SECOND WEEK IN MARCH 



But they are generally sown too thickly. Last year I 

 saw, in a large private garden, a perfect basin of poppies, 

 which had a very uncanny effect, illustrating the usual 

 mistake in their cultivation. The gardener had sown the 

 seed almost as thick as mustard and cress in a circular plot 

 a yard across, and the consequence was that the poor little 

 starved things in the middle were about 4 inches high, 

 and only a few of the plants on the outer edge were of any- 

 thing like normal growth. There is nothing more dainty 

 for table decoration than Shirley poppies, so we sow them 

 now for succession, and they will bloom soon after the 

 self-sown seed of last year has finished blossoming. Sweet 

 peas, too, are sown in the autumn here for the earliest work ; 

 but those put in now will bloom late throughout the 

 autumn if the flowers are persistently cut before they drop. 



One of the most effective of the so-called annuals intro- 

 duced lately is the dwarf single dahlia, which, of course, 

 is not an annual at all, although it can be used as such by 

 those who do not care to keep the roots through the winter. 

 The seed of these dahlias was raised in February in slight 

 warmth, and the little plants are now potted up singly in 

 thumb pots and being gradually hardened, to be planted 

 out in May, as soon as frosts are over. They are quickly 

 covered with blossoms, as large and as bright and varied in 

 tints as the tall single dahlias ; but they do not exceed 1 5 

 inches in height, which is a great advantage, making them 

 almost as effective in the flower-beds as single tuberous 

 begonias, which they somewhat resemble. Then they bloom 

 till the frosts of the late autumn cut them down, and leave 

 no terrible gaps in the borders to be filled with bedding 

 plants in July. 



The double Clarkia Salmon Queen is a beautiful annual, 

 flowering all through the summer, too, most abundantly. 

 The seed can be sown now quite thinly, and the pure white 

 variety looks very pretty mixed with the salmon-pink. 

 Stella sunflowers, in sulphur yellow with big black centres, 

 are delightful towards the back of the border, especially 

 if the background be an old brick wall, tinted with 



