ANNUALS WORTHY AND UNWORTHY 85 



wide a colour range has it, and so easy is its growth (if 

 only you give it plenty of water and elbow room, and 

 remember that a crowded Drummond phlox is an 

 unhappy plant of short life), that a very tasteful group of 

 beds could be made of this flower alone by a careful 

 selection of colours, while by constant cutting for the 

 house the length of the blooming season is prolonged. 



The dwarf salvias, too, grow readily from seed, and 

 balsams, if one has room, line up finely along straight 

 walks, the firm blossoms of the camelia-flowered variety, 

 with their delicate rosettes of pink, salmon, and laven- 

 der, also serving to make novel table decorations when 

 arranged in many ways with leaves of the laurel, 

 English ivy, or fern fronds. 



Portulaca, though cousin to the objectionable 

 "pusley," is most useful where mere colour is wanted 

 to cover the ground in beds that have held early tulips 

 or other spring bulbs, as well as for covering dry, sandy 

 spots where little else will grow. It should not be 

 planted until really warm weather, and therefore may be 

 scattered between the rows of narcissi and late tulips 

 when their tops are cut off, and by the time they are 

 quite withered and done away with, the cheerful por- 

 tulaca, feeding upon the hottest sunbeams, will begin 

 to cover the ground, a pleasure to the eye as well as a 



