THE PRACTICAL FLOWER GARDEN 



choice white phloxes, and also upon all plants 

 whose seeds I wish to save. 



The seeds, after maturing, are gathered 

 when dry, put into boxes, each of which is 

 carefully labeled, and then sown either in 

 August or the following spring. 



The seeds of perennials take longer to 

 germinate than those of annuals, and often, 

 when one has abandoned all hope of their 

 coming up, they will at last appear. One 

 year, some platycodons sown in my garden 

 in August did not show signs of life until the 

 middle of the following May; so one must be 

 patient and give Nature her own time. When 

 there is much rain in April and May before 

 the seeds sown in the seed-beds have germi- 

 nated, the smaller varieties are quite apt to 

 rot in the ground, and I have lost many a crop 

 of Canterbury bells from this cause. Seeds 

 more often fail to come up because of too wet 

 weather after sowing, or because they have 

 been allowed to become too dry, or because 

 they have been planted too deep, than 



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