356 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



that they have an annual top-dressing of manure, and are repotted 

 as often as they appear to need it, but are commonly put in the 

 same size pots again, a portion only of the old soil being removed 

 from their roots. It is astonishing what huge, bonny, bosky plants 

 may be grown in comparatively small pots if they are annually top- 

 dressed and have plenty of water from the middle of April to the end 

 of June, to assist the growth of the season. The variegated kinds 

 make fine conservatory plants, and, as a rule, the silvery — that is, 

 the grey and creamy tinted kinds — are more valuable than the golden, 

 or those which have yellow variegation. For the parterre, however, 

 the golden-leaved varieties are most valuable when the plants become 

 large with age and densely furnished, as they are then abundantly 

 and richly variegated, and their golden leaves shine out gaily 

 amongst the rich deep green of the general collection, making the 

 dull winter days glad as with streaks of sunshine the summer has 

 left behind. 



Enough may be said, even about ivies, perhaps ; and we must 

 bring these notes to a close with all the haste possible. 



As to the varieties, then, best adapted for garden uses, the reader 

 will find further on a technical description of our collection, which 

 has been reduced to fifty in number, in order to comprise only the 

 most distinct and beautiful — all indistinct and comparatively unat- 

 tractive kinds having been sent to a place called limbo, so that we 

 shall neither see nor hear of them more. Now a bit of plain truth 

 will be no harm, perhaps. It is a fact, then, that amateurs who have 

 a taste for collections in order to make a study of families and 

 variation of types, and to secure also a number of beautiful objects, 

 may safely obtain and keep for their lasting entertainment all the 

 fifty sorts enumerated in our monograph on the subject. It is a 

 fact, also, that for every one collector who will hunger and thirst 

 after them all, there will be a thousand (or thereabout) who will 

 prefer a few of the most striking and free-growing varieties where- 

 with to decorate their walls, and rockeries, and parterres and con- 

 servatories. We must leave the collectors, and consider the necessities 

 of the thousands, and so what should now follow is a selection for 

 limited liability purchasers. Taking them in the order in which 

 they are enumerated in the monograph, the following claim priority 

 of attention for variety and beauty : — 



Hedera helix, the common ivy of the woods, makes a charming 

 pot plant, and is one of the best for clothing the ground under trees, 

 and also for marginal lines, where something cheap and green, but 

 not over-choice, is required. 



Six green-leaved varieties of if. helix may be selected with 

 safety. Ileterophylla is remarkably fresh in colour, being of a deep 

 grass-green hue; the leaves vary in form from that of a broad shield 

 without lobes to a small oval or three-lobed leaf. Tortuosa has 

 narrowish leaves of a blackish-green hue, highly polished, and every 

 one twisted in much the same way as the leaves of the twisted holly. 

 Lucida is well known as the " Poet's ivy." The leaves are large, 

 distinctly lobed, the colour a rich full green in summer, changing to 

 a fine chocolate or purplish bronze hue in winter. It is the moat 



