2.92 



JODBNAL OF HOKTICULXUBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEK. 



[ April IS, 1876. 



bulbs — a few CrocuBes, Snowdrops, Talip?, etc. Where the 

 Kidney Beans had been I put first a row of Crocuses, a few 

 Polyanthuses, a Christmas Eose, and some of the coramon 

 Primroses. While m the house Mary had three beautiful 

 double Hyacinths in glasses which Jim Smith had brought as 

 a Christmas present. 



This was my first year's experience of town gardening, though 

 I afterwards succeeded just as well, not only giving pleasure 

 to me, but doing, I humbly believe, good to many of my neigh- 

 bours, keeping many a man at home during the evenings and 

 giving him pleasant work to do there ; while the wives, seeing 

 Buch a bright outside to the house, felt that the inside must 

 match. 



My friends, only try for yourselves and find out the pleasure 

 there is to be had watching the seeds come up and improve 

 under your care, if it is only the little edging Stock planted 

 between the stones round your house; but I am sure yon will 

 not stop there, aud will be able to agree with me in the truth 

 of my father's pet saying — " You never know what you can 

 do till you try."— H. B. M. 



ECONOMISING LABOUB— PKOPAGATING FOR 

 THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



It may be said that everybody knows how to propagate 

 bedding plants. Perhaps everybody does, but I have often 

 noticed that it is the work which everybody knows how to do 

 that nobody takes the trouble to do properly. For example, 

 whoever knew a Potato to be cooked well in a plain way where 

 there is a professional cook kept? "That which is worth 

 doing at all is worth doing well," and this applies as much to 

 putting in half a dozen Verbena cuttings as it does to growing 

 Grapes and Pines. The slipshod manner of working is always 

 expensive in the end and the least satisfactory. 



At this time of the year when the work in every department 

 is pressing, and more especially after such an unfavourable 

 season for advancing outdoor work as we have just had, it 

 seems at times utterly impossible to keep up with it, and some 

 that is thought to be the least particular is apt to be hurried 

 over. It would often be far better to leave it alone altogether. 



I find a great assistance from the note-book and pencil. A 

 walk round alone in early morning, or just before twilight in 

 the evening, note-book in hand, is an immense aid, and does 

 much towards economising the labour of the next day; and at 

 this time of the year it is especially to be recommended, for 

 the value of the work of a trained man now is not to be 

 measured by the amount of his wages. 



I have no time for further preface, but will say a little about 

 propagating that which is the easiest to grow of all bedding 

 plants — the Verbena. I find it best to take the cuttings for 

 stock plants earlier than is usually done in summer, say the 

 end of July or beginning of August, and then have them gra- 

 dually and well hardened, giving them plenty of room and 

 some good sound fibry loam to grow in, which will tend to 

 keep them gently moving all the winter if the frost is merely 

 excluded from them. The opposite method— and which I ad- 

 yisemy readers to forsake if they are in the habit of practising 

 it — is to put the cuttings in late in autumn when they are hard 

 and mildewed, strike them in heat close together, and give 

 them alternations of heat and drought on a dry shelf through 

 the winter. I like Verbena cuttings to be almost as strong as 

 young nettles, which they will be if grown as I recommend. 

 Mine are kept in boxes ; the soil in bulk keeps of a more even 

 temperature aud a more regular moisture. 



In the spring the plants are potted singly and placed, if 

 possible, in a pit where is fermenting material, and they very 

 soon furnish cuttings by the thousand. I have cutting boxes 

 all of one size and 4 inches deep, with panes of glass cut to 

 fit on the tops. The glass may be in two, three, or more 

 pieces, but it must fit closely. A number of boxes are half 

 filled with fine loamy soil ; neither crocks nor sand are wanted. 

 Placing the first would be wasting time, and the latter would 

 impoverish the soil. The boxes are prepared in the potting 

 shed and taken to any warm house where there is a little spare 

 room on the path, or elsewhere in the light, but out of the 

 reach of the sun. After the soil is sufficiently warm the 

 cuttings are dibbled-in about 2 inches apart, watered, and 

 covered with the glass, and they need no more looking-to till 

 they are rooted. The soil is 2 inches deep; it holds sufficient 

 moisture for them till the cuttings are struck, and the sun 

 cannot reach them to make them flag. 



If there is a shadow of an insect on them a few laurel leaves 

 should be bruised and placed under the glass with them, or a 

 piece of common tobacco paper will answer the same purpose. 



Where a large quantity of cuttings have to be shaded, and 

 a number of houses ventilated immediately on the sudden ap- 

 pearance of the sun, by one man or boy — and this often happens 

 in the largest establishments, as at meal times and non-work- 

 ing days — it is impossible to attend to all in the nick of time; 

 and though it may appear to some people unnecessary to 

 describe these details, I am convinced that my success prin- 

 cipally arises from attending carefully to such little matters. 



When the cuttings are struck, if there is room for them for 

 a day or two in a dung frame, they are removed thither, never 

 lifting the panes of glass till they are safely in their new 

 home. They will strengthen considerably in two or three days, 

 and then when room and time permit they are potted singly 

 and again kept close for a few days. But as they are 2 inches 

 apart in the cutting boxes, and have 2 inches of good soil to 

 grow in, they will take no harm there for a week cr two ; but 

 then they must be partially hardened-olT, or they would qnickly 

 become full of roots and stunted. If such a thing thould 

 happen, throw them away and start afresh. A Verbena is of 

 no use if it will not cover a foot of ground before July is out. 

 If it is once stunted it will never do this ; and about the month 

 of August, instead of finding your beds covered with flowers, 

 they will be covered with mildew. 



I like, if possible, to pot all my young plants singly, give 

 them a week in a dung frame, gradually harden, and then 

 turn them out of their pots and plant rather closely together 

 in a temporary frame, to be covered when necessary with 

 thatched hurdles or shutters, where they remain till they are 

 lifted to the beds. Sometimes press of work compels me to 

 plant some out in the frames without previous potting, but 

 then the roots ramble more ; and although many of the plants 

 lift tolerably well, they do not all do so, and they do not fill 

 the beds so regularly. The pots are used several times over 

 in a season. — William Taylor. 



COLOUR OP THE HYDRANGEA'S FLOWERS. 



DuBiNO August, 1874, I vitited Penmanmawr, North AVales, 

 and both there and in the surrounding district found the blue 

 Hydrangea to be just as common as the pink in other districts. 

 Some of these were most pleasing and attractive objects. On 

 one specimen growing in a cottage garden I counted over eighty 

 heads of bloom. This plant I should say, speaking from me- 

 mory, was at least 4 feet in diameter, and the effect produced 

 by the beautiful blue made me determine to secure such gems 

 for my own garden if possible, so I found out a gardener and 

 obtained a dozen good cuttings to take home. 



A few days after when visiting the Pass of Aberglaslyn I 

 came across another exquisite blue-flowered plant. The owner 

 lived in a cottage, and could not understand English, and I 

 could not speak Welsh, yet I had set my heart on having a 

 fair supply of cuttings from her plant ; so, although neither 

 could understand the language of the other, when I took out 

 my large-bladed knife, and went up to her plant and took hold 

 of the branches I wanted with one hand, and showed her a 

 shilling with the other, we promptly understood one another, 

 and I obtained as many cuttings as I needed. 



Those cuttings I took home, struck them in yellow loam ; 

 but every one of them came with pink flowers. I noticed the 

 soil in which the blue flowers generally grew was very yellow, 

 as though strongly impregnated with iron. By a qualitative 

 analysis the soil in which the plants grew was found to contain 

 siHca, iron carbonate, alumina, calcium carbonate, magnesium 

 carbonate. The order in which the constituents of the soil 

 are enumerated is also indicative of their bulk, the largest 

 being placed first. I should be extremely glad of any informa- 

 tion which will enable me to produce with a moderate degree 

 of certainty blue-flowered Hydrangeas ; but hitherto neither 

 alum nor iron tilings mixed with the soil has proved of any 

 avail. — H. Ashwell. 



THE ARRANGEMENTS OF COLOURS 



IS THE BEDS OF THE LONDON PAKKS AND GARDENS.— No. 12. 



The beds now figured are designed for angles at the junction 

 of two walks. Ths fiUing-np of plain angles on grass \yith 

 beds so as to please the eye is seldom performed to satisfaction, 

 and consequently in such situations it is common to meet with 



