Annuals 241 



of the day, or if beads of excessive moisture form on them. When 

 the sun is bright, but a cold wind blows, lay a strip of carpet along 

 the open sash on the windward side. Vigorous growth depends 

 upon each plant having room enough to develop and plenty of air 

 and light. Weeding and thinning out are vitally important if 

 the young plants are not to choke one another to death, and with 

 the usual wasteful method of too thick sowing this should be done 

 I early. Many of the crowded seedlings may be transplanted 

 j and saved, but this is laborious, and labour is what makes garden- 

 ing costly. As the plants rise high in the frames, there is some 

 danger of their being scorched. Now remove the glass sashes 

 when the sun is bright, and replace them during the day with 

 screens made of laths which are nailed an inch and a half apart 

 across strips of wood cut the length of each partition of the hot- 

 bed. If the nails are clinched and each screen is well braced it 

 will last many seasons. Or a coat of whitewash on the glass 

 may serve as a sun screen. Before the plants are removed to the 

 i open ground they need to be gradually hardened; and finally, 

 even the lath screens will be left off. It will be observed that it 

 is something of a nuisance to start annuals under glass. More 

 and more we depend upon the hardier ones and perennials that 

 may be grown in the open air. 



But an old hotbed that has lost its heat has not lost its use- 

 fulness by any means. Perennial and biennial seed may be sown 

 in it at midsummer for next year's blooming; foxgloves and 

 Canterbury bells especially appreciate its shelter; the best pansy 

 plants, although really perennials, are usually treated as annuals, 

 and are started in August to make the spring garden gay; 

 violets may be picked from the frames all winter; cuttings of roses, 

 heliotrope, carnations, geraniums and begonias, among others, 



