"Faire without and foule within" has generally summed up its popular reputation, though Ruskin has spoken with appreciation of its beauty and delicacy.
All the hardy annuals are easy to grow, their requirements being ample sunshine, deeply dug soil, finely broken up and moderately, though not excessively, enriched, and ample space for individual development. Where failure occurs, it may usually be traced to omission of one or other of these conditions—most commonly, perhaps, of the one last named. There are few annuals which will thrive in the shade, though Forget-me-nots, Venus's Looking-glass and Nemophilas will succeed in damp situations if the shade be not too intense.
Personally, although I should not like to grow annuals alone, I should regretfully miss my hedge of Sweet-peas, my Poppies, and the soothingly fragrant, though insignificant, flowers of my Mignonette.
One other annual flower is the prettily and appropriately named Love-in-a-Mist, with the daintiest of blue flowers enveloped as in a green cloud. If our poets were wont to look at flowers for themselves instead of copying one another's natural history, they might be referred to this delightful plant. Mr Swinburne, I think alone among poets, has used it as subject for one of his roundels. Fortunately, the neglect of poets has little influence on the beauty of flowers.
[NIGHT IN THE GARDEN]
During the heated days of late summer, few but the most enthusiastic of gardeners care to loiter in the open garden until evening. Then, the sun having sunk in the west, we venture forth from the shade of house or of trees, and leisurely walk the round of our paths, refreshingly fanned by the little rippling breeze which makes the leaves flutter as it rhythmically comes and passes. The last bees have reached their hives, laden with the sweet product of their hard labour. The honeyed flowers, which look to their visits and to the visits of other sun-loving insects for aid in fertilisation, have, so far as possible, covered their tempting cups to avoid the damping or loss of the precious pollen within. Snails and slugs crawl from hidden caves, prepared to work in darkness the evil which fear of feathered warders hinders by day. Except for these workers of ill, these foes of beauty, the garden is apparently going to sleep. But wait. Wherefore is this increasing fragrance streaming from the honeysuckle trellis into the cooling air—a fragrance surely not without seductive purpose? Straight as the course of a homeward bound bee, a hawk-moth flies to the expanded blossoms and extracts the honey from the narrow tubes, too deep for bee or wasp to sound. Look, too, at this bed which but an hour ago showed nothing but a green mass of leaves serrated as those of dandelions. Great white flowers, three inches or more across, have now appeared and produce a truly wonderful effect. These are the flowers of one of the evening primroses (Oenothera taraxicifolia), originally imported from America. Not so pure a white are the larger blossoms of another evening primrose (Oe. marginata) which is just beginning to send forth from the border a fragrance as of magnolias. The old double white Rocket (Hesperis matronalis), or Damask Violet, as it was formerly called, smells more strongly as evening draws in, and its scent now takes on the character of the scent of Violets. Even more noticeable is the delicious fragrance which begins to be yielded by the Night-scented Stock (Hesperis tristis), a fragrance which will continue until the commencement of the dawn. In the presence of these happenings, we begin to realise that the garden is not after all asleep. Indeed, we see that a part at least of the living beauty of nature only awakes at the approach of night.
Convention rules over us, and in the most unlikely places we see those unadaptive, stereotyped results which mark the realms where she is sovereign. How otherwise can we account for the fact that, although evening is the best time for enjoying the flowers of our gardens during the months of July and August, few gardeners ever think of devoting any part of their borders to the cultivation of flowers which bloom at night? Yet the pleasure to be obtained from them is very great, and the possible variety is considerable. Nearly all are fragrant, as otherwise it would be difficult in the darkness for them to attract the moths which they mostly desire as pollen bearers.
None of these flowers of night are more remarkable than Silene nutans, one of our native catchflies (so called from their viscid stems which prevent ants and creeping things from reaching and robbing the honey stores), which may occasionally be seen growing on limestone rocks. This plant bears many large white flowers during June and July, each flower living but for three nights. At about seven o'clock of the first evening, the flower quickly opens and emits a strong scent as of hyacinths. Five of its stamens quickly develop, the pollen ripens and the anthers burst. At three o'clock in the morning, or thereabouts, the scent ceases to be produced, the five anthers wither, and the corolla closes. During the following day the flower looks as though dead or dying. At the same hour as on the previous evening, however, it again opens and again becomes fragrant. Five more stamens develop and ripen their pollen, after which the plant again closes as before. The proceeding is again repeated on the third night, the pistil, however, now developing instead of the stamens. The stigma having been fertilised with pollen brought by moths from another flower, the corolla closes as before in the early morning, and never again reopens. Other of the Silenes, such as S. noctiflora, S. inflata, S. vespertina, and S. longiflora, also bloom at night and are equally interesting.