Jane 9, 1670. ] 



JOTJBNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



405 



is very different from and superior to Bylvatica, and that I 

 have not yet met with any other variety half so beautiful. I 

 am thus emphatic upon this point, because so many seem to 

 confound dissitinora with sylvatica. I have had seeds of it 

 sent to try several times, and every one of them has come up 

 sylvatica, neither less nor more. With us M. dissitiflora has 

 been slow to seed. From some thousands of plants I have not 

 yet been able to save any seed, but I am trying on a different plan 

 this year and hope to ripen some. Others report that it seeds 

 freely. There seems to be no doubt that it will come perfectly 

 true from seed. All our stock has been raised from a single 

 plant ; and no plant can be more rapidly increased by cuttings 

 and division. As soon as the plants have finished their first 

 long spell of beauty, about the end of May, we take them up, 

 divide them into fragments, and replant in fresh good ground. 

 About July we take them up again, divide, and replant in fresh 

 ground as before. If short of stock and to insure a succession 

 of bloom, part of the plants will be again divided early in 

 September, and part left undisturbed. The latter will form 

 tufts 1 foot or 18 inches across by the middle of November, 

 and will be knotted for flower. A dozen or ten of these should 

 be potted or placed in a cold pit, or on a conservatory shelf. 

 If the latter, they will be in flower by Christmas or the new 

 year, and impart a fresh charm to this department, such as no 

 other plant can give. They will bear moderate forcing well, 

 if placed near the glass. A temperature of 50 3 to 60° suits 

 them admirably. Fresh batches may be brought in once a 

 month, and thus Forget-me-nots in pots will be furnished for 

 the drawing-room or conservatory from December to May. 



The main stock should be transferred to their flowering 

 quarters in November. Every plant that looks different from, 

 or the least weaker than, the others must be rejected. If any 

 manifest a stunted habit after being planted, away with them 

 at once, and replace with perfectly healthy plants from the 

 reserve stock. By such means the ground will be covered by 

 the flowering season with plants all alike healthy and strong. 

 The time of flowering ranges from January to April. We 

 have had them flowering in January, setting off with their 

 azure carpeting the silvery sheen of the Snowdrop. Last year 

 they were beautiful in February. This season it was the end 

 of March before they did much ; in fact, this has been the 

 most trying winter we ever had for this lovely Forget-me-not, 

 and nearly all other spring flowers. The long winter, with its 

 heavy cold rains, and sudden frosts and thaws, tried its con- 

 stitution to the very utmost. The season sat upon our plants 

 like a nightmare. The fattest ones succumbed to the repeated 

 blows of cold and rain to which they were exposed, and hereby 

 hangs a warning. 



This Myosotis likes good treatment, but cultivation must not 

 be pushed into grossness. The tufts a foot across had their 

 centres blackened-out by the frost. The rain drops rested on 

 their fluffy cushions of leaves, and invited the frost to come in 

 and sup on the succulent plants beneath. The moderate-sized 

 plants, or those that were divided late in September passed 

 through the winter unscathed, and so, also, did most of those 

 raised upon mounds and sloping banks. The unevenness 

 of the base lines pitched off the water from the leaves, and the 

 plants were prepared in consequence to withstand the cold. 

 The slightest shelter, such as that afforded by an overhanging 

 twig, was likewise found sufficient to protect the plants from 

 injury. 



Though I am thus particular, the plant is by no means 

 tender. After growing it for eight years, this is the first sea- 

 son I have ever seen the middle of the strong plants struck 

 out by the frost. The plant is a native of the Alps, and does 

 not seem at all to mind cold. It flinches on heavy soils from 

 an excess of wet, and if wanted to flower early and in massive 

 profusion without a flaw, it is well worth all the attention 

 here prescribed, and a thousand times more. But the plant 

 will live and grow and look better than any other Forget-me-not 

 under the same treatment. It is not fastidious as to soil, nor 

 dainty in the choice of a site. As to mere cold, it is the 

 hardiest Forget-me-not with which I am acquainted. When 

 other varieties are asleep in or on the ground, like sylvatica, 

 or hiding away from the scathing blast under the water, like 

 palustris, this gem is hugging the snow to its azure bosom, 

 nor does it shrink from the shivering embrace. It laughs 

 at the driving storm, and defies its power. If prostrated 

 beneath a snow reef, or beaten down to the earth with splash- 

 ing rain to-day, it is up again to-morrow. The wind tries to 

 wither, the frost to freeze up, the rain and the hail to dash 

 down its beauty, but all in vain, lit bends its beauteous Blender 



head to the blast, and rises again with dignity and grace as 

 soon as the storm is past. First and best of all blue spring 

 flowers, it lasts the longest. I have said it may come in Janu- 

 ary to wait for or welcome the Snowdrop, or support the golden 

 Aconite with its glorious complementary colour, or arrive to 

 gladden the Christmas Rose before it sinks to rest in its 

 wintry grave. I now add it may be gathered continuously 

 until December, when the girdling wreath of Forget-me-not 

 that has tied all the months together in a true-lover's knot 

 shall be made up afresh and worn as before. 



To ensure a continuity of these charming blossoms, take the 

 strongest cuttings of the flowering plants in March, and strike 

 them in a cool close frame. About the middle of April plant 

 them out in rich ground, at distances of 1 foot by 18 inches. 

 These plants will begin to flower finely in June, and follow 

 the successional spring batches. A second lot of cuttings may 

 be put in in May, a third in July, and if the second are planted 

 in June in a shady place, and the third in August in a warm 

 situation, Forget-me-notB in plenty may be enjoyed until the 

 pot plants come-in in December and January. If your readers 

 think these two or three propagatings too much trouble to take 

 for such a prize, then plant the latest spring plants in rich soil, 

 cut off all the flower stems as they fade, top-dress the roots, 

 peg down the strong shoots, and water freely, and flowers may 

 be gathered from the same plants all the summer ; in fact, this 

 Forget-me-not under high culture is a perpetual bloomer. It is 

 neither an annual nor a biennial, but a hardy perennial. I have 

 a plant seven or eight years old, and it is nearly always in flower. 

 At no other season, however, must we expect such a rich flush 

 of beauty as in the spring months. From February to May 

 inclusive is the hey-day of its strength, the harvest-tide of its 

 glorious beauty. The same plants will flower fully and freely 

 throughout that long period ; but with June the flowers will 

 become fewer and Bmaller, and so of the succeeding months. 

 Let me illustrate by an example. Many of your readers may 

 know the two Brugmansias — atrosangninea and suaveolens. 

 The former flowers continuously, and the latter by fits and 

 starts. A large plant of B. atrosangninea may have fifty 

 flowers open at once, and suaveolens may have, has had, two 

 thousand. The latter is the emblem of this Myosotis in the 

 spring tide, the former of it during summer, autumn, or 

 winter — always in flower, but never so richly fully suffused 

 with beauty as in March, April, and May. Still it is much to 

 have always enough Forget-me-not at hand for bouquet and 

 vase work.— D. T. Fish, F.R.H.S. 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 

 June 8th. 



This was the day of the Society's great London Show ; a more pro- 

 pitious day there could not have been. Time was when the Society 

 was noted for its bad fortune in respect to weather, but this season it 

 has hitherto been singularly fortunate. A finer day it could not well 

 have had ; rather sultry, it is true, very hot in the conservatory, and 

 even in the arcades, in the latter somewhat dusty notwithstanding all due 

 preventive measures, but out of doors just enough of breeze to render 

 the heat endurable. The conservatory was crowded, the arcades were 

 crowded, and the lawn around the bands, where ladies love to con- 

 gregate, was crowded too. It is, however, more especially our duty to 

 speak of the exhibition in a horticultural point of view, and in a hor- 

 ticultural point of view nothing could be more satisfactory. It was, 

 in fact, a very extensive show, and the quality of the subjects exhi- 

 bited was not merely good, but excellent, and that in nearly every 

 one of the numerous classes in which they were shown. 



Orchids came first in the schedule, and of these there was the finest 

 bank exhibited this season, filling alone oue-fourth of the staging in 

 the conservatory. Class 1 was for nine, and the first prize was taken 

 by Mr. Denning, gardener to Lord Londesborough, Grimston Park, 

 with one of those splendid collections which place him in so high a. 

 rank among Orchid-growers. This consisted of a large basket of the 

 brilliant Epidendrum vitellinum majus, Dendrobium McCarthia?, a 

 fine Odontoglossum niveum ; Cattleya ^Yarneri, very tine ; a beautiful 

 specimen of Lailia purpurata ; Dendrobium crystallinum ; Pescatorea 

 cerina, with three flowers ; a large Airides odoratum with fifteen spikes, 

 and Acrides affine with nine spikes. Mr. Burnett, gardener to W. 

 Terry, Esq., Peterborough House, Fulham, came second with a splen- 

 did pan of Cypripedium barbatum superbum ; the yellow-flowered On- 

 cidinm sessile, blooming very freely ; Saccolabinm Rtedii, with one 

 fine raceme ; a fine specimen of the bright-coloured Saccolabium am,- 

 pullaceum ; Cypripedium Stonei, with a branch bearing five flowers ; 

 Vanda tricolor, La-lia purpurata, and Cattleya Mossia;. Mr. Bull, of 

 Chelsea, who was third, had, among others. Odontoglossum citrosmum 

 and 0. citrosmum roseum, the latter beautifully tinged with hlac, and 

 tbree Lselias. 



Class 2 was for six Orchids, and nurserymen only. The first prize 



