2 6 Making a Garden to Bloom This Year 
that can be trusted to the garden before 
the first of May; count back eight weeks, 
and it gives March first as the proper 
time for planting the seed indoors — for the 
things which only require eight weeks to 
mature. Start the slower things earlier. 
There are, roughly speaking, at least 
seventy annuals that are worth growing — 
that is, well worth growing — in a garden ; 
which is fully three times as many as any 
one garden should contain, and six times 
as many as the majority of gardens can 
accommodate with good effect. From ten 
to twenty kinds are enough anywhere, for 
it is always the rule that many of a single 
kind — great broad masses where there is 
space — are to be used instead of small 
clumps or single plants of many kinds. 
And, with most of them, separate colors 
will produce a much better effect than mix- 
tures, though I should not advise this as a 
rule to be slavishly followed. It depends 
upon the plant and the kind of blossom it 
produces, of course. 
Masses of blue, of pink, of scarlet, of 
any color which is fancied, should always 
prevail over color mixtures, but a few 
“ rainbow ” groups, or scatterings of vari- 
