FEBRUARY: THIRD WEEK ' 47 



seed sown in the open, either transplanted or left where 

 they were started. 



The potted plants, which are usually in bloom when you 

 get them, give you the biggest immediate show for your 

 money. But most of them are good for only a single season, 

 so that in the end they are the most expensive to buy. 

 Hardy perennials of many good sorts cost from fifteen to 

 twenty-five cents apiece, and most of them will bloom the 

 first year if planted early enough in spring; they will last 

 for many years. Annuals and biennials, and perennials that 

 are treated as annuals, started from seed, cost next to 

 nothing, and are almost always satisfactory if care and 

 judgment are used in selecting varieties adapted to the 

 particular places in which you wish to put them, or com- 

 binations in which you wish to use them. 



Flowers Available for Special Purpose 



The catalogues list hundreds of kinds and varieties of 

 flowers, but very few of the kinds that are not well known 

 are as good as the popular favorites that everybody has 

 grown or seen. Some of the flowers to be started are hardy 

 and others are half hardy or tender, so it is best to have some 

 place arranged in which the latter can be given a little 

 higher temperature. 



When the plants are up and far enough along to be trans- 

 planted — ^when the second or third true leaf begins to 

 show — they should be shifted to other flats or to pots. 

 Plants of which a comparatively large niunber will be re- 

 quired, such as pansies, asters and sweet alyssum, may be 

 grown in flats until it is time to set them out. 



If the seedlings are extra strong and well started, as the 

 result of not having been crowded in the early stages of 

 growth, they may be put at once into small pots. These 

 things should be given a second shift and, if the pots become 

 filled with roots, a third shift to larger pots before being set 

 into the garden. This is especially true of salvia and other 

 tender plants that caimot be set out until all danger of 



