146 



GENESEE FARMER. 



June. 



Plants for Flower Beds and Borders. 



In another article in this paper we have rec- 

 ommended, for small gardens, such plants as 

 bloom all the season and are of early culture. — 

 The chief of these are the everblooming roses, 

 such as the Bengal, Bourbon, Noisette, Hybrid, 

 Perpetual, Tea-scented, &c., and Verbenas and 

 Petunias. 



No flowers so amply repay the care bestowed 

 on them as these. If planted out now, they will 

 bloom profusely till the frosts of next autumn. — 

 Those who may not have a stock on hand can 

 be supplied at the nurseries, very cheap, by the 

 dozen or half dozen, as there is generally a 

 good supply at this season. They can be turned 

 out of the pots, as recommended for Dahlias. — 

 Young plants can be propagated during summer 

 for next year — roses from cuttings and layei's ; 

 verbenas and petunias from cuttings, layers or 

 seed. In planting in masses the various colors 

 should be so mingled that each may appear to 

 the best advantage. The attention given to the 

 two latter tribes of late has added to them a thou- 

 sand new charms by multiplying, to an almost 

 unlimited extent, their colors and habits of growth. 

 No other plants endure so well our hot and dry 

 summers. In the "doe days," when everything 



is parched and shrivelled, they seem to be on the j way we allude to, have been levelled down, and 

 very acme of perfection, (^ive us verbenas, pe- converted into lawn, and figures and beds cut 

 tunias, portulaccas, and perpetual roses, and we; out for flowering shrubs, plants, «fec.,andthe pro- 



have the plot of ground, say 20, 50, or 100 feet 

 square, in front of the house, improved and orna- 

 mented. (The ladies, to their credit, generally 

 move first in these matters.) She has it all 

 spaded up and thrown into mounds, ridges, and 

 all sorts of fanciful embankments — some of them 

 high enough to serve our soldiers in Mexico for 

 a defence — many looking precisely like graves 

 in a cemetery, and, all in all, suggestive of any 

 thing but symmetry or beauty. These errors 

 however are quite pardonable ; and we do not 

 speak of them to ridicule them, or find fault, but 

 if possible to set taste and opinion against them. 



A piece of good green lawn in front of, or 

 around a dwelling, is far preferable to this — looks 

 infinitely more tasteful and beautiful and costs 

 less. Ornamental trees and shrubs, judiciously 

 selected, may be planted promiscuously over it, 

 singly or in clumps, as the situation and dimen- 

 sions require. 



Choice flowering plants, such as perpetual ro- 

 ses, verbenas, petunias, &c , that bloom most of 

 the season, can be grown in masses or beds cut 

 in the lawn — not raised into mounds or ridges, 

 or, if raised at all, only in the centre, and that 

 not over 2 or 3 inches above the level of the sur- 

 rounding lawn. At our request several small 

 places that we saw this spring, disfigured in the 



will have a gay parterre throughout the season 

 if deprived of all else. 



It makes us shudder to think of the miseries 

 we have seen some people endure in the vain at- 

 tempt to keep up a succession of flowers, with a 

 few delicate short lived annuals, on a very dry 

 and ill managed soil. We admire annual flow- 

 ers, and wish to see them cultivated, but only 

 when well done. This can only be where the 

 proper requisites are at hand — a deep, rich, mel- 

 low soil, unincumbered with coarse shrubs or 

 plants — a hot-bed to forward the finer half-hardy 

 species — plenty of leisure, to give them all prop- 

 er attention, such as tying up, training, watering, 

 &c. Where these appliances are not at hand 

 the culture of annuals proves but a very unsatis- 

 factory affair, and in such cases we would direct 

 attention to those requirieg less delicate and com- 

 plicated treatment. The present season threatens 

 to be highly unfavorable for the culture of annu- 

 als in the open ground, owing to the prolonged 

 early drouth. 



Laying out and Planting Front Gardens. 



While on one hand we are delighted with the 

 increased attention given to the embellishment 

 of door-yards and grounds around dwellings in 

 the country, we are, on the other, pained at the 

 almost general and entire absence or exercise of 

 correct taste or ordinary skill in conducting the 

 operations. For instance. Miss A. wishes to 



prietors have been well pleased with the change. 

 We did intend to present some suggestions on 

 this matter early in the spring, before gardening 

 had commenced, but a press of other matters pre- 

 vented us. 



In our hot, dry climate, where plants require 

 much moisture to flourish, it is a great error, 

 even if it looked well, to plant them in narrow 

 raised beds, surrounded by ditch like walks. All 

 walks should be wide enough for two persons to 

 walk abreast, and should be kept well gravelled 

 and nearly as high as the adjacent beds. A good 

 verdant turf is, beyond all comparison, the best 

 to surround a flower bed. A few starved flowers,' 

 on little beds of red earth, with a bad box edging 

 and narrow deep clay walks, is a downright slan- 

 der on a flower garden, and a violation of every 

 thing like good taste. There is no comfort to be 

 taken in them, and we object entirely to them. 



Growing Grapes and Peaches from Seed. 



Mr. Editor : — Will you please state in your next num- 

 ber, whether grapes raised from seed will be of the same 

 kind as that whicb produced the seed. Also whether peach- 

 es will be the same raised from the stone. 



Yours, &c., A Subscriber. 



Parma, May, 1847. 



Remarks. — There is no degree of certainty 

 that seeds of the improved varieties of either will 

 reproduce the same. A distinct species, in its 

 wild, unaltered state, will. The moment a spe- 

 cies is removed from the natural state, by culti- 



