June 10. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER 
101 
and, indeed, this is what we do hope to encourage, for 
it does really seem a pity to build a mere orcliard-liouse; 
not one lady in a score would care about entering it, 
and it would be next to a monopoly on the part of the 
“lords of the creation.” 
A true orchard-house in a gentleman’s kitchen-garden 
who possesses plant houses, is another affair; here we 
say, tire less mixture the better. We shall now feel 
bound to go on with the subject, and shall show forth a 
classification of objects adapted to a house of the kind, 
and to the wants of those likely to adopt them. 
R. Errington. 
HORTICULTURAL EXHIBITION, REGENT’S 
PARK.—MAY 19th. 
(Continued from page 148.) 
Stove Plants. —The Ilexacentris and the Medinilla, 
which were the lions at the Chiswick Show, were past 
their prime here, and the willowdeaved Ixora, the Im¬ 
perial Hoya, aud the Dipladenia splendens took their 
places as the best and newest stove plants. There were' 
two small plants of Hoya Paxtonii, which were newer to 
me, because I never saw the plant before, and I would 
not fret much if I should never see it again; but the 
Hoya imperialis is certainly a grand plant, and very pro¬ 
bably will flower more freely as it gets older. It was 
here represented in capital training, just in the way so 
many gardeners train the Alamandas and Stephanotis, 
and there were a good many bunches of flowers on it, 
but unless you were aware of it, you would never take it 
to be a Hoya from your knowledge of the old sort, which 
drops the honey from the flowers. Mr. Cole, gardener 
to H. Colyer, Esq., had this Hoya, Ixora, and the 
Dipladenia in his collection, which won the second best 
prize; Mrs. Lawrence, as usual, coming in for the first, 
but I never saw a closer competition before, it was neck 
or nothing. Some years ago we cotdd not come to a 
decision at Chiswick on two collections coming so close 
together, and to get out of the difficulty we would as a 
last resource give two first prizes, but that was put a 
stop to, and the present generation of j udges are obliged 
from necessity to learn judgment, as carefully as the ex¬ 
hibitors grow and train their plants. The Ixora salici- 
folia is a splendid plant, fully as desirable as the old 
coccinea, and as easy to grow aud flower, but the flowers 
are not quite so rich, and the individual flowers are more 
starry. The colour is of two shades of yellow—orange, 
and yolk of egg. Ixora Javanica is another very fine 
species, but it was not at either of the first shows. The 
Dipladenia splendens I never saw finer, nor nearly so 
large, nor with so many flowers open at one time. There 
were a score of them, or nearly so, on thisfine specimen. 
What interest is always created by a fine specimen of 
the Madagascar periwinkle ( Vinca rosea), a plant as old 
as the hills, and as common as daisies, and known 
almost to everybody, yet no one is tired of it. You see 
it exhibited at all the shows, in the best drawing-rooms 
and conservatories, and indeed wherover plants are put 
up for creating a scene, or adding to existing beauties. 
The Stephanotis fioribunda, and the Alamanda cathar- 
tica and A. Schottii are now getting quite as common as 
this Vinca, and deservedly so, but for the life of me I can¬ 
not see where the difference between these two Alamandas 
is to be found. The only difference in my opinion is 
that they are both alike, but you can have the flowers of 
two or three different sizes according to the style of cul¬ 
tivation. What a pity that Mr. Lohb missed the really 
distinct Alamandas of which the late Mr. Gardener 
brought home dried specimens, and which he so gra¬ 
phically describes in his travels in Brazil; and how is it 
that no one speculates on sending out a collector for 
these, aud the gorgeous Bignonias, which have never 
been seen out of the Brazils, except in a dried state ? I 
know very well that no one can manage to get good seeds 
of them over, but then stout pieces of their roots will 
travel anywhere if well packed, and they would push, 
grow, and flower with us by our improved means, almost 
the first year. 
Orchids. —I never recollect so few of them shown in 
May. Glerodendron Kamvpferii at Chiswick, and Glero¬ 
dendron fallax at the Park, were all that I saw of that 
section, but the woody climber, Clerodendron splendens, 
was never better done on this occasion, and I mention it 
the rather to notice the great difference in the colour of 
the flowers from the same seed packet. Three different 
kinds of colour appeared in the flowers of the seedlings, 
and before any of them flowered they got so mixed and 
spread about, that scores have given up the plant al¬ 
together, because they only had the inferior sorts, one of 
which had the flowers brick-red, one like something you 
could buy at the butcher’s, and the third a fair average 
scarlet, and this is the only one worth putting into a 
pot. I once had a seedling Glerodendron in the way of 
fallax, which produced twenty spikes of bloom at the 
same time, in the conservatory of the Dowager Lady 
Middleton, but this variety was lost the following winter, 
and none so good has yet appeared; but were it not 
that they take up so much stove room, people would 
cross them till they got up like geraniums, roses, and 
other fine things improved by diligent cultivation. 
There is one thing with most stove plants, which the 
judges remarked ten years ago, and it is, that when they 
pass a certain age and size, all the gardening in the 
world will not be able to get them into exhibition trim; 
but it is not so with orchids, and greenhouse plants, 
hence the great increase, both in the size of these plants 
and the numbers of them brought up for exhibition 
every year. 
Cinerarias. —My strictures on the cinerarias shown 
at Chiswick referred to the sorts, not to their growth; and 
now having seen them at “the Park,” I have come to 
the conclusion that, to have any chance of a prize at all, 
you must grow bad sorts, and grow them most capitally 
too. In a few more years cinerarias must disappear from 
our exhibitions, just as the calceolarias have done, or at 
any rate are doing ; for nobody will look at them. When 
I came to reside near London, fourteen years ago, Mr. 
Appleby’s employers used to have most splendid cinera¬ 
rias, and the ladies from the “ west end ” used to be out 
there admiring them in crowds every afternoon, so that 
the Edgeware-road was blocked up with their carriages. 
But now if you stand all day long opposite the cinera¬ 
rias at our London exhibitions, you will not see one lady 
out of fifty even stop to look at them. “ How is it, Mr. 
Beaton, that the cinerarias are so weedy to-day? We used 
to see good cinerarias here, but now we have much bet¬ 
ter in the country! ” and sure enough they have, and as 
gay as ribbons, but gaiety, if I must tell the truth, ladies, 
is not the thing to be first prized in these flowers. You 
see they are in the form of a coach-wheel, and the great 
thing is to have them round, all the colour aud gaiety in 
the world will not make a carriage go easy if the wheels 
are not perfectly round. Now it happened very un¬ 
fortunately that the only wild cineraria which had a 
natural tendency to form a perfect circle, was of a bad 
colour—between white and sky-blue. All the scarlets, 
the purples, aud the deep blues, on the contrary, are 
from other species, which tend more to the starry, aud as 
colours are only secondary considerations with the florists, 
the fine colours are fast disappearing from this field, and 
milk-and-water, and “ blue ruin” will soon be the ground 
of all the colours in the really good cinerarias; that is the 
prevailing colour now, and the only seedling that took a 
prize at this exhibition was of the same sickly hue. It 
is a most excellent seedling no doubt, and worth seven- 
aud-sixpence a plant to a florist, but it would be dear at 
