64 POPULAR GARDEN FLOWERS 



The following are beautiful garden Pinks : 



Anne Boleyn, purple. Ernest Ladhams, blush. 



Ascot, pink. Mrs. Lakin, white, pink centre. 



Brackleen, rose, white ground. Mrs. Sinkins, white. 



If we are to get beautiful Self Carnations in the 

 garden, we must attend to a few important practical 

 points. We aim at border clumps or beds in which the 

 plants are strong, healthy, and bearing a number of 

 large, brilliant, fragrant flowers. We cannot very well 

 get such plants if the soil is bad or infested with wire- 

 worms. We can get plants of a kind, but they will be 

 small, weak, and incapable of producing flowers of the 

 quality we desire. 



Soil. There should be at least a foot in depth of soil, 

 and if it is loam all the better, but clay will do if it is well 

 drained and rendered friable by deep digging towards 

 the end of winter. A light dressing of thoroughly 

 decayed manure will improve it, and mortar rubbish, 

 road grit, and wood ashes from a garden fire may be 

 added with advantage. Light soil should be dressed 

 with decayed turves that have stood in a heap for several 

 months if possible, as this adds fibre, and Carnations like 

 a soil with body in it. 



Wire-worm and leather-jackets are not common, as a 

 rule, in ground which has been cultivated for several 

 years, but they are often abundant in new gardens, 

 especially those that have been made out of meadow- 

 land. Now, wireworms are particularly fond of Carna- 

 tions, and will troop ravenously to them, feeding on the 

 roots, and so worrying the plants that they have no chance 

 of growing well. Small plants never "get away," as 

 gardeners say; they remain stunted and sickly. If 

 the Carnation-lover is going to plant on freshly-broken 



