1 GO 
THE LADIES’ MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
FLORAL CALENDAR. 
MAY. 
This is the season for planting out half-hardy annuals, which have 
been raised on a hotbed, and are now ready to be removed to the open 
ground for flowering, and for planting Dahlias. The first of these opera¬ 
tions is a very simple one, and only requires care and delicacy of touch. 
The young plants may be purchased from a nurseryman, and being taken 
from the hotbed on which they were reared with a trowel, they must be 
carefully separated from each other. The ground in which they are 
to be planted, should have been previously ^forked over and raked ; 
and then a number of little holes should be made, and one plant put in 
each, taking care not to bruise either the stem or root, and to press the 
earth lightly down to the latter, as it will rot if a cavity be left round it > 
The transplanted plants should be watered with a watering-pot, having 
a fine rose, and shaded by flower-pots being turned over them for a day 
or two. Annuals, if not of very large growth, are generally planted three 
together, so as to form a sort of triangle. 
The planting of the Dahlias is a rather more serious affair, and it is 
one generally more adapted to a gardener than a lady; as the transplanting 
seedlings is, on the contrary, more adapted to a lady than a gardener. 
Dahlias should be grown in very sandy loam, and they succeed best where 
a bed has been prepared for them three or four feet deep, with a layer of 
rubbish two feet deep at the bottom. They should never be grown in 
rich loam, unless sand or gravel be mixed with it. When planted in 
beds, the larger kinds should be three or four feet apart every way ; and 
the plants are generally most healthy and produce most flowers when 
the tubers have not been a started,” as the gardeners call it, in a hot¬ 
house. Care should be taken, in planting them, to arrange them so as to 
produce a good effect with the colours, which may be in rows, or any 
other way preferred. The dwarf plants look very well in regular flower- 
gardens, pegged down like Verbenas or Petunias, so as to cover the whole 
bed. When the larger sorts are planted, a strong stick at least two 
inches thick, or an iron stake, should be put into the ground at the same 
time as the plant, and driven in at least eighteen inches deep, for the 
plant to be tied to ; or if this is not done, Dahlia rings should be used to 
keep the plant neat. 
My London readers should visit Mr. Knight’s Exotic Nursery, Chelsea, 
to see his Nepal Rhododendrons, which are now in full beauty, with 
flowers of the darkest and richest scarlet I ever saw. 
