306 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ October 18, 1864. 



Purity. — Foliage slightly horseshoe-marked ; habit good ; 

 but flowers no improvement on Ethel. 



Miriam. — Foliage slightly marked with horseshoe; habit 

 upright and rather loose ; flowers no improvement on older 

 kinds. It may possibly be better as a pot plant. 



Virgo Marie. — Foliage darker marked than the last, which 

 it excels in most respects. Possibly it may become one of 

 the most popular of its class, but I believe it is not very 

 plentiful yet. 



White Nosegay. — I received this under the name of Mini- 

 mum Nosegay, but find the latter name is applied to a 

 crimson one of the same habit. White Nosegay, however, 

 has little to recommend it beyond being very dwarf; the 

 flowers are a dull pale flesh colour rather than a clear white ; 

 it blooms abundantly, however, and may be useful as an 

 edging. 



White Ivy-leaf. — This, like the last, is far from a clear white, 

 but, taking all its qualities into consideration, it deserves 

 a place in every collection; even those who discard the 

 ordinary White-flowered class admire this kind. It is liable 

 to run into a pale pink or flesh colour. 



Class 2. — Flowers flesh-coloured or pale piiik ; foliage either 

 plain or horseslioe-marhed. 



Maiden's Blush. — Foliage sHghtly horseshoe-marked ; habit 

 strong, rather upright ; trusses good and pretty abundant. It 

 is one of the best of its class for beds, the uniform colouring 

 of its petals appearing better in mass than the two-coloured 

 kinds mentioned beneath, which, however, have their merits 

 as pot plants. 



Francois Desiois. — Much like the last, only the horseshoe 

 marking is darker, and the habit a trifle more spreading ; 

 the colour of the bloom is alike in both. 



Diadem. — Foliage with a rather dark horseshoe marking ; 

 habit good; flower with a pink centre, and outer limb of 

 petal white or nearly so, giving the combination of the two 

 colours a fleshy tint. As an ornament for the plant-house I 

 expect this and the following will be favourites; but for 

 bedding purposes, as stated above, I prefer the single to the 

 two-coloured varieties. 



Euginie Mizard. — Dark horseshoe marking; habit more 

 dwarf than the last ; flowers much the same, the outer edge 

 of the petal being paler than the centre, and on that account 

 looking as if it were bleached with the sun. As an in-door 

 plan it may, however, be useful. 



Fve. — Strong upright grower ; horseshoe marking ; flower 

 a little more pink than the above. I have not sufficiently 

 tried this to be able to state with certainty how it will turn 

 out. 



Madame Rudersdorff. — Somewhat like Diadem, with, per- 

 haps, a shade more colour, and foliage somewhat less deeply 

 marked with the horseshoe. Like the last, I have not tried 

 it in sufficient quantity to be able to say with certainty how 

 it will turn out. 



Lizzie. — Foliage somewhat downy, scarcely any marking ; 

 habit compact and good; flowers produced freely, but, like 

 those of most of its class, liable to be damaged with the 

 rain or sun. 



Class 3. — Flowers pink. 



Christine. — This well-known favourite is, perhaps, still the 

 best of its class, its only fault being its tendency to produce 

 seed-pods or spikes in greater abundance than is agreeable ; 

 in all other respects there is little to wish for. 



Helen Lindsay. — This variety much resembles the last ; the 

 flowers may, perhaps, be a shade darker. Not having grown 

 it much I am unable to say more of its merits than that it 

 promises well. 



StriHng. — This, like some of those in Class 2, is a two- 

 coloured flower, which when seen at a distance looks like a 

 pink. The central part of the flower being darker than the 

 outside, a mixture is produced. By no means unpleasing as 

 a bedder, but still more to be admired as a potted plant. 

 Foliage horseshoe-marked, and habit more robust than that 

 of Christine, from which it also differs materially in colour. 



Hendersoni. — For some years I had under this name a 

 dwarf variety of the Lueium roseum breed, but it has been 

 superseded by Christine. There is, however, a variety par- 

 taking a little of the Nosegay section called Hendersoni 

 nana which has its admirers, but unless for some special 

 purpose I could never see any particular merit in it. 



STteltoni. — Horseshoe-marked; more upright grower than 

 those I have named ; but, on the other hand, the flowers are 

 less showy. It is fast falling into disuse. 



Kingsbury Pet. — Better than the last, but in the same 

 strain. It is better as a potted plant than as a bedder. 



{To be continued.) J. Robson. 



DECOEATION OF THE FLOWEE GAEDEN IK 

 WINTEE AND SPEING. 



Gardens gay with flowers, and interesting with foliage, 

 are not common at these seasons, nor is that to be wondered 

 at, considering the present rage for polychrome gardens. 

 Quarries contribute their sands and crystals, furnaces their 

 clinkers, and some old building its quota of the elements 

 necessary to form the briek-and-mortar gardens; but all 

 these offer no compensation for the absence of the ever beau- 

 tiful forms of vegetable life, whether in flower or not. 



Any one visiting the gardens at South Kensington during 

 the next six months, will not fail to notice that shrubs will 

 not grow, no one can tell why, and that the polychrome-beds 

 with their varied-coloured earthy substances are not in keep- 

 ing with the order of a garden in the ensuing two seasons of 

 the year — winter and spring. Such mimic gardens would 

 be more in place as floors to playgrounds, on which are 

 played all kinds of pretty games ; but to the horticul- 

 turist they are too puerile to afford any amount of lasting 

 gratification. 



That there are plants sufficient to render our gardens not 

 only interesting, but beautiful in winter and spring, the 

 spring garden at Cliveden exists as a witness ; for there it 

 is questionable whether a finer display of flowers artistically 

 arranged is not attained in April, and onwards to June, 

 than at a more advanced period of the year. 



But if we would see anything really worth seeing in the 

 way of flowers during the spring and early summer months, 

 it is not in the gardens of the great that we must look for it, 

 but in those of the good rector over the way, or within the 

 limited area of a cottage garden, where old tried friends 

 have not been discarded to make way for those changeable 

 things that are here to day and gone on the morrow. We 

 cannot leave such places without saying with the poet — 

 " Full many a flower is born to blush unseen." 



And so they are in their native wilds, and it is for man to 

 bring them together so that they may form what we re- 

 cognise as a garden having its flowers at all seasons, not 

 those which flower in summer only, but those especially 



" That come before the swallow dares, and take 

 The winds of March with beauty." 



It is the absence of those plants which tend to enliven the 

 flower garden between the removal and reappearance of the 

 summer occupants of the beds, in addition to the labour 

 and cost attendant on what affords a short display of bloom 

 in summer only; and the anything-but-garden-like ap- 

 pearance of places where the bedding-out of tender plants is 

 indulged in, that has led some to advocate a return to the 

 old herbaceous border, and dependance upon a few showy 

 annuals for the summer and autumn display. It is when 

 there is an absence of plants flowering in spring that we 

 may say of our present style of flower gardening, that it is 



11 like the tyrannous breathing of the north, 



Shakes all our buds from growing." 



That the arrangement of tender plants in beds need not 

 prevent any from enjoying flowers in spring, I hope to be able 

 to show ; and I am persuaded I can point out to the brick - 

 and-mortar gardener, that there is no necessity to hunt 

 quarry, coal pit, or furnace for materials wherewith to em- 

 bellish our gardens during the winter, spring, and early 

 summer months. 



First amongst those adapted for rendering a garden in- 

 teresting in winter, are evergreen shrubs. It is a common 

 supposition that these must be grown in pots, but it was 

 pointed out by the late Mr. Beaton, in Vol. XXII., page 59, 

 that they would bear removal twice annually with greater 

 facility than the summer occupants of beds — that is, they 

 may be removed from the reserve to the places assigned for 

 them in the flower garden in autumn, and again taken up 

 to make room for bedders ; the expense of providing suitable 



