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BEDDING GEEANIUMS, OLD AND NEW. 



N last month's number I offered a few remarks on 

 geraniums adapted for pot-culture. I now propose to 

 pass quickly in review the varieties best adapted for 

 bedding. Good reasons may be found in plenty to 

 account for the popularity of geraniums. Considered 

 simply as bedding plants, they are certainly the most useful of the 

 class ; they are easily kept all winter, they grow well in almost 

 every kind of soil during summer, they flower profusely and con- 

 tinue in perfection for a greater length of time than any other class 

 of bedding plants, and their colours are intensely brilliant and de- 

 lightfully various. They became famous in the first instance because 

 of the intensity and profusion of their scarlet flowers; but we have 

 them now in all colours except pure blue and pure yellow, and 

 though the first might be desirable, the second is of less conse- 

 quence, because the calceolaria supplies yellow in several shades, 

 and is the next best, that is to say, nest most reliable and profusely- 

 flowering bedding plant, after the geranium. Some of the readers 

 of this may not fully appreciate the remark just made on the great 

 variety of colours to be found amongst geraniums, because every- 

 where the common opinion respecting these plants is that the only 

 good ones are the scarlets, and that of other colours and shades 

 there are very few indeed, and those few more curious than useful. 

 But the fact "is that, within the past few years, the raisers of new 

 varieties have succeeded in eflecting numerous improvements, and, 

 to speak the plain truth, the geranium is now quite a different 

 thing from the plant we were accustomed to when we used to call 

 them " scarlet-flowered horseshoes." Nearly all the kinds that 

 were then considered first-rate are now second, third, and fourth- 

 rate — those of most recent introduction being so immensely superior. 

 Scarlets. — Let us, then, just consider the two points together- 

 diversity of colours, and superior qualities for bedding. To begin 

 with scarlets. We put aside Tom Thumb, Huntsman, Eeidii, 

 Hibberd's Pet, Cottage Maid, and several others that only three 

 years ago were considered first-class varieties, and we take instead 

 of them Stella, Cybister, Eaust, and Attraction. These are certainly 

 the four best scarlet bedding plants known ; they grow with only 

 moderate vigour, they are extremely neat in habit, with dark green 

 horseshoe leaves, and they produce large trusses of flowers of the 

 most brilliant shades of scarlet or scarlet-crimson. Perhaps of the 

 four, Cybister is the best ; but, in any extreme case, the ultimate 

 choice must full upon either Cybister or Stella. The dark foliage of 

 all these varieties has very much to do with the brilliant eftect they 

 produce on the ground, because by contrast therewith the strong 

 tones of colour of the flowers come out distinctly. All the scarlet- 

 flowered geraniums that have light-green leaves, such as Tom 

 Thumb, are objectionable, because of the interference of the pre- 

 dominant tone of yellow in the leafage with the purity of the scarlet 

 flowers. Kate Anderson will be one of the most popular of this class. 



