HARDY ANNUALS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 816, 9 November 1929, Page 30

HARDY ANNUALS

Annuals are plants which are commonly sown in spring to blossom in summer of the same year; having flowered, they die. Biennials are raised from seed one year to bloom the next; they, too, are useless after having flowered. Annuals are grouped according to their degree of hardiness; thus there are hardy, halfhardy and tender annuals. With the latter we are not now concerned. HARDY ANNUALS These may be sown in March and April to produce flowering plants in July and August, or they can be sown in September to blossom in late spring and early summer. Their cultivation is of the simplest. Seed is sown fairly thinly where the plants are to bloom. The depth of soil covering required varies according to the size of the seeds; very small ones need only the merest sprinkling of sand or sifted soil, while from quarter to half-inch Is sufficient for the others, with the exception of such as sweet peas, which ought to be placed .from one to two inches deep. One has only to notice the fine development of self-sown seedlings to realise how necessary it is to carry out the work of thinning properly, so that each seedling shall have sufficient room for development. Some of the taller sorts may require support; this is best given by means of small peasticks. SELECTION OF HARDY ANNUALS The following selection includes some of the finest annuals, classified according to colour: White.—Alyssum, candytuft, white annual lupin. Red.—Linum rubrum, red flax, Virginian stock, Opium poppy, viscaria cardinalis. Pink and* Rose.—Clarkia elegans, gypsophila elegans, night-scented stock, shirley poppies, godetia varieties. Blue.—Nemesia, blue gem, nigella. Miss Jekyll (love-in-a-mist). Yellow.—Coreopsis drummondi and tinctoria, eschscholtiza (Californian poppy), helianthus (sunflower) in variety, mignonette. HALF-HARDY ANNUALS These may be raised from seed sown in a greenhouse, or some of them may be sown out of doors, where they are to bloom. Those sown out of doors are treated in the way already advised for h&-dy annuals: those grown under glass are sown thinly in boxes, and the seedlings, when large enough to handle, are transplanted, at three or four inches apart, in other boxes of soil or in a bed of soil made up in a frame. They are gradually hardened off ready for planting out of doors. Chief of half-hardy annuals are asters, ten week stocks, nicotiana or tobacco plant, tagetes (French and African marigolds), the low-growing phlox drummondii, zinnia, verbena, putunia, cosmea, dianthas chinensis, nemesia strumosa, schizanthus (butterfly flower). Penstemon and snapdragon are often treated as halfhardy annuals.