One of the first tasks in the flower garden is to raise a good quantity of biennial plants, such as Canterbury Bells, Foxgloves, Wallflowers, and Sweet Williams, from seed for planting out in autumn to flower the following year. Early June is an excellent time for this, because the plants have plenty of time in which to get strong by October, and at the same time they do not get in the way of other things. It is true that it is not advisable to leave them in the seed bed all the summer, unless they are sown very thinly indeed (and they are rarely sown thinly enough to escape becoming crowded before autumn), but it is generally easy to find a spare bed where they can be put out in rows a few inches apart in July. Here they can be kept healthy and sturdy by hoeing as necessary.

And while the amateur is buying seed of these special biennials he may, if he likes, get packets of some interesting hardy plants, biennial or perennial, which are not so well known, but which are beautiful. Although the common method of getting a stock of hardy plants is to buy one or two of each kind first of all and then propagate by division, it should not be forgotten that seeds offer a means of getting a large number of plants cheaply; the only drawback is that a year must elapse before the majority of the plants bloom.

Several seedsmen offer seed of interesting hardy flowers in penny packets, and specify the number of seeds supplied for that modest sum. Doubtless thousands of amateurs take advantage of the system, and buy a good many things which they do not know, on the ground that the experiment will interest them, and will not cost much even if it fails. Let us, however, glance at a few special things, most of which may be sown in June. In all cases it is understood that the seeds are sown out of doors, in specially prepared beds, with the surface soil made very fine, thoroughly moistened, and drills drawn far enough apart for a hoe to be run between the rows with the object of keeping down weeds; further, that the plants are thinned, or even set out a few inches apart in nursery beds, and finally planted out in autumn or spring.