ADAPTATION OF PELARGONIUMS FOR TRAINING. 249 



bedding out the following- season. This simple plan having answered 

 so well, I am induced to give it publicity, hoping also to encourage 

 other connoisseurs thus to publish the result of successful experiments. 



ADAPTATION OF PELARGONIUMS FOR TRAINING 

 AGAINST A WALL, &c. 



What are commonly termed " Scarlet Geraniums " are now so greatly 

 improved in quantity and quality as to have become one of the most 

 popular flowering plants for adorning the conservatory, greenhouse, 

 dwelling-house window, and flower-garden. So very generally are 

 they cultivated, and so strikingly ornamental for the greater part of the 

 year, that we may exclaim, " What should we do if bereft of them ?" 

 The vacuum occasioned could not be equally well filled up. During 

 the last and present year we have paid particular attention to this 

 charming tribe of plants, by taking notes of all improved varieties that 

 came under our notice, and have recorded them in the successive Num- 

 bers of the Fioricultural Cabinet. By the improvements effected 

 we now possess varieties of very diminutive growth, progressing onwards 

 successively to gigantic stature, all profuse in bloom, and in colours, 

 varying from white up to the richest hues of scarlets and crimson, many 

 of them, too, diffusing an agreeable perfume. General observation 

 affords proof of their adaptation as ornaments for the habitations above 

 stated. Some varieties, however, are better suited to particular pur- 

 poses than others are, some of which we shall particularize. 



Four years back we had the designing of grounds, flower-gardens, 

 &c, connected with a new mansion, which had a broad stone terrace 

 along the south, east, and west fronts. The front wall of the terrace 

 was five feet high) and the face of it was formed into recesses of six feet 

 long, between each of which there was a projecting portion extending 

 six inches beyond the recess front of the wall, and two feet broad. 

 Such was the continuous arrangement from end to end. A border for 

 flowering plants was formed along the front of the terrace, three feet 

 wide and two feet deep, there being six inches of rough materials, as 

 brick-bats, stones, &c, laid over the bottom to compose a drainage, and 

 the rest filled up with good turfy loam, which had been prepared iu 

 heaps a year previous. 



In order to have plants trained against the wall, a neat wire frame- 

 work was fixed ; and early in April as many Pelargoniums, of the 

 scarlet flowering section, were planted in every recess as was required 

 to fully cover the space during the season. The varieties planted were 

 the strong growing, so as to reach the height of the wall in due course ; 

 and in arrangement the adjoining kinds were as different in colours as 

 we could obtain, selecting those which produced the best contrast. 

 The projecting portions between the recesses were planted with the 

 most showy and abundant flowering Petunias, Maurandias, Heliotro- 

 pimiis, Double Nasturtiums, Tropaeolum tricolorum, pentaphyllum, 

 and canariense; Passiflora caerulea, Luphospermum maculatum and 

 Cliftonii ; Thunbergius, white, yellow, and buff, each with dark eye ; 



