JANUARY 169 



nary sweet -leaved Pelargoniums. This little care and 

 constantly striking young plants in the summer will 

 prevent its dying out. Out of the fifteen to twenty 

 kinds of sweet -leaved Geraniums which I possess, I con- 

 sider it the most valuable and the best worth having. 



Cuttings of the best French Laurestinus, struck in 

 May and grown on to a small standard, make excellent 

 filling -up plants for a greenhouse now, and if judi- 

 ciously pruned back after flowering, and stood out in 

 half shade all the summer, they are covered with large 

 white flowers at this time of year. When they get too 

 large for pots or tubs they can be planted out in shrub- 

 beries; if a little protected by other shrubs, they flower 

 as freely as the common one, and the flower, even out of 

 doors, is larger and whiter. 



After marking Sutton's list I mark Thompson's, as 

 some of the flower seeds are best sown early in January. 

 The difficulty about sowing seeds early is that they want 

 care and protection for a long time after sowing and 

 before they can be put out. We are able to sow the 

 hardier annuals here by the middle of March, especially 

 Poppies, Corn-flowers, Love -in -the -Mist, Gypsophila, 

 etc. I am sure that, in this light soil, the second sowing 

 in April never does so well for early -flowering annuals. 

 Autumn things, on the contrary, are best not sown till 

 May, or they come on too early. I never sow Salpiglos- 

 sis or Nemesia out of doors and in place till the begin- 

 ning of May. In favourable weather Sweet Peas may 

 be sown, like Green Peas, in a trench out of doors very 

 early in the year. 



One of my kind correspondents said she observed I 

 was not so rich in blue flowers as was desirable, and 

 named the following (I mean to get all those I do not 

 already possess) : Commelina ccelestis, Anchusa italica, 

 A. capensis, A. sempervirens, Parochetus communis, Pha- 



