48 GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS 



At the most, then, such flowering in a perennial should be 

 regarded as precocious, the seedling being none other than 

 the child of the parent plant. There is, however, a distinctive 



ain to the plant thus early set in its permanent home, for 

 y the ample scope afforded for development it will have 

 garnered to itself a strength of crown and rootstock im- 

 measurably superior to that of the seedling which has been 

 permitted to dawdle away its earliest days or weeks minus the 

 attention so requisite to its needs. The moral, therefore, will 

 be obvious to all. 



In conjunction with early sowing there must of necessity 

 follow timely transplanting, and if in due season the plant be 

 got into its permanent abode, the cultivator will at least have 

 the satisfaction of knowing that he has played his part. Such 

 work, indeed, is fundamental, an essential that cannot be 

 ignored with impunity. The most successful cultivators or 

 exhibitors of this or any other time are the greatest sticklers 

 for cultural details, and apart from their mastery of these, 

 they adopt the inexorable rule of never putting off till to- 

 morrow work that should have been done to-day. Naturally, 

 the amateur will say, " How impossible for me to emulate this 

 clockwork precision and regularity ! " and this, indeed, may be 

 true. At the same time, it might conceivably be his ambition, 

 a goal he is ever endeavouring to reach. This and the ever- 

 present knowledge of the importance of doing the right thing 

 at the right moment will, if he be a true flower-lover, spur 

 him on to further effort in the direction indicated. 



To say that seeds of all perennials should be thinly sown 

 and, so far as under-glass cultivation is concerned, lightly 

 covered, is but to repeat what has been said hundreds of 

 times before. Seeds of the Larkspur, for example, are large 

 enough to admit of handling singly, and where this is not the 

 case, a thin distribution of them is very important. Light- 

 weight seeds, as Statice, certain species of Anemone and 

 Gaillardia, may be covered more deeply than seeds of the 

 weight and character of the Columbines or Lychnises, while 

 seeds of the largest size, as Paeony, perennial Pea, Iris, or 

 others like Phlox, Christmas Rose, Adonis, or Hepatica, 

 which remain for a couple of years without signs of vege- 

 tating, may be covered fully half an inch deep, and will be 

 further benefited by a protective board or slate covering 

 meanwhile, in order to stay evaporation and prevent the 

 undue souring of the soil. 



On the other hand, seeds of a minute character will require 

 but little, if any, soil covering, and these are they that test 



