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THE ELOWEE &AEDEX. 



requirements of April, May, and June, when you will 

 want every day to be six-and-thirty hours long. Make 

 hotbeds for tender annuals : the list is long. Select a 

 few striking, effective, unusual kinds, and display them 

 in a large assemblage, rather than fritter away your 

 strength on a multitude of incongruities. The ice- 

 plant makes a remarkable bed in a south border ; zinnias, 

 balsams, and ipomoeas, are good in their way. Trim 

 grass edgings with a proper cutter : fill up any vacant 

 gaps in borders of thrift, gentianella, dwarf campanula, 

 double daisies, primroses, sedums, &c. Plant out seed- 

 ling hollyhocks, in well-manured ground, where they are 

 to bloom ; strike cuttings of approved sorts. Xever, for 

 a single instant, forget the vast abyss of flowering plants 

 which you will shortly be compelled to fill somehow, 

 well or ill. If any choice novelties have lately come 

 out, and are likely to be the rage, now is the time to 

 make sure of them ; by-and-by you may have for 

 answer to your application, that w the execution of 

 further orders must stand over till the following spring." 

 Bedding-plants, propagated by yourself on the spot, in 

 gentle heat, are worth double the number travelling 

 from a distance, and forced at a high-pressure rate. 



MAKCH. 



Keep an eye on the jobbing gardener who undertakes 

 to " right-side ; ' your suburban parterre in spring ; take 

 care that he does not make it neat by making it empty ; 

 that the beds, which he leaves so beautifully raked, have 

 nothing but rubbish growing in them. Hard winters do 

 not cause the disappearance of all choice flowers. Clip box 

 edges at the beginning of the month, supposing that it 

 is not freezing sharp ; turn a deaf ear to those who 

 advise you to do it in June, or, infinitely worse, in 

 September. Do all you can to remedy the ill effects of 

 "February's sleet, slop, and rain. You may plunge in 

 borders, or in beds (to be filled hereafter with scarlet 

 geraniums, or verbenas), hyacinths, and tulips, and 



