March 28 .] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
345 
foot or eighteen inches high, according to the rich¬ 
ness of the bed. This species creeps at the roots a like 
couch grass ; and to make a safe bed of it, it ought to 
he transplanted every spring, making use of the 
middle sized roots, and throwing away the older ones, 
and all the weak ones. They will thus start anew 
every season, and should he in fresh soil if possible. 
Like the creeping bell-flowers they will continue six 
weeks or two months longer in flower than if the 
plants are allowed to remain undisturbed, from 
year to year. 
Nierembergia .—There is a little trailing species of 
this, named calycina, which for a little bed is not 
amiss, where a large • variety of plants are prized. 
Sweet alyssum .—This annual is the best edging 
white plant I know, and is the very last to yield to 
the frost, and it comes in as a variety for a bed not 
less than two feet over; it comes from self-sown 
seeds, and will bear to be transplanted until it is 
half-grown. 
D. Beaton. 
(To be continued.) 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Old-fashioned Plants. — A satirist in treating 
upon the ups and downs which some plants have ex¬ 
perienced during the last twenty years, would be 
inclined to say that, in the love of novelty, gardeners 
in many respects are imitators of the civilised and 
refined Athenians, whose great delight it was “either 
to tell or to hear of some new thing.” Grateful as 
we are for novelties, we cannot be unmindful that 
many of these, though by no means ugly, had but 
little of the striking in beauty to recommend them, 
and that, therefore, when at length they were dis¬ 
carded, a kind of vague feeling crept over the mind 
that it would have been as well to have kept a few of 
those old-fashioned favourites, which had been turned 
to the right-about to make way for the new comers. 
A lady was so struck by the effect produced by a 
mass of a very common plant, that she could not 
avoid expressing ardently her desire that it would 
become fashionable; leaving us to infer that, until it 
was ensconced under the protection of that wayward 
arbiter of right and wroug, fashion, she would not 
feel quite at liberty to give the sweet thing a home 
in her parterre. The same feeling carried out, so far 
as mere plants are concerned, has a tendency to 
make the gardens of a neighbourhood fac similes of 
each other, and to lessen that pleasant variety which 
would ever be felt as a delightful change, when 
friendly neighbours visit each other. They who can 
deviate so much from fashion as to grow in full per¬ 
fection some of our old-fasliioned plants, such as bal¬ 
sams, &c., will not only show a spice of independence 
in their tastes and ideas of the beautiful, but may be 
certain to excite an interest among their visiting 
friends; nothing inferior to that which was felt in 
our younger days, when miles were cheerfully tra¬ 
velled to see a stage full of well-grown specimens of 
these splendid plants. 
The Garden Balsam. — Impatiens balsaminea, or 
the Balsaminea hortensis, is a native of the East 
Indies, and most species of the genus are found in 
damp, shady, elevated localities, where the tempera¬ 
ture never rises very high, nor falls very low; from 
50° to 65° being considered a medium. This cir¬ 
cumstance alone furnishes us with a key for its suc¬ 
cessful culture, and demonstrates its fitness for green¬ 
house and window decoration in summer. So hardy, 
indeed, is the balsam, that if sown any time in April 
in a little heat, it may be transferred to the bed or 
border along with other tender and half-hardy an¬ 
nuals in the end of May, provided a sheltered some¬ 
what shady corner, and nice light rich soil has been 
secured for it. The prettiest and shrubbiest balsams 
I ever saw were thus treated, and retained their 
beauty until the frosts of October. It is true they 
did not reach four and five feet in height and wide 
in proportion, like some giants upon a stage, after 
having been duly fostered in frame and pit; but, in 
point of beauty, there was no comparison between 
them and the miserable spindle-legged things we 
frequently see in pots. The greater portions of early- 
grown balsams have too much heat and too little air, 
and in very bright sunshine a slight shading would 
be beneficial. A singular circumstance connected 
with the whole family, is the extreme irritability of 
the seed vessel when touched when the seed is nearly 
ripe. 
Culture. — Seed. —To secure fine double flowers, 
it is advisable to save the seed from the best kinds, 
and keep it carefully for several years before sowing 
it. I am afraid my seed has been kept too long, for 
it seems more inclined to rot than to vegetate. Old 
seed will not produce such rampant plants as younger 
seed, but the colours will be finer and the flowers 
more double. All the beautiful varieties are only 
hybrids from the same original species, and, there¬ 
fore, though varieties may be expected, even when 
the seed is saved with the greatest care, still, if care 
is exercised, a great preponderance of the new seed¬ 
lings will resemble the parent plant. A wide field is 
here opened up to the investigator, for while in some 
families it is possible to propagate the peculiarities 
of a hybridised variety from seed, these peculiarities 
in the varieties of another family can only be secured 
by cuttings. To have fine balsams, it is advisable 
not to sow until the end of March or beginning of 
April. A slight hotbed is the best place, but a win¬ 
dow-sill, with a pane of glass placed over the pot, will 
answer admirably; and, if the weather was very cold 
in April and May, the pot might be set upon the 
chimney-piece at night, before the plants were 
well up. 
Potting. —As soon as the plants are three inches 
in height, they should be pricked out separately into 
three-inch pots; set again in the bed; kept close until 
they are beginning to grow freely; shifted succes¬ 
sively into five, eight, and twelve-inch pots; keep 
rather close after each shifting, but at other times 
give them ah’ back and front, night and day, regulat¬ 
ing quantity by the weather, so that you maintain a 
bottom temperature from 65° to 75°, and a top tem¬ 
perature ranging from 45° and 50° at night, to 65° 
and 70° during the day; allowing the pots to stand 
free on the surface for some time before transferring 
them to the stage. Nice little plants may be obtained 
for the window at a tithe of the trouble, but they 
would be pigmies when contrasted with the giants 
the others ought to be. 
Soil.— -For the first potting, two parts loam, two 
parts leaf-mould, and one of sand. Every succes¬ 
sive shifting the compost should be richer, and stiffer 
in its consistence; dispensing, at length, almost en¬ 
tirely with the sand, and using, instead of leaf-mould, 
well-rotted mushroom dung; or, what is better, cow- 
dung, at least two years’ old, well aerated, not for¬ 
getting pieces of it thoroughly dried, to assist in 
keeping the soil open. The compost for the first pot¬ 
ting will do for window culture. 
