 itself and not bound to a stake like a martyr, now 

 produces flower sprays that start out at right angles, 

 curve, and almost droop, with striking, orchid-like effect. 



For making patches of colour, without paying special 

 heed to the size of flower or development of individual 

 plants, annuals may be sown thinly broadcast, raked in 

 lightly, and, if the beds or borders are not too wide for 

 reaching, thinned out as soon as four or five leaves 



