CHAPTER XX, 
HAEDY ANNUALS AND BIENNIALS. 
Beginnees take to annuals with, peculiar fondness, but as they 
acquire experience their love for the friends of their youth de¬ 
clines, and they soon become indifferent to annuals, even to the 
extent of abusing them as weedy short-lived things. Many of 
the hardy annuals are weedy and short-lived ; some are exqui¬ 
sitely neat and gay, and also short-lived; a few are equal in 
beauty to any perennials known whether hardy or tender, and 
last as long in the gayest trim as any one can desire who can 
find in the changeableness of plants a greater source of pleasure 
than could possibly be found in unchangeable beauty, were they 
so unfortunate as to be like cast-iron or the cold hard work of 
the sculptor. If we are not to despise the day of small things, 
we must make room in the garden for a few hardy annuals, 
and it will soon be found that they have some peculiar claims 
to regard, which we will endeavour here to state in very few 
words. To begin with, they are cheap, and any one can grow 
them: those two reasons, perhaps, prevail with beginners. 
They are exceedingly gay, and the best of them last long 
enough, considering that by proper management along succes¬ 
sion of flowers may be obtained. They may be wholly grown 
from first to last without the aid of glass or flower-pots, or 
composts, or sticks, or shades, or even a drop of water, and 
will yet make a liberal return for the very little care which 
their simple cultivation requires. There is no other class of 
plants that can give an equal display of colour and an equal 
range of characters and colours, gay and various, for the small x 
amount of labour required to produce a brilliant border of 
hardy annuals. 
We shall first speak of the simplest mode of cultivating 
these plants. We will suppose a sunny border, and it may be 
a few beds in a sunny situation, and the month of February 
