50 POPULAR GARDEN FLOWERS 



The principal half-hardy kinds (which respond to 

 the treatment indicated for annual Asters in Chapter II) 

 also last well. Petunias, Phloxes, Salpiglossis, and 

 Stocks blow well into the autumn if the plants are 

 roomily grown and watered in dry weather. 



Mignonette, Night-scented Stock (Matthiola), Sweet 

 Alyssum, Sweet Scabious, and Sweet Sultan give us per- 

 fumed flowers. The two first are long lasters, especi- 

 ally, I think, on limestone soils. Certainly Mignonette 

 gives me far more bloom on chalk than on clay, although, 

 oddly enough (yet perhaps not so odd, since the position 

 is bleak) it is later to open on the former. 



While I am a strong believer in giving annuals good 

 culture, on the lines indicated above, I find that it is 

 well worth while to broadcast a few kinds on any rough 

 bank or chalky slope, and leave them to Nature. Such 

 scatterings of seed may appear to be useless, since the 

 conditions afford no sort of hope of success ; and per- 

 haps half the summer passes without any result being 

 observed, then suddenly some evening a whiff of 

 perfume reaches your nostrils, and search reveals a 

 lusty colony of Mignonette that had been overlooked. 

 Clarkias, Eschscholtzias, Godetias, Linarias, Love-in- 

 a-mist, Mignonette, Night-scented Stock, and Poppies 

 are all particularly likely to succeed on this rough-and- 

 ready system. 



