ANNUALS 



Whilst the real interest of a garden must always be 

 associated with its perennial plants — those faithful friends 

 which flower year after year — no one, least of all the 

 beginner, can do without those more showy, though 

 shorter-lived plants which complete their existence in 

 a single season. To furnish a new garden with 

 perennial plants takes time or money, or both, whereas 

 for a shilling or two we may purchase enough seeds of 

 annuals * to fill a considerable garden with colour and 

 fragrance in a few months. It is true that we cannot 

 thus obtain flowers during the early months of spring, 

 when it is essential that a plant, in order to flower, may 

 have some hoard of nutriment in bulb or root on which 

 it may draw and thus be independent of the sun's light 

 and heat. We have among the annuals no substitute for 

 the Crocus and the Snowdrop, the winter Aconite and the 

 early Primrose. But from April to October a garden 

 can be kept full of flowers by means of annuals alone. 

 By means of these flowers also we may keep our garden 

 bright and interesting while we are building up our 

 collection of herbaceous plants, of which the garden will 

 largely consist in future years. There are, moreover, 

 many annual flowers which no garden, new or old, can 

 do without. What shall we say of a garden which 

 contains no Mignonette, no Poppies, no Sweet Peas, no 

 Stocks, no Love-in-a-mist ? Annual plants, of course, are 

 entirely raised from seeds, and these are to be sown partly 

 in the spring, partly in the autumn. Most should be sown 

 in March or April. Those which are required to bloom 

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