VARIETY IN ANNUAL FLOWERS 33 



unnamed cannas. These shade from the clearest lemon-yellow 

 to the faintest primrose in the same flower, running to apricot 

 and related hues." All this is pleasant news to the gardener; 

 anything really fine, and lovely, and hitherto unknowTi is worth 

 the trial, and these descriptions from the president of the Ameri- 

 can Rose Society, himself a fine grower of many flowers beside 

 roses, should set us toward many delightful experiments with 

 the canna. 



Harking back now to the geranium, where can we find a more 

 faithful plant? That lovely velvet leaf, now all green, now 

 zoned with cream-white, or even with rose color! Those hand- 

 some flowers, single, double, rose color, salmon pink, flesh pink, 

 purest white, and richest crimson, and scarlet! No other plant 

 produces such blooms and with such steady certainty. 



For some years I used in pots out-of-doors, as color accents 

 for a certain place, a niunber of plants of that charming flame- 

 pink geranimn, Mrs. E. G. Hill. In order to get summer bloom, 

 we kept the plants in pots, indoors, during the winter, stripping 

 all the stems of leaves toward January and allowing them to 

 sprout again toward May. After these plants were set out in 

 the open about the twenty-fifth of May, flower buds soon ap- 

 peared, and great mounds of delicate blossoms renewed by fresh 

 ones were constantly produced. My suggestion to those who 

 have fine plants of geranimns in their houses is to strip off all 

 the leaves about three months before the outdoor gardening 

 season opens; then use the plants as the starting point in flowers 

 for the borders or beds of yom* garden. 



Let me explain: suppose for instance, that you have only 

 scarlet geraniums; and suppose, also, that you plan a small 

 flower -border, ten feet long by four wide, against a fence or 

 before some shrubs. For such a border, always remembering 

 your color note of scarlet, sow, the year before, seeds of palest 



