198 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[July, 



merits deserve. The oaks, ashes, maples, hicko- 

 ries, birches, elms, poplars, cherries, magnolias, 

 tulip trees, catalpa, sumachs, hollies, dogwoods, 

 thorns and spirals, besides a host of others, 

 equally useful or ornamental and perfectly hardy 

 plants, claim for more of the notice of the planter 

 than they have received within the past quarter 

 of a century. No doubt many of them are to 

 be found growing with perfect health in most of 

 our large nurseries, but they are too often allowed 

 to outgrow themselves, as nursery stock, from the 

 sheer lack of purchasers. Their increase is thus 

 curtailed and their cultivation neglected, when 

 a better acquaintance with their graceful habits 

 and matured beauties would cause quite a fervor 

 for them, especially among ornamental planters." 



Standard Plants.— Those who visited the 

 grounds around Horticultural Hall in Fairmount 

 Park, Philadelphia, last year, must have been 

 struck with the singular beauty of the tree 

 Lantanas, that is to say, plants trained up on one 

 stem to a height of four or five feet, and then 

 suffered to form a head. Of course such things 

 look formal ; but a garden is essentially a work 

 of art, and it is by the judicious employment of 

 these artificial looking things, that true garden 

 art consists. 



STANDARD FUCHSIAS. 



There are numberless plants which have a 

 striking effect when ti-ained in this way. The 

 Lemon Verbena is especially adapted to this sort 



of culture, and any one who once possesses a 

 plant so trained will never want to part with it. 

 The Gardening Illustrated tells us thai in England 

 standards are sometimes made of the Fuchsia, 

 and we fancy such plants must be very beautiful. 

 Here is an illustration of one. The pendulous 

 flowers must show well when so trained. 



Old-fashioned Gardening. — "A Lady" writes 

 to the Gardener's Chronicle: "For 1 think the 

 love of flowers and of gardening grows with ad- 

 vancing age and inability to garden, and the 

 same lady who as a girl thought it a great nuis- 

 ance to have to cut off the dead Roses, or weed 

 a flower-bed, will be glad enough to do it in her 

 old age, and only long to be able to do more than 

 her failing strength will admit of h-er attempting. 



"An old lady naturally cares most for old- 

 fashioned flowers ; for, after all, the greatest 

 charm flowers possess to the old is their associa- 

 tion with bygone days. What charm can a bed 

 of Pelargoniums boast that will compare with 

 that of a root of Starch Hyacinth, if the latter 

 grew in a corner of the kitchen garden of her 

 father's parsonage? Or what cares she for the 

 latest sport of a Chinese Primrose in comparison 

 with the double lilac Primroses for which she 

 used to hunt in the shrubbery in the early spring 

 days of her childhood? So she tries to fill her 

 garden with flowers which, to her, are living 

 memories of her youth, and perhaps tries in vain 

 to get the gardener to respect plants which he 

 regards little better than rubbish. Many ladies 

 will treasure for life some old-fashioned flower 

 which is directly descended from an individual 

 plant that belonged to a mother or sister long 

 since departed ; and the loss of a treasure of this 

 kind, through the carelessness of a man hired for 

 the day, is mourned almost as if it were a re- 

 newal of their original loss. 



'■ Some ladies, stronger in mind and bod}' than 

 the generality of their sex, try to avoid all these 

 dangers by dispensing altogether with the gar- 

 dener. I know one instance in which an elderly 

 lady, with the assistance of her maid, does all 

 the work of her garden, even including the 

 mowing of her grass plot; and the consequence 

 is that her little garden abounds with charming 

 old-fashioned flowers that her fond hands have 

 protected since the days when they were com- 

 moner than at present. Her garden is bounded 

 on one side by an old wall, from every crevice of 

 which spring lovely little Ferns, which she as- 

 sured me were self-sown. It seemed as though 

 they knew where to find protection from their 



