314 



SHRUBBERIES AND FLOWER-GARDENS. 



[chap. 



perennial plant, originally from North America, about four feet 

 high, and blows a yellow flower in July and August. Propagated 

 by seed sowed in a border in July, and the young plants planted, 

 when they are fit, in the places where they are to remain ; also by 



separating the roots in the autumn or spring. Sun-flower, 



annual. — Lat. H. annuus. An annual, which came originally 

 from Peru ; grows from four to six feet high, having the coarsest 

 stem, leaf, and flower of any cultivated plant. The flower is 

 yellow, and appears in July and August. Is sometimes double, 

 and is from six inches to a foot in diameter ; bears abundance of 

 oily seed, which is much liked by poultry of every sort. Propa- 

 gated by its seed, sowed early in the spring, and the plants when 

 in their sixth leaf removed to where they are to blow. Fit for 

 nothing but very extensive shrubberies. When seen from a dis- 

 tance, the sight may endure it. 



o81. SWALLO W- WORT, /e^^-coZoz^rec?. —Lat. Asclepias 

 incarnata. A hardy perennial. Woody thick branches, growing 

 from three to four feet high, and blowing, in July and August, 

 bunches of flesh-coloured flowers at their extremities. Propagate 

 by dividing the roots in autumn. 



582. SWEET-WILLIAM.— Lat. Dianthus harhatus. This 

 plant is too well known to need any particular description ; it is 

 biennial or triennial, but is usually grown as a biennial, the seed 

 being sown one year to blow the next. It is one of the most orna- 

 mental plants of the garden, an oblong bed of sweet-williams being, 

 to my eye, the most beautiful thing that one can behold of the 

 flower kind. The varieties of colour are without end, and the 

 stifl" stalk of the plant holds them up to view in so complete a 

 manner that there is nothing left to wish for in this plant. The 

 seed should be sown in an open bed in the spring and in rows, 

 which should be kept hoed and weeded through the summer. In 

 autumn plant them out where they are to blow, and do not put 

 the plants nearer than within six inches of one another, either in 

 beds or in clumps. If you wish to propagate a particular plant, 

 you must do it by striking a cuttii»g from one of the flower- 

 stalks ; but this should be before that stalk has flowered. Let 

 there be two joints to the cutting ; and strike it under a hand- 

 glass upon a little heat. 



583. THISTLE^ the globe, — Echinops ritro. A hardy peren- 



