It would be difficult to decide whether the Sea Lavenders are more highly valued as border flowers or as cut material for use indoors.  Certain it is that the light and graceful sprays of delicately coloured flowers are indispensable for house decoration, either when freshly cut or when dried for mixing with Helichrysums and other everlastings in winter.  Yet Statice are very attractive when growing in the border, the varieties of branching habit giving a long-continued display of beautiful flowers.

The half-hardy varieties should be sown from January to March in pans placed on bottom heat.  When large enough prick off the seedlings into boxes of good light soil, and gradually harden off in readiness for planting out in May.  The hardy annual kinds also answer best when started in pans during March or April and transferred to the open in due course.  Seed of the hardy perennial varieties should be sown in a nice light compost any time from April to July.  Put out the plants into flowering positions when they have attained a suitable size.

When grown on in pots, the half-hardy sorts make exceedingly pretty subjects for house or conservatory decoration.

==Stock==

==Mathiola.  Annual and biennial half-hardy==

From the botanical standpoint Stocks comprise two main classes—­the Annual and the Biennial.  So accommodating as to treatment is this extensive family, however, that by selecting suitable sorts and sowing at appropriate periods, it is not difficult to obtain a succession of these delightful flowers the year through.  With this object in view, our notes are divided into four sections covering the cycle of the seasons, as follows:  Summer-flowering, or Ten-week; Intermediate varieties, for autumn-flowering; Winter-flowering; and Spring-flowering.

==Summer-flowering, or Ten-week Stocks==.—­These annual varieties include a wonderful range of colours, as well as considerable diversity in the habit of growth.  For their brightness, durability, and fragrance they are deservedly popular.  It is usual to sow the seed under glass from the middle to the end of March.  Pans or shallow boxes, filled with sweet sandy soil, make the best of seed-beds, and it may be well to say at once that no plants pay better for care and attention than the subjects now under consideration.  Sow thinly, that the plants may have room to become stout while yet in the seed-bed, and from the very outset endeavour to impart a hardy constitution by giving air freely whenever the weather is suitable.  This does not mean that they are to be subjected to some cutting blast that will cripple the plants beyond redemption, but that no opportunity should be lost of partial or entire exposure whenever the atmosphere is sufficiently genial to benefit them.  If a cold frame on a spent hot-bed can be spared, it may be utilised by pricking off the seedlings into it, or the pans and boxes may simply be placed under its protection.  The nearer the seedlings can be kept to the glass, the less will be the disposition to become leggy.  In transplanting to the open ground, it is worth some trouble to induce each plant to carry a nice ball of soil attached to its roots.