THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
lingering flowers are open, but cut every flowering slioot, 
any clay througli the summer, as soon as the prime 
is over, and that treatment enables the plant to 
throw up sucker-like shoots, and continue to flower on 
such shoots till very late in the autumn. That is how 
we do them in the Experimental, and we have a better 
bloom than in any of these great Nurseries, and, as I 
take it, because they do not pay the same strict at¬ 
tention to the half cutting down of the flowering shoots. 
I see them staked in some places, that is, the Hendersonii, 
but that is a bad sign. Formosum, which is certainly 
better than Jlendersonii for the flower garden, seems to 
be more easily managed. 
Lantana.— There was a row of upright plants in 
bloom of Crocea superba down one side of one of the 
long beds, quite in the open ground, and away from 
all shelter, and another of Delicatissima, a lilacy-rosy 
flower, which looked to me as if it was a cross between 
the Sellouii and Crocea breeds; at any rate it is a very 
nice flower garden plant, and the way I would use both 
of them, if I had or could have my own way, would be 
to train them against low walls, the front of a green¬ 
house to wit, or any such place, and 1 would give them 
stuff rich enough to grow Cucumbers or Cauliflowers. 
I was told they had many more kinds of Lantanas 
quite as good, but having not seen them in bloom, I say 
nothing about them. 1 recollect that Mr. Low told mo 
last February that I ought to see their Lantanas in 
bloom out-of-doors, as they were such nice flower-garden 
plants, and as very few people knew anything about 
them. 
Dwarf blue Lobelias. — Ramosoides and Speciosa 
are the best two for edging beds with ; and the true old 
Gracilis, from seeds or cuttings, is the best to edge 
vases with, which are planted with Scarlet Geraniums. 
It is wrong to write racemosoides, as some people do. 
The meaning of ramosus is as different from that of 
racemosus as day is from night Ramosus not only 
means branchy, but very branchy: the osus at the end 
of Latin words ought to mean an excess of the thing 
signified, llaceviosus means that the plant flowers on 
very many spikes or racemes; and lastly, the true Ramo- 
soides, from the best London authority, does not pro¬ 
duce a single seed in the Experimental Garden, and 
even if it did, the seedlings from a chance variety like 
this could not be dependod on for coming so true as 
to make a uniform dark blue band round a bed. That 
question may, therefore, be considered as set at rest, and 
no one ought honestly to advertise seed of the true 
Ramosoides. The old Compactum album Lobelia in the 
rich ground of this Nursery was nearly as strong as the 
Ramosoides, and when it is so, it makes a most lively 
edging to a pink, purple, or scarlet bed. A little bed of 
Etoile de Vase, Ivy-leaf Geranium, edged with the white 
Compactum Lobelia, would be a real gem, while a match 
bed of the variegated Lateripes, edged with the blue 
Lobelia speciosa, not Ramosoides, would be another cast 
of gems. These two little Geraniums and Lobelias may 
be trusted in the very richest compost. 
Fuchsias for beds must be selected with the greatest 
care, whether they be grown as bush plants or as 
standards. The great object is to get Fuchsias to show 
themselves in the bed, and when we can thus see them, 
that they are of the best form and colour for a bed. 
Here was the largest collection of Fuchsias I ever saw. 
Many of them were planted out, and most of them were 
as good as being planted out, for they were trained into 
large, bold, specimen plants, and I spent a good deal of 
time studying them, for, to tell the truth, the numbers 
are, like those of the Scarlet Geraniums, quite over¬ 
whelming, and, like the Phloxes, I would hew them 
down, that is, the whole race of summer Fuchsias, to 
twelve kinds, eight red ones and four white ones; and 
out of the eight red ones I would take my best three for 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. —August 19, 1850. 501 
a bed, that is to say, Prince of Wales, for the centre of 
a circle; Favourite, or Banks's Favourite, for the next; 
and Charlemagne, as the very best of all the Fuchsias that 
the world has yet seen ; but understand me, I have no 
florist's eye. I can only see for ladies and flower-gardens ; 
but in this capacity, 1 repeat it, that Charlemagne is the 
very best of all the Fuchsias. Now, just let me tell 
you how it looks. The inside part, called the corolla, is 
as regular a cup of its size as ever was used at tea or 
breakfast, and you might think it was cut out of a 
violet purple piece of ivory, and this cup is nearly ns 
large and not unlike a Linum grandiflorum flower 
only three-parts open; the outside, which they call 
sepals, are of a brilliant scarlet, and turn back as much 
as the Turmap Lily; this they call reflexed : the plant 
is not over-strong, as far as I could judge. After these, 
and for pot culture, Venus de Medici, a blush-pink out¬ 
side, and the cup as in Charlemagne; Emperor Napoleon. 
scarlet and purple; and Donna Joaquina, ditto, are the 
best according to my fancy. The last two may suit for 
bedders, but 1 would not plant many of them till I saw, 
with my own eyes, how they would “show off." The 
Duchess of Lancaster is still my own favourite white 
Fuchsia; but I have not yet made up my mind which 
is the best white out-of-doors, or if 1 would bed any 
of the white kinds. 
Bedding Gerauiums of the Oak leaf and Diadema- 
tum kinds—every one that I ever mentioned in The 
Cottage Gardener except the old Diadematum itself 
—1 fouucl here in profusion, and some that 1 had 
not seen before. One called Momus, a cross be¬ 
tween a Diadematum kind and some Qucrcifulium from 
the Continent, is dwarf, and seemed to me a very 
promising bedder; Ignescens superba is a capital style 
for a bedder; Glaucuut grandiflorum the same. This 
and the Duchess of Sutherland are the only two really 
good while or whitish bedders we have. 1 sent a better 
white than either of them, an aunt of Bridal Bing, to 
Kew, some years since, by the name of Annette, but they 
lost it. I also sent them forty-five other bedders and 
borderers at the same time upon their own application. 
At the closing of the Experimental for the season, I 
shall tell liow many kinds I had from Kew and from 
the Horticultural Society, to whom I sent four times as 
many as I sent to Kew when they began experiments on 
flower-beds. Picturatum is one of the prettiest bedding 
Geraniums they have here, but I should fear it to bo 
too strong for most places; a full truss of it would make 
the best centre for a nosegay of all the tribe. Pretty 
Polly is ouly a mixed border-plant, but to cut for 
bouquets it is next to Picturatum ; but I find, from sad 
experience, that Pretty Polly was never in stays, nor 
taught the use of “ common things.” She seems to me, 
for all the world, to have been a spoiled child in school, 
for she will not submit to training for this or that, and 
lately she has taken to wear her grandmother’s caps, 
under which no one can recognise the Pretty Polly; she 
is, verily, a sporting child of nature, on which no 
reliance can be placed. Nutans is a very pretty dwarf 
bedder of the first water, a match for Quercifolium coc- 
cineum, and a better plant and flower. Facelle de Loire 
is nothing more than the smaller-flowered white Ivy- 
leaf, and whoever sent it to this country by this new 
name ought to be punished severely, and if I get hold of 
his name, every bone in his body will be “ pressed ” into 
these pages. Isadonianum, a strong relative to Spinii, is 
the great-grandmother of the new French Pelargoniums, 
as I was told in 1849 ; but our florists play havoc with 
these names. I grew them both many years back, and 
the right names are Isidoreanum, after Isidore, Bishop 
of Seville; and Spleenii, after a Mr. Spleen. Lindleyana, 
much after King Rufus, but a better grower. Model, a 
bold reddish bedder of the Unique breed. Unique 
de Beroldi looks like our old purple Unique, aud is 
