338 THE FLORIST. 



the wayside, and every spare nook in each garden which borders our 

 public roads, with Mignonette and WallHower, our guinea will be forth- 

 coming for. the purpose. We might go even further, and ask our great 

 railway contractors whether they could not accommodate us with a strip 

 on their railway embankments, to allow us a li^grant sniff of our 

 favourites when travelling by rail. 



But we must be practical, or our readers will say — Gui bono ? 

 Well, then, to resume. The heavy rains and gloomy sky of the last 

 two months make the gardener feel a little uncomfortable about his fruit 

 trees, particularly those on his walls. With little or no crop on them this 

 season to moderate their growth, the late weather has pushed them into a 

 rank luxuriance, and Peaches and Apricots look as green and vigorous as 

 they did in July. The immature ripening of the wood will induce gum 

 next spring, imperfectly formed fruit- buds, and consequently the 

 prospects next season become a piece of speculation, with the odds 

 ruling against anything like a crop ; the case is a desperate one, but, at 

 all risks, where it oan be done, let the trees have the earth taken from 

 their roots and be partially lifted ; it will check further growth, and 

 should the weather become dry in November, the trees will give off a 

 good deal of the moisture in them by evaporation, which will help to 

 ripen the wood. 



An excellent time this for planting all kinds of trees ; do not puddle 

 them in, nor yet allow their roots to be exposed to the air a minute 

 longer than is needed. If you have them from a nursery, give a trifle 

 more than the regular price to have them carefully lifted, with their 

 roots nearly entire and not docked off to within an inch or two of the 

 stem, as is the usual practice. Never buy a tree in a pot, if more than 

 two years old — an old-fashioned lazy habit that, of keeping plants for 

 years in pots ; let nurserymen plant them out in a poor soil if they find 

 them getting too large, and transplant them yearly, when they will do 

 buyer and seller alike credit ; but a tree in a pot, older than two or 

 three years, is useless ; when nurserymen find their customers get wise, 

 they will learn wisdom themselves. The discussion about flower- 

 garden arrangements, now so much the vogue, gets monotonous ; nothing 

 new is enunciated ; the subject, in fact, is used up. We should like to 

 see a garden — a geometrical one, if you like — planted entirely with 

 shrubs all evergreen, or partly mixed — coloured beds might be worked 

 up with variegated-leaved plants, and others with various tints of green. 

 Hollies, Pernettyas, Arbutus, Hederas, Sydonias, Garryas, Viburnums, 

 Phiflyreas, Rhododendrons, Andromedas, and other American plants, 

 hardy Heaths, &c., &c , kept within certain limits as to height, might 

 form the masses ; while, for points of relief, or axes to balance the groups. 

 Junipers, Arbor Vitae, and Cypresses, should be introduced ; Savin, 

 Heaths, Cotoneasters, Periwinkles, Polygala Chamsebuxus, &c., might 

 form edgings ; if colour were wanted in the autumn plant the dwarf 

 beds with late-blooming Gladioluses, Tritonias, &c., when the flowers 

 would show well above the foliage of the shrubs : this, however, would 

 be rather foreign to our scheme, and we name it, as we saw lately in 

 Paris how extensively they use the common Asparagus in filling up the 

 bottom of their beds of Lilies and Gladiolus, with the best effect. We 



