THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



205 



are not many people equal to it. My pri- 

 vate opinion on the matter is that, like 

 all other hobbies, gardening may be over- 

 done, and ia the desire to accomplisii 

 great things, the cultivator may burdeu 

 himself with anxieties, and lose the enjoy- 

 ment altogv-'ther. Engaged as I am in 

 numerous enterprises that keep me in 

 action sixteen or seventeen hours out of 

 every twenty-four, I find it requires great 

 caution to keep hobbies in subjection; and 

 in the face of the extravagant fashions 

 that now prevail in gardening, as in all 

 the other elegances of life, I am often 

 tempted to pronounce the whole affair a 

 bother, for the sake of one quiet hour of 

 repose and contentment. Yet in them- 

 selves the various details tliat fit together 

 to form a system arc legitimate and 

 healthy, and there can be no more agi-ee- 

 able or remunerative object among worldly 

 pleasures than the keeping of a certain 

 suitable portion of the garden in the best 

 possible trim every day throughout the 

 year. It is like turning a wheel ; the 

 centre of the wheel is your own head, and 

 the spokes are the several classes of plants 

 that come successively to the top, and 

 then disappear to make room for others. 

 Take one bed as an example. It is now 

 gay with geraniums, verbenas, p?tun!a=, 

 or what not. O^'tober is coming, and the 

 whole mast be taken up and potted, or 

 consigned to the rubbish heap. With 

 thousands of people who take great pains 

 to preserve these plants, the latter process 

 ■would be preferable. Say the bed has in 

 it at present a hundred plants. Thei'e 

 can be nothing easier tliau to have ready 

 from summer-struck cuttings a hundred 

 pompone chrysanthemums, in 48-sized 

 pots, of three or four sorts — say Briliiaut 

 for crimso.'i, Cedo nuUi for blush white, 

 Riquiqui for purple, aid Driu diiu for 

 yellow. There's your bed; but to obtain 

 it you must have the trouble of striking, 

 potting, and growing a hundred extra 

 plants for that one change. By the fi st 

 week in December the beauty of the bed 

 is gone, and now for another change. It 

 is a very trifling task to take up the pom- 

 pones and stack them away under a I'ence 

 on coal-ashes, and if cut down and cor- 

 rectly tallied, they need not be looked at 

 again till Mareh next. Tlien, as the next 

 course, you want a lot of dw.irf, bushy 

 evergreens, and, according to their size, 

 the bed -will take filteen, twenty, or 

 twenty-five, but not one of them need be 

 in pots, because if grown and kept ibr 

 furnishing, the frequent moving does them 

 good ; they come up with balls complete, 



are planted firm, make fresh fibres, and in 

 spring may be again lifted and transferred 

 to the nursery or reserve-ground ; and the 

 only point of importance in their culture 

 for svich uses, is to grow them in mulchy 

 sort of stuff", such as turfy loam and 

 dung, with a mixture of half-rotten moss, 

 in which they form compact masses of 

 roots, and lift without any of the soil 

 crumbling away from tliem. Aucuba, 

 laurel, laurustiuus, Portugal laurel, holly, 

 and phillyrea, may be called the leading 

 things for such work, and everybody has 

 stock plants from which to take summer 

 and autumn cuttings for furnishing stock. 

 But there are a few subjects of even 

 greater value than these, and amongst 

 them Grieslinia littoralis should stand 

 first as the handsomest evergreen shrub 

 in cultivation. The colour is a I'cfreshing 

 yellow green, the leaves glossy and thick, 

 the style of branching regular, compact, 

 and the entire plant rich in a luxuriance 

 peculiarly its own. During that tremen- 

 dous frost that cut things to pieces last 

 May, I had newly -planted specimens 

 wholly unprotected out doors, and not 

 a leaf was injured. Conifers do not move 

 ■well ; so if a pretty abies or cedrus were 

 wanted for the centre of such a bed, it 

 must be had in a pot or tub, and plunged ; 

 and on this point I shidl have something 

 to say next month. 



The question that n?xt arises is, how 

 are we to have a succession of spring 

 flowers ? To plant them in the bed in 

 autumn is possible only to a certaiu ex- 

 tent. If in clumps, crocuses, hyaehiths, 

 and tulips would look amaziugly well 

 among the evergreens, and all might be 

 removed at the end of May to make room 

 for summer bedders. It would be better 

 to maniige that way than to gro'^v the 

 bulbs in pots for plunging, for such things 

 never bioom so well as in the open ground, 

 with p!e ity of manure undemeatu them. 

 But if they are to bj u?3 1 oq the bidding 

 sy-tem in masses of colour, there is no 

 other way but potting them. Let them 

 have large pots, rich compost, and plant 

 thickly, and in the colours of which the 

 bed is to be con-tituted, and success will 

 turn upon two points — those are, planting 

 early and plunging the pots to the rim, so 

 as to get strong roots before the spikes 

 rise, if they caa be got through the 

 winter with only the protection of mats 

 during froit iu a preservative bed, they 

 will bloom stronger and later. If they are 

 pushed on so as to bloom before the 

 severest of the frosts are over, the bed 

 may be ruined at its very best moment. 



