ANNUALS TO FILL THE GAPS 
LESLIE HUDSON 
Old Friends that are Ever New, Which Come to us in Improved Strains of Increasing Beauty 
and Usefulness to Make the New Garden Full and the Old Garden Gay in Dull Midsummer 
A BORDER OF FRAGRANT PANSIES 
IESTED and true!” Can there be a nobler tribute of 
loyalty and affection? It is a tribute to the fealty of 
both him who gives and him who receives. The tested 
friend will be relied upon in the future for he rings true, 
and you know in advance what he will do. Yes, indeed, old 
friends are best even in these days of modernism. So I sing 
the Annuals for the Garden of Everyman; and though there be 
newcomers to lure us into adventure with chance and fortune, 
and perchance worth rubbing up an acquaintance with, yet 
say I at this time, among the newcomers are not a few that are 
but the younger generation of the old familiars — or mayhap the 
old people themselves in very fact — but arrayed in the raiment 
of the present day. 
Let us not forget the Annuals that have served us so well, 
and served too our fathers and mothers, and our grandparents, 
and our great-grandparents and goodness knows how many 
“greats” away back into the uncharted past. And always 
these Annuals have made the garden gay and joyous. We 
cannot even think of an old garden without conjuring up 
pictures of Poppies and Nasturtiums and Sweet-peas and 
Bachelors-buttons or Corn-flower or Ragged-sailor or whatever 
else you may fancy to call it. Indeed the Annuals express 
gaiety and light and sunshine in a way that the more sedate 
“herbaceous perennials” or “spring-blooming shrubs,” or 
“berry-bearing plants for winter cheer” do not. 
A NNUALS give quick results, and easily! You purchase a 
L few packets of seeds and sow them right where the patch 
of color is wanted, and the rains from heaven with the sunshine 
do the rest. And don’t forget that sunshine, for you cannot get 
these Annuals to work their greatest wonders of transformation 
on a spot where the sun never shines. Left to themselves, nearly 
all the Annuals bedeck the garden around the season of mid- 
summer dullness that falls like a pall on the too permanent 
border. Why worry so continuously about the absence of 
herbaceous perennials to blossom forth in July and August when 
there are at hand so many Annuals that will “do the trick.” 
Yes, and more, for by succession sowings outdoors the season 
can be extended later, and by forehanded sowings with slight 
protection the season can be advanced. You can’t gather figs 
from thistles, nor may you cut Peonies in September, but you 
can have Poppies early and late, and Pot-marigold, and Pansies, 
and oh, a host of others — almost everything in fact excepting 
perhaps that tragic fairy-like queen of the fall, the Cosmos, 
and even the tropic visitor to the north is tractable to 
a degree if in its early days it is given the warmth of its native 
land. 
F OR easy gardening — great results from least effort — give 
me the Annuals. “But,” you say “they are not perman- 
ent, you have nothing in hand for your labors.” “ Bless your 
soul! I have had, the full measure of profit, a hundred fold, 
in the same year. Should I ask more? Are you fair?” 
Annuals are safe material for the new gardener who wants to 
get experience in handling plants because one season’s study 
will teach a lot of lessons. They are by far the best for any one 
to learn the principles of forcing on. Sow seeds in shallow 
boxes — flats— in the dwelling room or in a seed bed made in a 
coldframe outdoors in March. You will have plants ahead of 
those that will come from sowing outdoors as soon as the ground 
is fit to work. Or sow indoors, in the kitchen window in 
February for flowers in early May — that is of course assuming 
there is no greenhouse. Give a fibrous loam with some sand 
added to make it lighter (more open and more easily drained) 
about two to three inches deep and keep lightly covered after 
sowing and once watering till the plants appear and the rest is 
simple, provided the light is good. The only drawback to the 
kitchen window starting is the tendency to draw, and develop 
long drawn out stalks. In fact later out-door-sown plants that 
are sturdy and stocky are far to be preferred. 
T HERE be three classes of Annuals, which it is well to 
remember: i, Hardy; 2, Half-hardy; 3, Tender. Most 
works of reference and all seed catalogues clearly indicate the 
