Indian Pinks

Every member of the great genus Dianthus has its admirers, and when we remember that it embraces the Carnation, the White Cottage Pink, and the Sweet William, we realise its great value and importance. The "Indian" Pink is the Dianthus Chin-ensis of botanists, and it came to us from China, not from India, as far back as 1713. The original species had a red flower, but the plant proved to have that precious quality of variability on which florists have worked so successfully. One may now get several colours by buying mixed seed, and also a dwarfer strain than the type, with equal beauty of flower. But I am not sure that the most valuable strain of Indian Pink is not that known to botanists as Dianthus Heddewigii, or the Japan Pink. It rarely exceeds six or eight inches high, but it has large, fringed flowers with a good range of colours. One can buy white, salmon, scarlet, and crimson separately. There are both single and double types, and I know of few more beautiful plants than the double white Japan Pink. It throws a few singles, but not many, and the best of seedsmen cannot eliminate singles entirely - witness ten-week Stocks. One can also get the fringed Mikado strain, which is of much taller growth, and has single and semi-double flowers of many colours.

The Indian and Japan Pinks are nominally biennials - that is, plants which bloom one year from seed sown the previous year, and die. But while their cousins, the Sweet Williams, are generally treated as biennials, the Indian Pinks are grown as annuals, being flowered the same year as sown, and discarded after blooming. If sown in February in a greenhouse or warm frame, hardened, and planted in May, they are sure to bloom the same year; indeed, they will generally do so if sown in a unheated frame in March.

Petunias

The Petunia just lacks that softness which makes a flower intimately lovable, but it has such brightness and freedom of blooming as to win popularity. And will it not flower cheerfully in somewhat unfavourable circumstances - in poor soil, for example? It will do so; indeed, some growers go so far as to declare that it is best put into poor earth, because luxuriance of growth is checked, and a natural tendency to flowering thereby engendered. It is, of course, the fact that flowering, as a step towards Nature's great object of reproduction, is encouraged by weak growth. If a plant is not vigorous, Nature hastens to get flower and seed out of it, lest it perish barren. But we generally get bigger flowers from strong plants than from weak ones, and certainly, so far as Petunias are concerned, I do not believe that poor, dry soil is better than rich, moist mould, because I have proved the contrary.

The Japanese Pink, Dianthus Heudewigii, grown as an annual from seed sown the same year.

We like to grow Petunias both in garden and greenhouse, and the seedsmen, who watch over us with a fatherly solicitude, and extract shillings and half-crowns from us with a paternal air, give us "strains" suitable for either purpose. Turn to the Petunia page in the catalogue of a prominent seedsman, and you will nearly always find two, and generally three, sections. There is (1) Double Fringed, which is the one for pots; it can always be bought in mixture, and often in separate colours also. I cannot admit a personal predilection for the dark-coloured sorts, but the pink, and the pink with white, are pretty; while as for the pure white fringed it is a glorious plant for the amateur's greenhouse. There is (2) the Bedding Single, which may be rose white, striped, or mixed, and is of dwarf, neat habit. The rose is particularly good; it has a clear white eye, and is charming as a flower, as well as beautiful as a plant. Finally, there is (3) the Large Flowering Single, which may have plain or fringed flowers, and may be white, rose, crimson, striped, scarlet, or mixed in colour.

Early February is a good time to raise all the Petunias, whether for indoors or not, and they may be treated as advised for other small seeds in the first chapter.