ANNUALS

The owner of a garden that is so small that but few plants can be grown in it naturally desires to confine her selection to such kinds as will be likely to give the greatest amount of bloom and require the least amount of care.

At the head of the list it is quite safe to place the sweet-pea. This old and universal favorite blooms profusely and throughout the entire season if prevented from ripening seed. It is beautiful, wonderfully varied as to coloring, and so fragrant that it is almost a rival of the rose in this respect. It requires a treatment so unlike that of ordinary plants that it is really in a class by itself, if one would secure the best results from it. It likes to get a start early in the season and to have its roots deep in the soil, where they will be cool and moist when the hot, dry, midsummer season comes. To gratify this desire on the part of the plant we sow its seed in trenches four or five inches deep, about the middle of April, at the North, or as soon as the ground is free from frost. These trenches are V-shaped, and can easily be made by drawing the corner of a hoe through the soil. Sow the seed quite thickly, and cover with an inch of soil, trampling it down firmly. When the young plants are about three inches tall draw in about them some of the soil thrown out from the trench, and continue to do this from time to time as the plants reach up, until the trench is full. In this way we succeed in getting the roots of the plant deep enough to prevent them from drying out if the season happens to be one of drought. The best support for the sweet-pea is brush. The next best is woven-wire netting with a large mesh.

Another plant that the amateur gardener cannot afford to overlook is the nasturtium. It is a most profuse and constant bloomer. Its colors run through all shades of yellow, orange, and red. It has a delicious spicy fragrance quite unlike that of any other flower I have any knowledge of. Fine for cutting.

The aster must also be given a place in all gardens, large or small, because of its beauty, its wide range of color, and its ease of culture. There are several quite distinct varieties, all good, but none better than the long-stalked "branching" kind. This is the ideal sort for cutting. Its flowers rival those of the chrysanthemum in general effect and lasting quality.

Phlox Drummondii is an old favorite that holds its own against any of the new-comers. So is the verbena, and the calliopsis, and the good old "bachelor's-button," which you will find masquerading in the florists' catalogues as centaurea. It must not be blamed for this, as it has no reason to be ashamed of its old-fashioned name. The seedsmen alone are responsible for the change in nomenclature.

Other stand-bys among the annuals are poppies, larkspur, petunias, ten-week stock, marigolds, scabiosa, mignonette, eschscholtzia (better known as California poppy).

Of course the list of really desirable kinds could be extended almost indefinitely, but I do not think it advisable to make mention of other kinds here, because it is not the part of wisdom for the amateur gardener to attempt growing "a little of everything." It is better to confine one's attention to a few of the kinds with which success is reasonably sure until experience justifies one in undertaking the culture of those which are not so self-reliant and unexacting as the kinds mentioned.