==Mignonette==

==Reseda odorata.  Hardy annual==

Mignonette is so much prized that we must devote to it a paragraph, although there is little to be said.  In many gardens plants appear year after year from self-sown seeds, and it will therefore be evident that Mignonette may be grown with the utmost simplicity.  As a border plant we have but to sow where it is to remain, at different times from March to midsummer; the one important point is to make the bed very firm; in fact the soil should be trodden hard.  It is imperative to thin early and severely, for any one plant left alone will soon be a foot in diameter, and in some circumstances cover a much larger area.  Where bees are kept and space can be afforded, seed should be sown in quantity, for Mignonette honey is of the finest quality in flavour and fragrance.  In pot culture it should be remembered that Mignonette does not transplant well; therefore, having sown, say, a dozen seeds in each of a batch of 48-or 32-sized pots, firmly filled with rich porous soil to which a little lime or mortar rubble has been added, the young plants must be thinned down to five, or even three, in each pot, as soon as they begin to grow freely.  If small plants are wanted early, leave five in a pot; if larger specimens are wanted later, leave only three, or even only one.  For winter and spring, sow in August and September and keep them as hardy as possible until it becomes necessary to put them under glass for the winter.  A further sowing for succession may be made in January or February.  Several strains of different tints are now at the command of cultivators of this favourite flower.

==Mimulus==

==Monkey Flower.  Hardy perennial==

This flower will grow in almost any soil, although a moist retentive loam and a shady situation are best adapted for it.  There are many varieties, differing in height, and all are worth growing, both in pots and borders.  If sown in February or March, and treated as greenhouse annuals, they will flower in the first year.  It is easy to raise a large number of plants in a cold frame, and they make a rich display in borders and beds later in the year.  Sowings in the open ground during summer will supply plants for blooming in the following season, but the most satisfactory course is to grow them as annuals, and at the end of the summer consign them to the waste heap.  The Mimulus is quite hardy, and the most ordinary care will suffice for it.  Water in plenty it must have, or the flowering period will be curtailed.

The well-known Musk is a Mimulus (=M. moschatus=), and is as easily grown from seed as other varieties.  It makes a valuable pot plant.

==Myosotis==

==Forget-me-not.  Perennials, hardy and half-hardy==

At one time an impression prevailed that all the varieties of Myosotis were semi-aquatic, and could only be grown satisfactorily in very damp shady places.  And it is quite true that most of them bloom for a longer period in a moist than in a dry soil.  Still, they all flower freely, and last a considerable time in any garden border.