GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS 



GROUPS OF GARDEN FLOWERS 



As a table of the most precious garden flowers is given at the 

 end of this work, it is needless to describe every plant of 

 importance, and perennial or garden flowers are not of equal 

 value. Special distinction has been therefore given to a few 

 groups necessary to every garden, however small. 



Antirrhinum (Snapdragon). Well-chosen Snapdragons, or Bab- 

 bits' Mouths as the children call them, are good garden flowers, but 

 the striped, speckled, or bizarre coloured kinds are not desirable. The 

 Antirrhinum should be more planted in borders and beds ; it may be 

 regarded quite as a bedding plant that is, when the colours are limited 

 to those that are purely self, rich, and decided. In many places the 

 Antirrhinum is treated as a biennial, and seed sown in spring under glass 

 will germinate sufficiently quickly to produce flowering plants the same 

 year. When they are used for bedding, special kinds must be selected, as 

 reliance cannot be placed upon seedlings coming true to colour. It is a 

 very simple matter to propagate the plants by cuttings, which, if taken 

 from moderately ripened growths, and dibbled under a hand-light in 

 summer, will soon root. It is advisable to keep the young plants in a cold 

 frame during winter ; they frequently die off wholesale from damp and 

 frost when in the open. Select three forms pure white, clear yellow, 

 and deep crimson ; the pure white is a charming flower, and is named 

 White Swan, at least that is the most popular variety of this kind. 

 The ciimson Snapdragon is a richly attractive variety. Avoid the squat 

 Tom Thumb group, pigmy plants in which all the natural grace of the 

 Antirrhinum is lost. When the garden wall is old and crannied, Snap- 

 dragons are one of the things to sow in the chinks. 



Aquilegia (Columbine). A garden without its Columbines is 

 bereft of a dainty and pretty flower. There are, of course, species, and 

 by intermingling them the present race of spurred and other garden 

 forms has been obtained. Aquilegias may, indeed, for the garden go 

 into two groups those with spurs and those without these appendages 

 which impart to the flower characteristic beauty. To the short-spurred 

 class belongs our native Columbine, with its blunt spurs arching over 

 together towards the insertion of the stalk. From this wild plant (A. 



1* A 



