ANTIRRHINUMS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1094, 17 February 1893, Page 8

ANTIRRHINUMS.

The antirrhinums or snapdragons are among the best and most easily grown of all hardy plants, and might be much more freely employed in gardens than they are with advantage, but are, in too many cases ousted or neglected in favour of less useful things. No plants are more easily raised from seed, or grow more freely in almost any kind of soil, while they bloom with the utmost certainty. The improved strains now obtainable produce a wealth of flowers of the most rich and varied colours, and the pure white and yellowflowered kinds are most beautiful, and excellent as cut flowers—the first in particular. Seed may be sown in a frame over a mild hotbed, or in the greenhouse, and if the little plants are prickled off, grown on liberally, and planted out when sufficiently strong, they will flower nicely in January and February. But on the whole the simpler and better plan is to sow in the open ground in December or January and plant out in the autumn. Cuttings, formed of the side-shoots which are freely produced towards the autumn, will also root freely in sandy soil if covered with a frame or handlight. In this way large numbers of plants used to be obtained, and indeed many ' named varieties ' were at oue time grown and kept true in this way by florists of the old school, but seedlings make tar better and more vigorous plants. There are two chief classes— A. Majus, which grows comparatively tall, 2ft or so, and the dwarf or Tom Thumb kinds. The plants is really a perennial, but is bes 1 ; treated as a biennial, as directed above.