26 The Book of Annuals 



leave the hose on the ground to flood the border or 

 bed with as much as it will readily absorb. If this is 

 done at night, give the surface of the soil a mulch in 

 the morning by breaking up the top crust as finely 

 as possible. This "dust" mulch should be created 

 after every rain and after every watering. It is in 

 this way only that the moisture that is put into the 

 ground can be retained there for the use of the plants. 

 As soon as the surface of the soil is allowed to form a 

 crust the water is drawn out by evaporation through 

 capillary attraction and lost to the garden. 



The necessity for weeding a garden has become 

 so firmly implanted in the Anglo-Saxon mind that it 

 seems hardly necessary to dwell upon it here. It is 

 just as essential to keep weeds out of the flower gar- 

 den as out of the vegetable garden, and the task is 

 undoubtedly harder in the former case because of 

 the more complicated grouping and the absence of 

 rows. The only plan of action that will lead to the 

 ideal garden is to keep the weeds out from the earliest 

 stages of growth. If they are kept down at the first, 

 when the annuals themselves are developing their 

 strength, they will be far easier to keep down later 

 when the flowers are better able to hold their own. 



There are few garden pests that will cause annoy- 

 ance in the garden of annuals. First of all, there are 

 the aphids, the most common of the great class of 

 sucking insects. They are tiny green things that 

 may be seen clustered around a soft stem, sucking the 

 juice from it. If they seem to be very thick on the 



