CULTURE OF FAVORITE PLANTS. 
PETUNIA. 
ASILY cultivated from seed, the Petunias are half-hardy perennial 
plants, blooming the first season, and therefore usually grown as sum- 
<< mer annuals, They run through many shades and markings, being 
\Y mottled, striped, clouded, feathered and in plain colors. The seeds are 
very small, and should be sown on the surface and rubbed in with the 
hand or be lightly covered. After the plants are up, they should be 
< thinned out liberally, as each individual plant becomes quite large, and blooms the 
better for having plenty of room. If the tip of the main branch is taken off, the 
side branches will be more numerous, thereby giving a more liberal supply of 
flowers. The double ones are more often grown from cuttings or slips than from 
seeds, The seeds of double flowers in these plants are obtained by fructifying 
the pistils with the pollen from a single or semi-double flower; occasionally, however, this 
process will yield single flowering plants. Petunias are grown in windows and conserva- 
tories as well as gardens, especially the double varieties. A good soil for their growth 
may be made up of equal parts of loam, leaf-mold, good manure and sand. Petunias 
seed freely, and are largely self-propagating; but a few of the superior hybrids are liable 
to prove defective in this respect; and, to insure success in raising these fancy kinds, the 
simplest and best method is to invest a small amount in the seeds raised by some specialist. 
They will appear early in spring, but all the sooner if the beds be cleared of old flower- 
stems and other rubbish. A few Petunia plants will in a short time cover an area of sev- 
eral square yards, and they therefore furnish a cheap and easy way of floral ornamentation. 
In thinning out, the strongest specimens should of course be retained, and left not less than 
six inches apart. They bloom in the open air, in even northern latitudes, from June to 
frost; and in warmer climes, or raised in hotbeds or under cold-frames, the season of bloom 
is proportionably prolonged, being virtually all the year round. 
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PHLOX. 
RILLIANT red or flame color, is the significance of the scientific 
name of this genus of plants, which belongs to the Polemonium 
family. The Phlox is a native American plant of many species, 
all of them pretty, but perhaps none so desirable in every respect 
as the P. Drummondii, so named in honor of the distinguished 
g Scottish collector, Drummond, who discovered it in Texas, in 
1835. Much transformed and improved by cultivation, it has been reintro- 
duced into its native America, and is yearly becoming more popular, one well- 
known florist cultivating from five to ten acres every year with this plant alone. 
There are several varieties, and the number is yearly increasing, with flowers 
varying in color from the deepest crimson to the purest white; and the colored 
petals are symmetrically arranged around a common center, which itself invariably differs 
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