THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 07 



through a sieve, is the best of all materials with which to enrich a mixture 

 of leaf-mould, loam, and sand for plants removed from cutting-pots, and 

 one mixture will serve for nearly all kinds of plants used for bedding, with 

 the exception of calceolarias, which require a little peat. 



As substitutes for ordinary beddera in ribbons and beds, annuals are 

 coming into general use. The charming Lobelia speciosa, treated as an 

 annual and raised from seed at once, makes a capital first line in a ribbon, 

 and so true is it to its character tbat, in a hundred yards of a ribbon of it 

 we examined last season, we could not detect half-a-dozen that varied from 

 the nominal type, and those were not perceptibly different to ordinary ob- 

 servers. All annuals that can be raised out of doors, even by deferring 

 the sowing till next month, tarn out much better than those raised in heat. 

 In fact, annuals are greatly abused by the general system of sowing them 

 indiscriminately on beds and tanks at 80' or 90°, when an average of 50' 

 suits all the most useful kinds. Balsams and cockscombs must have a good 

 bottom-heat, but there are few others that are worth rearing but will come 

 better at 50 3 than at any higher temperature. It will doubtless be in the 

 race of French marigolds that we shall find a substitute for the calceo- 

 laria, which has been strangely affected for several seasons in succession, 

 so that the best planted beds show gaps from time to time, and incessant 

 labour is requisite to make them good, by means of reserve plants. The 

 yellow Tom Thumb Tropceolum is a variety we expect more from than we 

 ever expected from the so -called scarlet, because there are good yellows in 

 the race already, and a tendency to yellow in all, and the chief merits of 

 the Tom Thumb section, after colour, is in the dwarf compact habit, with- 

 out which few subjects are adapted for bedding. Other good yellows 

 are — Escholtzia crocea, (Enothera Drummondii nana and (E. macrocarpa, 

 Cheiranthus Marshalli, Gaillardia bicolor, yellow hawkweed, and 

 the neat trailing Sanvitalia proeumbens. We believe the new dwarf 

 French marigolds will, however, take the lead wherever the calceolaria 

 is given to sudden death, and it will doubtless answer well to replace 

 the excellent dwarf Calceolaria aurea floribunda. When true, this mari- 

 gold is quite double, branching, continues blooming to the end of the 

 season, and makes good plants from seed sown in April on gentle bottom- 

 heat. There are many shades of colour entered in the catalogues, but the 

 kind we are familiar with is one supplied from Paris some years since, the 

 height of which was nine inches, the habit branching, and the blooms a 

 bright gold-yellow. As it belongs to a section of plants very much given 

 to sport, it may be difficult to keep it true, and to attempt to maintain a 

 stock from cuttings is a task we should not recommend to the amateur. 

 But among the old fashioned annuals there are plenty from which to choose 

 for variety of colour, and any one who will spend half-an-hour over the 

 catalogue of any good house may safely select and ensure as good colouring 

 and as good arrangements as to habit, heights, etc., as by means of the 

 established bedders. The great objection to annuals is, that most of them 

 soon go past their prime, and when that prime is over they must either be 

 cleared off, or the ground be disgraced with the rags of their decay. Those 

 who see no prospect, except at an outlay for which they are not prepared, 

 of planting satisfactorily till the season is half gone, may work out their 

 patterns in annuals, and use their bedders as a succession, and on this plan 

 the succession plants may be got into bloom before they are put out, and 

 there will be no hiatus in the display of flowers ; or, if sowings of succes- 



