170 
THE AMATEUR’S EL OWE R GARDEN. 
may be most easily increased by cuttings of young slioofs in 
summer; and being most easy plants to manage, may be 
grown in quantity in pots for the conservatory, and to make 
pleasing masses in the garden in the autumnal months by 
plunging the plants when in full bloom in a suitable border. 
The best of them are V. Andersonii, blue and white; the 
<variegated leaved variety of the same is much used in bedding, 
and makes a fine conservatory plant; V. decitssata, blue; 
Glaire de Lyon , crimson; and multiflora , violet and white. 
The herbaceous veronicas are an inferior lot of plants; but 
V. amethystina , and V. spicata , are worth a place in the border 
and require only the most ordinary treatment. 
Vinca (Periwinkle).—The fast-growing, shade-loving, 
most accommodating and beautiful hardy vincas are things 
almost unknown to the majority of amateur gardeners. There 
is no end to the uses they are adapted for; but to clothe 
banks and half-waste spots under trees, and to fill up nooks 
where scarcely any other plant will grow, they are invaluable. 
The collector of good herbaceous plants should make it a 
point to secure all the sorts, and plant them somewhere in 
view of the possibility of needing some day to propagate a 
stock for some particular purpose. The young shoots may 
be struck in summer under hand-glasses, or they may be 
pegged down to root around the parent ready for removal 
next season. All the sorts are good, and they number in all 
about. a dozen. V, reticulata is a bold showy plant, with 
leaves rich green, and prettily pencilled; V. major fol. var . 
makes a good edging to flower beds, and being quite hardy is 
a capital poor man’s substitute for variegated geraniums ; 
V. minor forms a neat little tuft, w^hicli in spring produces 
more blue flowers than any other kind. 
Viola (The Violet).-—Here again we are tempted to say 
much, but intend to say little. In our deep heavy land, 
violets of every kind grow with astonishing vigour, and flower 
with extravagant profusion without any care at all. We 
might be tempted, therefore, to advise leaving the plant to 
take its chance as a weed in the garden, did we not happen 
to know that in many cases it must have systematic treatment, 
or it never justifies its occupation of the soil. Happily, we can 
sum up the case in a few words. In the first place, all kinds 
of violets that are worth growing require a good rich moist 
soil and a shady situation. It is in the mellow product of rotted 
