GROUPS OF GARDEN FLOWERS 17 



and 60 deg. in a pot or shallow pan of light soil. Prick off the seedlings 

 in the usual way, and plant out in May. Take cuttings of moderately 

 ripened shoots in autumn and winter them in a frame, and plant out in 

 April. There are named kinds, but the beginner will rest content with 

 seedlings of pure good colours. A variety with a pure white throat 

 and clear colour upon the face of the flower is very effective. Avoid 

 the dingy purple, or anything approaching magenta, but there are many 

 delicate tones in the race. 



Perennial Phloxes. There are two groups of Phloxes the one 

 called the mossy, Alpine, or cushion Phloxes, so useful to form carpet 

 plants or a groundwork to Daffodils, Colchicums, and other flowers, 

 besides being brilliant with colour when flowers surface the growth ; and 

 the other the Perennial, or Herbaceous section. The Perennial Phlox 

 is a glorious flower. It must be planted in the small garden in the 

 border, because there is nowhere else to put it, but in large places 

 it may be planted amongst shrubs, or by the water side, where 

 it delights in the moist rich soil. This is the keynote to success 

 a rich soil. In a garden never manured, especially if dry and 

 exposed entirely to the full sun, Phloxes are unhappy, they soon get 

 leggy and leafless ; but it is so easy to mulch with manure and water 

 freely that there is no excuse for poor growth. Plant healthy tufts in 

 spring when growth is commencing, or in autumn. After having been 

 about three years in the same place the growth becomes matted ; it is in 

 truth starved, and then is the time to break up the clumps and replant 

 elsewhere, or in the same place after it has been enriched. This taking 

 up of the plants and pulling them apart is called propagation, and this is 

 the easiest and surest method of increase. If one desires a few cuttings 

 from a neighbour who is blessed with plenty of Phloxes and does not 

 care to disturb the crowns, ask for them in the autumn, put them into 

 five-inch pots (round the sides), and when rooted pot off singly ; they 

 will root in a warm greenhouse. Of course, Phloxes may be raised 

 from seed, but this is not a beginner's task. The following are a few 

 of the best ; all will not be required in the small garden, but any one 

 of them may be chosen: Avalanche, pure white, dwarf. Coquelicot 

 may be described as orange-scarlet with a touch of salmon in it; a 

 brilliant flower, shapely, and effective. If the writer were asked to 

 choose one Phlox it would be Coquelicot, so strong, tall, handsome, 

 and telling. Etna is a colour that is unmistakable, a warm crimson- 

 scarlet, i.e. neither one nor the other. Jeanne d'Arc is a pretty dwarf, 

 white-flowered variety. La Candeur, also white, with cherry- coloured 

 "eye" in centre. W. Robinson rosy-salmon, tall. Eugene Danzan- 

 villiers, lilac, medium height. John Forbes, rose. Of course there are 

 many more Perennial Phloxes, but these should satisfy ordinary 

 requirements. 



Pinks. The good gardener, amateur or otherwise, will make full 

 use of the pink, pure white fragrant flowers inseparable from the old 

 English garden. We confess a strong love for the common white Pink, 

 so indispensable in its pretty modest beauty andlts incomparable sweet- 

 ness. Every year as its flowering time comes round one greets it as one 



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