Calendula, growing about a foot high in every shade of yellow from deep orange to pale ivory, is one of the best and most constant blooming of the yellow flowers.
Centaurea, or Cornflower. These come in many colours, but I grow only the tall, ragged, blue variety. If not permitted to go to seed, they will bloom plentifully for several months. On the dinner-table with blue and white china, and in June combined with Syringa, they make a beautiful and unusual decoration.
Marigold, both the double African and the double French. These flowers always give me a pricking of the conscience, for during the summer, when there are plenty of others, I give them the “go by,” but in October turn to them with shame and thankfulness.
Phlox Drummondii grows about six or eight inches high, and comes in many colours. It makes beautiful borders, particularly the white, pink and dark red.
Plumed Celosia, or Cockscomb. The new varieties are very effective.
Poppies growing in rows
July fourteenth
Zinnias. Lately I have grown only two varieties, a vivid scarlet and a salmon-pink. They are not only lovely when growing, but make a beautiful house decoration, as the stems are long and stiff.
Sweet Peas, which no garden can do without. Several books say, plant in autumn, very late. I have twice sown two pounds at this time, carefully following the directions, and not one single Pea came up the following spring. Sweet Peas should be sown in the spring the moment the frost comes out of the ground, so that they may become deeply rooted before dry weather. Make a trench about a foot deep and a foot wide. Have a good layer of manure in the bottom of the trench, over which put a couple of inches of earth, and over this earth put a good layer of wood-ashes, again a sprinkling of earth. Then sow the Peas, and cover them with a couple of inches of earth. As they grow, fill in the trench, and keep on hilling up the plants until the roots are very deep. It is well to mulch them with the clippings of lawn grass. In this way the plants are kept from drying up, and will bloom until October.