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THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.— June24,1850. 
BEDDING-PLANTS. 
If Mr. Robson had heard of a long row of pure white 
flowers on which I prided myself for the last six weeks, 
he would come out of his way to see it. I never saw a 
more bedding-like row than that. It is of Silene pendula 
alba, sown last August, and was four times transplanted, 
not on purpose, or for experiment, but from necessity, 
owing to some improvements I was making; but the 
frequent transplanting has opened my eyes as to how 
this and the red or pink Pendula should be treated. 
Cobbett used to say that people mistook his geese for 
swans, and some knowing people mistook both my 
Silenes for new bedders, as they merely trailed, and the 
flowers looked just as if they had sprung out of the 
earth without stems or leaves ; but a stout countryman, 
who called one day, exclaimed, “What on earth do you 
grow them there Bagged Bobins for, man alive? our 
hedges be full of them.” No, no, master; you never 
saw that kind of flower till this day. I know what you 
mean well enough; but your Bobins will be out of bloom 
by the time you get home. These are not Bagged 
Bobins, they are new Bobins, and will be in bloom, if I 
am spared, when you will be at your harvest home; 
and that is more than ever could be done with such 
Bobins as yours, and more, too, than half the world 
was aware of when peace was proclaimed in Paris. 
“Perhaps you will doctor them,” says he. “Perhaps I 
will,” says I; for what else could I say to a man who 
never heard of such a book as The Cottage Gardener? 
But conversing with a man of no books is just as likely 
to tench as arguing with a professor; at all events, the 
means I took to shut that man’s mouth will he welcome 
news to a large portion of my readers. Silene pcnclula 
and white Pendula may be kept in bloom for ever so 
long after their natural time. I began with the pink 
Pendula in 1841 at Shrubland Park, where sixteen beds 
of Heliotropes, each requiring ten yards of edging, were 
lined with this one plant, which was kept in bloom till 
the frost killed the Heliotropes in the “Fountain 
Garden,” and for the next eight years the edging was 
Silene pendula; but we sowed the seeds always in the 
second week in April, and clipped both sides and the 
top of the edgings, at least, once in three weeks all 
through the summer and autumn. They might be 
about a foot high and nine inches thick, and as full of 
pink blossoms all round as ever was seen. One cause 
why so slender a plant made a stiff edge was, that 
the Heliotrope pushed shoots through it all round, 
and continued to do so the whole time ; and, as soon 
as the ends of these shoots got to the outside of 
the edge, it was instantly “stopped” square with the 
outside face of the hedge or edging, and so formed a 
support for holding the edge upright. At that time we 
did not let everybody know the secret of how these 
edgings were kept upright so much better than others 
in other gardens round there. The shrubberies were 
full of it every season from self-sown seeds, and rows of 
plants were planted round the borders every spring from 
the last summer’s crop. These would flower in May 
and June, as they do now, and when once flowered they 
were done with. But the summer of 1846 was super¬ 
latively hot and dry in Suffolk, and there are some parts 
of that county where it never rains till it pours in other 
parts of the county along the coast. One of those parts 
is Shrubland and thereabouts, and that season of 1846 
no man who was there will ever forget. Things went 
wrong, of course; seedlings most so; and the Silene 
pendula most of all. Sixteen beds of ton yards each, with 
not a hundred plants to edge the whole with, made us 
turn our attention to the shrubberies for the last autumn’s 
6elf-sown plants. We found enough of them, and we 
never had better edgings of them than that year; but 
the work to keep them on their legs was tremendous, 
only “ people did not know it.” Boys were round them, 
morning, noon, and night, watching for every pod of 
seeds, and picked it off as soon as set. 
Now, my “ Bobins,” or white Pendulas, are not for 
edgings, or for a continuous row, although near enough, 
plant from plant, to look so; and the way I menu, in¬ 
deed, the way I am doing with them, is this:—I let them 
all bloom for one month, then I cut back every other 
plant to the bottom of the lowest seed-pod on each shoot, 
and when the flower-buds from the next growth are just 
white enough to mark the plant, I cut down the next 
half of the plants, and by that means I expect, Suffolk- 
like, to have “ White Bobins,” as the man called them, 
all through the season. Even should I fail, I know the 
thing may be done sure enough. 
I have just seen a large bed and some borders filled 
with a third form of Silene pendula, an intermediate 
flower between the white and the pink, a more than 
French white shade. The seeds were bought in London 
for the white variety, therefore the new shade must be 
I extensively grown this season, and I write purposely to 
advise some seeds of it to be saved where the plants are 
not grown in company with the pink variety. We shall 
thus have three rows of it, or the three shades in one 
bed ; and it strikes me that the new shade between the 
pure wdiite and true pink will be as pretty a thing as 
one could plant next spring. They seemed to despise 
the new shade where I bad seen it, and others may do 
so likewise, and root up their plants without saving 
seeds; but here, I think, I shall be able to have seeds 
saved, and if so, I shall have the three in equal pro¬ 
portions in the experimental garden next season, it is 
a more valuable help in the neighbourhood of London, 
where early flower-beds are in demand, than most 
country gardeners are aware of; but they do not manage 
it well up here. The seeds are not sown early enough 
in the autumn, and the plants are put into the beds six 
weeks too soon in the spring, and the consequence is, 
the plants grow too high and too weed-like. You should 
see my rows of it to understand how Cobbett’s geese 
could be mistaken for swans. I would sow my seeds of 
it for next year to-morrow if they were ripe. I would 
remove the seedlings to another bed early next Sep¬ 
tember, and again, when the plants aro housed, in 
October. I would transplant them largely round the 
edges of the beds in February. I would take up every 
one of them the third time, and put them in by the heels 
anywhere out of the way, and I would not transplant 
them in their blooming quarters till the second week in 
April, when I would plant them from six to nine inches 
apart, according to the sizes; and if you will follow my 
rule, which I proved over and over again to be the very 
best way, you shall have such “Bound Bobins” in 
shades next year as you never saw the like of before 
within miles and miles of London, and you would never 
like to be without them again. 
SOWING CROCUSES. 
If the “ Doctor’s Boy” will now look over his new 
Crocuses he will find every “ root” of Sir Walter Scott 
in seed, and the seed-pods are well up above the earth, 
if not split, and the seeds quite ripe. The bees may 
have crossed them with the pollen of the large blue or 
large yellow kinds, or with the delicate pule white 
Queen Victoria, and if so, he will have many new 
varieties. If not, Sir Walter is so very good that he 
cannot have too much of it, and more especially as the 
doctor himself is such a kind man to his neighbours; he 
will be pleased to have some good Crocuses to spare for 
such of them as are fond of flowers. The way to 
manage them is this:—Gather the pods as they are, and 
put them in an empty flower-pot, with a piece of slate or 
glass over, to keep the mice from them. Keep the pot 
in the dry till near the end of September, then out with 
