To maintain a high standard it is best to purchase fresh seed each year, buying the best to be obtained. Special mixtures sent out by the leading florists are made up of the best strains of the Pansy specialists in this country and Europe. One must not expect to purchase these collections for the price of ordinary seed, from twenty-five cents to fifty cents being the usual range of price. A packet of such fine strains as Giant Cassier and Giant Trimardeau should be included; and such special colours as may be wanted in larger quantities than the mixed packages furnish. Snow Queen is the best pure white, and the bed should contain a liberal number of these plants. Aurora is considerably larger than the Snow Queen, but shows purple markings in the centre, and is not so fine in shape and texture. With the exception of size, Snow Queen is an ideal Pansy. If it is desired to carry the Pansy bed through the winter it may be done by using pieces of board, half a yard long, with notches cut in one end and the other end pointed. Put these through the centre of the bed a few feet apart, hammering the sharp end into the ground. Place long poles lengthwise of the bed, resting them on the notches. This forms a support on which the evergreen boughs, corn fodder, boards, bark, or anything that will shed water and protect from sun and wind. Leaves and litter are not suitable protection for Pansies, as they settle around the plants, freezing and causing them to decay.
SOW POPPIES IN THE PERENNIAL BORDER AMONG THE LATE FLOWERING PLANTS
When there is a large garden to be cared for it is not always expedient to carry the Pansy bed through the summer, as the daily labour of removing the withered flowers is very great. In that case it will be better to let the Pansies go when hot weather reduces the size and quantity of the flowers, replacing them with plants grown for the purpose, Petunias, bedding Begonias, Heliotropes, and the like.
Sow Poppy seed freely wherever there is a corner to spare, especially if it is a corner that would otherwise be neglected and grow up to weeds. It is surprising how many places may be found to sow them. A barren angle of a fence, a vacant strip behind or at the side of some outbuilding, an exposed spot among trees where nothing else will grow, a foot of ground here and there, in the perennial border and among late flowering plants, where the Poppies will have danced through their brief season of bloom and passed on before the former have discovered that they need the room. Use all these odds and ends of room, but, if possible, have a long, narrow bed of them—single and double, the deep blood red, the gorgeous scarlet, the wonderful Shirleys, whose delicate cups like crinkled silk seem to flush and pale with the tremulous colour of an opal as you look at them. Plant Eschscholtzias as a border, but sow Iceland and the Oriental Poppies, which are hardy perennials, by themselves; otherwise they are easily destroyed in the clearing-up time which comes after blossoming. There is a fine yellow Poppy, Hunnemannia fumariæfolia, which should not be overlooked. Poppy seed sown in August gives richer coloured flowers than spring-sown seed. Seeds of Eschscholtzia and Hunnemannia should always be sown in May. Sow broadcast as thinly as possible on soil that has been worked mellow and fine, pressing it into the ground with a board. As it is difficult to sow the seed thinly enough it is a good plan to mix it with fine sand—a teaspoonful or less of seed to a teacup of sand—and scatter that as thinly as possible. It will, even then, be found that the plants will come up too thickly and will need to be thinned to stand a foot apart each way. Poppies grown too closely will throw up one or two slender stems with only a few blossoms, while, given plenty of room, they will branch freely, producing dozens of flowers and remaining in bloom for weeks. Mark the finest blossoms on the plant from which you wish to save seed, removing all others as they fade, that they may not self-sow or check the bloom. If self-sown they are apt to come up so quickly as to be troublesome. Pull up the plants as soon as they have done blooming to add to the compost heap, and prepare the ground, if not needed for other plants, for the fresh seed. When there is sufficient shade to grow them the blue of Myosotis and of Anchusa capensis is lovely among the Poppies.
Phlox Drummondi
Try a border of the dwarf Phlox Drummondi, sown to make a colour scheme. Set six to eight inches apart, in the form of scallops, the point coming between every other plant of the tall, perennial Phlox. Make the rows two or three plants wide at the centre, narrowing to a single plant at the point, using scarlet or pink, and filling in the space between the scallops and the straight edge of the bed with solid white. Or a double scallop, one beginning in the centre of the other, may be made of scarlet and buff, or pink and buff, filling in the large spaces between with white and the small spaces with Cope’s Favourite Ageratum. The dwarf Ageratums grow very evenly and are admirably adapted for carpet bedding. Seed of the dwarf Phlox germinates very slowly. It should be sown where it will have bottom heat and be given plenty of time, frequently three weeks or more. The common Phlox Drummondi germinates more freely, and may be sown where it is to remain, thinning to six inches apart in the rows, or it may be sown and transplanted, which insures more even rows.
Salvias (Flowering Sage)
It is surprising how seldom one sees the Salvia grown to any considerable extent outside the public gardens and parks, though no other flower can compare with it in richness of colour and freedom of bloom, but there seems to be an impression that it must be purchased from a florist or grown from cuttings. Salvia is much more desirable for bedding than for any other purpose. In the house it is subject to attacks of red spider, which make it more trouble to care for than it is worth, while in the open ground it is remarkably healthy and free from insect pests.
Seed should be started early in flats or hotbed, and plants set out where they are to remain, when all danger of frost is past, as they are very sensitive to cold. Muck or marsh earth seems the most congenial soil in which to grow the Salvias, and if this is supplied they will need little care beyond watering during the summer.