The Culture of Flowers from Seeds 



garden. In the first place, these plants come into flower within a 

 comparatively short period of time from the sowing of the seed, and 

 it is a matter of considerable importance that a large proportion of 

 the best continue beautiful until the very close of the season. Some- 

 times in the autumn Geraniums become literally washed out, while 

 Tom Thumb Nasturtiums may be ablaze with colour, and continue 

 so when the Geraniums are housed for the winter. A considerable 

 number of showy and long-lasting annuals are adapted for employ- 

 ment in bedding, and by a little management those that do not last 

 the season out may be replaced by others for succession ; thus afford- 

 ing the advantage of increased variety, and making no demand for 

 glass and fuel to keep them through the winter as do the ordinary 

 bedders. We have had great and glorious sheets of Candytufts, 

 snow-white, rich crimson, and bright carmine ; and when they began 

 to wane they were removed, and the ground planted with Asters, 

 and very soon there was another display, so fresh and bright and 

 various that no greenhouse bedders could surpass them. Great 

 hungry banks, that would have swallowed many pounds' worth of 

 greenhouse plants to cover them, have been made delightfully gay 

 at a very trifling cost by sowing upon them Tropaeolums, Sweet Peas, 

 Tom Thumb Nasturtiums, Bartonia aurea, the dwarf varieties of 

 LupinuS) Virginian Stock, Collinsia bicolor, Convolvuluses, Candy- 

 tufts, Eschscholtzias, Poppies, and Clarkias; and damp, half-shady 

 borders have been delicately tessellated by means of Forget-me-nots, 

 Venus's Looking-glass, Pansies, the Rosy Oxalis, Nemophilas, and 

 German Scabious. 



For the more important positions in the flower garden we have 

 choice of many really sumptuous subjects, such as Stocks, Asters, 

 Balsams, Drummond's Phlox, Lobelias, Antirrhinums, Dianthus, 

 Portulacas, Zinnias, Erysimums, the lovely Linum grandiflorum 

 rubrum, Godetias, Silenes, and many other flowers equally beauti- 

 ful and lasting. We do not hope by these brief remarks to change 

 the prevailing fashion indeed, we have no particular wish that way 

 but we feel bound to observe that it is sufficient for the beauty 

 of the garden that the greenhouse bedders should be confined to 

 the parterre proper. It is waste of space and opportunity to place 

 them in the borders everywhere, as is too commonly done. In sunny 

 borders, annual and -perennial herbaceous plants are far more 

 appropriate. 



Some time since, while walking over a large garden, we left the 

 rich colouring of the geometric beds to discover what should make 



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