CHAPTER XVI 



ANNUALS AND BIENNIALS 



NOTHING is more dismal and ugly than a greenhouse left bare 

 and empty of its proper occupants. Not seldom, indeed, it 

 then becomes a storehouse for all sorts of garden lumber, the 

 untidiness of which it fails, unluckily, to hide. Yet it is not 

 an unlikely thing to happen that one finds one's self at some 

 time or other with a greenhouse on one's hands, yet for a 

 period too short to accomplish much in the way of plant- 

 growing. A year's tenancy of house and garden is, in truth, 

 for gardening purposes, an awkward gap to fill. It is, of 

 course, open to any such tenant to put the conservatory into 

 the hands of some neighbouring florist should there be one 

 within easy distance, and under some circumstances this is, 

 doubtless, the best way out of the difficulty. If the green- 

 house, however, happens to be unheated a professional 

 gardener will probably shake his head in despair of doing 

 himself any credit during the winter months, and, beyond 

 supplying a few evergreens in pots, may even decline altogether 

 to attempt any floral decoration until the spring. It is not to 

 be denied that there are considerable obstacles in the way, and 

 for the winter almost everything depends upon the time 

 available for preparation ; but a good deal may be done, at the 

 cost of a few shillings and a little time and trouble, with 

 annuals and biennials or certain other plants, possessing, 

 strictly speaking, a longer term of life, but which may be 

 treated as such. A few suggestive hints as to the most 



