December 31, 1868. 1 



JODBNAIi OP HORTICDLTUEE AND COTTAGE GABDENER. 



495 



BEDDING, WITHOUT WINTERING PLANTS 

 UNDER GLASS. 

 'ONG ago in my native village there was a 

 ei-azy man, who used to walk about crowned 

 with an immense hat so thickly stuck over 

 with tall showy peacocks' feathers that little 

 or no hat could be seen, and our worthy 

 clergyman once made use of this funny head- 

 gear to point a moral, by remarking that 

 " were we all to carry our follies as promi- 

 nently exposed to public view, there would 

 be man}' stranger figures in the town than 

 poor Sandy." Well, here is a great feather, and there are 

 very few hats without it. We are one and all of us. from 

 liis Grace's gardener down to t!ie doctor's boy who sorts 

 the garden, as well as the pigs and the pony, awfully, hope- 

 lessly imitative. We steal one another's spent thunder, 

 and thunder it over again with as much zest as if it had 

 never before shaken our little gardening atmosphere ; we 

 keep running in a circle, treading on one another's heels so 

 closely, that were our neighbours in other walks of life not 

 similarly engaged, they would set us down at once as a lot 

 of mere copyists. But it is not pleasant to dwell upon the 

 weak points of human nature at any time, and much less 

 at this supposed merry ^me of the year; and after all, if 

 we copy only what is good in our betters, so much the 

 better for us, and if in addition to tliat we imitate also 

 their whims and weaknesses, our doing so only tends to 

 keep down a crop of whimsicalities entirely our own. 



Whether we owe the wide-spread habit of massing plants 

 together in great numbers, so as to produce sheets of colour, 

 to imitativeness or to the innate instinctive love of llowers 

 on the part of the many, I cannot tell ; it is enough for ns 

 to know and congratulate ourselves on the fact, that flowers 

 from being what they once were, luxuries of the few, would 

 seem to be now almost necessary to the happiness of every 

 one who possesses a garden. The will and the way. how- 

 ever, are two vei'y diiferent matters. Many a man's love 

 of flower gardening has evaporated, leaving him hard and 

 dry, whilst looking over his first bill for bedding plants at 

 M. each : and many a gardener's praiseworthy ambition 

 has grown into disgust by his attempting the wizard trick 

 of turning a miraculous number of half-hardy bedding 

 plants out of one or two tiny houses ; 3'et a great piece of 

 the road to perfection can be passed over without the help 

 of houses at all. Last summer I saw and made notes of 

 more than one flower garden furnished with plants, the 

 tenderest of which had only experienced the slender hospi- 

 tality of frames and hand-glasses, and many — and these 

 not the least striking — did not require even that. The 

 sight of one of these glassless places in particular gave me 

 an attack of " wholesome humility," from the effects of 

 which I have not yet recovered. 



Our list of bedding plants which, being either hardy or 

 annuals, do not require wintering under glass, is grow- 

 ing longer every year, and we have, besides, a long list 

 of plants with ornamentiil foliage, many of them hardy 

 enough for the Hebrides, and handsome enough to hold 

 Up their heads beside the best of those half-hardy plants 

 Ko. 103.— Vol. XV., New Sehits. 



we are accustomed to use, 

 quoted : — 



Viola cornuta 



■Viola lutea 



Ptinsies, Cliveden Blue 

 and Yellow 



Of hardy perennials may be 



Saponaria ooymoiJes 

 QSoothera macrooarpa 

 Nepeta teucriifolia 

 Calceolaria Gem 

 Delphinium formosum. 



Almost lost for want of patronage, that ffinothera is a most 

 showy plant ; the flowers are large, -J inches or so across, 

 and of a delicate yellow, sometliing like those of Calceo- 

 laria amplexicaulis ; they are produced in great profusion 

 considering their size, and in succession from .June to the 

 end of September. Tlic plant is of a prostrate habit, rarely 

 rising more than 10 inches in height, with leaves of a 

 bright glaucous green. It is best propagated by seeds, 

 layers, or cuttings of the roots, cuttings of the shoots 

 striking but indifferently. 



Calceolaria Gem is a most abundant bloomer in autumn, 

 but unless the plants are forwarded under glass in spring, 

 they do not count for much during the summer. If left 

 in the ground during winter, the plant requires a little 

 protection. The flowers, which are very numerous, are 

 dark red. 



Of hardy ornamentalfoliagod plants we have the follow- 

 ing, which may be kept bj' everybody : — 



Cerastium tomentosum 

 Arabis lueida variegata 

 Arabia alpina variegata 

 Polemonium caruleum va- 



riegatnm 

 Sedam acre variegatum 

 Sedum SieboWi variegatum 

 Tussilago farfara variegata 

 Scrophularia nodosa ,, 

 Festuea glauca 



Crimson and Purple Beet 

 S'.achye lauata 

 Dactyiis elegantiasima nana 

 Sautolina incaua 

 Lonioera aureo-reticulata. 

 Ivy, variegated sorts 

 ■Variegated Balm 

 ■Variegated Strawberry 

 Variegated Sage 

 Purple Orach 



To these many more might be added. There is one ia. 

 particular, of which I have a small patch on trial, Ijut its; 

 green-leaved progenitor is so thoroughly detested by all'. 

 honest people that I almost fear to write its ugly name, - 

 yet the variegated form of ^gopodinm podagraria is a - 

 beautiful-leaved plant if it can be kept under control. The 

 Variegated Strawberry, too, is no mean rival to Manglesii 

 Pelargonium. Our great want in this section is a good 

 purple-leaved plant, something like Iresine Herbstii in 

 habit and colour, but hardy as a Colewort. There is the- 

 Purple Oracli, but it is tall and coarse, and except when 

 very young, not very ornamental. We have also a dark- 

 leaved Ajuga, hardy enough, but ratlier mean-Iookinc, so 

 Jhat for our sombre shades wo must fall back upon " that 

 vulgar thing " the Purple Beet. Will nobody invent an- 

 other name for it, something with an Oriental smack'' and 

 then we shall be at liberty to use one of tlie best dark- 

 leaved plants known. 'J'iie little brown Oxalis is not 

 altogether hardy, and is further unforturiiite in being 

 only a mere weed, differing little in colour from the soil, 

 it grows in. 



The following are annuals, or plants treated as such-, 

 which, if sown in spring, will llower during the succteding 

 summer and autumn. Those marked * can be sown in 



Ko. HXi7.— Vol. XL. O-dSbtiies. 



