THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
177 
helping every day; and very soon after the plants have grown 
to a size large enough to be handled, they may be planted 
out, and nature will take kindly charge of them. 
<c So manifold, all pleasing in their kind, 
All healthful are th* employs of rural life, 
Reiterated as the wheel of time 
Runs round; still ending, and beginning still.” 
Aster. —The aster is commonly and properly designated a 
* half-hardy annual.” We class it here with tender border 
dowers, because its requirements assimilate closely with a few 
perennial plants of similar constitution. To grow it well, it 
must be grown quickly, and never suffer a check from the 
first. If carelessly treated, it becomes the prey of green-fly 
and red-spider; or, if these haply abstain from assailing it, 
starvation marks it for her own, and a yellow leafage and a 
shrunken flower tell surely of the hardships it has endured, 
and it cannot prove the joy of the garden, as with good 
treatment it will surely be when its season of flowering 
arrives. Beginners are apt to sow the seed too soon, and so 
involve themselves in trouble; for the instant that the plants 
are large enough, they should go to the open ground, and 
there have encouragement to grow freely, exposed to all the 
winds of heaven, w T ith water only to help them through times 
of drought. The first step towards a good display of asters 
is to obtain the best seed possible, and as there is plenty of 
bad seed in the market, the purchase should be made from a 
house of known respectability. Home-saved seed is worth¬ 
less, so do not trust to it. From the end of April to the middle 
of May is the proper time to sow the seed, and it is well to 
promote germination on a mild hotbed, or by placing the 
seed-pans in a greenhouse. They may, however, be very well 
started in a cold frame, if kept closely shut up and carefully 
managed as to air-giving after the young plants appear. It 
is good practice to plant out the stock as soon as the plants 
are large enough to handle—say when they are an inch high— 
on a nearly- exhausted hotbed; the object being to promote 
a quick growth. But a bed in a cold frame will serve the 
purpose, and they must have as much air as can be given them 
with due consideration of their tender nature and the state of 
the weather; when they are three inches high they should be 
planted out where they are to flower. If required simply 
12 
