August 28. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
387 
Nemophila, I always think a greenhouse is too hare of 
flowers just at that critical time when they are most 
j wanted, or when the Cinerarias are getting seedy, and 
[ China Primroses are all over, or not much worth looking 
at, and before the Calceolarias and the greenhouse Gera¬ 
niums come in. If you recollect, there always seems a 
| gap at that critical season-in the greenhouse, which no¬ 
thing else would fill up so soon, so simply, and so cheap, 
as plenty of pot annuals, which might be coming on all 
the time since they were potted, on a top shelf where 
nothing else but seedlings and stove pots would grow ; 
for, in garden-talk, pots seem often to grow as well as 
plants. 
If you go to such places as Shrubland Park, or Tren- 
tham, it is more than probable that you could hardly 
find room for such common things as annuals ; but, 
believe me, the owners and their visitors would be 
only too much delighted to find that their gardeners 
would he so considerate as to look after such cheap 
flowers, room or no room. They could move something 
or other to welcome a cheap edition, or rather the addi¬ 
tion of more cheap flowers than the costly things they 
are in the habit of having at that season. So that 
there is nothing too common, or betokening stinginess, 
or of poverty, in having the oldest and simplest plant 
in the country well-grown and bloomed in a pot; the 
Queen has them, and the greatest people after her like 
to see them, and to have them of their own, if their 
gardeners would but find room for them. Look at the 
hanging baskets in the Crystal Palace, and say if ever 
you saw so many of the very commonest plants put 
together before ? Not one of them but the poorest man 
in the next village might have in his window, and yet 
all the world admires them ; and so they ought, and so 
would you, or I, if we would but hit on a good blaze of 
annuals, such as no one else could come up to for that 
season, at least. It is not that great people do not 
admire and like these things, but that the fashion 
compels them to have more costly plants, so that there 
j is no room for such things in their establishments. 
But surely, that is no reason why you and I should not 
have them, or that we should be so foolish as to 
hanker after guinea plants, which are not a bit the 
better for being the dearer. 
I do not recollect a single good writer on gardening 
and flowers who did not recommend annuals in some 
way or another, and whole books have been written en¬ 
tirely about them. Mrs. Loudon’s beautiful book on 
annuals is the most comprehensive; but still, I am well 
aware that many of our best gardeners are very much 
against annuals, and both sides of the question ought 
to have a hearing. The said gardeners complain that 
annuals are “ always going off,” and that there is a good 
deal of trouble in finding out other plants to supply 
their places ; all of which is true enough ; and a same¬ 
ness of character prevails in all the flower-gardens 
managed by such men, no matter how different the sizes. 
There is no change from the beginning to the end of 
the season; indeed, I often wonder how some people can 
enjoy themselves under a routine that never varies 
through a long succession of years ; the old, everlasting 
dishes are filled with the same things, year after year, 
and the fewest kinds possible, even for them, just a3 the 
shows have reduced the plant collections to the smallest 
numbers of the easiest plants to grow, so that no room 
is left for ingenuity in grouping colours, no forethought 
encouraged to provide for the rainy day, or for a bed of 
flowers, which is as certain to require a new stock or 
crop by a certain day, or week, as that the sun will set 
at such a time on such a day; no experiments to prove 
whether such-and-such plants could be so improved as 
to help the flower-garden; nothing, in fact, but the old 
concern, where the dull routine gets into the brains of a 
gardener, or when his employers have little taste to spur 
him on; and between them they make their gardens 
often little better in effect than the daubs on the face of 
a clown or Merry Andrew. How differently are the wits 
of a man exercised who must have three changes, at 
least, in one-third of his beds every season, and the 
changes to differ one season from another. Why, such 
exercise would make a clever man out of many now in 
the ranks of the slow-coaches of the olden times, and to 
help on this cleverness and whitewashing of skulls, 
there is no tribe of plants better than hardy and half- 
hardy annuals. I went through the furnace myself, and 
I know it is just as I say. I began life—garden life— 
with the idea that nothing was worth living for, in the 
garden, so much as botanical, rare, and very curious 
plants, in the greatest possible numbers. Beautiful 
forms and brilliant colours I did not then dream of, 
much less of what beautiful combinations could be made 
out of them. My every plant was to be in its place, and 
in no other, for years and years, just as regularly as the 
name of it was in its proper place in the catalogue. 
But necessity, and the improvement of the times, made 
me change the tune; and when I did change it, you 
may believe me, when I tell you how difficult it was to 
bend the will and the way in a contrary direction, and 
how often I found myself at my wit’s ends before I could 
hit the mark properly; but I did hit it as hard as I 
would the Russians, and any one may do the same, and 
much more, by the same means, and that is simply— 
common perseveiance. 
You have only to make up your mind that you will 
be gayer next spring than any of your neighbours, and 
more so than ever you were before, and perseverance 
will do the rest. With the help of such annuals as the 
following you may have abundance of pot flowers:— 
First, let me name Nemopldla insignis. It is one of 
the best, if not the very best; and Nemophila maculata 
the next best; and the last week in February is the best 
time to pot them from the open ground. I have seen 
them do better that way than from such as were kept in 
pots all the winter. 
After them, and for a change, and also as being rather 
new, the white Silene pemlula is as good as any. This 
one, and S. compactum, and another called regium, will 
answer well in pots, and may be put into pots in Ja¬ 
nuary, February, and the whole of March; and they will 
do equally well; but, except the white one, they are 
not so good as Collinsia bicolor and Oilia tricolor. I 
have seen these two annuals grown to such a size, by 
pot-culture, through the winter, as that few would believe 
them to be the same plants. 
Now, to be up to the spirit of the times, let us say 
that you have a little wooden box, or basket,—an oyster- 
barrel would be just the thing, inside a fancy-basket of 
one’s own making. The barrel is to be the pot for hold¬ 
ing the Collinsia, —a large tuft of it in the middle, and 
a row of Nemopthila insignis all round, to hang down 
outside. This is as pretty a device as you can have, ex¬ 
cept the Oilia tricolor and Nemophila maculata, which 
would be a good match. They would both hang outside 
the window, and flower for a longtime. Even in common 
pots for a greenhouse, or room, this is extremely pretty ; 
but to show them off in a greenhouse, the pot would 
need to be raised so as to see the whole of the Nemo¬ 
phila hanging round it. There ought to be blocks on 
purpose to raise certain pots above the rest in all plant- 
houses, the blocks to be painted dark green. 
The Eschsoholtzia makes one of the best pot plants 
of all the annuals or common flowers. About the year 
1830, and for three or four years after that, you could 
see it in pots in all places where gay flowers were in de¬ 
mand. Some tying it up straight, and others allowing 
it to hang over the sides of the pots, and that is the best 
way. 
I never saw Bartonia aurea tried in pots, hut if it 
