THE 



GARDENERS' MAGAZINE. 



SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1898. 



ANTER 



FETE 



CANTERBURY 



BURY.— A GRAND FLORAL 



Will be Held on Jcly, 14, 1898, 



HOSPITAL AND HORTICULTURAL AND AGRICULTURAL 



CHARITIES. 



W. J. Taylor, Secretary. 



The craze for scarlet 



IIEFFIELD CHRYSANTHEMUM 



ANNUAL SHOW. 

 November ii and 12, 1898. 



W. HOU^LEY, Secretary, T77, Cemetery Read, Sheffield 



HORTICULTURAL SHOW ADVERTISEMENTS are inserted m thi 

 column at One Shilling per line, the minimum charge being Five Shillings. Advertise 

 went Office. 148 and 149, Aldersgrate Street, London, E,C. 



Beckwith 



aged 77 years. 



DEATH. 



On the 16th inst., at Tottenham, George Beckwith, of the Tottenham Nurs-ries, 



NOTE S OF T HE WEEK. 



AWARDS TO NOVELTIES. 



detrimental to the full enjoyment of the gar 



pelargoniums, yellow calceolarias, blue lobelias, and the coloured leafage 

 cf coleus and alternantheras that reached its m/st acute condition during 



lhe sixties, had the effect of banishing for a considerable period a large 



SOCIETY'S num ber of our most beautiful hardy plants, and rendering British gardens 



as uninteresting and unattractive as can possibly be conceived. Happily, 

 during the past fifteen years there has been a decided change for the 

 better in the methods of embellishing the flower gardens. The great 

 masses of gaudily coloured plants that were so painful to the eye and so 

 objectionable to those endowed with artistic preceptions have disappeared, 

 and the beds and borders devoted to plants that at once appeal to those 

 who are able to appreciate beauty of form as well as attractive colouring 

 and by reason of their flowering at different seasons contribute to the 

 attractions of the flower garden from early in the spring until the 

 autumn is well advanced. For this great and beneficial change in the 

 fashion of flower gardening we have good cause for congratulation 

 Had other fashions in horticulture been of late years equally satisfactory 

 the garden prospect would afford unbounded pleasure ; but, unhappily, 

 whilst horticulturists have been busily engaged in rooting out one 

 practice that has been so strongly condemned, they have been not less 

 active in establishing another that is hardly less baleful in its influence 

 upon horticulture. Concurrently with a decline in the popularity of 



THE report to be presented by the Council of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society to the annual meeting of the Fellows in February is, on the whole, 

 so highly satisfactory, that it is impossible to peruse it without having a 

 strong feeling of admiration for the ability displayed by the Council and 

 officers in the management of the affairs, and experiencing considerable 



gratification that the society should have attained to so high a degree of summer bedding there has been an enormous increase in the use of plants 

 prosperity. As will be gathered from the report, of which we give a <*nd cut flowers in^ decorations, and the trend of public — ~* 

 summary on another page, the whole of the exhibitions and meetings ~ " ~ *~ 



were more or less successful, the work at Chiswick was carried on with 

 the usual activity, there was a large accession of new Fellows, and, as the regard some diversity in the plants grown under glass as essential 

 result of the year's operations, the Council was able to carry forward a t0 the fuI1 enjoyment of the several plant houses. Nearly 

 substantial amount into this year's accounts. There is, however, one everything is being made subservient to the decorative aspects of plant 



culture, and the value of a new tender-flowering or ornamental-leaved 



plant is usually estimated not so much by its intrinsic beauty and interest 



taste at the 



present time in matters relating to the garden is such as to justify 

 considerable anxiety on the part of those who, and properly so, 



matter to which reference is made by the Council that detracts some- 

 what from the pleasure experienced in reading the report, and that is the 



necessity which has again arisen for the Council io urge upon the several as b ^ its utiIit y in the production of a bright display of colour for the 



committees the importance of checking the tendency to making awards decoration of indoor apartments. In consequence of this change in 



to novelties in too lavish a manner. The committees were in no way fashion, considerable numbers of beautiful orchids, ferns, and greenhouse 



wanting in liberality during the past year in the allocation of medals to and stove P lan * s h *ve no P lace in the majority of gardens, and the plant 

 ihcse who contributed to the exhibitions, for these included fourteen 



houses are shorn of their interest, which to our mind constitutes one of 

 gold medals, and proportionate numbers of medals of less value ; but their great charms. It has become quite usual to find orchid houses wholly 

 vsith these we are not specially concerned at the present moment' and devoted to a few species and their varieties ; indoor ferneries almost ex- 



•tking in a general way, the medals awarded to exhibitors in the clusively given up to free-growing adiantums and pteris, and the green- 

 course of the year were well deserved. The cause for the anxiety hoase and stove chiefl y employed in the production of plants specially 

 expressed by the Council, as also for apprehension on our part, is the adapted for the production of supplies of cut flowers or the decoration of 

 immense number of awards made to novelties. The table of awards given the dinner-table or drawing-room. We have consistently advocated the 

 in the report, shows that fifty-four first-class certificates, three hundred cultivation of plants adapted for the adornment of the home, but in all 

 and forty-six awards of merit, and thirty-one botanical certificates were cases as supplementary to the general collection, and not, as is becoming 

 awarded; numbers that fully justify the Council in requesting "the so general, to the exclusion of all others. It is not desirable that an 

 several committees to consider seriously whether there is not a real attempt should be made in private gardens to emulate Kew or Glasnevin, 

 danger of impairing the value of these distinctions." The question is but the collections should be sufficiently comprehensive to adequately 

 Hardly one for consideration, for the time has arrived when the com- represent the vegetation of temperate and tropical regions, for only 

 mittees should impose a severe check upon their generous impulses, for whe re this is done can the garden properly fulfil its mission, and give 

 already the value of the distinctions conferred by them have been heavily dis- unbounded interest and pleasure to those who come within its influence. 



counted by the prodigality with which they have been distributed. It is, of 



CCUrse, in the highest degree essential that raisers and introducers of new - 



plants, fruits, and vegetables should be encouraged to the fullest possible - The ebb and flow of vitality in all living organisms is a very curious 



extent ; but it is not less necessary that the interests of the general body phenomenon. In the vast majority of cases it synchronises either with 



of cultivators should be considered, and no award be made to a novelty the appearance or disappearance of the sun, as with man and most 



PLANT 5LEEP. 



un.es s it greatly differs from, or is a marked advance upon existing 

 species or varieties in the same way. It is not sufficient that it should 

 have a merely microscopic difference, or be as good as some- 

 nmg else in the same way, and until this fact is recognised by the 

 nernters generally of the committees, it will be useless to expect any 

 « er.ai reduction in the aggregate number of awards made. It is 



animals, with whom the season of darkness is the season of s.'cep ; with 

 the lowering of temperature in the winter time, ss with most plants, 

 whose sleep is annual ; or with periods of alternate drought and wet, as 

 in the tropics, where dormancy is enforced by lack of moisture. Nature, 

 however, with her usual disregard of hard and fast lines, has her excep- 



f -„„--„-. — 11Jauc . Al „ lions in all these cases ; hence we ha/e beasts and birds and insects 



uniortunate that while the Floral Committee has amended its method of which seek their prey under cover of the night, and sleep in the daytime ; 

 ^nZ u m thC makin S of awards to plants that are widely known and flowers, like the evening primrose tribe {(Enothera), which open their 

 SrSJS. CuU,Vated ' the 0r chid Committee should confer first-class ' "" * ' " " 



should in\h P ° n PlamS that are in general cultivation. This practice 

 nUcJ * ./? se . of each of the committees, have an effectual check 



and ' t X " ', 7 Council ' for 11 ™ n <* be beneficial to th„ . 



-critonou?;:;^^ Va ' Ue ° f the diStinCli ° nS <°"'««= d 



e society, man 

 upon 



VARIETY IN PLANT HOUSES. 



petals to the setting sun to woo the nightingale's kisses, and plants of the 

 most succulent character, the ice plant to wit, which, defiant of heat and 

 drought, flourish despite them. Many plants, too, take nightly rest like 



himself, and, like the woodsorrel {Oxulis), fold up their leaflets 

 when the sun goes down and sleep till dawn. Then, too, our familiar 

 garden plants belong to two categories, the one the children of the 

 summer sun, both annuals and perennials, the other the firstlings of the 

 spring or, like the Christmas roses, pale offsprings of King Winter him- 



Although t liy "LAIN 1 HOUSES. spring or, like the Christmas roses, paie onspnoga ui ixmg »v.» lt . 



isfaction th ! " \ qu,te coramon occurrence to hear expressions of self: and if we take a stroll round our gardens now, and use our ej es 



*diM system \ • u practicall y escaped from the thraldom of the we shall see a thousand evidences of life, though, to a casual glance, ihe 



r * ns, the gen if thirty years ag0 had undis Puted sway in our sleep is general. All the spring bulbs- the tulips, hyacinths, scillas, 



t that thev a ^ dy of horticulturists are evidently oblivious to the crocuses— are on the move, and every here and there their sharply- 



y re rapidly beccming slaves to a practice hardly less pointed 5 P ik-s can be teen pushing their way to the light. The Spanish 



