277 



NE&LECTED BORDER FLOWERS. 



Did the real merits of a plant depend 

 entirely upon fashion, there would be good 

 grounds for allowing so:ne of our most 

 ornaiuental garden subjects to remain in 

 comparative solitude ; but this is not really 

 the case, and fashion does sometimes pass 

 over really good things to fondle its own 

 pets. Cassia orymbosa is not particu- 

 larly popular just now, but it is an excel- 

 lent bedder, valuable as a late flower, 

 and calculated to enliven our beds and 

 borders when the ordinary bedders are 

 looking shabby. We have had it the past 

 autumn looking exceedingly pretty, with 

 its bright orange blossoms and handsome 

 foliage, and I would recommend it to all 

 who desire to maintain a freshness in their 

 borders to the extreme limits of the season. 

 Planted with Veronica Andersonii, Salvia 

 fulgens, chrysanthemum^, and such late 

 bloomers, it is all that can be desired for 

 autumn gaiety, and is well calculated to 

 take the place of early annuals. It strikes 

 readily from side-shoots in spring or 

 summer, by the same method as is used 

 for verbenas, etc. I would recommend 

 keeping it in pots over the winter and 

 spring till June, and bedding out in the 

 usual manner. It grows freely in a soil 

 composed of equal parts peat, loam, and 

 leaf-mould, witli a portion of sand. 



Linaria peloria is a plant very little 

 cultivated near London, and althougn not 

 use.'ul as a bedder, it is likely to prove 

 useful in filling up some of the dry places 



which abound in suburban gardens, where 

 ordinary border plants do not thrive. It 

 is a variety of L. vulgaris, remarkable for 

 the singular formation of its flowers, which 

 are of a bright yellow cjlour, a profusion 

 of which it yields in -July and August, 

 but not being in great demanil few nurseiy- 

 men are likely t) have it ; and this, I be- 

 lieve, is the case with many of the curious 

 old favourites, which of late years have 

 been ueglected for the sake of colour and 

 effect. I well I'emember some gay beds 

 of silenes, lychnis, pansies, double daisies, 

 ranunculuses, incluting the old bachelor's 

 buttons, campanulas, saxifragas, sedums, 

 pinks, veronicas, and thrift edgings, fraxi- 

 nellas and American cowslips, and others 

 of the old border plants of the days of 

 Abercombie ; aud I believe it would be 

 no retrogression to cultivate them more 

 largely in gardens of modern type, since 

 amongst them we lind bloomers for almost 

 every month of the year ; and, indeed, 

 some of the early spring and late autumn 

 flowers are still valued for these qualities. 

 The old Christmas rose is yet unrivalled 

 in its property of fliwerinj; in the midst 

 of frost and snow ; the hepaiica, the wood- 

 anemone, and the primrose as the har- 

 binger of spring ; the starworts, the golden 

 rods, and the lludbekias, and other old- 

 fashioned garden inmates, are not, let us 

 hope, likely to become extinct, but to 

 flourish again, endeared by age or im- 

 proved by breeding. F. C. 



TROPICAL EFFECTS IN ENGLISH GARDENS. 



In reading some remarks relating to bedding 

 out stove and otiier plants of distinct and 

 marked foliage, for giving a tropical ap- 

 pearance to a border or clump, which 

 appeared in the June number of the Floral 

 World for tlje present year, it struck me 

 that the idea is susceptible of considerable 

 extension ; in fact, tliat the materials for 

 giving a deridedly tropical appearance not 

 only to a border, but to a whole garden, are 

 both cheap and easily obtainable. Every 

 gardener, amateur and professional, know's 

 that a young healthy tree, with plenty of 

 room, after it is well established, grows 

 •with great vigour ; and that, if closely 

 pruned or headed down, it makes sur- 

 prisingly strong slioots aud large leaves. 

 I have seen a variety of sumach headed 



down every winter and every summer, it 

 makes three or four shoots two yards or 

 more in length, and leaves eighteen inches, 

 or two feet, or even more, in length. The 

 common ash and cassia when served the 

 same grow with surprising vigour ; the 

 latter being less littery than otherways. 

 The sycamore, horse and Spanish dies 

 nuts, plane, elder, walnnt, the large-leaved 

 kinds of oak, and others of the commonest 

 trees, when lieaded down spread out their 

 broad arms and gigantic leaves in tropical 

 style. Let a good space of ground, or a 

 wide border, be planted with two or three 

 year old stumps of any of the vigorous-grow- 

 ing kinds of forest trees, planting them 

 eight or ten feet apart ; let them make 

 in the first place a stout upright stem, to 



