THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



127 



bloom away to the end of the season. 

 Why should we wait till the beginning of 

 July for flowers when we might have 

 abundance of colouring from the first week 

 in April, without one break, till the ap- 

 proach of autumn frosts. Let our com- 

 plaining friend answer as to which is best, 

 cheap headers put out in May, standing 

 still till the end of June, and coming to 

 rights a week or two afterwards, or a blaze 

 of perennial candytuft, yellow and white 

 alyssum, autumn-sown annuals in masses, 

 and then the summer bedders to follow, 

 and not a day's break in the beauty of the 

 garden, except the day of the replanting. 

 He bought long ago and is well off. People 

 who buy now must pay the same price or 

 wait for flowers. 



Now, instead of resting from your 

 labours when the beds are planted, prepare 

 in your mind the style of planting for next 

 season, get a few of all the best new kinds 

 of bedders, turn them out to judge how far 

 your soil and situation suits them, and any 

 that you become enraptured with propa- 

 gate from the end of June to the end of 

 August, and be independent of the sup- 

 plies of soft stuff that may look charming, 

 fresh from the propagating pit, but will 

 take three weeks in the ground to get into 

 a growing humour. Even with those 

 things that do well from spring cuttings 

 some preparation must be made in autumn, 

 the sorts determined, the stores got ready 

 to start for shoots, and unless you are one 

 season in advance you must either pay a 

 good price or be content to wait for 

 flowers. Make ready a piece of reserve 

 ground, manure it well, and there turn out 

 a few plants of whatever you mean to 

 propagate. Instead of letting them 

 bloom themselves away, be content to 

 prove them as to colour and habit, then 

 allow no more blooms and you will have 

 cuttings from them, everyone of which 

 will be worth half-a-dozen from the plants 

 that are blooming as they please in beds 

 and borders. Correspondents complain 

 that their autumn-struck verbenas and 

 geraniums break down in March ; the 

 reason is obvious, they take cuttings from 

 plants exhausted by blooming, take them 

 late, the winter sets in before they get 

 well rooted, and to keep them costs more 

 trouble than they are worth. To do 

 verbenas to perfection, they ought not to 

 make more than one or two trusses of 

 bloom, to prove that they are true to their 

 tallies; then remove the trusses as fast as 

 they show and cut away all through July 

 and August, and you will have such beds 

 the next season as will be matter of asto- 



nishment. Treat geraniums the same, 

 bead them down continually, and strike 

 every bit ; the less flowers the more growth, 

 and the growth will be of a kind best 

 suited for propagation. The object of the 

 flowers being to increase the plant by seed, 

 if flowers are not allowed, the plant alters 

 its course, so to speak, and is glad to in- 

 crease its kind from buds, and it is the 

 gardener's business to put it in the way of 

 doing so. 



Among geraniums, the Crystal Palace 

 Scarlet is in immense demand this season, 

 and the smallest plants of it, if true, are 

 worth six shdlings a dozen. It will drive 

 Tom Thumb out of the field, for it makes 

 a bed of the same character as to growth, 

 but is many degrees brighter and better, 

 and wherever Tom is used near it, whether 

 mixed or separate, any one would see there 

 was a difference between them. It is as 

 much better than Tom, as Tom is better 

 than Huntsman, and those other scarlets 

 changing to dirty black which the last 

 generation thought perfection. There is 

 a whole batch of new bedding geraniums 

 this season from the Wellington Nursery, 

 and among them there are two of Mr. 

 Beaton's that will give a new tone to the 

 range of colouring. It is a bold march of 

 Mr. Beaton to thrust the Nosegays into 

 notice, and only by the masterly system of 

 breeding he pursues, would the venture 

 answer. We want among geraniums bright 

 carmines, bright purple, and if we could 

 have it, true mauve. Perhaps the nearest 

 to true mauve would be the purple Nose- 

 gay, which has made such a striking figure 

 in the sunk panels of the rosery at Syden- 

 ham, the last two seasons. Mixed with 

 Model Nosegay, which runs up to the 

 ? ame height, and has a similar habit of 

 growth, the result is perhaps the nearest 

 approach to mauve possible with gera- 

 niums. Anyway, eyeryone of our readers 

 should get Purple Nosegay, Model Nose- 

 gay, Picturatum, and Imperial Crimson, 

 as several useful shades of purple colour- 

 ing. Add to them, in the same style, the 

 new " Nosegay Stella," which grows like 

 Tom Thumb with large trusses of Tyrian 

 purple. Of all the Nosegays bred by Mr. 

 Beaton, Imperial Crimson and Stella are 

 best, and White Nosegay the worst, 

 for not one soil in fifty suits it. In rich 

 soils, it runs away to stem and leaf, and 

 becomes as rank as a cabbage ; and Model 

 Nosegay, though superb in colour, is a 

 little less inclined the same way; but iu 

 poor soils you get your share of bloom 

 where other kinds would look miserable. 

 Imperial Crimson is good in any soil that 



