CHAPTER XII 
THE BEST USES OF ANNUALS 
BEST of all the uses of annuals is the most natural 
one—the employment of them to fill any spaces 
that hardy plants leave in the garden. Then, if the 
planting be naturalistic, the flower colony looks 
as though it had sprung up spontaneously. 
No one can be said really to know annuals who 
has not seen them in such plantings. Barring a 
few of the very stiff ones, they take on a grace 
and beauty—a final touch of both—that is lacking 
in the formality of set designs. It is the differ- 
ence between the irregularity of a dazzling patch 
of corn poppies in an English field and a circle, 
square or triangle of the same flowers cut out of 
a patch and removed where there is no more of 
the kind. 
Annuals thus employed are invaluable to the 
hardy garden and borders. Even in the best regu- 
lated families, hardy plants cannot always be made 
to cover every inch of the ground unless they have 
evergreen foliage—then there may be perishing 
just the same. Spring bulbs die down after bloom- 
ing, the early lilies soon turn brown—as do bleed- 
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