Annuals, and How to Grow Them. 
By Professor L. H. Bailey, of 
Cornell University 
This article appeared in May, 1903, Country Life in America, and is printed by permission. ~ 
Annual plants are those that you must sow every year. The 
staid perennials I want for the main and permanent effects in my 
garden, but I could no more do without annuals than I could do 
without the spices and the condiments at the table. They are 
flowers of a season. I like flowers of a season. 
Of the kinds of annuals there is almost no end. This does not 
mean that all are equally good. For myself, I like to make the 
bold effects with a few of the old profuse and reliable kinds. I 
like whole masses and clouds of them. Then the other kinds I 
like to grow in smaller areas at one side, in a half experimental 
way. There is no need of trying to grow equal quantities of all 
the kinds that you select. There isno emphasis and no modulation 
in such a scheme. There should be major and minor keys. 
The minor keys may be of almost any kind of plant. Since 
these plants are semi-experimental, it does not matter if some of 
them fail outright. Why not begin the list at A and buy as many 
as you can afford and accommodate this year, then continue the 
list next year? In five or ten years you will have grown the 
alphabet, and will have learned as much horticulture and botany 
as most persons learn in a college course. And some of these 
plants will become your permanent friends. 
For the main and bold effects I want something that I can 
depend on. There I do not want to experiment. Never fill a 
conspicuous place with a kind of plant you have never grown. 
The kinds I like best are the ones easiest to grow. My personal 
equation, I suppose, determines this. Zinnia, Petunia, Marigold, 
Four O’Clock, Sunflower, Phlox, Scabiosa, Sweet Sultan, Bach- 
elor’s Button, Verbena, Calendula, Calliopsis, Morning-glory, 
Nasturtium, Sweet 
Pea, —these are 
some of the kinds 
that are surest and 
least attacked by 
bugs and fungi. I 
do not know where 
the investment of 
five cents will bring 
as great reward as 
in a packet of seeds 
of any of these 
plants. 
Before one sets 
out to grow these or 
any other plants, 
he must make for 
himself an_ ideal. 
Will he grow fora 
garden effect, or for 
specimen plants or 
specimen blooms? 
If for specimens, 
then each plant 
must have plenty of 
those I have mentioned are such. In general, I should not try 
to secure unusually early effects in any kind of plant by starting 
it extra early. I should get early effects with kinds of plants 
that naturally are early. Let everything have its season. Do 
not try to telescope the months. 
I have sown China Asters in the open ground in early June, 
in New York State, and have excellent fall bloom. Things 
come up quickly and grow rapidly in May and June. They 
hurry. The spring bloom you are not to expect from annuals. 
That you are to get from perennials,—the spring bulbs, soft 
bleeding-hearts, spicy pinks, bright-eyed polyanthuses and 
twenty more. : 
Make the soil rich and fine and soft and deep, just as you 
would for radishes or onions. There are some plants for which 
the soil can be made too rich, of course, but most persons do not 
err in this direction. The finer and more broken down the ma- 
nure the better. Spade itin. Mix it thoroughly with the soil. 
If the soil is clay-like, see that fine manure is thoroughly mixed 
with the surface layer to prevent ‘‘ baking.”’ 
Watering is an exacting labor, and yet half of it is usually 
unnecessary. The reasons why it is unnecessary are two: The 
soil is so shallowly prepared that the roots do not strike deep 
enough; we waste the moisture by allowing the soil to become 
hard, thereby setting up capillary connection with the atmos- 
phere and letting the water escape. See how moist the soil is 
in spring. Mulch it so that the water will not evaporate. Mulch 
it with a garden rake by keeping the soil loose and dry on top. 
This loose dry soil is the mulch. 
There will be moisture under- 
neath. Save water 
rather than add it. 
Then when you de 
have to water the 
plants, go at it as 
if you meant it. 
Wet the soil clear 
through. Wet it at 
dusk or in cloudy 
weather. Before 
the hot sun strikes 
it renew your 
mulch, or supply a 
mulch of fine litter, 
More plants are 
spoiled by sprink- 
ling than by 
drought. Bear in 
mind that watering 
isonly a special prac- 
tice — the general 
practice is to so fit 
and maintain the 
ground that the 
plants will not need 
Toom and_ receive Four O’ctocks, oR MARVEL OF PERU IN A FENCE. watering. 
particular individ- The less your 
ual care. If for garden effect, then see to it that the entire | space the fewer the kinds you should plant. Have enough 
space is solidly covered, and that you have a continuous blaze of | of each kind to be worth the while and the effort. It is more 
color. Usually the specimen plants would best be grown in a 
side garden, as vegetables are, where they can be tilled, trained 
and severally cared for. 
There is really a third ideal, and I hope that some of you may 
try it, to grow all the varieties of one species. You really do 
not know what the China Aster or the Balsam is until you have 
seen all the kinds of it. Suppose that you ask your seedsman to 
send you one packet of every variety of Cockscomb that he has. 
Next year yor may want to try Stocks or annual Poppies, or 
something else. All this will be a study in evolution. 
There is stitl a fourth ideal,—the growing for gathering or 
**picking.’’ If you want many flowers for house decoration and 
to give away, then grow them at one side in regular rows as you 
would potatoes or sweet corn. Harvest them in the same spirit 
that you would harvest string beans or tomatoes: that is what 
they are for. You do not have to consider the ‘‘looks’’ of your 
garden. You will not be afraid to pick them. When you have 
harvested an armful your garden is not despoiled. 
I like each plant in its season, China Aster is a fall flower. 
In early summer I want Pansies or Candytufts and other early 
or quick bloomers. For the small amateur garden greenhouses 
and hotbeds are unnecessary, and they are usually in the way. 
There are enough kinds of annuals that may be sown directly in 
the open ground, even in New York, to fill any garden. All 
(52) 
trouble to raise one plant than a dozen. 
It is usually best not to try to make formal ‘‘ designs’’ with 
annuals. Such designs are special things, anyway, and should 
be used sparingly and be made only by persons who are skilled 
in such work. A poor or unsuccessful design is the sorriest fail- 
ure a garden can have. 
This brings up a discussion of the proper place to put annuals. 
Do not put them in the lawn,—you want grass there. Suppos- ° 
ing that you grow the annuals for garden effect, there are two 
ways of disposing them,—to grow in beds or in borders. Some- 
times one method is better and sometimes the other. The border 
method is more informal, and therefore the simpler and easier. 
Its pictorial effect is usually greater. But in some places there 
are no boundary lines that can be used for borders. Then beds 
may be used; but make the beds so large and fill them so full 
that they will not appear to be mere play-patches. Long beds 
are usually best. Four or five feet wide is about the limit of ease 
in working in them. The more elaborate the shape of the bed, 
the more time you will consume on keeping the geometry straight 
and the less on having fun with the plants. Long points that rum 
off into the grass—as the points of a star—are particularly wor- 
risome, for the grass roots lock hands underneath and grab the 
food and moisture. 
It is surprising how many things one can grow in an old fence, 
