ANNUALS 245 



A garden could be made attractive with no other flowers than 

 Annuals. We do not recommend the course, because we are fully 

 alive to the beauty of bulbs and the value of hardy perennials ; but 

 there can be no doubt that any person who chose to confine him- 

 self to Annuals, and was prepared to grow them really well, could 

 not only secure very beautiful garden effects, but could insure a 

 bountiful supply of appropriate flowers for room decoration. The 

 one real weakness that would attend the exclusion of bulbs and 

 hardy perennials would be the paucity of winter and early spring 

 flowers. From May onwards a good succession of bloom could be 

 had, which would reach its apogee from mid-July to mid-August. 



The greatest of all Annuals the Sweet Pea is dealt with 

 separately in this work, and we need do no more now than note 

 its membership of the class with which we are dealing, and beg 

 readers to give it that attention to which its intrinsic merits render 

 it so richly entitled. The remainder may be dealt with in three 

 groups hardy, half-hardy, and tender. The first and second are 

 almost exclusively cultivated out of doors, and the third under 

 glass, but there are a few exceptions to both rules. 



Let us in the first place define an Annual. It is a plant which 

 begins and finishes its career within a year. It is sown, it blooms, 

 it ripens seed, it dies, within a period of twelve months. Any 

 plant which is raised in the spring of one year, blooms, lives 

 through the winter, with or without leaves, and blooms again the 

 following year, is not an Annual. In some circumstances certain 

 plants that are generally classed as Annuals do this, notably 

 Mignonette and Eschscholtzias ; but the cases are exceptional. A 

 plant may, of course, pass a portion of its existence in two suc- 

 cessive years, and still remain an Annual, so long as it does not 

 seed the first season. Thus Silenes, Nemophilas, and some others 

 are frequently sown in late summer with the object of getting 

 them to bloom in spring. 



To complete definitions, a hardy Annual is one that passes the 



