270 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the ground, unless their removal is desired to other quarters, 

 when, if the new position is not ready for them, they are 

 packed tightly in boxes and placed in a cold frame. Crowns 

 that remain in the ground get, with the approach of winter, a 

 heavy mulching of half- decayed leaves. 



Pansies. — Of the tufted pansies I cannot speak too highly. 

 At the time of writing this (early in September) they have been 

 in flower five months and are still gay. To ensure such an 

 enduring display on a soil like ours they have to be planted either 

 (preferably) in autumn or as early in the year as the state of the 

 ground permits. They have a mulching of peat moss manure 

 as soon as they are planted, and in summers like 1893 and 1896 

 one tremendous soaking of water just when the first flowers are 

 over. An early insertion of cuttings is found advisable — not later 

 than the end of July. This combined with the prompt removal 

 of all dying flowers is sufficient to ensure a bright carpet of 

 flowers from mid-spring until quite the end of summer. 



Phloxes. — It is, I fancy, now generally acknowledged that 

 all large beds that are over fifteen feet in diameter should be 

 filled with bold, strong stuff, and possibly a good selection of 

 the suffruticosa and decussata phloxes in combination would 

 yield to no flower for an effective and enduring display ; the 

 newer varieties in both sections are simply magnificent. Re- 

 verting for a moment to the note made above as to the wonder- 

 ful improvement in the flowers, I brought the other day from a 

 corner in the pleasure ground a spike of the old white phlox 

 that has been growing there for years, and compared it with the 

 new, "Diadem," verily a tribute to the skill of the florist. In 

 planting a big bed of phloxes bold clumps of the two sections 

 may be alternated, and then if the top is pinched out of the 

 earlier varieties directly the flowers are past, smaller side spikes 

 will be developed and blossom with their later brethren. The 

 bed for their reception should be bastard trenched and enriched 

 with good manure. A good mulching is also advisable if the 

 summer seems likely to prove hot and dry. 



PYitETHitUMS. — Doth the single and double flowered varieties 

 are among the most useful of early flowers, and they do well if 

 given fairly good treatment in any ordinary border. For largo 

 beds a mixture of these with pentstomons, each planted in bold 

 clumps, is decidedly effective. The old foliage can be trimmed 



