Border of Hardy Perennials. 
Hardy Terennials from Seed 
I 
takes a little 
Some are slow 
more 
in germinating 
inch of 
ceeded 
skill and experience to grow this class of plants from seed than annuals. 
and it is not rare to find a species that will not come up until the 
second or third year. A few have to have special treatment in order to bring them up. Eeuchera 
scniguinea is one I found impossible to grow until 1 tried it in the greenhouse. 1 sowed the seed 
in a box, pressed it in on the surface, covered the box with a sieve and the sieve with half an 
wet sphagnum moss. By keeping the moss and surface of the soil moist for several days 1 suc- 
iti growing plenty of plants. After the little plants were large enough to make a little show, I 
removed part of the moss, and then the whole later. Most perennials may be grown in frames by keeping 
the surface of the ground always moist and covered with cotton. After the seeds are up 1 remove the 
cotton and shade with racks made of lath, which admit about a third of the light. If the weather is not 
too dry a lath shade will do, and by watering every day the surface of the bed is kept moist. Small seeds 
generally do better if sown on the surface and only pressed in. Many seeds fail to come up because 
covered too much. Seedlings covered too closely often damp off, and this is why the lath shade is good. 
It admits the air and prevents the damping off which might otherwise occur. 
Many perennials, such as Poppies, Canterbury Bells, etc., self-sow in late autumn, and come up with 
the first warm days of spring. Such young seedlings are much better, because they are earlier than what 
we usually get by sowing in frames. They make better plants by fall because they are eailiei. Iam 
and Lilium auratum seed almost always 
spring 
the Lilies sown in spring come up before the second spring, 
requires two winters in the ground before coming up. I believe after the first winter the seed geimmates 
and forms a little bulblet which comes up after the second winter. 
PROTECTING PLANTS 
1 like a little protection for nearly all the hardy plants in winter; not a protection so much against frost, 
for this is natural to them, but a protection against mild winter weather. Plants that are hardy enough for 
the severest winter weather may be killed by alternate freezing and thawing. Nature, in many instances, 
provides this protection in the dead foliage falling about the plants; yet we cannot tell just how much of 
this exposure each species will bear during the winter, nor just how much it will have to bear. Oui 
hardiest meadow grasses are frequently killed out in open winters, as is the case with winter cereals. With 
Hardy Perennials it is much the same. Species that are native to the coldest climates —that will stand 
almost any amount of cold, freezing weather —are often injured by alternate freezing and thawing. But a 
covering of 2 or 3 inches of swale or beaver meadow hay protects them from such sudden changes, and they 
come out from their covering in spring as fresh aud green as those from under a snow-bank. A few of the 
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