88 
TENDER PLANTS THAT WILL THRIVE IN A SHELTERED BORDER. 
thum^ violaceum^ and Musschianum^ are all most elegant little border flowers, and 
quite hardy enough for the situation intended. In fact, they will grow in any part 
of the open ground ; and we have lately marked the beautiful E. molaceum entirely 
covered with blossoms, although the plants had not the least attention during the 
past severe winter. If they will exist, however, in a flat plot, they will constitute 
most engaging objects when placed in a prepared border, and their sweet blossoms 
will attain nearly double the size, with a far greater degree of delicacy, under so 
congenial a system of culture. 
Again, the finest varieties of Mimulus cardinalis^ with the many handsome 
hybrids that have been raised between it and the humbler kinds, acquire a com- 
pactness and a robustness in an appropriate border, which is unknown to the more 
artificial cultivator ; and anything that will protect them from extreme wet or the 
most violent frosts, is amply sufficient to enable them to dispense with greenhouse 
treatment. The true M. cardinalis may thus be multiplied by offsets, which it 
produces most abundantly, and the more tedious process of rearing it from seeds 
will consequently be abandoned, as the young rooted ofi*sets have simply to be 
planted where they are wished for, and they will flower as soon and as finely as the 
stocks from which they were taken. The showy dwarf hybrid members of this 
genus, of which M. Smithii may be given as an example, are not inferior in hardi- 
hood to M. cardinalis ; and when it is thoroughly known that these plants can be 
grown, and their beauty enjoyed, without any of the trouble of potting, watering, 
housing, and propagating, they will certainly be more common than they are at 
present. Superior hybrids have stood in borders with which we are familiar, since 
last summer, with no sort of covering whatever, and are now advancing rapidly 
towards flowering. It is safer, nevertheless, to afford them occasional shelter. 
When an increase is desired, a few of the offsets can be detached, and they at once 
form excellent plants. 
Having given so much space to herbaceous plants, or those which assume the 
character of herbs, we shall just mention two or three low shrubs, and then quit 
the subject. Mahonia fascicularis—Si plant that stands almost unrivalled among 
evergreen shrubs, except by its congeners M. aquifolium and repens^ is very 
susceptible of injury in the latitude of the metropolis, if the winter be rigorous; 
and though specimens, in favourable localities, have passed unharmed through the 
late trying frosts, others have been wholly killed. This, then, is a fit plant for the 
exotic border; and the two species above named, together with M. glumacea^ will, 
though quite hardy, retain their foliage better, and blossom more vigorously, by 
being planted in a similar spot. Berheris empetrifolia^ moreover, though nearly 
hardy, was so mutilated in some places by the frosts of last January, that it cannot 
recover its appearance for several years. Being a trailing plant, and eminently 
interesting, it would be a most appropriate embellishment of a prominent border. 
Finally, Lantana Selloviana could, with the timely assistance of an efiicient covering, 
be made to bear our milder winters in such a border ; and the richness, quantity, 
