144 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



weather will admit of its being done with advautage to them. Un- 

 til a week or so bei'ore tliey are planted, the lights must be put over 

 thera at night for the purpose of maintaining sufficient warmth about 

 them to prevent any check. 



lu planting out the various subjects, take advautage of dull 

 showery weather as far as possible, and commence with the hardiest 

 things to be planted. For example, the violas are quite hardy, and 

 the centaureas and calceolarias are hardy enough to withstand the 

 eiFects of the sharpest frost likely to occur in May. These should 

 therefore be put out in the first or second week in May ; and after 

 the middle of the month the geraniums, lobelias, verbenas, and 

 ageratums, may be planted ; but the alternantheras, amaranthus, and 

 coleus must not be planted until quite the end of the month, or the 

 first week in June, for the slightest frost is sufficient to blacken 

 them. It is essential to plant the calceolarias at the earliest moment 

 after it can be done with safety, to afford them a fair opportunity for 

 becoming thoroughly established before the summer heat is upon 

 them. Plants grown in boxes or in beds of soil in frames, must be 

 planted quickly after they are divided, for the parching winds soon 

 dry up the points of the tender roots, and do considerable injury to 

 them. They should also have a good soaking of water afterwards 

 and be sprinkled overhead in the evening of the next six or eight 

 days if the weather happens to be dry. With this assistance they 

 ■will hardly feel the move, and in all probability soon overpass plants 

 that have been turned out of the pots. Geraniums turned out of pots 

 will not require any watering at all ; but two or three liberal sup- 

 plies will be found of considerable service to the majority of other 

 things. As the season is so exceedingly shoit, the plants must be 

 put rather close together, so that they can fill the beds, as it were, 

 at once. This is especially necessary in lhe case of tender things, 

 which make but little growth after they are planted. 



The arrangement of the colours, and the filling of the beds must 

 of necessity be regulated by individual taste and the stock of plants 

 available. The finishing of the beds with marginal bands of some 

 distinctive subject is not yet rightly understood by amateurs and 

 others, who have not much bedding out to do, and frequently very 

 serious mistakes are made. Lobelias are perhaps used for edging 

 purposes more generally than any other subject, the golden feather 

 alone excepted. Yet few things could be more unsuitable. The 

 colour of the flow^ers and the character of the growth are alike un- 

 suitable, and when the beds are upon grass, the ilowers become so 

 blended with the grass when seen from a short distance, that they 

 present a most ineffective appearance. There is no objection to the 

 employment of lobelias in finishing off flower beds, provided they 

 are divided from the grass by a sharp line of some white-leaved 

 plant, cerastium or echeverias, for example. Large beds have the 

 most highly finished appearance ; when the marginal baud consists 

 of three rows, the two outside rows balancing each other, and the 

 middle corresponding, to a certain extent, with the plants used in 

 filling up the bed. In the case of a series of beds by the side of 

 the walks, a better effect is produced by edging each with the same 



