THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 123 
covers made of common w r ood hoops and bramble branches, as 
represented in the figure. 
Those species of dianthus 
which may be properly 
classed amongst alpine 
flowers are simply of no 
use at all in the herbaceous 
border, and therefore we 
shall pass them by. Our 
business is to find showy, ro¬ 
bust-habited plants that do 
not require the peculiar con¬ 
ditions which are essential to 
the well-doing and perhaps 
to the very life of the mountaineers. First amongst the most 
useful after carnations, picotees, and pinks, we must take 
the Sweet-William (_D. barbatus ), which is either a biennial or 
a perennial at the will of the cultivator. To praise this 
flower would be like “ gilding refined gold,” and so we 
abstain from eulogy, and say that seed may be sown in 
March or July. If sown early, under hand-glasses, or in a 
very gentle heat, the plants will bloom in the autumn of the 
same year; if sown in July, they will not bloom until the 
following season. Our own preference is always for July 
sowing of seed newly ripe, and the planting out of the stock 
as soon as large enough where the plants are to bloom the 
following season. The sweet-william is remarkably hardy, 
and will endure severe winters on cold heavy soils, where car¬ 
nations would perish. There are some fine double varieties 
which never produce seed, and in every plantation single varie¬ 
ties occur which it is desirable to perpetuate. It is a quite 
easy matter to multiply these by cuttings, and the best way 
is to take for the purpose the blind shoots; that is, the shoots 
that do not flower at the very time when the flowers are in 
perfection. The most simple cold-frame treatment is suffi¬ 
cient ; but it would be well to plant them out as soon as 
rooted, in order 4 that, being well established, they may flower 
freely in the following season. 
We have now almost done with Dianthus, but the section 
will be incomplete without a few more notes. D. caryoyhyllus , 
the Carnation or Clove in its unimproved or wild form, is a 
pretty little garden plant, with copious tufts of glaucous 
