Carnations. — Hollyhocks. 195 



Hollyhocks. — I am very proud of my hollyhocks. They are the glory 

 of my garden. I prefer them to roses, in all but odor. They are scent- 

 less. I except, also, the beauty of the rose-bud. I must own, also, that 

 roses have poetic associations surpassing the hollyhocks ; but so, too, they 

 have slugs and bugs and diseases to which the hollyhock is a stranger. 

 Thus far, I have never known an insect or a disease to prey upon my 

 hollyhocks. 



In the range of brilliancy of color, in the superb fulness of form, in a 

 certain softness and cloud-like effect produced when the blossoms are 

 arranged upon a flat dish, in the surpassing boldness and almost grandeur 

 of the spikes of flowers which shoot up from among the foliage of the 

 garden like the spires of a cathedral from among village trees, the holly- 

 hock has no rival or peer. 



Choice seed can be easily obtained of seedsmen, of both English and 

 American growth. A plantation may be reared every year ; or, by cutting 

 back the stalks as soon as the earlier seed-pods have ripened, new side- 

 shoots will develop from the root ; and, though the old root will die, these 

 new germs will establish themselves in their place, and so, in effect, change 

 a biennial into a perennial. 



The seed are sown in early summer ; transplanted, when three or four 

 leaves are made, eight inches apart ; and in late autumn, or early the next 

 spring, placed where they are to blossom. When new plantations are made, 

 all poor colors, single flowers, and stingy growers, are weeded out promptly 

 when their faults are disclosed. I have been lucky in seed. From choice 

 English seed I get ninety per cent of double flowers, and of all colors. 



Besides a place in the flower-garden, one might plant groups of holly- 

 hocks with admirable effect along the edge of forest-trees and in shrub- 

 beries. If the space is ample, the finest effect is secured, six to ten plants 

 of the same color in each group. 



The wliitjs, with me, are the least robust growers. The range of color is 

 wonderful. The liiliiie reaches up through three or four gradations to 

 yellow ; the yellows, in straw, buff, sulphur, orange (and each one in several 

 shades), go on to the pinks, which are endless in gradations ; then come 

 scarlet, crimson, maroon, and in each one subdivisions of color, until the 

 lip fails to find terms by which to designate the shades of color which the 

 eye clearly distinguishes. 



