THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
63 
of robust habit, such as geraniums, do not require manure, 
unless the staple soil is exceptionally poor. Succulent plants, 
such as echeverias and sempervivums, will do better in a poor 
soil than a rich one, and may be aided by the addition of 1 
sand and broken chalk or plaster to the plots they are to fill. 
A few peculiar-habited plants, such as calceolarias, verbenas, 
and lobelias, really require a rich and very mellow soil, and 
the beds they are to be planted in should be dressed with 
well-rotted hot-bed manure and leaf-mould some time in 
advance of planting. 
The distances at which the plants are placed in the beds 
must be regulated both by consideration of their habits and 
the requirements of the cultivator. In town gardens that 
are required to be very gay during June and July, and may 
be anyhow in the later months of the summer, the bedding 
plants should be crowded in the beds to produce an effect 
quickly. In gardens that are not likely to be seen until 
August and September, thin planting may be practised, and 
all flower-buds must be picked off as fast as they appear 
until about six weeks before the “ opening-day.” In the 
generality of gardens, the plants should be put so close that 
they may be expected to meet by the middle of July. This 
method will/allow of the taking cuttings at the end of July 
without serious damage to the beds; but it is always prefer¬ 
able to have a reserve of all the more important sorts in the 
reserve ground expressly to cut from, so as to avoid even a 
temporary diminution of the splendour of the parterre in the 
very height of the season. It is the custom in some gardens 
to take cuttings, in a wholesale manner and all at once, in the 
early part of August; and the result is, the beds for a fort¬ 
night afterwards look as if they had been mown for hay, and 
for the next fortnight they look so green and flowerless that 
they ought to be mown again. It is astonishing how many 
absurdities belong as it were of necessity to the bedding sys¬ 
tem, though of necessity they are all extraneous to it. As for 
taking up and storing before winter returns, only one remark 
shall be made. Take up in good time, and pot and house 
with care, whatever is worth keeping and is really w T anted. 
But make no scruple of destroying whatever is not worth 
keeping, or is not wanted, and let the destruction be accom¬ 
plished in a quick and cleanly way. Our way is, to pull the 
plants out and lay them in a heap, then to remove the top 
