Forget-Me-Not
– Myosotis.
Hardy Perennial
Six to eighteen inches.
Flowers blue, May and June (also a white variety).
Indispensable in spring gardening. Though a perennial,
it is best treated as a biennial, and a stock
of plants raised every year from seed sown in
June or early in July for blooming in the following
spring.
This may be done on a nicely-made seed-bed
in a somewhat shady position; where the soil is
heavy, or vermin abounds, it will be better to
use seed boxes.
The seedlings must be planted
out in nursery beds, about eight inches apart;
if all goes well, by October they should almost
touch one another.
They may be planted out in
their final quarters in autumn, or may be left
in the store-beds till February or March.
They
make a beautiful edging for borders, where there
is room for a rather expansive one; they may be
planted in large beds and masses for independent
display, or they may be planted together with
bulbs, such as Narcissus or Tulips.
As the Forget-Me-Not
flowers before the sun’s power is very great,
it may be given a warm and sunny site, but it
will flower in shady and moist spots where most
other spring bedders would pine.
As to kinds, every seeds man has his particular
strain, with its own name, and qualities out-shining
all the others’; and the amateur must take
his choice amongst the “Royals” and
“Perfections” and “Triumphs”
of the catalogues.
Dissitiflora is a kind of tried
excellence.
Azorica is tender, and though good
for pots, hardly worth trying in the open.
Seed
of the white variety may be obtained, and there
are strains in which the pink tint so often seen
among the opening flowers of the blue sorts has
become “fixed”.
When the spring blooming
of the Forget-Me-Not is over the ground will be
wanted for the summer bedding stuff, and as a
rule it is best to throw the exhausted plants
away, and make a new sowing for next year.
Myosotis
palustris, the Water Forget-Me-Not, is a distinct
variety, a plant with light green glossy leaves
and creeping habit; it prefers a moist and shady
habitat, and in such a position will flower during
the whole summer.
See Also : Giant
Forget Me Not , Forget-Me-Not,
Creeping Forget-Me-Not
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