April 15. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
45 
this is the best of our hybrid perpetual Geraniums. 
Indeed, no one with a greenhouse ought to miss this 
beautiful flower and constant bloomer. Rouge et Noir, 
on the other hand, is too strong, and requires to be 
pegged down in poor, shallow soil to get it worth one’s 
pains; yet, being of a better habit than either Lady 
Mary Fox, or Touchstone, I would keep it in my list of 
expectant breeders, if not in a bed by itself. Spleenii is 
so tall that old plants of it need not be kept; as many 
as you want should be struck off in the autumn, not in 
the spring, and let the frost take the old plants. 
In a bed of the different kinds of Diadematum, I would 
make the middle with Sqdeenii, with Diadematum ru- 
bescens round it; then Diadematum regium, and on the 
outside the old Diadematum itself. If the sizes of 
the plants were well balanced this would make a very ^ 
rich flower-bed. Or the half-double one, called Wilmore’s 
Surprise, which is a sport from Rubescens, might alternate 
with its parent in the back row next to Spleenii ; but if 
you make a circle, or row, of Regium, it must not be 
mixed with any other kind. If all the kinds of Querci- 
folium are put in one bed, the original, which was 
raised by Mr. Bell, of Norwich, ought to be in the 
middle, Superbum next, and Coccineum round the outside ; 
but a better centre would be, “ plant for plant,” of Querci- 
foJium and Moore's Victory. There never were two 
bedders more of one habit, and the Victory would add 
brilliancy to the more profuse bloomer. Lady Mary 
Fox will not mix well with any other Geranium except 
Oliver Twist, which is too rambling for a bed, but worth 
a place among breeders “ which are to be ” 
FANCY GERANIUMS. 
Out of all the new Fancy Geraniums, we have not a 
single kind which will make a good bed, save one of my 
own seedings, which I called Sir William Middleton, 
aud that one is not yet in the trade. But just see what 
one of the very best gardeners in England has told me, 
this week, about it,—“ Your Fancy Geranium, Sir W. 
Middleton, is a nice one for a dark, rich, velvety bed. j 
It is very fine for our boxes on the sills of the windows 
of the mansion, and in the corridors; its noble-looking 
flowers (the petals are large and stout in substance), and 
their richness of colour, making them very attractive.” 
This was in answer to a request that he should tell me 
the exact value and use of this kind, as I had only the 
experience of two seasons to guide me as to it merits, - 
and one season the plants were so forced, to get a suffi- | 
cient number of cuttings of it for a small bed, that it 
was late in the season before I could get them out. 
This was in 1850, and in 1851 I was too busy preparing 
to leave Shrubland Park to do full justice to my new 
pet seedling. Now, however, I am satisfied that Sir 
William Middleton will be as celebrated, some day, as 
the Golden Chain. The trade must have it, and do 
with it as they have done with the Golden Chain. 
This was the first letter which I received on the sub¬ 
ject since I gave out the notice about my experimental j 
garden, and [ quote the following to show all, who are 
inclined, how they may best further my project : —“ You 
shall have any kind of bedding Geranium I have, and 
welcome. I may send you some of all I possess, I sup¬ 
pose, even at the risk of your getting among them some 
you have already.”—That is it exactly ; some of all the 
kinds, and as many as you please of all the best kinds. 
“ What a capital idea,” he goes on to say, “ to have a 
trial ground of all the bedding Geraniums. It will lead 
to many being discarded which we grow, from year to 
year, because we do not know any better of their colour; 
and the really good ones will be brought under notice. 
Capital !” 
Countess. —This Geranium is in the trade-lists of 
Loudon; but the plant is not much grown yet; but I 
want it now most particularly. It is the fruit of six 
» 
years’ crossing in the pure white strain, and is the kind 
I wrote about in 1849 or 1850, as a pure white, or 
nearly white, bedder, with leaves no bigger than a 
shilling. In a hot summer it comes French-white ; but 
they bed it at Shrubland Park as a distinct kind, and I 
want it to follow out that peculiar strain, satisfied, as I 
am, that the size of the leaves, and the style of growth, 
are the stumbling blocks to some of the otherwise best 
bedding kinds. Has any one tried the new French 
seedling called James Odier? It has a true and lovely 
bedding flower; but I fear it is not a perpetual flowerer. 
I mention it, however, as a most likely kind for pollen 
to cross for bedders, as I desire no monopoly for my ex¬ 
periments ; the more who try the better. 
Variegated Geraniums. —The oldest of them is the 
Golden Chain, and the old variegated Scarlet, which is 
the true Zonale coccineum of our books, of which there 
is a sport with crimson flowers, which I possess. There 
is also a lilacy variegated kind very like it, but the 
leaves and wood are more soft; and it belongs to another 
old species, called Fothergillii. The Golden Chain is a 
sport from Inquinans, or old Cape Scarlet, which I 
proved myself, and any one may prove over again in 
the second or third generation of seeds from it. If kept 
true to its own pollen, nine-tenths of the seedlings 
cannot be distinguished from the “ Cape Scarlet,” or 
Inquinans, which shows the uncertainty of crossing the 
Golden Chain for improvements, as Inquinans must 
have been the first parent of all our plain-leaved Scarlet 
Geraniums; but the pollen of the Golden Chain often 
throws a dash of variegation into the leaves of seedlings, 
and if such could be caught at the right moment, there 
would be no lack of variegated Geraniums. The 
difficulty is to know the exact time to cut the sport. 
There are two great sports already from the Golden 
Chain, to my own knowledge, perhaps more, that I 
never heard of. “ One is very brilliant in the colour of 
the leaf, aud has a freer growth than the original,” but 
which is which, my experimental garden must decide. 
Dandy. —-This is of the Gooseberry-leaved section, 
aud is one of the dwarfest of the race ; it is barren, and 
likely to remain so, for of all the old Geraniums, Dandy 
has been most petted, so that bad treatment has had no 
hand in keeping it in the back ground. There is no 
way of planting the Golden Chain that it will not be 
improved and “ brought out ” better by Master Dandy. 
There never were two Geraniums which so much reflect 
on one another, if you will allow the expression. In a 
row, two Golden Chains and one Dandy make a better 
show than either of them separate. The same pro¬ 
portion tells well in a small bod; but the best edging of 
Geraniums in the world is, first, one whole row, or 
circle, of young Golden Chains, and four inches behind 
it another row of old plants of Dandy, then six inches 
behind that another row, or circle, of young plants of 
Baron Hugel; the whole band should occupy about 
eleven inches or a foot. I once saw some hundreds, or, 
rather, thousands, of the Golden Chain and Baron Hugel 
used in edgings; the Baron in the first row next the 
grass; aud to this day I cannot account for the extra¬ 
ordinary bad effect they made on the eye. It was in 
experimenting to account, if possible, for this effect, that 
I discovered the value of Dandy on the Golden Chain, 
and between it and Baron Hugel. Let this edging be 
tried over again this season, and if any one with “ an 
eye ” finds fault with them, and can give a reason for 
that fault, we, or most of us, will learn something new 
at last. 
After the Golden Chain, and the scarlet, crimson, and 
lilac variegated, we had no more in this class, save 
the variegated Ivy-leaf, from the middle of the last 
century till that beautiful sport called Mangle's Varie¬ 
gated appeared, little more than twenty years since, 
in the garden of Captain Mangles, at Sunning Hill. 
