1877. ] 
ON FLOWER-GARDEN BEDDING-OUT. 
127 
green colour, imparipinnately divided, the opposite pinnae having a purplish 
costa, and being pinnatifidly cut into numerous falcate lobes. 
Like most of its congeners, this plant will probably be most effective for 
decorative purposes while of moderate size, but still possessing the healthy vigour 
of youth, and confined to a single stem. It requires to be grown in the stove, but 
when sufficiently matured, may be used for effect in a cooler house during summer, 
or for special purposes. Its culture is easy, well-drained pots of rather lumpy 
peaty soil being preferable for it.—T. Moore. 
ON FLOWER-GAKDEN BEDDING-OUT. 
“ Can you tell me if any there be 
That would give me employ,— 
To plant and sow, and sweep and mow, 
And be a garden boy ?” 
‘ITH such a text as this, drawn from an ancient ballad, with only one word 
transposed, I beg leave to lay down some rules for the guidance of my 
young friends “ the garden boys.” Before another month has come 
round, many thousands of bedding-plants will be in their summer 
quarters, therefore it is time to set the beds in order. 
When it has been determined what size and shape the bed or beds are to be, 
it will be necessary, when bedding on grass, to correct the outline of the bed, so 
as to get all the curves true to their centres, and all the straight lines faultless. 
Wherever it can be attained, the bed should be perfectly level, that is to say, not 
higher in one part than another, for beds, like buildings, have no right to lean 
to either side, and it is obvious that as the plants have to live by the rain that 
falls upon the beds, it need not be turned aside unnecessarily. 
Supposing the margin to be perfectly level, the next thing to be settled is the 
height of the soil in the bed ; and here I begin to quarrel with half at least of 
professed planters, for I maintain that the ordinary edging should be only one 
inch deep, and that the rise of the soil should only be one inch above the grass- 
level. This is best proved by laying a piece of inch board at each side of the 
bed, and on these trying the level by means of a straight-edge. This rule holds 
good with all ordinary-sized beds on the platform of an ordinary flower-gardenj 
but where box-edging forms the outline of the beds, it is not so easy to get the 
levels accurate; and unless they are correct, the practised eye will detect the 
error, for a bed may have an overflow of soil and be glutted, or it may be 
pinched, and thereby not like the rest. For this out-door work, I invented the 
Sand-level” (see Florist, 1872,137), which can be canied in the jacket-pocket for 
reference in all weathers, and as it is, at the same time, a plumb-rule, by which 
tall Hollyhock and Dahlia stakes may be set up true, there need be no excuse for 
random work. 
Where bedding can be done regardless of expense, it is best to throw out all 
the soil in the bed, and so arrange the compost with which it is filled as to secure 
the plants from suffering by drought, for there is no fear of their suffering from 
