and other Suburban Gardens. 4 71 



The Hamviersmith Nursery y Messrs. Lee, June 19. — The show of roses 

 here is, as usual, very fine. There is a collection of 30 or 40 sorts of 

 China roses, standards of exquisite beauty. So comprehensive have the 

 variations of this species, or sub-species, now become, that they not only 

 include yellows, and cream-coloured and scented sorts, but moss roses, 

 large and small varieties, scented and unscented, white and red. The 

 carnation-striped and the tricolour roses have not flowered so well as 

 they sometimes do, but sufficiently so to show the distinctness of these 

 varieties. Among the other roses the crimson perpetual made the most 

 handsome appearance ; and it is indeed one of the very best of roses, 

 flowering from June till it is checked by the frost. Among the shrubs, 

 HaHmodendron argenteum budded standard high, upon a laburnum, is 

 profusely covered with flowers, forming a pendent robe of purple and 

 silver. It is astonishing that this tree, and the standard purple cytisus, 

 are not more common on lawns. The silvery glistering foliage of the 

 Halimodendron is alone sufficient to render it highly valuable. The 

 numerous large specimens of Magnoh'a purpurea, noticed in our last 

 (p. 343.) as being profusely covered with bloom, still present a number 

 of flowers, as do those of M. glauca and M. ti'ipetala. M. conspicua was 

 magnificent in April. In speaking of magnolias, we may add, that M. 

 macrophjlla is now in bloom, both at the Duke of Devonshire's, at 

 Chiswick, and at Mr. Gray's at Harringgay ; but we shall not be able to 

 see these specimens in time to give a notice of them in this Number. The 

 chimney of one of the green-houses, in the Hammersmith Nursery, is so 

 brilliantly clothed with golden ivy, that people looking at it from the 

 public road generally take it for some creeper profusely covered with rich 

 yellow blossoms. We wish some gardener would insert some buds of 

 this and other varieties in the coomion giant ivy, by way of experiment. 

 There is an avenue here of the ancient genus Robinia, including the 

 genera separated from it, viz. Caragdna, Halimodendron, &c., budded 

 standard high, on laburnums, which well deserves the examination of the 

 purchasers of rare, singular, and most beautiful shrubs for lawns. The 

 azaleas and rhododendrons bloomed with great luxuriance, and the 

 andromedas are now very fine. A, dealbata, one of the most beautiful of 

 them, is profusely covered with its powdered leaves and white globular 

 blossoms. In the hedgerow next the road are some specimens of orna- 

 mental trees; one of them, a broad-leaved weeping elm, is of so singular 

 and marked a character, that we intend, some time or other, to give a 

 figure of it. It would be an admirable tree for a lawn. There is a 

 remarkably complete collection of pansies. In the conservator}', the 

 plants (which were being put into the soil, by Mr. Kennedy, on the day, 

 in April, 1804, on which we first visited this nursery) are, as usual, 

 vigorous. The Metrosideros, with its bright scarlet bottle-brush-like 

 blossoms, is now particularly conspicuous. Against the wall in the 

 vinery, a Bryonia quinquefolia, a free-growing creeper with showy yellow 

 flowers, not very common, had a good eflPect. We were happy to see a 

 good stock of those favourite plants of ours, O'robus varius and Jeffer- 

 sonia diphjlla, in the beds of herbaceous plants. 



Garden of the Horticultural Socteti/. -—'We have made several visits to 

 this garden in the course of the months of May and June. On the whole, 

 it looks exceedingly well this season, though some things in it have 

 suffered considerably from drought. It is kept in remarkably good order, 

 considering that there is really not a sufficiency of hands, by half a dozen 

 at least, for so many acres. In consequence of this want of strength, a 

 part of the kitchen-garden is necessarily left uncropped, which may be 

 considered a loss to the public, because, if there were, at all seasons, 

 standing examples of the best varieties of culinary vegetables, well grown, 



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