October 24, 1878. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 807 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
Day | Day Average s , Clock Day 
ogee m1 Cle Sun Sun Moon Moon | Moon’s 
Month Week Wome re tes ser eoadon | Rises. | Sets. | Rises. | “sets. | Age. | “sire | yor 
; Day. |Night..Mean.| h. m.} h. m.| h. m h. m| Days. m. Ss 
24 | TH | Sale of Bulbs by Protheroe & Morris. 56.3 | 39.6 | 47.9 6 41] 4 47 4 37 3 38 28 15 43 | 297 
26 F 55.9 | 38.5 | 47.2 6 43 4 45 Crs: 3 58 Oo 15 50 | 298 
26 Ss 55.6 | 36.5 | 46.1 6 45 4 43 7 42 4 22 1 15 57 | 299 
27 SUN | 19 SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 55,1 38.4 | 46.7 6 47 4 41 9 14 4 55 2 16 2] 300 
28 M Sale of Nursery Stock at Dorking. 54.5 | 35.9 | 45.2 6 49 4 39 | 10 38 5 40 3 16) 7 || 302 
29 TU 54.0 | 35.7 | 44.7 6 50 4 37] 11 46 6 41 4 16 11 | 302 
30 | W Sale of Bulbs at Stevens’s Rooms. 54.9 | 38.3 | 44.3 6 52] 4 35] 0a36 7 53 5 | 16 14 | 303 
From observations taken near London during forty-three years, the'average day temperature of the week is 55.19; and its night temperature 
4°, 
HARDY PERENNIALS IN MID-OCTOBER. 
we T the risk of tiring your readers I must for 
wet the last time this season again take stock of | 
: the hardy perennial borders ; for although we | 
have had a little frost and much wind and 
rain, though Coleuses are shrivelled, Alter- 
nantheras almost leafless, and the ordinary 
gether uninviting, there are still in the perennial 
“ borders in good condition some of the best 
flowering plants in existence. 
Michaelmas Daisies are perhaps common plants, 
and there are many worthless species of them in 
botanical and other collections ; but who can look on a 
good plant of Aster longifolius formosus with its abundance 
of bright rosy lilac flowers without admiration? A great 
point in its favour, too, is that it is self-supporting, requir- 
ing no ugly stakes—that great drawback to the beauty of 
herbaceous plants excepting where there is an artist-to tie 
them up. It grows about 2} feet high and forms a dense 
bush in a similar way to A. horizontalis, but it is very much 
better than that good old sort. 
Aster Amellus is less in stature, being about 18 inches 
high, growing erect, and having its flowers arranged nearly 
as flat as a table all over the top ; its colour is nearly blue, 
and it is very beautiful. A. Amellus bessarabicus is nearly 
a bright purple, and has broader petals than the type ; it 
flowers three weeks or a month later than Amellus, is 
about the same height, and altogether distinct and good. 
A. amelloides is intermediate in colour between the two 
previously mentioned sorts, and although very good is not 
strikingly distinct from them. A. ericoides is 5 feet high, 
with an abundance of small white flowers, and has a very 
graceful habit. A. grandiflorus is just coming into bloom ; 
it is 4 feet in height, and has large purple flowers. A. pul- 
chellus is scarcely a foot high, and has fair-sized lilac 
flowers produced in abundance. A. pendulus is 4 feet high, 
with bluish-purple flowers, bright and distinct. A. Nove- 
Belge is taller still, being 6 feet high, and of a reddish 
colour ; it does well in a back row, and shows off to advan- 
tage against the large showy Ox-eye Daisy-like flowers of 
Pyrethrum uliginosum, also 6 feet high. Another back-row 
plant which is pretty well known is the double perennial 
Sunflower, Helianthus multiflorus plenus ; this, too, is 6 feet 
high, and bright yellow in colour. The great Torch Plant, 
Tritoma grandis, is now coming up in all its glory and will 
last till December if the weather is not too severe ; and the 
late-blooming Monkshood (Aconitum autumnale) is still in 
fair bloom beside it. It is a fine old back-row border plant 
for flowering late in the season. 
The Japanese Anemones are pretty well known, but we 
never see too many of them ; they are of such easy culture, 
and they look well in any conceivable place where they would 
be likely to grow ; they are the best of flowers for cutting, 
and the most perpetual bloomers amongst hardy plants, 
that we can never admire them sufficiently. The pure 
white Honorine Jobert and the pale pink hybrida are, I 
consider, the best. They grow from 24 to 3 feet high, 
NO. 917.—Von.. XXXV., NEW SERIES. 
¢ 
flowering bedding plants are becoming alto- | 
| about 24 feet high, and of very easy culture. 
and produce larger and later flowers when transplanted 
than otherwise. 
Schizostylis coccinea, like a miniature Gladiolus, is now 
throwing up abundantly its beautiful scarlet spikes about 
2 feet high, and will continue doing so until Christmas 
unless the frost stops it. It flowers very freely, and is one 
of the hardiest and easiest plants to grow. Tradescantia 
virginica, of which there is a great variety ranging from 
purple and blue to nearly white, is still very showy. It is 
Gaillardias are rather uncertain plants, going off some- 
times without any apparent reason, but they are very tell- 
ing. G. grandiflora, 2} feet high, with its large and almost 
gaudy crimson and yellow flowers, is now in perfection ; and 
so, too, is Centrocarpha grandiflora (syn. Rudbeckia fulgida), 
yellow and black, even more beautiful than the Gaillardias, 
and of the easiest possible culture. This is also about 
2 feet high. 
The Cape Forget-me-not (Anchusa capensis) is still in 
good bloom ; it is a little more than a foot high, and of a 
deep blue colour, even rivalling the true Forget-me-not. 
Campanula Portenschlageana is a pretty trailing plant, with 
purple flowers in abundance and a continuous bloomer ; it 
would probably do well for bedding. Cyananthus lobatus 
is another trailing plant with light blue flowers, which are 
produced very freely all through summer and autumn. 
Lilium speciosum and its white variety are getting past 
their best, but in a northern aspect on peaty soil they are 
still very good. Some of the Colchicums, as byzantinum 
and speciosum, are gone; but we have still the double 
white, which is the best of all, the double lilac, and some 
single varieties, also the most beautiful of all Crocuses 
C. speciosus. 
Altogether, although a few of the good plants enumerated 
last month have faded, we have others to replace them ; 
and the borders are still very gay and interesting. The 
appended list contains, in addition to about seventy of those 
given on page 281, nothing but what is flowering in mid- 
October, and nothing that is not perfectly hardy. 
Aster acris - Francoa rupestre 
A. amelloides Funkia japonica variegata 
A. Amellus bessarabicus F. lancifolia 
A. canus Gaura Lindheimeri 
A. dumosus Gypsophila procumbens 
A. Fortunei G. speciosa 
A. grandiflorus Hypericum olympicum 
A. leucanthemus Lobelia fulgens 
A. Novee-Belgze Monarda purpurea 
Physostegia speciosa 
Pyrethrum uliginosum 
Rudbeckia intermedia 
Scabiosa caucasica connata 
Schizostylis coccinea 
Stokesia cyanea 
Tricyrtis hirta 
Vittadenia triloba 
—WILLIAM TAYLor. 
[It is pleasing to observe that the merits of hardy border 
flowers are being increasingly appreciated, and that the 
plants are being cultivated more extensively than formerly ; 
and the pleasure is enhanced, because this is not being 
NO 15¢9—VOL. LX. OLD SER 
“A. sericeus 
Cedronella cana 
Chrysanthemum, summer yars. 
Crocosmia aurea 
Crocus speciosus 
Cyclamen europeum album 
C. hederzefolium 
C. hederzefolium album 
