04 
May 11. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
the holder; some may prefer to grow both roots and 
other crops for marketing purposes. 
I am not assured that I have quite exhausted the 
subject with which I set out, but, perhaps, 1 may have 
exhausted the patience of our readers; be that as it 
may, I have reserved a margin for afterthought, or for 
anything omitted necessary to the subject. 
Robert Errinoton. 
PLANTING BEDS AND BORDERS. 
j Now that we are just ready to plant out the “ bedding 
plants,” let us say a few words about the way we “ used 
i to do it.” What used to be, and what we used to do, 
are two of the strongest excuses which prejudice, or 
laziness, or want of forethought, can lay hold on, when 
found out to be in the wrong box. But in England, at 
least, we gardeners were all in the wrong box this spring, 
and we may be so again, if we do not take more heed to 
the times, and keep our weather eye more open. 
April began, with us, this year, about the end of the 
first week in January, and lasted six weeks; after that, 
as in other years, May came on all through the month 
of March, and lasted to the middle of April, when June 
arrived, as a regular June ought to do, hot and broiling. 
By that time the Vines on the open walls were in full 
leaf, and some of the top shoots were a foot long, but 
the weather wheel was suddenly reversed, and the 
second week in June was turned back into the “ borrow¬ 
ing days” of March, and our Vine-shoots were blackened 
and destroyed in one night, after all our talk and con¬ 
trivances for covering half-hardy things. The like may 
happen again, ere long; and if so, he who first plants 
his beds may not be the first to have them first in 
blbom, and worth looking at. 
On the 6th of May, 1881, I slept at the White Hart, 
in Bath, and next day all the Oaks, Walnuts, and some 
other trees looked as black as “ Topsey,” from the frost 
of the previous night, in that warm part of the country. 
Ten days after that, I called at the Deepdene, near 
Dorking, in Surrey, and there I found a bed of Helio¬ 
tropes, a bed of the old Scarlet variegated Geraniums, 
and eight or nine other beds of bedding plants , were 
destroyed by that frost. The bedding system was then 
in its infancy, and they might be excused for planting 
out too soon, but now we have no excuse on that score, 
save that some of us, perhaps, used to do it at such and 
such times. 
My own day for beginning the work used to be the 
10th of May, unless it happened to be Sunday, and all 
that was allowed, by the laws of propagation, to he 
planted on that day, were the different kinds of shrubby 
I Galeeolaiias, and of them only the old plants which 
I were housed from year to year, on purpose for filling up 
the centre of their beds; the value of a couple of rows 
all round the outside of the Calceolaria beds w r ere left un¬ 
planted for a week later, and then young plants from 
last autumn cuttings were put in to bring down the 
bloom to the grass or gravel. A bed that is more thau 
four feet across the narrowest part, and is above seven 
or eight feet long, should never be planted with pot- j 
plants, all of the same size, except, perhaps, Verbenas j 
and Petunias, because, if they are of one size, one of 
two things must happen, the plants, or rather the whole 
surface of the plants, must be low, and much lower than 
they need be, or if they are tall, and all of a size, you 
may have the sides close leaved down to the grass, but 
you cannot have flowers so low as that. Some think it 
cleverly done if the earth in the beds is all covered by 
the leaves, but unless there are flowers in all the parts, 
making the bed equally rich throughout, and all round, 
it is not up to the present high standard of furnishing. 
Petunias, Verbenas, and all trailing plants, on the 
other band, may be of one size all over a bed at planting 
time, for in their growth or progress they fill up the 
open spaces, and flower down to the edges of the beds. 
Geranium beds are not so difficult to manage as Cal¬ 
ceolaria beds, because old Geraniums, for the centre, 
are more busby, generally not so tall as old Calceolarias, 
and always less leggy; still we keep the lowest plants 
of them also for filling the outside. Now, practically 
speaking, there is very little gained, and a great deal is 
risked, by planting very young Geraniums, or very 
young Calceolarias, the same day as the old plants. As 
long as the planting of a garden is in progress, there is 
; little room for criticising this or that bed for not being 
quite full at once. You have only to take possession of 
your beds first with the old plants, to show the law is 
in your own hands, and it only amounts to a matter of 
convenience whether you fill them at once or not. Old 
practitioners take advantage of these clauses to get rid 
of their hardiest and oldest plauts as soon as it is safe 
to trust them out, so as to get pots and pot room for the 
younger stock, which they do not think would be safe 
yet in the open beds. On the contrary, young be¬ 
ginners are more anxious to be in the fashion thau to 
be on the safe side of the question. They bear and 
read of the great ones having began their planting-out, 
but bear what they may, I am quite sure they seldom 
read about the whole story as it is in actual practice ; 
that practice is what I have just stated, in nine places 
out of ten, of our first-class gardens; hence, it follows, 
that to plant many of your beds ofl’ band at once, so as 
to be in the fashion, as you take it to be, you are just 
flying in the face of the best fashion in the world; 
namely, a fashion forced upon us by necessity, and for 
the safety of our plants. 
The distances at which the different bedding plants 
ought to be apart is often asked by new beginners, but 
that question can never be answered properly, so much 
depends on the weather the richness of the beds, the 
situation and the size of the plants. As in sowing seeds, 
it is best to be on the safe side by sowing or planting 
as thick as one can afford to do; we can always thin out. 
The best answer that I can give must be gathered from 
the following directions :—Tom Thumbs, and all other 
Scarlet Geraniums of stronger growth, should not be 
more than nine inches apart, leaf from leaf, not plant 
from plant, and all Scarlets of less growth, from four to 
six inches between the outside leaves of one to the 
nearest leaf of the next plant; Baron Hugel would 
be wide apart at six inches; Grossulariafolia, Golden 
Chain, and Lady Caroline, would be far enough apart at 
four inches ; Lady Plymouth (the variegated Oak-leaf or 
Grareolens) and Bandy, the same; Biadematum and 
Quercifolium, six inches apart; Lady Mary Fox, Splenii, 
Gouge et Koir, and all the' varieties of Jehu, including 
the best of them, Sir William Middleton, might be nine 
inches, leaf from leaf; Touchstone the same. All these 
are among the very best bedders. 
In Verbenas, we might plant such as P obi ti son's Bejiunce, 
Emma, and Beauty Supreme, so that the extreme point of 
one plaut did not come within a foot of the nearest part 
of the one next to it, while Miller's Favourite, and most 
of the Melindris breed, would be too wide at seven or 
eight inches. All the Verbenas ought to be tied down 
to the surface, so to speak, as soon as they are planted ; 
doubling small strips of matting round their shoots, 
and fastening the ends of the matting in the earth, is 
still the simplest, cheapest, and safest way; a handful 
of such matting, four inches long, and divided as much 
as one can, will go a very long way indeed in tying 
down all sorts of plants. 
Petunias, of all sorts, ought by all means to be so 
tied the moment they are in the ground, as no plant is 
more liable to get knocked over by the least puff of 
wind than a Petunia. Shrubland White is the very best 
I 
