214 Gardens of the Misses Gamier : — 



nolia consplcua, Hikes sangulneum, Andromeda! dealbata, O'robus vernus, 

 Erythronium dens canis, Pris verna and persica; Phlox subulata, Carolina, 

 divaricata, setacea, nivalis, and veYna ; Veronica verna, Gentidna verna, Sol* 

 danella alpina, iychnis alpina, Sanguinaria canadensis, Polemonium reptans, 

 Claytdnia virginica, fritillarias, tulips, and hyacinths, narcissuses, double poly- 

 anthus, double wallflowers, &c. 



May. — During this month the flower-garden takes up my whole time and 

 attention; which you are no doubt well aware that such a garden as this must 

 do, if proper attention be paid to it. I am, however, a real lover of plants 

 myself, and I am proud to say I am supported and encouraged by my em- 

 ployers in every respect, which makes the arduous task I have to perform a 

 source of delight. I now take away the remaining part of the coverings from 

 the half-hardy and green-house plants, adding fresh soil to such as are standing 

 on turf. The borders are now raked down, but not broken very fine, as the 

 borders not only look better for not being raked so very smooth, but the 

 plants thrive better, and the soil keeps more open and healthy. I now sow 

 on a warm border, or slight hotbed, a succession of annual flowers, such as 

 German asters, German stocks, clarkias, Oenotheras, &c. Those sown in 

 March are now planted out, and the cuttings of salvias, verbenas, &c, being 

 now sufficiently rooted, are potted off, to strengthen them for final transplant- 

 ing next month. Sweet peas are now sown for late flowering. The roses are 

 carefully examined twice or thrice during this month, to destroy a little brown 

 grub [that of one of the Penthredinidae *], which infests them at this season ; 

 the most effectual method of destroying which is by picking them off. The 

 borders of heartsease, &c, are now watered, late in the evening, with clear lime 

 water, which I have found to be an excellent method of preserving the flowers 

 from the depredations of slugs and other insects. Lobelia speciosa and ful- 

 gens are planted together in a bed. The flower stems of phloxes and many 

 other strong-growing herbaceous plants, are thinned out, cutting away about a 

 third part, as I have noticed that the plants which have been thinned 



* It is only the enthusiastic gardener who can fully feel the evil of this 

 insect's ravages. To have manured, dug, planted, pruned, and taken suckers 

 away from one's rose bushes in beds, and, as they sprout in spring, to be 

 painting in imagination the rich, the brilliant display of their variedly beautiful 

 blossoms in July ; and, in the midst of this anticipation, to be compelled to 

 perceive that hidden enemies are working a frustration of your exulting hopes, 

 is annoying, vexing, saddening, chagrining, mortifying, &c. The enemies are 

 the caterpillars (grubs, maggots, or larva?) of, I believe, one of the sawfly tribe 

 ( Penthredinidae), which, when full grown, just previously to their changing into 

 the pupa state, are about half an inch long, about as thick as a crow's quill, 

 usually brown in the body, sometimes rather glaucous, with the head black. 

 Before, however, any one of them has attained this state, it has done a world 

 of mischief ; has eaten into, through, and out of, possibly, and not very impro- 

 bably, half a dozen " roses in the bud." The caterpillars are quite minute at 

 first, and begin to eat and do mischief before the sprouting shoot, in which the 

 embryo rosebuds are, has attained more than half its length. While the shoot is 

 lengthening, the caterpillar is feeding unremittingly (except during the changings 

 of its skin) j and, by the time that the shoot has become developed, and the rose- 

 buds it bears obvious, one, two, several perhaps, sometimes all, of the buds in 

 a cluster, are found incapacitated from blooming by the ravages effected within 

 them, and sometimes down their peduncles, by the caterpillars mentioned. To 

 what species of insect does it belong ? Does it proceed from eggs deposited 

 by the parent fly upon the branches of the rose bush in the autumn preceding ? 

 I have met with the caterpillars of the rose-eating insect by the middle of April. 

 I once found a minute caterpillar, not very dissimilar, inside the bursting bud 

 of a species of willow ; and another, still more like it, on the common honey- 

 suckle. — J. D. 



