JUNE. 251 



All these and many more, too numerous to mention, who 

 does not ever welcome to a place in the flower garden ? 

 Even the brilliant Verbenas, and other bedding plants, make 

 but little show beside several of those we have mentioned. 



The real beauty of most of the annual flowering plants, 

 excepting such as we first enumerated, can only be truly ap- 

 preciated when they are cultivated in masses — that is, in 

 circles or beds containing several plants. In this way they 

 present such a profusion of bloom that they at once strike 

 the observer as being the most charming of flowers. In Eng- 

 land, where large flower gardens are laid out similar to those 

 we gave designs for in our last volume, and entirely planted 

 with annuals, or with annuals and bedding plants, they form 

 the most interesting feature of the place, and situated as 

 many of them are, immediately before the drawing-room 

 windows, where the beds can be looked down upon from the 

 terrace walk, we recollect of nothing which struck us as so 

 singularly effective and ornamental. 



A word as to their culture. Many complaints are made in 

 reference to the vegetation of the seeds ; but, in nine cases 

 out of ten, it arises solely from the want of knowledge by 

 the cultivator. They are either planted too early, before the 

 ground is warm, or they are covered so deep that the young 

 plants have no strength to get through the soil. The best 

 way is to sow the delicate and fine seeds in a pot or frame, 

 and transplant them into the open ground in June : the hardier 

 kinds may be planted during the latter part of May up to the 

 middle of June. Balsams, Asters and Coxcombs, and similar 

 late growers, to have a fine display, should be sown in 

 boxes in April, and afterwards transplanted into the ground 

 in a place where they can be protected from frost, till they 

 get well established, when they may be removed to the bor- 

 der or beds where they are to bloom. 



The soil for annuals should be light and well enriched with 

 very old manure or leaf mould : the deeper and better the soil, 

 the finer the growth. Avoid planting too thick, for a few 

 good plants are preferable to a dozen poor ones. Annuals, 

 with the exception of a few sorts, may be planted up to the 

 20th of June, and aff'ord an abundant bloom. 



