THE FLORA.L WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 313 



the cost of the two trumpets trifling, this style of decoration is 

 withiu the reach of all who desire to have flowers upon their dinner- 

 tables^ and the effect far surpasses thac produced by glass or silver 

 stands of elaborate design. There are nuaierous ornamental-leaved 

 plants that may be employed instead of palms. It is simply neces- 

 sary that they should have a slender stem about eighteen inches in 

 height, and surmounted with a tuft of elegant leafage. The effect 

 is better when the stems of the plant and the trumpets have some 

 trailing plant of small growth twined about them. 



MR. CHARLES TURNER'S ROYAL NURSERIES, SLOUGH. 



jlHE Slough Nurseries have become famous throughout the world, princi- 

 pally in consequence of the extraordinary spirit and success of Mr. 

 Turner ,as an exhlbitur of horticultural productions. Thi-y comprise 

 several large tracts of ground at Slough and Salt Hill, and at both 

 places there are considerable extents of glass-houses. Tlie home 

 nurseries are about half-a-mile from the Slough Station on the Greit Western 

 Railway, and are undoubtedly the most interestin;;. At whatever time of y<ar the 

 visitor eutsrs, the place is found to be delightfully gay. The floiver-garden and 

 show-houses are so managed, that neither frost nor rain, snow or hail, makes any 

 great difl'erence ; but, of course, as flowers love sunshine, it is on a fine day any 

 time between March and October that we see the place to best advantage. 

 There are three displays in the flower-garden that adjoins the road from London to 

 Bath. Here, in the earliest days of spring, we find the beds and borders richlj'- 

 filled with pansies. violas, furget-me-nots, daisies, wallflowers, siienes, primulas, 

 and )ther early flowering plants, the groups enriched with edgings of silvery 

 cerastium, golden thyme, the lemon-coloured stellaria, the aucuba-leaved daisy, the 

 golden stonecrop, and other hardy plants that are distinguished by the bright appearance 

 of their leaves, and are, for the most part, as gay in winter as in summer. The artistic 

 arrangements of the colours is heightened by the careful sprinkling on tlie soil amongst 

 the plants of clean cocoanut-fibre refuse, which is of a pleasing nut-brown colour, 

 and useful to protect the roots of the plants from frost and drj'ing wind, as w. 11 as 

 to show off, by suitable contrast, their several colours. When the spring display 

 begins to wane, the plants are removed, and the beds are planted with geraniums, 

 verbenas, and other summer bedd-;rs, aad there is usually one strong feature in the 

 shape of a border of seedling petunias, with a series of crescents and lozenges in 

 front filled with dwarf flowering plants. These s-'edling petunias are of all colours, 

 'but shades of purple and rose predominate, and they make a splendid display. 

 When these summer bidders are declining an autumn show Is made, and this is 

 ingeniously merged into the spring show, the s^irae edgings being made to do duty 

 in both. As a matter of course, the spring bedders are all planted in the autumn, 

 and thus some of tliem necessarily appear in the autumnal display. 



In a very neat show-house in the flower-garden is a grand Marechal Niel rose, 

 that flowers superbly, and in the same house is the rare Clematis indivisa, which 

 produces myriads of smallish flowers, which are at first green and afterwards become 

 ■white. This is a plant we recommend our readers to look af er; it is a first-class 

 greenhouse climber, requiring only a cool house, and quite hardy in the extreme 

 30uth and west of England. Proceeding onward we find extensive ranges of houses 

 devoted to the many useful subjects which Mr. Turner has always shown a special 

 liking for as an exhibitor. The collections of azjleas and pelargoniums are extremely 

 interesting, but yet more fascinating, perhaps, are the houses devoted to pot roses, 

 which are liere grown to gigantic proportions, and bring their worthy owner money 

 and honour at the great horticultural shows. Tree carnations are grown in vast 

 <}uantitie=, and wht^n th>-y are turned out of the houses pot vines take their place, 

 and a splendid growth of canes is invariably secured. The visitor will be impressed 

 •with the remarkable cleanliness and order that reigns in this tstablishment, and 

 which is especially noticeable in the houses, where apple-pie order prevails, and a 



October. 



