OP ORNAMENTAL ANNUALS. 
37 
being bad. “ When seeds are saved, it should only be from the strongest and healthiest plants, and the largest 
pods only should be chosen. It is from not attending to these rules, that plants of the same species are found so 
much more difficult to raise some seasons than others.”— D. B. The seeds of tender annuals are generally sown 
thick, except of such kinds as will not bear transplanting. 
In every plant there is a part called the collar, from which the stem and leaves shoot upwards, and the root 
downwards ; but some plants, if encouraged by earthing up, or transplanting deeper, will throw out roots above 
the collar, such as the balsam, French marigold, &c. ; and these plants are improved by transplanting, as every 
additional root which they throw out w T ill afford an additional mouth for enabling them to imbibe nourishment. 
Other plants which do not throw out roots above the collar are, on the contrary, checked by transplanting ; and 
annuals of this kind should be sown as thin as possible. In all cases where the young seedlings are beginning to 
interfere with each other in their growth, they should be thinned out to one, three, or five plants in a pot, 
according to the habits of the different kinds ; and these, transplanted into single pots, should be frequently 
removed into larger pots, till they are ready to be turned into the open border, or to flower in a room or greenhouse. 
“ When tender annuals are to be grown in pots during winter, they should be sown early in autumn, so as to 
get them strong, and once transplanted, at least, before the beginning of November ; after which no tender plants 
should be potted (unless under extraordinary circumstances), until the beginning of February, or even till the 
middle of that month.”— D. B. 
W atering —There are few points in which lady gardeners are so apt to err as in watering ; and the general 
fault is, that they give their plants too much. This is a fatal error for plants in pots, since over-watering will 
soon bring on the evils we have already described, as attendant on imperfect drainage ; it is even dangerous to 
syringe the plants too much, though a little water thrown over their leaves occasionally is very useful in refreshing 
them. “ If the plants should become dusty, or infected with insects, the pot should be carefully turned on its side 
before the syringe is applied ; and this plan has not only the advantage of saving the soil in the pot from becoming 
sodden with too much water, but also of enabling the operator to wash the lower sides of the leaves, where the 
red spider, one of the greatest enemies of plants in pots, generally commences its depredations. When the plant 
is too large or too delicate to admit of the pot being laid on its side, two pieces of board with a notch cut in each, 
to allow room for the stem of the plant, and wider than the rim of the pot, should be laid over the earth, so as to 
carry off the water that falls from the leaves.”— D. B. 
THE CULTURE OF THE HUNNEMANIA. 
Though this plant, when treated as a tender annual, will flower all the summer wdien planted out into the 
open border, and though its splendid flowers are produced in great abundance, yet, as we have already observed, 
it is very scarce in gardens. This arises from its being treated as a perennial, and when it dies off (which 
according to its nature will be in two or three years) from its not being renewed. The seeds of the ITunnemania do 
not long retain their vegetative powers, and therefore the sooner they arc sown after ripening the better. When 
they are bought at a seed-shop, as their exact age cannot be ascertained, they must be sown very thick, as it is 
very probable that not more than one in fifty or a hundred will come up. 
The seed-pods of the Hunnemania may be kept in a cool dry frame, where the young plants, when they come 
up, may have plenty of air. When they are large enough to be transplanted they should be potted off singly into 
