November 14.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
99 
ing as may appear to me, without any reference to the 
surrounding parts, winch of com - se cannot he taken into 
the account without being on the spot. The only aids 
that I ask for are a black stroke on one side of the plan 
to represent the garden-side of the house, and a few 
words — not a long letter, for it puzzles one — saying 
how the ground lies, whether it be level from the house 
across the flower-garden, or either rising or falling much 
from a level line. The shapes, or sizes, or the plants in 
use, I shall say nothing about; the whole thing will only 
be a private affair between confidential friends, as it were. 
In this free country every one has a perfect right to choose 
the shape of his own flower-beds, and choose what to 
plant in them, without being called to question: provided 
always that we do not push our own fancies in these 
things before the world as things to be copied from, or 
recommended to our neighbours, and calling them stupid 
names if they differ from us. An exact copy or dupli¬ 
cate of the plans sent to us should be kept to read the 
answers from, with letters or numbers referring to the 
different beds. A plan of this sort need not be drawn to 
a scale; indeed, they give less trouble without a scale, 
if the different proportions of the beds are shown, by 
making some smaller or larger, just as they stand. The 
column for answering correspondents will be the place to 
look for the explanations; and no reader need expect to 
learn from the answers except the party concerned. 
D. Beaton. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Preservation of Bedded-out Plants ; Shrubby 
Calceolarias.— Next to the scarlet geraniums, to which 
I adverted last week, few things are more desiderated 
by the amateur with limited space than the brighter 
coloured Shrubby Calceolarias. And well do they merit 
his attention; lor, after having gemmed his window or 
Lilliputian greenhouse in the early months of spring 
and summer, they only require, when their beauty is on 
the wane, to be slightly dressed, reshifted, or fed with 
manure water, or transferred to the flower clump, to 
flourish with increased beauty during the later summer 
and autumn months. 1 have alluded to the brighter 
coloured among these plants; for in this fastidious age 
though, like myself, you have still a love for purples, 
can even admire cloudy browns, and entertain some¬ 
thing approaching a passion for the somewhat nonde¬ 
script bronzy-orange Kentish Hero—the first to bloom, 
the last to give over, with the exception, perhaps, of the 
diminutive flowered rugosa : you must keep all your 
admiration to yourself, and expect all your Calceolarias 
to be sneezed at with disdain by the arbiters of fashion¬ 
able taste, unless they be gorgeous in their orange and 
dazzling in their yellow. Let the present crusade in 
behalf of the bright and the warm in colour be carried 
right cheerily to its legitimate conclusion, and the eye, 
formed in general to grasp and comprehend within its 
range the beauties of every tint and shade, fatigued 
with the monotony of even varied and contrasted bright¬ 
ness, would be forced to seek in the wilds and wolds of 
nature the repose and enjoyment denied it in the garden. 
It oftener marks a little rather than a great mind, ruth¬ 
lessly to oppose itself to the general stream of taste, 
even though that taste be of a questionable character: 
but co-existing with respect for the opinions and prac¬ 
tices of others, it is perfectly possible to maintain and 
practise a thinking of our own; and if we only con¬ 
tinue long enough, we shall find that, just like ladies’ 
dresses, the taste in flowers and their most prized 
colours will so often change, that we shall frequently un¬ 
consciously find ourselves in the very height of fashion. 
Even those who can see no beauty in a Shrubby Calceo¬ 
laria unless it be of a determinate colour, and that \ 
colour brightly yellow, may find out that that yellow is J 
alike heightened and softened when placed in juxta- I 
position with a sober purple. 
“ All very nice,” say several correspondents at once; ] 
“ hut there now,” says one, “ are my few plants which | 
I put in that little border in June, and they looked so i 
nice—are blooming now, even in November—that I put 1 
off and off meddling with them, and fear I shall lose 
them, yellow and purple too ! ” “ And let us catch our 
fish before we dress them,” says another : “ I put | 
in cuttings in nice soil in July ; gave them air, too, regu- | 
larly every day, but I had no success—all of them died; 
only let us get the plants, and we will enter then, with 
real zest, into the question of fashionable colours.” ! 
Now, though we hinted last week that the Shrubby \ 
Calceolaria must be propagated in a very different ' 
manner and time from the Scarlet Geranium, one thing 
respecting them, so far, at least, as our friends witli 
limited space are concerned, is similar, namely, the im¬ 
portance of propagating a young stock, which would 
take up little room in winter; and which, did they receive 
the same attention as old plants, would be more band 
some than them in spring. In propagating these plants, 
gardeners strike them successfully at any period; but 
though they manage to get plants in eight days in 
March or April, they would require, with all their care, 
something like six times the period in July; and, there¬ 
fore, unless in a very particular case, propagation in 
summer is abandoned. Though in different climates we 
change the period of a plant’s blooming, we do not greatly 
change its nature; for amid succeeding generations it 
retains the traces of its primeval existence. 
Elourishing at a high altitude on the hill-sides of Chili 
and Peru, these Calceolarias chiefly come into full bloom 
after the growing strength of the sun has commenced 
melting the snows on the Andes above them. Hence, 
in this country, the chief period of glowering is when we 
have the longest and brightest days ; and the chief 
period of growth is early in spring and late in autumn. 
These latter are the times when propagation is most 
easily effected, because nice young shoots are obtained 
in abundance, and the evaporating and decomposing 
processes from heat and light are at a minimum rather 
than a maximum, which they would be in summer. 
Of these two periods the claims are nearly equal:—In 
autumn the cuttings must be kept cool, and the later 
they are put in, until the middle of November or later, 
the less time they will take; in spring, after fresh growth 
has commenced, by giving an additional stimulus to the 
naturally-increasing heat, and preventing evaporation 
by placing the cuttings in a sweet hot-bed, plants will 
be made in a third of the time. It is owing to this 
fresh growth, and the activity of the vital forces in 
spring, that so many plants are easily propagated then. 
Those who prefer larger plants for winter than they can 
obtain from autumn propagating, and yet not so large as 
those growing in the border, should propagate late in 
April. Set the plants in their cutting-pots, when struck, 
behind a north wall, and pot them in July or the begin¬ 
ning of August. I have often resolved to do this, and 
thus save the trouble of taking up any out of the bor¬ 
ders ; but though hundreds may be left after the general 
planting, yet, somehow, they always melt away before the 
autumn comes. 
Lest some of our friends should think that we were 
counting our chicks before we had got our eggs, I shall, 
before saying a few more words upon propagation, advert 
in the first place to the preserving a stock to propagate 
from, premising, that at present it contains the plants 
turned out into the borders. The lesser of these, if 
raised and carefully potted in September, and set in a 
shady place, would by this time be well supplied with 
roots for keeping in a healthy state during the winter. 
