LITTLE GARDENS 



purple light of morning. While sensitive and 

 costly plants may produce nothing but leaves, 

 and few of them, the petunia is a sure bloomer 

 in all kinds of soils, and it keeps at it all summer 

 long. Its flowers wear white, pink-purple, blue- 

 purple, a sober red and magenta, hence they are 

 no partners for cannas, salvias, and especially 

 for the geranium, coreopsis and ruddy marigold. 

 Petunias are both double and single, but it is a 

 defect in the former that their heads seem 

 heavier than they can support, and they are as 

 easily broken as dahlias are by rain, wind 

 and gamboling pets, to say nothing of Mary 

 Ann, whose destructive energies are greater than 

 all the others. The single flowers are the hand- 

 somest, in so far as we are concerned with form, 

 for the color range is the same in both. Either a 

 light, dry soil or a rich and moist one serves for 

 the raising of petunias. They will live in almost 

 anything except a swamp or an alkali desert. 

 Though they can be started in pots or boxes in- 

 doors, or in cold frames, I have never been dis- 

 appointed in them when I have sown the seed 

 out of doors in early spring. 



Something of the prejudice that is roused 

 i86 



