CO 
THE COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 
October 28 . 
that is hardly Imown among gardeners, yet it is an 
' excellent one for a small garden; it is ten feet high, and 
looks just as if it was a cross seedling between an ash 
and a walnut, and the fruit is like a walnut, but is 
winged. Where the Ailanthus glandulosa would be too 
large this wmuld be a good substitute. The name is 
Pterocarpa Gaucasica. 
Most of the species and varieties of Conifers have 
been planted here, but the new ones are not yet of a 
size to attract much attention. Deodars twelve feet 
I high; Oryptomeria japonica ten feet, and as much in 
' diameter at tlie bottom; Pinus insignis about ton feet; 
! line plants of Cunninghamia lanceolata i'rom twelve to 
j fourteen feet; Gupressus macrocarpa eight to ten feet, 
I and, being seedlings, grow up as straight as the Loni- 
; bai'dy poplar; very fine examples of Gupressus torndosa 
from ten to fourteen feet. 
A large plant of Wistaria covers ICO feet of a wall 
ten feet higli, and one of Chinanthus grandijlorus 
eighteen feet of the same wall, and seeds freely every 
j year; and as this is one of the most difficult of our 
Jiardy plants to increase by layers, this seed ought to be 
looked after wherever they ripen, as every garden, how¬ 
ever small, ouglit to have one for supplying its deli¬ 
ciously scented flowers during the winter. 
The moment I entered the garden I noticed a new 
floiver-hed a good way oft’, but of what flowers it was 
made up, D. Beaton could not tell on the instant. It 
was a lucky hit by Mr. Malleson, and one that any 
planter can imitate, and much easier than the shot-silk 
bed, of which I have not seen a single instance this 
season that was not a complete failure. This now bed 
was made with the old rose-scented Geranium (Pelar- 
goniian graveolens), misied ■with the Verbena, Robinson's 
Defiance. It was a large circle, and the Geranium was 
quite thick all over the space; and very likely few other 
Verbenas could stand so much smothering, for I could 
hardly see a loaf of the Defiance, but the bloom was as 
regular and thick as if there was no Geranium in the 
bed, and well up above the leaves, making the deception 
complete a short way off. Mr. Malleson told me that 
the Beauty Supreme Verbena —a pinkish variety, as 
strong as Hefiance, or nearly so—planted in the same 
way with Mangles' Variegated Geranium, is equally 
effective; but these variegated Geraniums, and all the 
more delicate sorts, were potted and housed before I 
called. It happens very luckily, that every one who is 
fond of plants likes these two Geraniums—the one for 
the scented leaves, and the other as the best of all the 
old variegated Geraniums. Instead, therefore, of planting 
out the ilose-scentod Geraniums, as at present, in all 
sorts of out-of-the-way places, merely to keep it going, 
or about the doors, to be rubbed ami sniffed at on your 
going in or out; a bed may be made of it, or a large 
basket may be legally filled with it on the open lawn ; 
and the scarlet Verbena will look more showy over the 
dark green and jagged leaves of the Rose-scented than 
in the more natural way, without the help of the Gera¬ 
nium. Now, I would advise, at once, a diligent search 
to be made for all the Rose-scented Geraniums that were 
planted out this season, so as to come in for a bed next 
year; wo shall want plants, at any rate, for 20,000 or 
25,000 of it next May, and tlierofore wo cannot afford 
to lose the old plants; besides, it is ten to one if young 
plants struck next spring will answer so well as old 
ones, because the soil at Claremont is so favourable to 
the growth of this tribe, that they come to an enormous 
size by the autumn, and yet this last bed did not appear 
to be a leaf too strong at the very end of September. 
The plants, in another largo bed, of Diadematum rubes- 
ceiis, a very moderate grower, were, on an average, two 
feet high, and some of them double that in diameter. 
I never saw such a sight before. I never could get it 
to grow above a foot at Shrubland; and at Ivew, this 
season, it did not even cover tbe ground at the begin¬ 
ning of October, although it was planted as thick as 
usual. 
I saw another contrivance, a new move, which 
looked remarkably gay—a row of Black-eyed Susans, 
or Tliunbergia alata, seventy-two feet long, from four to 
five feet high, and a yard through at the bottom, right 
out in the ojoen air in front of some hothouses, but they 
were planted about four feet from tbe wall, and were 
staked just like so many Sweet Peas. They all looked 
as healtliy and as full of flowers and seeds as ever any 
Sweet Peas did. There were three kinds of them mixed; 
but tlie white one—the real Black-eyed Susan of our 
impy days—looked the best. The wonder is that they 
escaped the red spider at the beginning of July, for 
naturally they grow much in the shade; and in-doors 
they do better trained up a dark, damp, back wall than 
full in the sun. To try this experiment, get a shilling's 
worth of mixed seeds ; sow them in any light, rich soil, 
quite tliick, about the nniddle of March, or, at least, 
before the mouth is out; place the pots in a brisk 
cucumber bed; and when the seedlings are two inches 
high, top them by nipping off tbe very points; and as 
soon as fresh shoots come out they are fit for potting, 
when they ought to have very rich, light soil, and to bo 
put throe in a pot of three inches over, unless tlie crop 
is scanty, when one plant will be enough for a pot. 
Never allow them to get above six inches high wliile 
they are in beat; that is the grand secret; as, when the 
pots are quite full of roots, and are put into cold frames 
by tlie end of April, they will make a strong push all 
from the bottom, and the foundation is then laid without 
forcing them. By the third week in ilay, they will 
stand the open air all day, and the light to be drawn 
over them in cold nights. As soon as tbe weather is 
mild and settled in -fune, plant tliem out in tbe very 
richest compost you can make with very rotten dung, 
leaf mould, fresh turfy loam, and a kindly aspect, and 
allow them .abundance of water as soon as they take to 
the soil. Any one who can grow celery will find no 
difficulty with these, only they must not be planted in 
trenches; but if a space like a eelery trench was pre¬ 
pared for them, then filled in with good stuff, and the 
balls planted entire on the top, you would have them 
as good as they were at Claremont with half that 
trouble. 
In the centre of the garden were four beds of mixed 
Portulaccas, and each bed would need some hundreds 
ofjilants; they must have been most gorgeous earlier 
in the season, for even now, after a month’s rain, they 
were not amiss, apd there was not a blank in any of the 
beds. Mr. Malleson told mo that in some parts of 
France they grow them by the thousand, and they do 
so well, that one can hardly look at them in tbe middle 
of the day; and, in the same gardens, the Plumbago 
Larpentm is one mass of light blue all through tlie 
autumn, and tbe best mass plant they had from us 
for years. 
A double crop of flowers is got here from that beau¬ 
tiful, dark, purplish-blue/leZjii/iiwiaMi, or Larkspur, called 
Barlowii, by cutting the whole plant down to the ground 
as soon as the flowers begin to fade in June, and, after 
awhile, giving some good soakings of water to the bod. 
The second (doom was in its prime when I called. A 
very large bod in one part of tbe garden is every year 
full of Ilydrangeas in liloom, as regularly as a bed of 
tulips; the plants being treated as biennials struck 
from cuttings, and planted out to nurse tbe first year, 
and in this flower-bed the year following. 
I knew, for many years, that the Amaryllis belladona 
was better managed at Claremont than elsewhere, and 
I made a point of asking about it particularly on this 
occasion, and I found a whole row of it in front of a 
long row of hothouses in full bloom, and every root or 
