BEDDING PLA^s'TS. 



101 



colour and growth happen to be wanted. Seed should 

 be sown in a hot-bed in April, and planted out in the 

 middle of May. 



Those half-hardy annuals, the Zinnias, are good for 

 beds, on account of their abundance of brilliant flowers 

 of all colours — carmine, crimson, orange, purple, rose, 

 scarlet, yellow, and white, and almost all the colours, 

 may be had in the double-flowering kind, which is very 

 handsome. jMessrs. Carter and Co. sell sixpenny packets 

 of seed, single or double (including all the colours), 

 which should be sown in a hot-bed in April, afterwards 

 hardened, and planted out when there is no more danger 

 of cold. They require a good rich loamy soil. They 

 will often come fine if sown under a hand glass late in 

 April, and protected at night. They flower from Mid- 

 summer to Michaelmas. 



The Saponaria has several varieties, none more than 

 half a foot high, remaining in flower from June almost 

 to Xovember. Its masses of minute rose-coloured 

 blossoms are pretty, and there is one of a pure white. 

 Most of them are hardy annuals ; the seed should be 

 sown in the open ground in April. They thrive in 

 sandy loam, with a little peat or decayed vegetable earth. 

 Saponaria ocymoides is a perennial, which may be pro- 

 pagated by division of the root, or cuttings of the points 

 of the shoots. It is of a trailing habit, and is good for 

 knolls or rockwork. 



The Cyclamen is a charming flower w^ith which to fill 

 a bed ; its drooping delicate flowers, and low habit of 

 growth, are very pretty, but it does not remain very long 

 in bloom. The root, being a solid corm, will not divide, 

 so young plants must be grown from seed. Gather the 

 seed as soon as it is ripe, dry it slowly, and sow it in 

 February, in a mixture of peat, loam, and sand. Cover 

 the seed with scarcely a quarter of an inch of earth, and 

 sow it far apart, because the young plants should not be 

 disturbed for a long time. When they are a year old 

 they may be potted singly, re-potted in April, and kept 

 in a gentle heat, to increase the size of the bulbs. 

 Many of the cyclamens will grow out of doors in a wai^m 



