48 POPULAR GARDEN FLOWERS 



but for these beautiful flowers. The suburbanist's 

 borders are comparatively narrow and restricted, as a 

 rule, and he cannot get the pleasure and satisfaction 

 out of hardy herbaceous perennials which people more 

 fortunately situated can. For a modest half-crown he 

 can buy a collection of several kinds of annuals, each 

 packet containing enough seed to yield a considerable 

 number of plants sufficient in the aggregate, indeed, 

 to fill his garden with beautiful and fragrant flowers 

 through the summer and into mid-autumn. If the 

 amateur supports a penny-packet firm, he could get a 

 packet of each of the kinds which I have named for 

 two shillings and eightpence. It is good indeed to 

 think that so much beauty is available for so modest 

 an outlay. 



Let me take the Candytuft (Asters have been dealt with 

 in Chapter II) as typical of the annuals. On April 7 

 I sowed a packet of Giant White Hyacinth-flowered 

 (the seedsman said the spikes would be nearly as large 

 as Hyacinths when at their best, and so they were) in 

 front of a Rose-bed, and to-day (October n) the clumps 

 are still full of bloom after several weeks of incessant 

 flowering. The packet cost threepence, and by dint 

 of careful sowing, the seed being sprinkled very thinly 

 over an area of half a square yard in each case, I was 

 able to make it provide me with several clumps. This 

 Candytuft, with its great white spikes reminiscent of 

 Hyacinths, has been as much a feature of the garden 

 as any of the herbaceous plants. The spikes are very 

 reluctant to part with their flowers. At their best they 

 are, of course, all bloom ; as the seeding instinct asserts 

 itself the lower flowers wither, leaving seed-pods ; and 

 this process repeats itself, but very slowly if the plants 

 are growing unrestricted, and many weeks elapse before 



