1877.] 



AND HORTIGULTUBIST. 



163 



they cling so close to the ground that the leaves 

 appear almost as though they were glued down. 

 After July they scarcely bloom at all. One year 

 I tried keeping them raised up a little from the 

 ground ; they bloomed no better. The next 

 year the bed was prepared a foot in depth, 

 with half sand, with no better result; and last 

 year we tied them all up to sticks as they grew ; 

 they did only a very little better. But this is an 

 unsatisfactory way, as they grow so very 

 rapidly. Can you give any light on the subject? 

 But if our Verbenas annoy us. our Roses are 

 charming. 1 never saw anything to compare 

 with them in the Eastern States. The foliage is 

 remarkably fine ; there are no ugly slugs or 

 worms, and to those of us who for many years 

 have fought these pests in the East, the Roses 

 here are specially enjoyable. 



CALIFORNIA PLANTS EAST. 



BY W. C. L. DREW, EL DORADO, CAL. 



Your correspondent, Mr. Josiah Hoopes, in 

 the April number, in speaking of a California 

 plant, says : " Like almost every Californi^n tree 

 or shrub that I have tested, positively refuses to 

 live here for any length of time. It literally 

 burns up beneath our hot suns." No wonder 

 this proves to be the case, for they are generally 

 treated as differently from what they grow in 

 their native haunts, as it is possible to treat 

 them. 



As a general rule, there are a few plants set 

 out, either free from all surrounding vegetation 

 or in tiie shade of trees ; this is wrong, entirely 

 wrong. In California everything grows in vast 

 tracts or masses ; in these masses the plants are all 

 of similar growth, size and height; here and there 

 a tall pine or oak may tower above them, but 

 never shades them much ; the result of this mass- 

 ing is that the roots and lower branches are al- 

 ways protected from the fierce rays of our broil- 

 ing hot suns, than which Eastern suns can be no 

 hotter, and from the cold blasts of Winter, while 

 the leaves, the flowers and upper parts receive the 

 full benefit of the su.i's heat and light. This is 

 the way all our plants grow, and excite the won- 

 der of the world. 



Treat them in Califorjiia as in the East, and 

 they die as surely. Take our Manzanita, which 

 is one of our hardiest plants, cut all the sur- 

 rounding shrubs from around it, and leave it 

 alone, as a specimen plant, as planted in the 



East, and though the roots have not been dis- 

 turbed, it will in the first season begin to wither, 

 and in two years die entirely. Again, trim 

 away all the .surrounding shrubs from a plant 

 growing under a tree where it is shaded, it will 

 become a prey to insects, and be covered with 

 fungus, as in the East. 



These are both true cases, and 1 have noticed 

 it time and again. I have never seen a healthy 

 specimen of any of our plants where it stands 

 alone, with two exceptions; they are the oak and 

 pine, both of which do best as single specimens. 



Califovnian plants receive no water from May 

 to October, everything being dry and hard as ro:'k, 

 while from October to May the ground is as full 

 pf water as a sponge just out of a dish of water. 

 This fact of their being so dry over Summer, lets 

 the wood get solid (in nearly all our shrubs and 

 plants, except annuals, the wood is very solid 

 and hard) ; whereas, if they had been watered, 

 the wood would have been more or less spongy 

 and wet, and liable to eff'ects of frost. Treat all 

 plants nearly like they grow, and you will have 

 success. In case you have not enough to plant a 

 large clump, plant among s'milar growing shrubs 

 or plants, but never under trees. 



THE WEIGELAS. 



BY GEN. W. H. NOBLE, BRIDGEPORT, CONN. 



These lovely natives of China, now classed as 

 Dierv'.lla, are the most charming of modern 

 shrubs. It is only about thirty years since Mr. 

 Fortune brought them, in joyous company with 

 the Forsythias, to gladden us " outside barbar- 

 ians." They have since, principall}', I suppose, 

 through crosses of the rosea and amabilis, bred 

 a wonderful family, of varied growths, and tints 

 of leaf and bloom. Yet one rarely sees any but 

 the old Rosea outside the grounds of the rich, 

 the nursery, or the public jDark. This comes a 

 good deal from their tame and stingy treatment 

 in our catalogues, and dearth of efibrt in our sales- 

 men. The growing taste of our people for flow- 

 ers, above all, for rich, blooming, hardy shrubs, 

 is as fat a placer as rose culture for somebody to 

 strike into. A little more of just and generous 

 rhetoric would hasten every flower lover in the 

 land to invite their smile. They are almost all 

 so hardy, all so quickly root from slips and cut- 

 tings, and have such rich variety of flower and 

 leaf tint, and of style, that the routine, which in- 

 vites and posts tiny rootings of the rose to our 



