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CULTURE OF A FEW ORNAMENTAL PLANTS. 
In the attempts that are now made to gratify the desire of obtaining a variety 
of exotic phants for forming beds and masses in the pleasure-garden, it is singular 
and interesting to observe how plants of particular habits accommodate themselves 
to a difference in circumstances. Many climbers, whose disposition when supported 
is decidedly to ascend, will, if planted in groups and left untended, trail along the 
surface of the ground, intermingle their branches with each other, and compose an 
assemblage in all respects pleasing ; thus taking the direction which those branches 
of climbing species that are not sufficiently near other and stronger objects usually 
follow in their natural state. 
A good example of this fact is shown in Thunhergia aurantiaca^ and several 
species and varieties of the same genus. T. alata^ alata alha^ a pale orange- 
flowered seedling with a light centre, and a pure white one with the figure of T. 
alata^ (both which last are common in the London nurseries,) make beautiful beds 
from June till October in fine seasons. During very wet and dull summers, like 
the past one, they do not succeed so well, and have a starved appearance, which 
spoils their effect. But the ordinary warmth of a British climate is quite adequate 
to their development in a manner fully equal to that in which they are seen in a 
stove. Young plants may be easily raised from cuttings in the month of March or 
April, and kept in pots till the proper period for transplantation, merely shifting 
them a little if they require it, and not using any kind of stakes, but simply 
pinching off the ends of those shoots that are inclined to straggle. They should be 
placed at first in a warm greenhouse, and be inured during May to the temperature 
of a cold frame, from whence they can be at once transferred to the borders. It is 
advisable to expose them entirely by day, while in these frames, for a few weeks 
before they are planted ; because, being of a tender nature, they would receive a 
severe check if too rapidly and abruptly shifted from a confined atmosphere. 
Another plant well suited for a similar purpose is LopJiospermum scandens. 
Why, however, its specific name should have been applied, when there are species 
which climb to the length of twelve or fifteen feet in one year, while most of theshoots 
of this plant creep along the earth, and the rest only rise a foot or eighteen inches, it 
is difficult to divine. The species has handsome flowers, not quite so large nor so 
expansive as those of L. eruhescens^ and of a darker and somewhat duller hue. 
Its tendency to trail renders it peculiarly well adapted for placing in borders, or for 
collecting into beds ; and each plant will cover a space of from one to two feet in 
all directions, flowering most profusely. If the specimens in a group be situated 
about eighteen inches or two feet apart, they will grow into each other, and cover 
the soil with a showy carpet of foliage and flowers, which, while it is fully as dense 
as that produced by the more familiar forms, will be agreeably undulated from the 
