17 FEBRUARY 1939, Page 19

A Superb Annual Gardeners looking for an annual which will

bloom for six months should remember Phlox Drummondi. Where the nemesia, for example, flowers almost as soon as pricked out and is over within a month in dry weather, Drummondi will go brilliantly on and on, flowering and seeding at the same time—in storm, frost, rain and drought. Ten dozen plants, the results of a threepenny packet of seed, were planted out in dry weather in May last year. They began to flower in June. Thzir job was to carpet the bare earth of a new rose bed, and for that reason a dwarf variety of 6 inches had been chosen. It was a gorgeous and fatal experiment. Through- out June, July, August, September and October the phloxes fought a completely successful war with the roses. They covered them with a huge humpy mass of blossom that re- sembled an eiderdown on a German bed. By autumn no roses were visible. The phloxes were a triumphant mass of cerise and salmon, white and chamois, purple and scarlet. They were cut prodigiously for house decoration. In October they were still being cut and were still as brilliant. In November they threw off is degrees of frost and emerged as lovely as ever. When they were finally pulled up, in December, they were still in bloom at a height of 4 feet.