A WORLD OF GARDENS 
107 
plants that are known as annuals. That means 
they live only one season and must start anew 
from seeds the next year. If this year’s plants 
are kept from forming seeds there will not be 
any plants next year. If everyone would be 
careful to cut away every weed he saw before 
the blossoms had turned to seed, we could be 
entirely rid of many kinds of weeds. That 
would mean quite a great deal of work, but it 
would surely be worth it. 
There are some weeds which could continue 
growing even though they did not produce any 
seeds. These belong to the kind of plants 
known as perennials. That means that the 
undergound part of the plant stays alive from 
year to year in spite of the fact that the top 
dies. Each spring this underground stem 
sends up new green shoots. If we could keep 
these shoots from growing, the plant would die 
finally, because the green leaves above the 
ground would be unable to manufacture food 
and so the undergound stem would die. When¬ 
ever you see a weed starting to grow, cut it off 
