RESERVE GARDEN. 



421 



RHIZOME. 



freely, and bear moving better, may be 

 planted in rich soil for similar purposes ; if 

 not required to fill up gaps in the flower 

 beds, they will furnish strong early cuttings 

 and cut flowers throughout the season. 

 When the reserve garden is of sufficient 

 dimensions, the whole of the cuttings and 

 cut flowers should be derived from it, thus 

 leaving the flower garden in full perfection 

 throughout the season. For want of such 

 a reserve to fall back upon, some gardens 

 have no sooner arrived at perfection than 

 they are fearfully mangled, and their beauty 

 marred, by the imperious demands of the 

 propagator and decorator. Choice collec- 

 tions of pinks and carnations, dahlias, 

 roses and chrysanthemums, for show flowers, 

 should also be grown in the reserve garden. 

 The arrangements and special culture that 

 some of these flowers require to produce 

 them in the highest perfection are hardly 

 consistent with the high finish and refined 

 enjoyment which should be the leading 

 characteristic of every well-kept garden. 



Shrubs, crv. When the flower garden 

 is furnished with shrubs for winter, space 

 must be found for them in the reserve 

 garden in summer. Small plants of hollies, 

 laurels, box, acacias, berberries, sedums, 

 kalmias, rhododendrons, and other flower- 

 ing shrubs, are very effective and useful for 

 this purpose. They may be either grown 

 in pots or carefully moved without pots. 

 After a few years' transplanting in good 

 sound loam, they will be furnished with 

 such compact balls of roots as to be moved 

 with impunity at almost any period of 

 summer or winter. Living plants are much 

 better than branches of shrubs for relieving 

 the bald outlines of flower beds in winter. 

 By studying the various shades of green, 

 intermixing the variegated varieties, and 

 edging the shrubs with bulbs or other 

 plants, to increase the effect, the garden 

 may be made almost as interesting in winter 

 and spring as at any other period. 



Soil, Extent, &c. The soil in the re- 

 serve garden should be varied, to suit its 

 special uses. That most generally service- 

 able will be a rather heavy loam, which, by 

 the addition of sand, leaf mould, &c., will 

 produce almost every conceivable variety 

 best adapted to the varied purposes of this 

 department. Some beds of peat should 

 also be provided, and composts of various 

 kinds laid up within easy distance. The 

 size of the reserve garden will entirely 

 depend upon the demands upon it. A few 

 square yards, according to the size of the 

 garden itself, may sufBce for an amateur : a 

 quarter or half an acre may be needful for 

 some of our largest places. No garden, 

 large or small, can be complete without 

 one ; for what the propagating, store, and 

 growing houses are to the conservatory and 

 drawing-room, the reserve garden is, or 

 should be, to the flower garden. It should 

 not only be a great manufactory of raw 

 material, but an inexhaustible warehouse, 

 filled to overflowing with finished goods 

 ready to be delivered whenever and where- 

 ever a supply is demanded. 



Rhizome. 



Sometimes the underground portion of a 

 plant assumes the form and functions rf a 

 stem to a certain extent, running sometimes 

 above ground and partly below ground :>ut 

 generally the latter^ and sending up shoots 

 into the air from the upper surface and 

 roots into the ground from the surface 

 below. When the stem assumes this root- 

 like form, as it does in ginger (Zinziber 

 officinale] and Solomon's Seal (Polygo- 

 natuni), it is called a rhizome, from the 

 Greek rhizoma, which means "that which 

 has taken root." The primrose and kindred 

 plants are also an example of natural pro- 

 pagation by rhizomes, for the stem of the 

 primrose, instead of being upright and 

 ascending as in the great majority of plants, 

 and attached to the roots below ground 1 y 



