480 



JOUENAL OF HOKTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENER. 



I December 18, 1373. 



but wilJ, on the contrary, give general satisfaction. The soil 

 for its successful cultivation is loam and peat in equal parts, 

 with about one-fourth of sand added. Cuttings taken off early 

 in spring should be grown-on in the stove, and in autumn 

 the plants will be fit for any decorative purpose. The plant 

 attains a height of some 2 or 3 feet, and is shrubby in 

 habit, with serrated ovate leaves ; the flowers are small, unat- 

 tractive, and borne in the axils of the leaves, but are suc- 

 ceeded by large clusters of shining violet-coloured berries, 

 rendering the plant very ornamental throughout the winter. 

 When in fruit it may be used for either stove or greenhouse 

 decoration. 



PSYCHOTEIA. 



A genus of Ciuchouaceaj, the various members of which, as 

 far as I am aware, have no claim upon the plant-grower for 

 the beauty of their flowers ; one species, however, of recent 

 introduction must not be overlooked, on account of the beauti- 

 ful berries with which it is adorned during the winter months. 

 The soil should be composed of loam, leaf mould, peat, and 

 sand in equal parts. It is best grown from cuttings. 



P. CYANococcA. — To the late Dr. Seemann we are indebted 

 for the introduction of this species. It cannot be said to form 

 a handsome plant if a seedling is allowed to take its own 

 coui'se, but I have proved it quite amenable to whatever traiu- 

 iijg is required. For this purpose the top of a seedling should 

 be cut off and struck ; when rooted pot it in the above-named 

 compost, and grow it in the stove. The leaves are ovate, 

 with crenate edges, and dark green ; the flowers are of no 

 beauty, but are succeeded by axillary racemes of berries of the 

 most vivid ultramarine, rendering the plant extremely beau- 

 tiful. — ExpEKio Ckede. 



CLEMATISES. 



The Clematis, or " Vine-branch " plant, named from its 

 known habit of chmbing as Vines do — though it uses its leaves 

 as tendrils or natural holdfasts, being unhke the Vine in this 

 essential — has, almost suddenly, become one of the finest and 

 deservedly most popular plants we possess. Those who, like 

 the writer, can remember the old Clematis Hendersoni and its 

 rosy purplish variety ; the old Clematis Flammula in variety ; 

 and the lovely wild C. Vitalba, so intimately associated with 

 some of our finest British scenery, and who can also recall to 

 their memory the pleasure with which the improvements of 

 1831 in the forms of C. odorata and C. montana were hailed, 

 will have been more than surprised with the rapid strides which 

 have been made within the last five years. Nor should we 

 to-day endeavour to dispense with the old C. montana, as it is 

 a beautiful, showy, "starry" plant, growing amazingly, and 

 blooming with a freedom not to be surpassed. The writer has 

 a solitary plant against a wall planted there only two years 

 ago, and it is already producing its thousands of blooms. 



Not only are Clematises grown and treated as climbing wall 

 plants, or "pole" and tree climbers, they are also cultivated 

 at this time extensively, in their several varieties, both as 

 bedding plants, and especially as pot plants, for the decoration 

 of our conservatories and show-houses. The way in which 

 they are best grown for a display in beds is to plant them out 

 in a richly prepared border, and subsequently place some kind 

 of trelliswork slightly elevated conically above the soil, training 

 and tying them out thereon subsequently. 



To grow them in pots for flowering there, the pots should be 

 plunged out of doors, and they may be trained into any shape 

 that fancy may devise ; or they may be simply allowed to attach 

 themselves perpendicularly to strings or rustic trellises, *c., 

 from which they are readily removed and trained into a more 

 suitable skeleton form, so as to become the foundation of a bushy 

 plant aii'ording an abundance of bloom. The original batch of 

 seedlings, represented by the form of G. Jackmauni, are exceed- 

 ingly brittle while the growth is young ; indeed this is in some 

 degree a natural characteristic. The training and tying-out 

 of the young shoots should be done methodically and by anti- 

 cipation, if the whole are to be retained for future blooming. 

 So many and distinct are the named varieties placed in com- 

 merce by the^ chief growers, each of whom possesses some 

 distinctly claimed characteristics in their especial batches of 

 hybrid-seedling plants, and so constantly are seedlings biiag 

 produced, that I think it would occupy too much space to give 

 a Ust of them. I may refer all who wish to enter into their 

 cultivation to two prominent raisers — viz., Messrs. Noble, of 

 Bagshot, and Messrs. .Jackman, of Woking. 



There is one variety I would wish to draw attention to, how- 



ever ; not alone because it is a fine-bloojned variety, but more 

 especially because it is a perpetual bloomer, commencing if 

 anything earlier than the early C. Jackmauni, and carrying 

 blooms till December, or beyond if the frost do not come 

 too severe. It is, moreover, a somewhat original introduc- 

 tion, with very little hybrid or mixed blood in it. I refer to 

 Clematis lanuginosa nivea. Note the nivea attached to the 

 name, as there is a separate form of C. lanuginosa which is 

 not nearly so good. The especial merit of this variety consists, 

 however, in its i^erpetual-blooming capacity, as it opens its 

 first blooms as early as C. montana, and thence, as intimated, 

 continuing to bloom onward until December, should the season 

 prove open and no actual frost come to cut off the late growths. 

 We have, then, here the finest of blooming plants, showy 

 and free, as they are varied in colour, fitting for almost every 

 conceivable situation and aspect — whether as growing lowly, 

 to afford showy beds, to train against walls or on spaces upon 

 bare palings, to twine round the boles of naked upright trees, 

 for training on the various faces of artificial rockwork or old 

 blocks of wood, such as are not alone used to advantage upon 

 lawns or dressed grounds, but which are a necessary addition 

 to wilderness walks ; to train on bower-Uke entrances, whether 

 of iron or of rustic wood, to grow between semi-detached gar- 

 dens, and especially to afford a front or roof-gai-niture to 

 rustic and other forms of summer-houses. Indeed there are 

 few situations, and still fewer aspects, where this delightful 

 class of plants may not be grown with every prospect of their 

 doing well. They succeed, besides, in a great variety of soUs. 

 — William Baeley, Valentines. 



THE KITCHEN GABDEN.— No. 3. 



I DEVOTE this paper to the subjects of shelter and soil, and 

 in choosing a site for a garden where one of these conditions 

 occurs in a suitable degree it is difficult to say which should 

 have the preference, as both are of the utmost importance. 

 Shelter is necessary, not only because it renders the garden 

 warmer by retaining the heat concentrated there by the sun's 

 rays, but also by protecting against cold and cutting winds 

 which prevail at different times of the year. It is therefore a 

 valuable safeguard against those sudden fluctuations of tem- 

 perature so injurious to garden productions. 



A garden surrounded by a wall is to some extent sheltered, 

 but not sufficiently so, for the heat accumulated within the 

 walls being continually rising is soon dispersed into the atmo- 

 sphere by the wind, which, of course, in time reduces the tem- 

 perature of the enclosm-e and places the produce or crops at 

 the mercy of inclement weather. To obviate this a plantation 

 of trees and shi'ubs is the remedy most hkely to meet most 

 cases, and if a spot can be selected where such a thing exists 

 naturally considerable sacrifice ought to be made in order to 

 secure it, because both time and money wUl thereby be saved. 

 An amateur, however, may sometimes place his garden where 

 the necessary shelter can be borrowed, as it were, from his neigh- 

 bour's plantations, and others may have the chance, from the 

 natural position, to make a garden where the most particular 

 points are sheltered by adjacent residences, so that very Uttle 

 planting wUl be necessary ; but as these things depend so much 

 upon the situation, locality, size of garden to be made, and 

 other circumstances, I can safely leave them to the judgment 

 of those on the spot. Some situations require much more 

 shelter than others : a high one, for instance, from its exposure, 

 necessarily requires more shelter than a low one. My opinion 

 is that a garden should be sheltered little or much from all 

 points except the south ; there is no fear of injury from cutting 

 winds from the latter quarter ; and the rtfreshiug showers 

 should have no obstruction, neither should anything in the 

 shape of a tree be placed so near as to hinder the sun's rays 

 from having full play upon the garden. It is on the north and 

 east sides that the most shelter is needed, because the very 

 coldest winds are from those quarters. Then on the west an 

 effectual shelter is needed, because from this point some of the 

 most violent winds blow, and if not sheltered much harm is 

 done to fruit trees and vegetable crops. I think an effectual 

 shelter would be one that would take a course from the extreme 

 west round to the extreme east corner of the garden. Assuming 

 that the aspect is due south, this would enclose aU sides bUit 

 the south. 



I will now say a few words about the arrangement of this 

 shelter. In the first place it ought to consist of evergreen and 

 deciduous trees arranged in a belt or plantation, with mostly 

 evergreen shrubs planted as an undergrowth. The whole, if 



