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THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



wish now to make a clump of this sort, 

 and have no jardinet and no proper 

 place prepared. All you need do is 

 to mark out a circle (or any other 

 form) on turf or gravel in a suitable 

 position, form a wall all round of burrs 

 or Rosher's edging tiles made to a 

 curve of the right proportion for the 

 design, and you have the foundation 

 instanter. Rosher's tiles are to be 

 had in fifty different patterns, and 

 in curves of all degrees at any 

 time, ready made, and they are the 

 best in existence, for they are not 

 only as hard as the best stone and 

 stand all weathers, but they do not 

 get coated with green conferva? like 

 other substitutes for stone, and they 

 are as cheap as any manufactured 

 article of the same kind now before 

 the public. A wooden boundary a 

 foot high might serve every purpose, 

 but it would want some sort of or- 

 nament to give it the appearance of a 

 basket ; such, for instance, as a couple 

 of stout cables run all round, and the 

 whole to be painted stone colour, or 

 a warm oak-brown. Nov/ to obtain 

 the plants. At the nurseries quaint, 

 old, and almost valueless plants, of 

 Gauntlet, Mrs. Kendall, and other 

 pelargoniums, which are forced for cut 

 flowers and allowed to run up five or 

 six feet high, may be had at very 

 little more in cost than the ordinary 

 run of bedding plants. I know that 

 if a thunder-storm or a whirlwind 

 should sweep away at one blow all 

 my great plants, and put me for the 

 moment hors de combat, I could go 

 to half a dozen places close at hand 

 and buy up for a mere song a lot of 

 these lanky plants full of bloom and 

 in fit condition to go on blooming for 

 two or three months, and in stocking 

 the beds again with such I should 

 give them all a shift to the next 

 size pots, using very rich compost, 

 nearly all dung, taking care in turn- 

 ing them out not to hurt a fibre ; I 

 would not, in fact, remove the crocks 

 but let them root into the fresh soil 

 as they best might. This would set 

 them right for the remainder of the 

 season, and the next spring (if I kept 

 them), I should shake them out 

 and repot them, and give them a start 

 on a dungbed in the house, and make 



them do duty again, and perhaps 

 take care not to prune them at all. 

 The taller they are for a grand mix- 

 ture the better ; you can always hide 

 their legs with other things, and these 

 old lanky plants bloom wonderfully. I 

 have had to do exactly as lam advis- 

 ing ; and I remember once going to a 

 nursery close by and clearing out all 

 the tall overgrown petunias and pelar- 

 goniums, and making a magnificent 

 clump with plants that as nursery 

 stock were literally valueless. 



A Geranium Pyramid. — At the 

 present time my jardinet is tilled with 

 potted geraniums, which form a close, 

 regular pyramid six feet high, ter- 

 minating in a sharp point, and as re- 

 gular all round, all through, and from 

 base to summit, as if turned out of 

 a mould. I hope you will not think 

 me boastful in thus speaking of it ; I 

 have indeed no reason to boast, be- 

 cause to produce a pyramid of that 

 sort is as easy a matter as planting a 

 bed with a lot of trashy Tom Thumbs 

 purchased at three shillings a dozen 

 at a nursery. It is an even mass of 

 dark horse-shoe foliage aud brilliant 

 scarlet flowers, and ic illustrates ad- 

 mirably the advantage of the system, 

 for it has been a blaze of bloom since 

 the first week in May, and will hold 

 on to the end of the season if desired. 

 But I shall probably make a change 

 when the asters come into bloom, for 

 I have grown a large stock this sea- 

 son of Emperor and Pccony asters, and 

 these are all potted singly in five-inch 

 pots, with only one small crock in each 

 pot, and the compost equal parts 

 rotted dung and good loam, so as to 

 secure free growth and fine flowers 

 with limited pot room. If all goes 

 well I shall take out the geraniums 

 and fill the bed close with asters, which 

 will be an agreeable change, and that 

 change will enable me to get the 

 wood of the geraniums well ripened j 

 whereas, if they remain in the bed till 

 the damp autumn weather sets in, 

 being under large trees and very much 

 shaded, they will have a soft pale wood 

 and perhaps winter badly. The asters 

 are supposed to last till the chrysan- 

 themums take their place, but they 

 are sure to be over before any of the 

 chrysanthemums are out, and there 



