Anemone – Windflower.
Three inches to four feet.
Flowers of many colours, March to October.

A very large order, with the two main divisions and several minor ones.
The first section includes all the bulbous, or, more properly, tuberous rooted kinds, such as the small-flowered blue Apennine or the white nemorosa (the wood anemone) as well as the larger species, hortensis or coronaria, the many-coloured garden sorts blooming both in spring and in autumn.
The other main division is that of the fibrous-rooted sorts, commonly called Japanese Anemones, flowering in September and October.

Anemones of the tuberous family are not a race that will grow anywhere and anyhow.
They show their like or dislike of their quarters quickly and unmistakably; and where, with ordinary care given, they do not thrive, it is much better for one’s peace of mind to give them up at once, and sill the void with something else which enjoys the conditions they abhor. “A deep rich loam” is the ideal soil for them, as for most other things, but there are some solid fairly answering to this description to which the anemone will have nothing to say.

The small-flowered anemones, the Continental and American relations of the white wind-flower of our own woods, should be planted in large groups or lines in beds or borders; but no doubt they look best in large masses in grass.
Any one who finds room for bulb planting in turf should try a patch of Apennine, planting about two inches deep in autumn.
Besides this kind, which is of one of the loveliest shades of light blue, Robinsoniana, a paler blue, nemorsoa fl. pl. a double, and sylvestris, a single white, may also be grown.
With these may be classes Anemone pulsatilla, the Pasque Flower, a strong grower whose stems are covered with a silky down, and whose flowers are two or three inches in diameter, of a beautiful light purple; it needs a deep and dry soil, and full sunshine.
All this section bloom in April, and may be left to their own devices for several years after planting.

The next order is that of the Garden Anemones, the large, single, semi-double and double flowers in many very vivid and beautiful colours, which have been produced from the old Anemone coronaria from the east, and the Italian A. hortensis.
They are divided into the Giant French, a very strong-growing race, double and single, the Dutch, double and single, the Irish or St. Brigid, and the double Chrysanthemum-flowered.
In all these there is not much difference in form; the colours range from pure white through several shades of blue, violet, both light and dark, pink and rosy shades, to a very brilliant red which may fairly be called vermilion.
Of this last colour there are two or three particular examples, such as Fulgens, and the King of Scarlets, known as “Gilberts’ Extra Selected.”
The garden anemones may, without any great trouble, be raised from seed; a good strain of mixed doubles and singles should be obtained; the Irish or St. Brigid is, perhaps, the best of the coronaria family for this purpose.
The scarlet Fulgens is also easy to grow from seed. Seedlings may be brought on under glass from sowings in February; but this is not essential.
Thoroughly dig up a patch of good ground early in the year, putting some old cow-manure (if it can be obtained) in the bottom of the trench, and mixing with the upper layers any elements of good compost that may be handy – old turf, leaf-mould or road scrapings.
At the beginning of March sow the seed thinly on the bed and rake it in lightly or cover it with a little fine compost.
Anemone seed should be as new as possible; old seed is worthless, and the best is capricious, and may be a long time in appearing above the surface.
The seed is thickly covered with a woolly down, and sticks tenaciously together; it must be separated before it is sown, and for small quantities no doubt the fingers make the best job; it may be rubbed with dry sand, which to some extent overcomes the stickiness, and seed and sand should be sown together.
The seed-bed will need weeding and surface stirring as soon as the plants appear, and should have water in dry times.
The seedlings should be thinned out to six inches apart, and the thinnings may, with care and a little nursing, be safely planted out.
Plants thus raised should give some flowers in the autumn, and a full display in the following spring.
Seed may be sown in July, for plants to flower the next summer; this sowing must have some shade wither from a wall or a temporary shelter of mats, etc.
Those who do not wish to give the time and trouble involved in raising anemones from seed must buy the dry tubers and plant them in September or October, two inches deep and five or six feet apart, in well-prepared soil.
The old fanciers, who used to shade their flowers from the sun with awnings, were particular about the digging the bed out two feet deep, filling it with cow dung two years old and old pasture loam, and raising the surface six inches above the ground level.
The ordinary gardener, without going to this length, should remember that depth of good soil and moisture with drainage are more than half the battle with anemones. The dry tubers are somewhat irregular and flat in shape; a little examination will show the eyes from which growth starts on one side of the roots; this side must be placed upwards in the soil.

The Japanese or fibrous-rooted Anemones are amongst the hardiest and most long-suffering of perennials.
The type Japonica alba is from two to four feet high, the flowers, which come most opportunely in autumn, are white with gold stamens, carried on very stiff stems above the spreading tuft of handsome cut foliage.
The roots are blank and thong-like, and should be planted in October with the collar just at ground level, in good strong soil.
The plant is very accommodating and will grow and flower in unlikely places out of the sun and under trees; but this should not be made a pretext for denying it its proper chances.
It is one of the admirable self-supporting few, and seeds no sticks or string.
When the flower stems are withered about November, they should be cut down to the ground and a good dressing of leaf mould, grit and wood-ashes (but no fresh manure) scattered over the group.
After two or three years the clumps should be forked up and the most vigorous pieces of root replanted in a new site well dug and manured.
Single clumps look well in mixed borders, but any one who has the space to spare should plant large belts and patches, if practical, where they will tell against a dark background of shrubs or other greenery.
Besides the white type, and its “improved” descendants, such as Lady Ardilaun (white, very large flowers) or Whirlwind (semi-double white), there are Japanese anemones in several pink or rosy shades, such as hybrida or elegans, rosea superba, or Brilliant.
These colours are apt to be rather insignificant and “washed-out;” where there is room they may supplement the white varieties, but should never supplant them.

See Also Windflower