306 
THE ‘COTTAGE GARDENER. 
August 12. 
frosts in October, and the old Calceolaria bicolor, the 
Heliotrope, and the Potatoes, were blackened by the 
frost before the Ixoras suffered under a single mat. 
The Russelia is only an instance out of many, but 
I prefer it to illustrate what I so much wish to see in 
our flower-gardens, because a friend of mine has been 
in the habit for years to have it in avenues, just as I 
have said, because it is a plant so easy to increase from 
cuttings that no one need grudge trying it out for an 
experiment. The whole of the summer-flowering Jus- 
ticias (we must not include coccinea, for it is a late 
autumn-bloomer) will flower as well out-of-doors as in 
the conservatory, and better than in the stove, at least 
will hold on longer. Gardenias the same, but they do 
better in peat beds. Why instance particular plants 
when the field is almost untrodden ? A much-valued 
correspondent, whom I have never seen, mentions, in a 
letter received this morning, that he “ is doing a little 
in the out-of-door tropical line, which is an old fancy 
of his; he has done it on a wide, shallow, trodden-down 
hotbed about twenty feet long, ten feet wide, on a plat¬ 
form of brick. Maranta zebrina, will do; Hedycliiums, 
Sugar Cane, Pine Apple , Castor Oil plant, Hybiscus of | 
sorts, Begonias, Ipomceas, Cucurbitace.ce, Richardia (old 
Galla Etliiopica), Acacia lophantha, Colocasia esculenta ! 
(flourishing), Maize, &c.” Now here is a grand secret; ! 
an old, large hotbed was first made use of; in due time j 
all the air that the state of the sun would allow of was 
given to the plants in May. and by Midsummer the 
lights were, very likely, left off at night, and when thus 
inured gradually to the open air, taking away the hot¬ 
bed frame, if that was thought necessary, would be no 
check to their growth. Therefore, theory and practice 
go hand-in-hand in pointing out the hotbed, or no hot¬ 
bed pit, to be the proper way of inuring stove plants to 
stand the open air r and not the greenhouse, where they 
are at once exposed to too much air and too much 
dryness, after all we can do, unless, indeed, the green¬ 
house is kept close and moist, and if it is its character 
is gone, the name only is changed, the system is the 
same as in the old stove. 
Only think of a cottage gardener having a plot of 
Pine-apples growing at the end of his Rhubarb bed like 
so many globe Artichokes! If my garden was big 
enough, I would have a row of Pine apple plauts next 
year, if I had to go to Covent Garden market to get '■ 
them fruited; but Mr. Barnes fruited Pine apples out-of- 
doors in Devonshire as freely as Love-apples (Tomatoes), 
and with far less trouble as to thinning and pruning. 
But for a man to make the world believe in such simple j 
things now-a-days, he would need to plant an acre or 
two of the Upas tree, and kill all the rooks and jack¬ 
daws in the country with the smell of it, as they used to 
say of the tree in Java. After all this, I would thank 
any of our readers who could send us a report of stove i 
plants having flourished in England in the open air ; 
during the summer. Who would have thought that the 
Russelia would bloom out-of-doors as well as a Fuchsia. 
But as it has done so over and over again; why not 
Gardenia Stanleyana, or a score of more interesting 
plants? All the stove Siplwcampyluses may do better 
out-of-doors than any other way; S. bicolor can never 
be flowered in a pot as it does in the open border; and 
Salvias were classed with stove plants in the only 
catalogue gardeners had access to when I took up the 
spade ; so that, without trials and experiments, Salvias 
might have been forgotten long since, like many more 
things that would now come in useful to keep up the 
spirit for variety, usefulness, and brilliancy in the 
flower-gardens. Some say, that we shall never be 
driven to make the best of what we have, until all the 
plants in the world are found out, and brought together. 
Then, instead of sending out collectors at enormous 
cost, wo shall lay out our strength on other means, such 
as hybridising, forcing, or starving plants above or 
below their natural ways, to procure “ sports,” and 
trying their capacities for different climates;—and all 
these points must engage the attention of gardeners 
some day or another. 
When we come to speak of strange experiments, the 
most learned are as much at sea as the dullest of us, 
and he of the most extensive practice has the less 
reason to be dogmatical on any point which he may 
think he has mastered. There is a cutting just laid 
down at my elbow enough to make me blush all over, 
for I have often said the parent was barren, yet I urged 
on experiments to see if it was really so. The beautiful 
bedding geranium, with striped flowers, and called 
Sidonia, has been crossed, and the cross has just flow¬ 
ered. There were only two cuttings to spare, and a 
perfect stranger sent one of them to me, through the 
post, the very highest compliment he could pay me. 
The flower I did not see, for this reason, “ it was so 
admired here, and I had at once crossed it with several 
others.” I would sooner lose my right ear than have 
lost the chance of the first grand-child of Sidonia ; but 
bere is the description of the seedling:—“ I send you 
this through the editor, not knowing your address.* 
The Sidonia seedling has produced a head of flowers, 
and is a beauty; colour darker and richer than the 
parent; flowers smaller and rounder, with something of 
a blotch in the upper petals; truss stiff as wire, upright, 
and well above the foliage; petals with a tendency to 
crumple—the only fault; colour exquisite.” 
D. Beaton. 
HARD-WOODED PLANTS. 
TetbathjEca verticji.lata. —This is a plant that 
must ever please an amateur of refined taste, and with 
but limited space at his disposal. The generic name is 
derived from the four cells of its anthers, the specific 
name from the leaves being produced in whorls, around ! 
the very slender and graceful stems. From these • 
whorls the flowers are abundantly produced, supported j 
and suspended by their very slender, thread-like foot ' 
stalks. The whole genus is very interesting from the 
little room they take; their neat, compact habit, the 
freeness with which bloom is produced, and the long 
time the plants continue to yield their flowers, some¬ 
what bell-shaped at first, but which become more open 
and broad as the five petals of the flower expand. 
With the exception of T. ericafolia, T. hirsuta, T. 
nuda, &c., which are respectively, rose, pink, and 
crimson-coloured, the majority are purple-flowered, and 
that is the case with the species I have selected as the 
type of the genus. T. verticillata blooms almost con 
stantly when from one foot to two-and-a-half feet in 
height, and whether the plant consists of a few twigs, 
or is a bush of a foot or eighteen inches in diameter, 
when of a fair size, I can scarcely conceive anything 
more graceful and airy. We should meet it oftener in 
small collections did it stand rougher treatment. A 
nice plant always testifies not only to skilful, but to 
timely and persevering attention. Its state may, there¬ 
fore, be looked upon as a condition-of-gardening indi¬ 
cator. Let me glance, then, at some of the points to 
be observed in its culture. 
1st. Its Propagation: Time. —Spring and summer 
are the best periods, when the points of shoots, and 
better still, some short, stubby side-shoots can be ob¬ 
tained, that will cut a little firm at their base, either 
when slipped off from a larger stem, or cut through at 
the whorl of leaves. 
Preparing Cutting-pots. —This cannot be too carefully 
done, so as to avoid all risk of rotting and damping. A 
small pot should be set inside a larger one, and the 
* Jtlr. Benton’s nodress is Surl>iton, nenr Kingston-on-Thames, Surrey 
