20 GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS 



or June in a cold frame, or even in the open ground, but when in a 

 frame the seedlings are more under control. When selecting the seed- 

 lings to keep during their flowering time reject all of poor colouring. 

 Magentas and unpleasant purples will frequently occur, and these are 

 amongst the most disagreeable colours in the garden. Pure white, 

 pink, deep crimson, clear yellow, or any good self shades are welcome. 

 Miss Jekyll, in " Wood and Garden," alludes to the beautiful bunch 

 Primroses, which are such excellent garden plants, as follows: "The 

 big yellow and white bunch Primroses are delightful room flowers, 

 beautiful, and of sweetest scent. When full grown the flower-stalks 

 are ten inches long and more. Among the seedlings there are always 

 a certain number that are worthless. These are pounced upon as soon as 

 they show their bloom, and cut up for greenery to go with the cut 

 flowers, leaving the root-stalk with its middle foliage and cutting away 

 the roots and any rough outside leaves." And at p. 216, in a charming 

 description of the " Primrose Garden " at Munstead, this useful type 

 of garden flower is fully described. The Munstead Primroses "are, 

 broadly speaking, white and yellow varieties of the strong bunch- 

 flowered or Polyanthus kind, but they vary in detail so much, in form, 

 colour, habit, arrangement, and size of eye and shape of edge, that one 

 year thinking it might be useful to classify them I tried to do so, 

 but gave it up after writing out the characters of sixty classes ! Their 

 possible variation seems endless. Every year among the seedlings there 

 appear a number of charming flowers with some new development of 

 size, or colour of flower, or beauty of foliage, and yet all within the 

 narrow bounds of white and yellow Primroses. Their time of flowering 

 is much later than that of the true or single-stalked Primrose. They 

 come into bloom early in April, though a certain number of poorly 

 developed flowers generally come much earlier, and they are at their 

 best in the last two weeks of April and the first days of May. When 

 the bloom wanes, and is nearly overtopped by the leaves, the time has 

 come that I find best for dividing and replanting. The plants then 

 seem willing to divide, some about falling apart in one's hands, and the 

 new roots may be seen just beginning to form at the base of the crown. 

 l*he plants are at the same time relieved of the crowded mass of flower- 

 stem, and, therefore, of the exhausting effort of forming seed, a severe 

 drain on their strength. A certain number will not have made more 

 than one strong crown, and a few single-crown plants have not flowered ; 

 these of course do not divide. ..." Writing of the time of sowing the 

 seed, the author says : "As nearly as I can make out, it is well in heavy 

 soils to sow when ripe, and in light ones to wait until March. In some 

 heavy soils Primroses stand for two years without division ; whereas in 

 light ones, such as mine, they take up the food within reach in a much 

 shorter time, so that by the second year the plant has become a crowded 

 mass of weak crowns that only throw up poor flowers, and are by then 

 so much exhausted that they are not worth dividing afterwards. In 

 my own case, having tried both ways, I find the March sown ones the 

 best. The seed is sown in boxes in cold frames, and pricked out again 

 into boxes when large enough to handle. The seedlings are planted out 



