ANNUALS
BY annuals we here mean flowers that bloom in summer from seed sown in
early spring. Out of a long list we shall choose twelve that are all
easy to grow and last in flower a long time. From these twelve you must
choose again, for there would not be room for many in a small plot, and
if you crowd them none will do well. It is a great mistake to think
that people who can grow nothing else successfully can manage annuals.
All the good seedsmen know how often they are blamed for failures when
the amateur, or even the professional gardener, should blame himself.
He has sown on ill-prepared soil, or too deeply; he has let birds eat
the seed, or slugs and snails the seedlings; or he has sown too much
seed, and been too lazy to thin out properly. Small birds are dreadful
thieves in some gardens, and if you find them in yours you should
put little twigs where you have sown your seed, and stretch a maze of
black cotton from one twig to the other. They soon get to know that the
cotton is there and keep away.
[Illustration: JANUARY.]
The twelve annuals we have chosen for you are:
1. Sweet-peas.
2. Mignonette.
3. Clarkia.
4. Malope.
5. Godetia.
6. Larkspur (_Delphinium_).
7. Love-in-a-mist (_Nigella_).
8. Nasturtiums.
9. Sunflowers.
10. Shirley Poppies.
11. Alonsoas.
12. Eschscholtzia.
For most seeds that are sown in the open ground you must wait till the
end of March in the South of England, and till the first or second week
of April in the North. The old saying that ‘a peck of March dust is
worth a King’s ransom’ will teach you something about sowing seeds.
It means that you want your soil to be in a workable state, not hard
with frost or sloppy with heavy rains, but friable and just moist with
a light spring shower. When these pleasant spring days come, your
work in the garden begins in earnest, and so does your pleasure. Some
of the bulbs you have planted in autumn will be flowering; others
will be pushing their way up towards the light; and your herbaceous
plants—those that died down in the autumn—will be coming up again, and
making delicious young green leaves. The part of your garden that you
have saved for annuals must be carefully hoed and raked now, so that
all the weeds are destroyed, and the soil made fine and powdery for
your seedlings. Their little roots could not strike down and get any
hold in hard, big lumps of earth, and it would be a waste of money
and time to sow seed there. You should remove all stones and weeds,
and break up the lumps of earth with your rake. The surface of your
seed-bed, when ready, should be quite smooth and fine. If the seed
to be sown is small, mix it with double its own quantity of sand, or
dry sifted earth, as that helps you not to sow too thickly. Do not
choose a windy day if you can help it, or your seeds would blow away.
For a big patch of seeds it is best to take your hoe and draw shallow
trenches, one inch deep and twelve or fifteen inches apart. When these
are ready, take the seed in your hands and carefully dribble it in as
evenly as you can. When you have finished, rake the earth smoothly over
the trenches again, and pat it gently in place. You should always put
a stick or a label where you sow seed or set bulbs, as it is easy to
forget what one has done, and put things on the top of each other.
In favourable weather some of your seedlings will show their
seed-leaves in ten days or a fortnight, but others will take longer.
The first pair of leaves are what botanists call cotyledons, and
those that come after are unlike them. You will soon get to know both
the cotyledons and the other leaves of the plants you grow. You can
often tell your seedlings from weeds by observing a whole colony of
new-comers exactly alike, where you have placed a stick or a label.
As soon as you can handle them they will want carefully thinning, and
when you find out how troublesome it is to thin a patch of Poppies
properly, for instance, you will understand why we advise you to
mix all your small seed with sand, and only to put a pinch into the
ground. Firms that sell penny packets of seed tell you that there are
two thousand seeds in some of their packets. Poppy seeds nearly all
come up, and a well-grown plant should have a foot of soil to itself.
So if you made a hedge of poppies all along one side of your border,
you would use seven seeds out of two thousand. All gardeners sow more
seeds than they mean to use, because they must allow for accidents
and insects, and they expect to do some thinning. But the ignorant
gardener invariably sows his seed too thick, and leaves his seedlings
too close together; so he gets a crowd of starved, stunted plants that
do not flower well, and are soon over for the year. You should begin
by leaving three inches between your seedlings, and end by giving most
of them a foot apiece. Some will require more room, some rather less,
and the best way to please them is to watch them constantly, and make
sure that each little plant has room to expand. In thinning seedlings
you must be most careful not to disturb the roots of those you wish
to leave, and when you have sown too thickly this is difficult. Some
seedlings will bear pricking out in another part of the garden; some,
such as Wallflowers, actually like it; while others will not stand it
at all. You should do your pricking out in showery weather.
Pricking out means taking up all your seedlings and planting them in
rows to grow bigger. We will tell you as we go on which flowers should
be raised in this way. Seed that is to be pricked out is usually sown
in a box or a shallow earthenware pan with holes in it, or in the
ground under a bell-glass. Any grocer will give or sell you an empty
soap or sweetmeat box that will do for seeds. It should have one or two
holes bored in the bottom, and a few potsherds or bits of broken brick
for drainage. The soil should be sifted and moist. A bell-glass is a
dome of glass with a knob at the top, and should be about twelve inches
across and ten inches high. You can get one for eighteenpence at a
china-shop, and you will find it useful if you have neither a frame nor
a greenhouse. You may put it on half-hardy plants at night to keep the
frost from them, or on newly-sown seeds to hurry them on. In very cold
weather you would leave it on plants all day, but slip a bit of wood
under one side to let air in for an hour or two at noon. When you use
it for seed, you do not move it until the seedlings appear. You should
not prick out your seedlings until they have made four leaves besides
the cotyledons. When you grow seed in pans or boxes, you do not thin
out the seedlings, so they will probably be close together. If they are
dry you should begin by watering them with a fine rose; then take your
hand-fork, put it in close to the plants you wish to remove, dig it
well down, lift gently, and a whole group of plants will come up with a
lump of earth.
Break the seedlings gently apart, each singly. Great care must be
taken not to bruise the plants or tear the tender roots. When you have
separated about a dozen, plant them out, and as you do this consider
how much space will be required for each. Snapdragons and Marigolds
should be a foot apart, but Lettuces can do with nine inches, and
Violas with rather less. Sometimes seedlings are pricked out into neat
beds in a reserve part of the garden, and transplanted later to the
borders where they are to flower. Sometimes they are put out at once
into their permanent situation. This is partly a question of habit and
partly of room. When a plant is not going to flower till next year,
you would rather keep it out of your show border this year, so if you
have a nursery border you let it grow up there. If it is going to
flower in a few weeks, you may as well give it a good place at once and
leave it alone. Then, again, some things are the better for the check
of transplantation, while others recover with difficulty or not at
all. In gardening it is easier to make general rules for the gardener
than for his plants. He must be as wise as a good doctor, and find
out what treatment different plants require, what food, what surgery
or medicine, and what stimulants; and he must even learn, just as a
doctor must, to apply his general knowledge to his special case. For
instance, the very Geranium that he has taken into his greenhouse every
winter in Yorkshire may be planted against the south wall of his house
if he lives in Cornwall, and trusted in a few years’ time to reach the
roof, and give him flowers for his Christmas dinner-table. All that he
knows about gardening must be influenced, and sometimes considerably
altered, by his own local conditions of soil, aspect, and climate. You
must remember this when you buy your seeds in the spring and your bulbs
in the autumn, and choose those that do well in your neighbourhood. You
should always observe what plants other people near you are growing in
their gardens, and what conditions they give them. In that way you can
learn a great deal about the management of your own.
SWEET-PEAS.
‘Here are sweet-peas on tiptoe for a flight,
With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.’
We like to remind you of these charming lines by Keats, because then
you will always think of them when you look at your own Sweet-peas on
a summer day. But our business is to tell you how to grow them, so
that they are ready for the poet when he comes by, and we do not begin
with a summer day, but with one at the end of winter, when the seed
lists come and set you thinking of spring. Sweet-peas have become
such a popular flower of late years that we have heard people talk
of the ‘Sweet-pea world,’ by which we suppose they meant the growers
who cultivate the many new varieties and the rare shades. When you
are grown up you will have to decide for yourself whether you belong
to any of these ‘worlds’ in the florist’s sense of the word. We have
never had the least desire to grow a black Tulip or a blue Rose, but
there is no doubt that when ‘fanciers’ take up a flower they improve
it for a time. If you gave up gardening for ten or twelve years, and
then began again, you would find that there were new varieties of some
of your old favourites, and that the sorts you used to grow were not
admired now. The most popular and well-known flowers all have such
a history. Your grandmother would remember when every Dahlia in the
garden was as stiff as the modern little Pom-poms, but much bigger.
Then, about twenty-five years ago, the single Dahlias ousted the stiff
ones, and now we all grow Cactus Dahlias, with long pointed, twisted
petals. So with Sweet-peas. Fifty years ago no one wanted anything
but a mixed clump, some of which would be mauve or purple, some
marbled, and some pink. Now it is usual to grow each colour by itself,
and every year we seem to get better colours and bigger flowers. The
fanciers of the ‘Sweet-pea world’ have taken Sweet-peas in hand, and by
careful cultivation and selection have given us many new and beautiful
varieties. At first novelties are dear, because the stock of seed
is small, but for a few pence you can have a hedge that would have
rejoiced Keats; and if you are a wise child, you will certainly grow
those that have become plentiful. We will give you the names of some
varieties that we like best, but you will easily understand from the
little we have told you that some years hence our list will probably
look old-fashioned. Even to-day anyone you happen to know in the
‘Sweet-pea world’ might make a different choice. The names we give you
are the names of the Sweet-peas we like and have grown with success.
1. King Edward VII. (vivid red).
2. Gorgeous (orange-salmon).
3. Blanch Burpee (white).
4. Navy Blue (violet-blue).
5. Lady Grizel Hamilton (mauve).
6. Mrs. Collier (yellow).
7. Lovely (pale pink).
8. Miss Willmott (salmon-pink).
9. Black Knight (maroon).
10. Countess Spencer (wavy pink).
11. Nora Unwin (frilled white).
12. Gladys Unwin (pale pink).
Sweet-peas grow very tall if they are healthy and properly staked, so
they should be sown all along the back of your border to make a hedge.
If you buy a packet of some expensive variety that gives you only a few
seeds, you might sow those separately in a circle.
The best month for sowing is March, and you must dig your trench six
inches deep and three inches wide. If there are many mice about who
would eat your seeds, it is a good plan to soak them in paraffin a
few minutes before sowing. Gardeners often damp them and shake them
in powdered red lead, but as this is poison it must be used with
care. It is not always effectual, either. We once saw a mouse caught
‘red-handed,’ his little paws coated with the lead we had put on our
seed to protect it from him. When your trench is ready, sow your seed
singly all along the row, leaving two inches between each seed. If your
two borders are each seven feet long, you would sow forty-two seeds
on either side, so you see that you can only grow a few kinds in one
summer. When you have sown them, do not cover them with all the soil
you have dug out. They should only have three inches on them at first,
because the seedling wants to find its way up to the spring sun. Later
on, when it is a strong plant, and supported by a twig, you can put
back the rest of the soil. Sweet-peas are very thirsty plants, and when
the long dry days come they like to have their roots deep down in the
moist earth.
Their two great enemies are slugs and sparrows. In or near a town
where sparrows swarm, you cannot grow Sweet-peas at all unless you
protect the young shoots when they first show above the ground—about
three weeks, that is, after the seed is sown. Later, when the leaves
expand, the birds leave the plants alone. You can buy either ready-made
pea-guards or a length of wire-netting, which should be doubled in
the middle and put over your row like a long tent, with sticks at
either end to keep it firm. If you cannot have wire put a double line
of sticks at intervals along your row, and wind black cotton across
and across from one stick to the other. This terrifies the sparrows,
and they will not go near it. If you have many slugs, you should keep
the ground near the seeds sprinkled with soot or lime. As soon as the
plants are three inches high, they should be thinned to six inches
apart, and should have a row of small twigs stuck all along the line
for their tendrils to seize. When they are a foot high, you can earth
them up with the soil left on one side of the trench, but you must put
it evenly on either side of your Peas. When they reach the top of the
little twigs, the tall ones must be put in firmly on either side of the
row, and by the middle or end of June your Peas should be in flower.
If you want your plants to last in flower all the summer and well into
the autumn, you must not let them form a single seed-pod. Every day
you should cut both your fresh flowers and any withered ones you see.
In dry, hot weather they should be well watered at the roots from a
can without a rose. Give each plant a soak of water _at the roots_,
and do not trouble about the leaves. We emphasize this advice because
Sweet-peas after they are six inches high suffer easily from drought,
and we know that many children think they have given a plant a drink if
they spray its upper leaves with a fine rose. You might as well give a
thirsty baby a drink by splashing its face.
To grow Sweet-peas in a clump, take out the earth from a circular
patch that you can mark with a garden sieve or a big flower-pot. Sow
from eight to a dozen seeds, and thin to four plants when you feel
safe from slugs and sparrows. Treat them just as you do those grown
in a hedge, but when you put in your tall stakes make them all slant
a little towards the centre, so that they meet at the top. The Hazel
branches that you get easily in many neighbourhoods are best for
Sweet-peas. Where these are scarce, you must use what you can find. The
wire hurdles recommended for garden Peas where stakes are scarce would
answer, but they are expensive and ugly. If your garden is not airy
and sunny, it is a waste of time and money to try Sweet-peas. They are
impatient of shade, of starved soil, or of a crowded garden. If they
come up at all in such conditions, they will never do well, and will
most probably be devoured by green fly.
MIGNONETTE.
You are sure to want some Mignonette in your garden, because it is
so fragrant; but in choosing a place for it you must remember that
it will not make a splash of gay colour in the border. It grows from
ten to twelve inches high; but, as you do not tie it up, it should be
sown in front of plants whose stalks are not really longer, but which
require a stake. It likes a good loam, but it will grow in almost any
soil if it gets enough sun. Do not give it fresh manure, or it will
run to leaf. It is one of the few annuals that should be sown in firm,
hard ground. We do not mean ground that is hard because it is poor and
neglected, but well dug soil that you tread or press down to make it
ready for your seed. When you have done this, you sprinkle the seed
thinly, cover it with half an inch of fine earth, and pat that down
firmly with your hands or your trowel. You should choose a fine April
day for your first sowing, and you should reserve a little seed for a
second sowing in case the first is a failure. This sometimes happens
even when your seed comes from a good firm and you sow it properly. It
is a great mistake to buy poor Mignonette seed, as often none of it
comes up. In ten days or a fortnight a soft spring rain will bring up
the little plants, and then, if you have sown too thickly, you will
find out how troublesome it is to thin them; but you will not have fine
Mignonette unless you do this ruthlessly. Crowded plants will give you
stunted flowers. The best way is to fix your eye on a seedling that is
outgrowing its brothers, and remove all that are near it, taking great
care not to disturb or loosen the one you wish to keep. You should
watch your Mignonette and thin it out several times, so that each plant
has room to breathe and grow. Six inches at least should in the end
be left between the plants, and then you will only have left half the
distance recommended by many good gardeners. So you see what a tiny
pinch of seed would give you all the plants you need. Mignonette must
be sown where it is to bloom, as it has a tap-root, and will not stand
transplanting.
[Illustration: POPPIES.]
CLARKIA.
This annual comes to us from California, and is very pretty and easy
to grow. But it likes a good soil. On a dry, starved one we have seen
it so poor that we hardly knew it was Clarkia, and yet these miserable
dwarfed specimens came from the same packet of seed that had grown into
a bed of lovely pink and salmon-pink sprays two feet high in another
part of the garden. If your border has been well prepared and is sunny,
your Clarkia seed is sure to do well in it. You can sow it either in a
large patch or in little drills or trenches ten inches apart, and it
should be covered with one inch of fine soil. The centre of the bed
would be a good place for it. Sow in April, and thin out the small
plants to six inches between each. There are a good many varieties. We
recommend Salmon Queen and Carnation Flaked Pink.
MALOPE.
This annual, if well grown, is about two feet high, and should be
in the centre of your border. It has large red, white, or pink
trumpet-shaped flowers that bloom at intervals amongst the leaves of
the tall stems. It is most useful for cutting, as it lasts in water a
long time, and is decorative. It likes good soil, should be sown in
April half an inch deep, and patted down firmly when sown. As soon as
the seedlings can be handled they must be thinned out; but there will
be none to thin if you cannot keep away slugs. Many gardeners recommend
you to dust the young plants with soot or lime.
GODETIAS.
These, too, are useful for cutting, and can be grown in a variety of
delicate colours. We think that Sutton’s Double Rose and Crimson King
are two of the best. The sprays of the Double Rose are like Oleander
flowers. They are not quite as tall as Malope or Clarkia, but should be
treated in the same way, and if well grown will be tall enough for the
centre of your garden.
LARKSPURS.
In ‘The English Flower Garden’ Mr. Robinson says that ‘the annual
Larkspurs are so little used in gardens that it is only in seed-farms
that we have the pleasure of seeing them now and then in all their
beauty.’ You can have them in various heights and colours, and for
early or late flowering. The earliest flowering ones are the Dwarf
Rocket Larkspurs, and the pink ones are beautiful flowers. They are
twelve inches high. If you buy seeds of the taller kinds, you must put
them towards the back of your border, for they grow three feet high. Of
these the Rosy Scarlet is the best.
NIGELLA.
This is one of the most beautiful annuals there is, and its charming
English name is Love-in-a-mist. Be sure to get the variety called Miss
Jekyll, after the celebrated gardener. The flowers are a delicate yet
vivid blue, surrounded by fennel-like leaves. They are easy to arrange
for the room, and last well in water. The seed may be sown in March
to bloom in June, and again in April or May for a later display. The
seed-pods that succeed the flowers are ornamental, and those that
ripen early in the summer sow themselves and flower in the following
year. Some people say they can transplant Nigella, but many gardeners
prefer to sow it where it is to stand. Thin out when the plants can be
handled, as each one left, if well grown, will cover a square foot.
NASTURTIUM.
Everyone knows Nasturtiums, and the most ignorant gardeners can grow
them. But they are so beautiful that good gardeners make room for them,
too. They succeed best on poor soil. If you give them rich soil, they
‘run to leaf,’ as gardeners say, and do not produce many flowers. Even
in a London square they will make a gay corner, provided they get sun.
You probably know that there are two kinds—the dwarf ones, growing
about nine inches high, and the Giant Nasturtiums, that will climb to
the top of a tall fence, and cover it in the course of the summer. The
seed should be sown at the end of April where it is to flower. We have
transplanted Nasturtiums with great success, but it is not usually
recommended. Sow each seed separately in a little hole two inches deep
that you make with a stick. If you want a whole row of them, sow two
quite near each other, then a foot farther on another pair, and proceed
in this way all along your row. When the seedlings are up you can
remove one of each pair, and you will not have an ugly gap in your row
where a single seed has failed.
SUNFLOWERS (HELIANTHUS).
If you have a small garden full of delicate flowers, we should advise
you not to grow Sunflowers at all. A group of them looks well in a
shrubbery or at the back of a mixed border, and we have seen them used
with admirable effect in a straight row, standing like sentinels on
guard behind all the other plants in the bed; but they take up room,
and require a great deal of food. If you want them, and your garden
was not dressed in the autumn, some well-rotted compost should be
dug in for the Sunflowers in spring. The young plants will not stand
frost, and are usually raised in heat; but you can grow them quite
successfully under a bell-glass, or, in warm parts of England, in the
open ground. If you mean to raise them in this way, you must wait till
quite the end of April or the beginning of May. The big seeds should be
covered with an inch and a half of soil, and if you sow where they are
to stand, put two close together to provide against failure. If both
come up and live, the smaller of the two can be removed. Slugs devour
the young plants if they can get at them, so you should put a little
soot round each one. They need strong stakes, as most of them grow to a
great height, and are easily blown down. There are some, however, that
are not more than four feet high, and have a great many small flowers
useful for cutting. Stella and Primrose Stella are good dwarf varieties.
SHIRLEY POPPIES.
If you happen to have a rough bank or a piece of waste ground where
nothing much will grow, you can make it bright with annual Poppies, and
if you let them seed themselves, they will come up in quantities year
after year. They prefer a light soil to a heavy one, and they must have
sun. It is of no use to sow Poppy-seed in a shady garden. In the border
the amateur gardener invariably sows too much seed, and when it comes
up his troubles begin. Poppy-seeds are small and cheap, and as a rule
every seed germinates. You sow it in fine soil, and either cover it
lightly or just rub it in with your hand. If you have not been careful
to sow only the tiniest pinch mixed with sand, you will soon see the
seedlings as thick as cress above the soil, and if you leave them you
will not have any good plants, as Poppies want room to grow. They have
tap-roots, and will not transplant, so you must thin them hard, leaving
them at least six inches apart. Shirley Poppies have delicate stalks,
and when you grow a clump in your garden, you should put a few stakes
amongst them, and tie them with raffia or string, as otherwise they
get beaten down and spoiled by a summer storm. The seed should be sown
at the end of April. The Shirley Poppies have most beautiful colours,
and they will last some time in water if you cut them when the buds
are just beginning to show colour. Wilks’s re-selected Shirley is one
of the best varieties. The Peony and Carnation-flowered Poppies make
larger and stronger plants than the Shirleys. They should be sown in
the centre of a small garden, and will make a great show in July.
ALONSOAS.
The Alonsoa, or Mask-flower, comes to us from Peru, and is a most
satisfactory annual because it is easily grown and goes on flowering
until the winter frosts come. There are several varieties, and one of
the best—the Alonsoa Warscewiczii—has a name you remember because it is
so queer, but will never know how to pronounce, unless you have Polish
or Russian friends to tell you. Its flower is bright scarlet, and if
you look at it closely you will see that it is like a small snapdragon.
You must be careful to put a label where you sow it, and watch for a
colony of seedlings all alike, because the seed-leaves of the Alonsoa
are very much like one of our commonest weeds.
ESCHSCHOLTZIA.
These are often called Californian Poppies. They are white, pink, and
various shades of yellow, and they have feathery green foliage. They
succeed in almost any soil, and may be sown either in spring or autumn.
Slugs and snails do not like them, so if you are much troubled with
these pests you should certainly have some Californian Poppies. They
will seed themselves in most situations, and the same plant will often
flower a second year. They are described in seed catalogues as nine
inches high, but though they really grow rather taller than that, it is
not usual to stake them. At the same time, these and many other flowers
inclined to straggle a little may be supported with great advantage,
just as Sweet-peas are, by a few branched stakes of Hazel or some
similar wood. When you treat a non-climbing plant in this way, your
stakes should be rather shorter than the plant, and artfully hidden by
its leaves. No tying is necessary where these branched stakes are used.
Messrs. Sutton and Sons, of Reading, have consented, at our request, to
sell three collections of flower-seeds suitable for children’s gardens.
The first collection will cost 2s. 6d., and will contain twelve
varieties of annuals and biennials.
1. Nigella, Miss Jekyll.
2. Sweet-pea, mixed.
3. Mignonette, large-flowered.
4. Malope, Pink and White.
5. Antirrhinum, intermixed (biennial, unless brought on early in
heat).
6. Nasturtium, Dwarf, King of Tom Thumbs.
7. Clarkia (Salmon Queen).
8. Shirley Poppy.
9. Annual Larkspur.
10. French Marigold (half-hardy).
11. Sweet William (biennial).
12. Wallflower, Dark (biennial).
The second collection will contain six varieties, and cost 1s. 6d.
1. Nigella.
2. Sweet-pea, mixed.
3. Mignonette, large-flowered.
4. Malope, Pink.
5. Antirrhinum, intermixed.
6. Nasturtium, Dwarf, King of Tom Thumbs.
The third collection will contain four varieties, and cost 1s.
1. Nigella, Miss Jekyll.
2. Sweet-pea, mixed.
3. Mignonette, large-flowered.
4. Malope, Pink.