2 APRIL 1932, Page 13

No garden should be without an annual bed ; and

perhaps no other sort of flower bed should be quite without annuals. Last year a number of people experimented in beds of dwarf mixed annuals. So pure is modern seed, so carefully worked out the normal heights that you can sow a score of sorts broadcast and be sure that none will seriously overtop or underlie its neighbours. The medley of dwarfs was delightful and amusing. Personally, I never found a gardener, even among the experts, who could give the names of a number of the company. The colour scheme is something of a gamble. One must beware of an excess of pink, but the tissue of most annuals is such that, like the characters in Henry .James's biography, they " consent to a mutual relation," whatever the

rivalry of hue. * * a *