August 15. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
375 
with my owu pots and boxes, and I look upon the 
choaking up of the surface, now and then, rather as an 
advantage, because, without it, ten to one if my boxes, 
at least, would be stirred on the surface so often as is 
good for the health of the plants. My next-door 
neighbours, right and left, are alive to this movo, so 
much so, that they are called the “ pinks” of the new 
town—Surbiton is often called Now Kingston. 
VERBENAS. 
As far as I have seen round London, Verbenas were 
worse last June than they have ever been so late in the 
season. I have no doubt that a vast quantity were 
killed, or much injured, by being out of pits and frames 
before the late frost in April, and that very late propa¬ 
gated ones, and half-dead ones, had to be planted out in 
a hurry. Where there is a propagating arrangement to 
work off Verbena cuttings before the middle of March, j 
I would prefer them before autumn-struck cuttings; j 
but when one cannot have a bed ready for cuttings , 
before the middle of March, that would be too late for i 
Verbena cuttings, if the beds were to be filled and in 
I bloom as early as possible; in that case, autumn- 
I cuttings would be better than late spring ones. From 
this time, therefore, to the middle of September, is the 
best time to get a stock up. In short, after the middle \ 
of August cuttings of all bedding plants cannot be got 
ready too soon; and, as soon as they are rooted, they 
should be exposed to the open-air as long as possible, 
but certainly not to rain : therefore, a cold-pit with the j 
lights off is the very best place to harden the young 
stock, if glass is at hand to push over them during ( 
rain. The more exposure we can give to autumn-struck 
cuttings in October, and later, if the frost holds off, the 
easier they will keep in winter, and the better plants they 
make in the spring. 
j There are few plants worse to pot from the beds and 
borders in the autumn than Verbenas; and to those 
who need instruction on such points, I would never 
advise the attempt at all; the very best way, and by far 
the easiest, is to work off young shoots after the manner 
of Strawberry runners for forcing; that is, to fill a lot 
of small pots, (00’s), with rich soil, to plunge them round 
and among the plants, and to put a joint of a healthy 
strong shoot over the centre of each pot, then to hold it 
there “ by the ear ” till it roots; one might get a few 
dozens, or a few hundreds, or thousands, that way fully 
established in less than a month, and every one of the 
plauts to be above a foot high, if that was an object; 
but let us have the whole process in detail. 
Take a peck, or a bushel, or a barrow load of some good 
rich soil, and so many empty small pots, to the Verbena 
bed, or wherever the old plants are; take, also, a strong J 
dibber, such as they plant Cabbages, with, and you are j 
ready for the short-hand process of manufacturing rooted 
Verbenas by the dozen, and so on. Now, turn up the 
first creeping shoot of the particular Verbena, and at 
the third or fourth joint from the point of it you will 
find roots coming out; if they are an inch or so long, all 
the better; make a hole with the sharp-pointed dibber 
just under the rooted joint; when the dibber is in, 
move it right and left, so as to make the mouth of the 
hole large enough to hold the 00-sized pot; let the 
top of the pot be a trifle lower than the surface of the 
bed; there will be a cavity below the bottom of the 
pot, as the pot need not go down so far as the dibber 
went; this hole below the pot is the grand secret of 
success, for it makes the drainage so perfect that the 
I rooted joint will take to the pot at once, and grow away 
| as if nothing had happened. The way to fix the joint 
exactly over the centre of the pot is by turning down 
1 one or both of the leaves at that joint into the mould in 
1 the pot, and pressing them so as to keep the joint quite 
| firm in its place, where it will soon make all right by 
fixing itself by its own roots, just as a Strawberry runner 
would; this fixing by a leaf, or leaves, gardeners call 
“fixing, or holding by the ear, or ears.” After this, the 
shoot may grow on as long as time will allow it, or it 
may be stopped two joints before the pot to make it a 
bushy plant, and as Verbenas stand a good deal of frost, 
the end of October will be time enough to separate these 
runners, if it were a convenience to leave them out so 
long. In the interval, very long plants, or very bushy 
ones, could be had for scarcely no trouble at all; and 
this reminds me of a very good plan they have in some 
parts of Scotland, which is to have specimen Verbenas 
in pots from year to year, for training out against walls 
during the summer. A lady told me, a few years since, 
that Mr. McDonald, at Drummond Castle, in Perth¬ 
shire, does wonders in this way; and 1 have heard of 
Defiance, in another place, being nine feet high aud four 
feet wide, against a wall, aud in full bloom, and 1 quite 
believe it; and a 12-inch pot, plunged so as to let the 
roots into the top soil, but not out at the bottom hole, 
would keep any Verbena as big as that Defiance for 
many years. D. Beaton. 
A FEW WORDS ON STANDARDS. 
In few sciences more than that of gardening does the 
“ meeting of extremes" produce such agreeable results. 
Vegetable phenomena are often chiefly striking in pro¬ 
portion to the diversity of outline exhibited. The 
majestic Oak in the landscape has its grandeur en¬ 
hanced by the scraggy, lumpy-heady Thorn, that 
breaks in upon the level uuiformity of the foreground. 
The elements of physical gracefulness are more endure- 
ingly present amid the endless variety of form than in 
the delicately-beautiful but evanescent attractions of 
colouring. Buds and branclilets have a charm when 
the peculiar green of the leaf and the splendour of the 
flower are sought for in vain. Given, a bank of flowers, 
where every bloom is arranged with compass-like pre¬ 
cision in its allotted place; after the first tlirillings of 
delight were over, would you not gradually begin to 
wish that a few brauches had 6trayed upwards and 
outwards, beyond the regular circular outline, that you 
might feel relieved from gazing on such a monotonous 
outline of the beautiful? Imagine a score of such 
dwarf, symmetrical, compact Pelargoniums, as do such j 
honour to a Turner and a Gaines, and that you are to 
examine them, as your sole floral treasures—not for | 
part of an hour, but for weeks — would there be no 
danger of experiencing anything of the irksome, when 
the charms of novelty and variety were alike exhausted, 
and shift and change as you would, there was nothing 
to bi'eak the uuiformity of the sky outline? 
Suppose, in such circumstauces, that some four or 
six standards were placed at your disposal, with heads 
neither so high nor so slender as to resemble a house¬ 
maid’s spider-hunter, nor yet so low and bushy as to 
interfere with the beauty’ of plants placed beneath 
them ; but just of a height, aud size aud colour, as would 
vary the sky-outline of the stage or parterre, afford 
interest by contrast, and secure reposing points for the 
eye to rest upon, aud thus command numberless com¬ 
binations of the lovely. Would you set these plants 
down separately and uuattached, as they seldom should 
be, and unattachable, as some contend they are—with 
anything boasting cultural skill—and imagine you had 
rewarded them fully for their worth, when, by a witty 
conventionalism, you had raised a horse-laugh at the 
poor thing’s expense? 
It has been been said, that nothing is more fickle 
than public opinion; and yet, granting the truth of the 
statement, it will often be found, that time being allowed, 
that opinion will end in- giving its homage to the right 
