THE CULTURE OF COMMON PLANTS 



absolutely essential in every garden. There -are bachelor's- 

 buttons, and balsams, wall-flowers and nasturtiums, snap- 

 dragons, larkspurs, marigolds, asters, verbenas, poppies, 

 stocks, calliopsis, cosmos, cockscomb — all old-time favorites, 

 for which substitutes have not yet been found by the ever- 

 diligent hybridizer. 



I am not an admirer of formal designs with annuals. I 

 much prefer masses, and great banks of the brightest-hued 

 blossoms. 



Of course I would make exceptions to this rule, for the 

 dainty blue lobelias and the phloxes are often very effective 

 in formal lines. I am also reminded that some one has said, 

 "A bed without a border is like a garment without a hem." 

 A mass of bright blue lobelias, or even ageratums, or del- 

 phiniums, with a low foreground of English daisies, with 

 their crimson-tipped petals, comes before my mind's eye as 

 I write. Nasturtiums are a delight to my soul. Sweet- 

 scented, strong and vigorous, they will grow in almost any 

 soil, and one has always a choice of dwarf varieties, or the 

 wonderful climbing sorts. There is a nondescript variety 

 growing in my garden that had been quite ignored as of no 

 especial value in the scheme. One day we aroused to the 

 fact that we had something phenomenal in the way of nas- 

 turtiums. I believe I discovered this by contrast, for I had 

 spent a day with an originator of many new nasturtiums, who 

 had talked learnedly and shown triumphantly a great many 

 new varieties. I went home to find I had "something bet- 

 ter." My nasturtiums, determined to be seen of all men, 



1291 



