134 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



out for a prop, and with some quick-growing sum- 

 mer creeper might yet serve its turn for another 

 season. An idea once gained for a colour scheme, 

 the dreary feeling of depression passes away, and 

 as we are in no mood to plant for our heirs, our 

 hopes turn instinctively to annuals. There are two 

 classes, hardy and half hardy, of annuals, and for 

 the first of these autumn sowing, as a rule, is the 

 best a fact often proved by seeds falling, self- 

 sown, as soon as they are ripe, where they quickly 

 germinate, and far exceed in strength and fulness 

 of flower those that are sown by hand in the fol- 

 lowing March or April. Of these Shirley poppies 

 may be taken as a type. Others, again, though 

 they come under the head of hardy annuals, can- 

 not stand the winter in their early stages, and 

 unless we have some means of giving them slight 

 protection, these must wait till the spring. If the 

 garden can boast of an empty greenhouse, however 

 small, or a cucumber frame, the difficulties are in- 

 finitely lessened; for all then becomes plain sail- 

 ing. 



As there is no time to lose, the seeds to be sown 

 out of doors must be the first consideration. Shir- 

 ley poppies, the finest form of love-in-the-mist 

 (Nigella), the various eschscholtzias, and blue corn- 

 flowers, are all desirable ; and as none of these 

 transplant very well, places should be settled upon 

 and a very thin sprinkling of seed sown where they 

 are wanted to flower. If they come up freely, they 

 will even then have to be thinned out in the spring, 

 to leave ample room for development from six 

 to twelve inches apart, according to the special 



