19-1 
FLOWER GARDEN. 
roots in a season, live, mid want room, and if 
ihcir pots were largo enough to last them two 
seasons, would not, in one-half the cases, do 
so well; whereas annuals, having perfected 
themselves, as well as filled the pot with roots, 
die, and are done with. Where there is not 
room to accommodate the larger sized pots at 
first, you must be content to shift them from 
the seed-pan to a small one, and, when it is 
required, from the small to a larger, and this 
is found to be necessary in almost all cases 
where room is any object ; for instance, a 
Balsam is grown to fill an eight-sized pot in 
a season. An eight-sized pot takes the room 
of six pots, size sixty, or even more ; while, 
therefore, heat is absolutely necessary to then- 
proper growth, it. is no small consideration, 
that instead of being able to grow a hundred 
and twenty, which you may by shifting, you 
should only grow twenty, and put them in the 
large pots at once. All these annuals in pots, 
which are to be bloomed in pots, should be kept 
close to the glass. Nothing conduces more to 
their healthy growth, and dwarf, stocky appear- 
ance, than this one point in the practice, the keep- 
ing them well up to the glass. For this reason 
hot-beds are far better to grow them in than 
green-houses or stoves ; generally, in the 
higher kind of establishments, they have 
regularly heated pits, but Balsams and Cocks- 
combs do best, in all their younger growth, 
with top light and free air, when it can be 
given. If they are obliged to be grown in 
green-houses, it is necessary to make the best 
of it, by growing in the front, and near the 
glass. If these annuals are intended for the 
open ground, they may be saved till about the 
fifteenth of the month, and planted out from 
their present situations ; but if they are 
crowded in a seed pot or pan, they should be 
picked out into other pots, or even for a 
few days they must be kept in their present 
protected state. "Where the gardens are small, 
and much exposed, pot culture, for the sake of 
turning out, must be adopted to some extent ; 
for instance, as soon as the weather permits 
in May, you want the gardens gay all at once. 
Hyacinths bloom in the open ground, but even 
they should be in pots, for the sake of remov- 
ing them the instant they are out of bloom, 
and to place other blooming subjects in their 
situations. To do this, many things, which by 
no m^ans require it, should be grown in pots. 
For instance, Sweet-peas, Mignonette, Nemo- 
phila, Clintonea, China-aster, Ten-week and 
other Stocks, Convolvulus, and many other 
things ; not because they would not grow 
better in the open air, but because you 
have a garden which must never be short of 
flowers, and therefore you must be able to take 
out all things as they decline, and replace 
them with things in perfection, or getting so. 
This is the case in thousands of country villas 
around the great towns, where ground is 
scarce, and the gardens in front are exposed. 
With annuals there is a great advantage; in 
pot-cultui'C for this purpose ; for, however 
pretty a flower may be, it is of small service 
until it is about to flower, and yet, without 
pot-culture, you would be obliged to put up 
with its green foliage alone, until its proper 
time of blooming. So that a garden, to be 
gay at any particular period of the year, must, 
of necessity, be very bare of flowers a great 
part of it, especially all the autumn flowers. 
Annuals may, however, be sown out of doors 
the beginning of the month; they will flower 
later than those sown last month, and form 
another season. Annuals sown in pots, in 
heat, will, however, get forward much faster 
than those in the open air; and if you have 
omitted sowing, and want to save time, it will 
be worth sowing in pots, to turn out the balls 
whole, as soon as they are forward enough to 
do well. There is a strange mistake among the 
good people who talk of tender annuals and 
hardy annuals. They seem to make the distinc- 
tion rather by the time they take to grow, than 
by their capacity to bear frost; hence we have 
among hardy annuals a number of subjects 
which are as tender as the most miffy exotics. 
For instance, what cold will the common Nas- 
turtium bear? Why, the most unimportant frost 
will turn them as black as it would a geranium. 
The fact is, subjects that will bear sowing in 
the open air, come up after the frosts are gone, 
and bloom before the autumn frosts appear, 
are called hardy annuals ; while others, which 
take longer time to perfect themselves, are 
necessarily started in heat, and nursed towards 
maturity by the time the frosts have gone, and 
can be then planted out and perfected before 
the frost disturbs them. Nevertheless, there 
are what people call 
Hardy and Half-hardy Annuals. — 
These do well if started a little before the time 
they can bear the weather, so as to give them 
a month's fair progress before they are turned 
out. Many annuals, however, bear sowing 
now, and will bloom and ripen seed before 
they die. Sweet-peas, Lupins, Convolvulus, 
Larkspurs, Ten-week Stocks, Collinsia, Gillia, 
China-aster, and many others, if sown imme- 
diately, will flower and succeed the more 
early blooming ones that have been raised in 
pots. 
Dahlias. — All that have struck, and are in 
heat, should be placed in cold pits, wdiere they 
will be protected by covering against frost, but 
be hardening off, as the gardeners call it, against 
planting out time; for they will not bear taking 
from the hot-beds to plant out, hoAvever fine 
the weather may be. The wind alone would 
cause them to flas;, and be checked in their 
