THE RIGHT USE OF ANNUALS 167 



and manuring in autumn, that if the soil is sour it 

 be dug out to a depth of 3 ft., and that a 6 in. layer 

 of stones be put in for drainage, with better soil to 

 fill up, and so on. Now, all his advice is very good, 

 and,- if it is followed, the result, no doubt, will be 

 very fine flowers. But there are few gardeners who 

 will be ready to take all these pains over annuals. 

 If they prepare a bed thus elaborately, they will look 

 for some permanent reward for their preparations. 

 And yet Mr. Peake is right when he says that an- 

 nuals need kind treatment, and that without it many 

 of them are not worth growing. The problem, there- 

 fore, is to give them kind treatment and yet not to 

 waste all that treatment upon a display of a few weeks 

 in the summer; and this problem is not insoluble. 



To solve it we should observe the manner in which 

 annuals grow naturally. Nature does not sow them 

 in spring and in masses all by themselves. Their seed 

 falls as soon as it is ripe, in summer or autumn, and it 

 is scattered about among other and perennial plants. 

 Now we must not attempt to imitate the recklessness 

 and uncalculating profusion of nature in our garden- 

 ing; we must not, like her, sow seed in stony places 

 or where thorns will spring up and choke it; our an- 

 nuals should be sown, as all our plants should be 

 planted, in borders properly prepared, so that we 

 may have as little waste and failure as possible. But 

 the gardener's business is to imitate the successes of 

 nature as well as to avoid her failures. There is no 

 reason whatever why, with a little calculation and 



