346 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



Preparing Scarlet Geraniums for Bedding. — The season has been 

 so peculiar that the usual routine system of treating bedding plants has 

 been completely upset. Few things have yet been planted out, and there- 

 fore considerable care has been required to keep them so long in a thriving 

 state. To give scarlet geraniums, intended for beds, artificial heat after 

 they have been struck and potted off, as is often done, would not answer 

 • this year; that would very much frustrate the end every good cultivator 

 ought to have in view, viz., plants sufficiently healthy and hardy to profit by 

 the naturally increasing warmth of the weather at planting-out time, instead 

 of, as is too frequently the case, receiving a check from which it takes them 

 a long time to recover. If the plants are kept cool and properly hardened 

 off by exposure to sun and air during the spring months, whenever the 

 weather Mill permit, they will show more flowers in proportion to the size 

 of the plants in June than similar ones which had been subjected to heat 

 would in July. The same remarks are applicable to all other kinds of 

 plants kept over winter for bedding purposes. In short, artificial heat is 

 unnecessary, even although the plants had been kept in the cutting pots 

 during winter and required sliifting in the spring: this can be easily accom- 

 plished without forcing them to make premature growths, which never get 

 hardened before planting time. Too much shade, after they are kept in 

 temporary quarters out of doors where accommodation is limited, also ag- 

 gravat s the evil. The result in both cases is that the plants shed their fol- 

 iage, and for a long time look shabby. — [Gard. Chron. 185.5, p. .'i57.) 



SciLLAS. — These should be as common as snowdrops and crocuses in 

 every garden where early spring flowers are sought for. They have many 

 recommen-dations. Growing but a few inches high, and bearing for the 

 most part blue flowers, they form beautiful beds, or margins to beds, in sit- 

 uations where now such plants as crocuses and snowdrops are almost exclu- 

 sively depended on for the earliest bloom. The snowdrop, as is well known, 

 furnishes white blossoms only, and the crocus supplies various tints of or- 

 ange, white, yellow, and purple; but in neither is the pure blue color to be 

 found. Those, therefore, who desire to render their gardens ornamental at 

 the earliest dawn of spring, should procure and plant Scillas largely : there 

 are several kinds adapted tor that purpose ; S. bifolia grows about three or 

 four inches high, and, when growing freely, throws up several flower spikes, 

 each of which bears from four to eight blue flowers, during April and May. 

 S. vema grows about the same size, and bears a roundish head of purplish 

 blue flowers, in May and June. S. anioena is also about the same stature, 

 and produces largish drooping light blue flowers, in April and May. S. 

 sibirica, another of these dwarf species, has drooping blossoms, of a beauti- 

 ful clear light blue, which are borne in April. Of S. bifolia, there are at 

 least two very distinct varietiea, one having white and another blue blos- 

 soms. They are easily cultivated. — [Gard. Chron. 1855, p. 357.) 



Annuals. — A few words respecting this useful class of flowers may 

 probably not be out of place, as I am of opinion that they are not encour- 



