November 27, 1873. ) 



JOURNAL OP HOBTICDLTUBB AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



415 



it will be necessary for Fellows to tara tbeir attention to a 

 painful and cloudy present, and to face it with courage and 

 determination. They will have to make themselves acquainted 

 with the charter of the Society, its powers and prohibitions, 

 and more especially its bearings in the case of the bye-laws 

 which have been, and may in future be, passed at their oflicir.l 

 meetings. The}' will require also to know now whether the 

 proceedings of last February were legal or illegal. It is very 

 certain that the Commissioners cannot on their parts give a 

 release from covenant to a deputation of Fellows, nor can any 

 such transaction be carried on till we have a Council whose 

 legality is established, to treat with a corresponding body on 

 the part of the Commissioners. It will be hardly necessary to 

 say that the vote by proxy must be a sine qua noti in the 

 Society of the future. — E. Tkevok Claeke, Weltoii Place, 

 Daveiitry. 



NOTES 0\ GERANIUMS AND OTHER BEDDING 

 PLANTS. 



Aftek having tried over a hundred varieties of bedding 

 Geraniums I must hold the opinion I expressed last year — that 

 Vesuvius is in all respects the very best scarlet variety for colour, 

 habit, and profusion of bloom, lasting well into the autumn, 

 and thriving equally well in wet or dry seasons. Next in the 

 order of merit I place Jean Sisley. lanthe does well with me, 

 and is unique in colour, being a bluish crimson. Mrs. Upton is 

 a fine pink bedder with a very dv.-arf habit. Monsieur Comner, 

 although an old variety, must not be discarded, the trusses 

 being of immense si;;e and very showy. Waltham Seedling is 

 in my opinion the best of the dark sorts, and a very free 

 bloomer; Morning Star, a decided improvement on either 

 Stella or Cybister ; Masterpiece, an immense trusser. Of the 

 still older varieties there are some which should be retained 

 in every garden, such as Indian Yellow, Orange Nosegay, 

 Trentham, Eebecca, Sutton's Scarlet Perfection, The Hon. 

 Gathorne Hardy, and Tom Thumb. 



Whilst at Eockingham Flower Show (Northamptonshire) 

 last July, held in the extremely beautiful grounds of Kocking- 

 ham Castle, the seat of G. L. Watson, Esq., I was much struck 

 with a bed of dwarf blue Campanulas, which was one mass of 

 bloom, so much so that the foliage was scarcely visible. On 

 inquiring of the gardener (Mr. John Brown), he told me it 

 was the Campanula Bouvardiana, a perennial, propagated by 

 division of the roots, and that by attending to it and picking 

 off the dead blooms it lasts well into the autumn. I think, 

 now that blue flowers are so much in request, this Campanula 

 only wants to be better known to be more cultivated. 



I think it is not sufficiently well known that persons who 

 have not the advantage of greenhouses or frames may winter 

 bedding Calceolarias by merely inserting small cuttings with 

 one joint in the open ground, and then covering them with a 

 bell-glass, which should be pressed tightly down, and then not 

 disturbed, and never shaded even in the most severe frosts, 

 until the following March, by which time they will be well 

 rooted, and may then be taken up and put in boxes, and en- 

 couraged to grow. — E. C, Oakham. 



FLOWERS FOR OUR BORDERS.— No. 21. 



SAI,\'IA BICOLOn.— TWO-COLOUKED SiOE. 



The genus Salvia is best represented in our gardens by the 

 tender and half-hardy species, of which patens, spleudens, iu- 

 volucrata, and gesneraeflora may be taken as illustrations. 

 The hardy section includes, however, many desirable species, 

 of which the S. bioolor hero figured is an example. 



Its blossoms taken individually are, perhaps, less attractive 

 than those of the now common S. patens ; but, on the other 

 hand, they are far more abundantly produced, and are much 

 less fugacious, remaining expanded several days after their 

 full development. In any moderately good soil the plant 

 attains the height of 3 or 4 feet ; and clothed as it is with 

 very handsome foliage, an established specimen forms, when 

 in flower, an exceedingly interesting object. Its blooming 

 season extends over a period of two or three months if pre- 

 vented from ripening seed. 



It is, moreover, perfectly hardy, and requires, therefore, 

 none of the attentions necessary to preserve its more tender 

 congeners from the rigours of our winters. So numerous, in 

 fact, are the claims of the Salvia bicolor to attention, that it 

 seems surprising that this species should be comparatively so 

 little known. It was first introduced into this country as 



early as li93, but appears to have been almost entirely lost 

 until its re-introductiou about 184.5 from the north of India 

 by Messrs. Standish ct Noble, Bagshot. 



Salvia bicolor may be readily increased either by division 

 of the roots in spring or by seed, which generally ripens 

 freely, but which must be gathered just before it is fully 

 mature, or, like that of the S. patens, it falls from the nodding 

 calyx. 



It should be sown on a gentle hotbed early in spring, and 

 the seedlings, when an inch or two high, must be transferred 

 singly to small pots of light soil, and subsequeutly shifted into 

 larger, until the plants are lit for turning into the borders in 

 May. They will usually flower the first season, as is the case 

 with nearly aU the Salvias, though not, indeed, so early as 

 older plants. 



Salvia bieolor. 



In the absence of a hotbed we have no doubt that seeds of 

 our present subject would readily vegetate if sown in a warm 

 border about the end of April, especially if assisted by a 

 hand-glass, or protected at night from frost and snails by 

 having a flower-pot turned over them. 



There are many other species of Salvia not commonly grown, 

 which are equally deserving of attention with the S. bicolor, 

 the genus containing, indeed, not less than two hundred 

 species, a considerable number of which are tolerably hardy. 

 Those most generally found in cultivation have chiefly flowers 

 of various shades of purple, blue, or scarlet ; but other tints 

 are by no means absent in this family. There are several 

 species with yellow, and at least twenty with white blossoms ; 

 others have bright pink, lilac, or violet flowers, and there are 

 a few into the composition of whoso colounng nearly all the 

 tints we have named may be said to enter. 



Among those most worthy of cultivation may be named the 

 indigenous pratensis, with its several varieties alba, rosea, and 

 lupiuoides, the latter a very effective plant with blue and 

 white flowers ; indica, a tall species with largo violaceous 

 blossoms spotted with white and yellow ; chamajdryoides, a 

 neat dwarfish species with small blao flowers; chionantha, a 

 comparatively recent introduction from Lycia, with large pure 

 white flowers in copious racemes ; obtusa, a species often 

 cultivated under the name of rosea, with numerous small 

 rosy carmine flowers, and foliage strongly redolent of Black 

 Currants ; bracteata, a very showy plant, with large conspicu- 

 ous white floral bracts tinged with rose ; glutinosa, one of the 

 very few hardy species with yellow flowers ; argentea, almost 



