FLOWER GARDEN. 
lengths suitable to be used for fences, posts, 
bean and pen. sticks, or lire-wood, as t lie case 
may be ; and where any of the timber trees 
about the premises require to lose any of 
their limbs, now is the time to cut them off. 
Ju very sloppy weather, avoid all operations 
that require you to tread on the beds or bor- 
ders, for it does immense mischief. It is 
better to lay by a lew days than to trample on 
the soil in wet weather ; and there can always 
be found plenty of work undercover, in any 
establishment of the least pretension, in the 
making of labels, examining, drying, and 
thrashing out seeds, shifting some of the potted 
plants, cleaning out houses and pits, and looking 
through all the fruit, to see that the bruised 
or decaying ones are used first, or, if bad, 
thrown away. Look well also to all hedges 
and fences ; the former must be put to rights 
by plashing and bending the branches, so as 
to close particular openings and gaps ; and 
when this cannot be done, plants must be put in, 
and stakes to protect them until large enough 
to till up the place. Fences should be repaired 
the instant there is anything wrong; a vacancy 
is always tempting, because other portions are 
so easily removed. There is nothing more 
important than keeping all hedges, ditches, 
and fences in high order. These remarks 
apply to every portion of an establishment, 
whether it be garden, farm, paddock, or 
shrubbeiy. Attend also to all water-courses. 
cleaning them out, and securing the proper 
declination for the running off. If there be 
any part of the ground not properly drained, 
no time should be lost in doing it ; for the cost 
will be well laid out, if you have any time to 
bring back the outlay by future crops, or better 
success among flowers. According to your 
tenour, so make your drains temporary or 
permanent ; but drained the garden ought to 
be, under any circumstances. We now pro- 
ceed to particular departments. 
THE FLOWER GARDEN. 
Bulbs. — "We are to presume that bulbs of 
all kinds were planted last month, and that 
nothing of the kind remains out of ground ; if 
there be any, there is no time to be lost ; and 
they have already taken serious mischief by 
exhausting themselves ever since they began 
to swell at the roots. Tulips are generally 
planted during the first three weeks of No- 
vember, even by those remarkable for pro- 
crastination : yet accident will sometimes 
prevent people from doing as they would : it 
only, then, remains for them to do as they can. 
They should, in all such cases of delay, be 
planted shallower than they would have been 
at the proper season ; and by .having less 
distance to grow, they sometimes surprise one 
with their bloom, though it is a desperate 
experiment to keep them out so long. Lose 
not an instant, therefore, in getting into the 
ground all the bulbs that have been neglected. 
Beds and Bokdkus. — All the decayed 
annuals having been removed, and the peren- 
nials lor the most part cut down, the next 
question is, what is to be done with the empty 
beds,' clumps, and borders ? Even where 
bulbs and spring-ilowers are planted, there is 
nothing to show, and bare surface of mould 
looks bad and unfinished. It has been recom- 
mended by Mr. Beaton, who passes for an 
experienced gardener, and who has been 
employed on one of the garden newspapers, 
that branches of evergreens should be cut 
from the shrubs and trees, and be trimmed up 
into the form of dwarf plants, and stuck into 
the ground all over the beds ; and this advice 
was actually promulgated by a Gardening 
journal, as directions for the management of 
a garden in winter ! Of course very few at- 
tempted to do so ridiculous a thing, although 
Mr. Beaton assured the public, that these 
branches, when stuck in the ground, would 
keep their colour all the winter. Here and 
there an inexperienced person tried the 
experiment; but, besides being exposed to the 
ridicule of his neighbours, the evergreens 
turned colour and shrivelled soon after they 
were put into the ground, and were necessarily 
removed after all the trouble had been taken. 
In a Garden Practice, published in 1843, there 
was a more rational, and very much more 
popular, recommendation for the management 
of flower beds and borders in winter. It was to 
plant or plunge dwarf evergreens of different 
kinds to till up all the conspicuous vacancies 
left by the removal or decay of the summer 
beauties ; and none but those wdio have 
adopted the plan can form an idea of the 
advantage of it. Potted plants of the Cedars, 
Arbor Vitass, hardy Heaths, Box, Laures- 
tinus, Aucuba, Berberis, Holly, and many 
other subjects, can be raised or purchased 
cheaply enough, and they are beautifully 
ornamental where flowers have been and will 
be again. In beds and clumps where the 
bulbs are planted, there is abundant room for 
small bushy pot-plants of evergreens ; and 
the different colour and habit of the foliage 
and plant makes sufficient diversity to give 
great interest to the planting ; they will be 
found ornamental, and greatly improving to 
the scene, even after the flowers are coming 
up between them ; but they may always be 
removed at the shortest notice, and rebedded 
out, or kept in their pots for another season. 
When the beds, clumps, or borders, are entirely 
for the annuals and other summer flowers, it is 
better to let the evergreens remain until the 
summer subjects are forward enough to be 
interesting of themselves. In a geometrical 
