i88i.] FLOWER- GARDENING. 33 



remark by Mr Sutherland. Since then I have had a great deal more 

 experience of them, with an extended practice in ordinary bedding and 

 leaf bedding, and 1 have no hesitation in saying that these borders will 

 require more labour to keep them in first-class order than either styles of 

 bedding alluded to. With our present experience, hardy plants will not 

 be tolerated unless they are well done ; and in pressing the claims of these 

 on gardeners, there is no use in blinking the matter of labour." For 

 several years back I have consistently advocated the claims of hardy plants, 

 and in the same article from which *'J. S,, W." made his mutilated quo- 

 tation, I praised them as highly as any one could. How far I go may be 

 seen in this sentence in the same article, "No garden should be without a 

 selection of good sorts." But it is no reason why, because hardy plants are 

 worth cultivating in every garden, that we should ostracise, from that moment, 

 masses of Geraniums, Calceolarias, and other bedders. Nor would I conceive 

 it to be quite honest to withhold my experience in the matter of cost of keep- 

 ing these hardy borders in the same style that our bedding borders and beds 

 are kept, without letting it be known that a gardener does nothing to relieve 

 the pressure of work during some of the busiest months of the year by sub- 

 stituting hardy Howers for bedders, but that, on the contrary, he would 

 thereby be heaping up more work to himself. At the same time, hardy flower- 

 ing-plants, when well selected, are in themselves so deserving of culture that 

 a garden without them wants a feature which it should not be long without. 

 Again, it is well to have ** J. S., W.'s " assurance as to the small amount of 

 outlay on which a border of these can be kept gay from February to November. 

 From an experience extending to a period of eight years under my own 

 management, and a further three years when in a subordinate position, I 

 should have deemed it impossible for any one who had a few years' experience 

 with these flowers to assert, as your correspondent does, that going over the 

 borders " about four times " is suflicient to spend in the way of keep and the 

 maintenance of a constant succession of flowers. Without taking into account 

 that part of the season up to July, during which time very little labour is 

 required to keep things tidy, I find from that time that it takes the borders 

 to be looked over every ten days at the least. Then, every spring there are 

 a certain number of plants, of a rank-growing nature, to pull to pieces and 

 replant. Double Primroses, for instance, require taking up and replanting 

 every year in order to keep them from dying out. There is also the pro- 

 pagating of Carnations and Picotees which cannot be left over two years to do 

 any good. We propagated 350 plants of one Picotee this year without count- 

 ing Clove and Self Carnations, and Anne Boleyn Pink, of which we cannot 

 get too many. It would be interesting to know what means your correspond- 

 ent takes at so small an outlay of labour to make good the gaps left by the 

 decayed foliage of such plants as Snowdrops, Crocuses, the various Narcissi, 

 Grape Hyacinths, Dondias, Dentarias, Scillas, Crown Imperials and other 

 Fritillarias, Eanunculus amplexicaulis. Iris reticulata, Adonis vernalis, San- 

 guinaria canadensis. Winter Aconites, and others. Then my experience tallies 

 exactly with that of the Editor, in that the best of the flowers which bloom 

 after midsummer are subjects which require to be staked. The Phlox is the 

 only late flowering-plant which "J. S., W." can call to mind, and Delphiniums 

 amongst summer flowers. Can he intend the many species and varieties of 

 the tall-growing Bell-flowers, of Lychnises, Monardias, Sun -flowers, Erigerons, 

 Lythrums, Salvias, Lobelias, Aconitums, (Enotheras, Adenophoras, Scabious, 

 Pentstemons, strong - growing Lilies, &c., and the many fine Michael- 



