116 FLOWERS AKD THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



quite hardy, and may be planted like crocuses on any 

 warm border, and, like them, they must be taken up 

 every two or three years. They like a somewhat sandy 

 soil. 



The sweet delicate little Snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, 

 will do what so few pretty flowers will do, thrive undei 

 the drip of trees. The double snowdrop is perhaps 

 more taking, and the Russian snowdrop, with smaller 

 flowers, is also pretty. Snowdrops like a light rich soil, 

 and increase by offsets. They flower very early, and 

 should be divided and replanted every four or five 

 years. 



The sweet and lovely Lily of the Valley also grows 

 under the drip of trees, but it requires light. This pretty 

 plant is very touchy, but where once it takes it grows 

 luxuriantly. Only leave it alone, for nothing seems so 

 much to interfere with success as digging among 

 the roots. Where the roots take they will grow so 

 abundantly that clumps may be taken and never missed. 

 That rather favourite plant with many, the Solomon's 

 Seal, is of the same family. 



CHAPTER XV. 



ANNUALS. 



IT is almost superfluous to mention that annuals are 

 plants which grow up from seed and die in one year. 

 Many of them can, however, be kept alive for a second 

 year, and encouraged to grow large, by preventing their 

 ripening seed the first. 



Hardy annuals are those that bear our climate so 

 (veil that the seed may at once be sown in the open 

 border, from February to May, according to their capa- 

 city for withstanding the degree of frost which we often 

 get in spring. A succession, for flowering later, may be 

 sown even until the middle of June. Many kinds will 



