The Culture of Flowers from Seeds 



In addition to the common species, there are several strains which 

 are adapted for special purposes. The dwarf variety grows about 

 three feet high, and produces fine heads of bloom. The ' giant ' 

 attains the enormous height of eight or ten feet in a favourable season, 

 and the flowers are of immense size.. The double strain generally 

 reaches six feet in height, and is valuable for its fine show of colour 

 and enduring quality. There is no difficulty, therefore, in making a 

 selection to suit the requirements of any border. The Sunflower can 

 also be employed in one or more rows to make a boundary or to hide 

 an unsightly fence, and some growers use it as a screen for flowers 

 which will not bear full sunshine. 



Seed may be raised very early in the season, and the plants can 

 be brought forward in the manner usual with half-hardy annuals, 

 but there is no necessity for this mode of growing them. Sow in 

 April where the plants are to flower, on soil which has been abun- 

 dantly manured to a depth of eighteen inches, and they will bloom 

 in good time. To maintain the rapid growth, water must not be 

 stinted in dry weather. 



SWEET PEA 



Lathyrus odoratus. Hardy climbing annual 



THE history of the Sweet Pea is almost as fascinating as an exhibition 

 of the flowers. The literature on the subject affords an interesting 

 record, extending back for more than two hundred years, of the 

 enthusiastic labour of specialists in augmenting one of the most 

 innocent pleasures of life. An engraved illustration, coloured by 

 hand in 1730, represents the Sicilian Sweet Pea as a loose, ill-formed 

 flower, greyish purple in colour. Late in the eighteenth century, 

 five varieties were in existence black, purple, red, white, and the 

 Painted Lady, showing that selection had made some progress. In 

 1837, seed of striped, and a so-called yellow, were also offered. But 

 the closing decades of the nineteenth century witnessed the acces- 

 sion of many splendid novelties, which created deep public interest, 

 and gave the Sweet Pea an important position in the horticultural 

 world. 



Among the large number of named Sweet Peas now in existence, 

 some close resemblances are almost inevitable, arising from simul- 

 taneous introductions by experts who had been working on similar 

 lines. For practical purposes, however, a judicious selection of fifty 



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