October 9. 
COUNTEY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
19 
all about; Cantua dependens —I should not wonder if 
this is the very place for it, and if so, it will be the 
handsomest thing here in ten years. It is now the 
healthiest specimen of it in the country. Passijlora 
palmata, of the racemose breed; Jasmimm grandijiurum, 
a fine old kind, and a slight protection is all it needs ; 
Geranium Cottage Maid, apparently a cross from Com- 
2 )actum, and would make a good pot plant. 
From this point, a few duplicates bring us to the top 
corner; the following are across the top, interspersed 
with such duplicates as have been already mentioned ;— 
Solanum jasminoides ; three plants of it would cover the 
whole colonnade in five years. Last winter killed my 
three years old plant of it, root and branch, but there 
was no sort of covering over it—a sacrifice to prove a 
point; Podoscarpus pungens, a Yew-like plant, doing 
well; Chimonantlius grandijiorus —the delicious fragrance 
of the flowers, so near to the refreshment tables, will be 
a relief in winter from the smell of smoking hot joints ; 
A cacia dolabriformis, a fast grower, like most of its kind¬ 
red ; Acmena pendula, a fine-looking, Eugenia-like 
plant, new to me; Geranium Perpetual Nosegay; two 
more deeper shades would make this a real purple nose¬ 
gay. I have seedlings of this strain of a deeper purple 
than this yet, still not very good purple. There was a 
very good purplish-red Nosegay raised six or seven years 
back, which I had from the lady after whom it is named, 
before I left Shrubland Park, but I have not seen it 
since. I want it now, as well as Bignonia veuusta, 
growing up as freely as & jasminoides. It was just com¬ 
ing into blooming age, and flowered twice, at the coldest 
end of the conservatory at Shrubland Park, when I 
threw my apron over the wall; but all the hot-headed 
gardeners say it ought to have bottom-heat, and do as 
they say. I cut a wreath of it for a ball-room, in 1852, 
which was fifteen feet long, with twenty-six clusters of 
bloom. One of the clusters had seventy-four blooms, 
and the smallest had sixteen blooms; but now it is 
grown differently, and for winter flowers for Covent 
Garden; but they are very seldom seen in good colour. 
There is another lesson to be learnt in the colonnade ; 
but who will learn it? or, rather, who will not forget it 
before he or she is half way home from the Crystal 
Palace? I mean the handling of the border where all 
those plants have been planted out. It is as bare, from 
end to end, as this very page ; not a blade or leaf is al¬ 
lowed to suck or shade it. Many good gardeners, whom 
I could name, have set their faces against conservatory 
walls, because the owners will not allow any good to 
come of them. You may keep a clear space in front of 
the Peach-trees, and you are not required to plant Pota¬ 
toes on the Vine borders; but if you plant a conserva¬ 
tory wall, you must cover every inch of the border in 
front of it with something sweet or gay, or something 
very ridiculous, and there is an end of it; or, rather, 
there is the beginning of trouble that seldoms ends in a 
lifetime. 
From the_“ Climber colonnade ” I entered the garden. 
Here is a row of nine trees of the Deodar Cedar, 
parallel with the colonnade, and round each tree are 
two or three circles of flowers; but far enough from the 
body of each tree not to hurt the roots. Thus, they 
are enabled to give a large, dug space of ground to each 
tree, and to Araucarias, in the grand terrace, without 
such space either looking raw and disagreeable, or the 
earth in them impoverished for the roots of the trees. 
Now, this is an economical point, and a gay one, which 
comes home to all of us who plant valuable trees on 
the dressed grass of the garden. There is no doubt as 
to the great benefit a tree, or shrub, derives from the 
space occupied by the roots, at first planting, being left 
free from grass, to be dug or stirred occasionally, and to 
be watered over, often and often, for the first few years; 
but as great objections prevail against large patches of raw 
earth being seen and under one’s eyes, you must either 
turf up near to the tree, and make annual rings of better 
soil for the roots as they extend, or do as they have done 
here, leave open a large circle of eight, teii, or twelve 
feet across, and hide the raw earth with a few rings of 
flowers, or dwarf evergreens, next to the grass, after the 
fashion of ring-beds round statuary. No way is better, 
or more economical, than this. Three rows of China 
Asters hide the inner circle of dug earth round three of 
these Deodars most effectually, three of them are en¬ 
circled by scarlet Verbenas, and the other three by 
purple Petunias, “turn about” thus;—Asters round 
the first tree. Verbenas round the second. Petunias round 
the third; then Asters again, and so on. All the nine 
trees were thus encircled, last year, with one kind of 
yellow Calceolaria, which appeared to me to be rather 
too much of a good thing for that part of the grounds, 
and for the purposes intended. I like the present arrange¬ 
ment better. 'The Asters were very good, and some of 
them, but not all, were in one distinct colour in each 
ring. But there is some little defect in the relative 
heights of the plants in the different rings. The inner 
ring, next to the tree, ought to be of tbe tallest kinds, 
the middle row to be a little shorter, and the outside the 
shortest of all; but it is next to impossible to make the 
best of Asters, without first noting down the heights in 
a given soil. D. Beaton. 
(To he continued.) 
GLEANINGS FEOM BEEKHAMPSTEAD 
NUESEEIES. 
I SPENT a part of the 20th of September in these 
Nurseries. The morning was so cold as to destroy the 
beauties of the Dahlias, though those on higher grounds 
escaped comparatively uninjured. 'The railway station 
is within a few minutes’ walk of the Home Nurseries. 
A time-table of the London and North-Western should 
be consulted by intending visitors, as every train does 
not stop. The readers of this work are already indebted 
to Mr. Lane for his mode of constructing fixed glass 
roofs, with strong sash bars, and no rafters, properly 
speaking. As economy and suitability combined are 
great matters among many of our readers, I have often 
thought that the practices and appliances of our com¬ 
mercial brethren would often be of great use, where 
utility, rather than ornament, were the )u-imary consi¬ 
derations. 'The chief objection to this consists in the 
fact, that many people are narrow-minded enough to 
imagine that an undue prominence would thus be given 
to one tradesman over another; when, if he wished that 
prominence, he ought to seek it in the usual advertising 
columns’; thus at once coming to the conclusion, that a 
notice is quite as good as, if not better than, a high- 
sounding advertisement. In endeavouring to avoid 
this, I shall chiefly notice some of those matters of prac¬ 
tice which I deem worthy of general consideration. 
Since I visited these nurseries, several years ago, quite 
a forest of pits and of houses have been erected, chiefly 
for Azaleas and other hard-wooded plants equally hardy, 
a very small division, comparatively, being set apart for 
Stove Plants and Orchids. The nursery now, as then, 
contains an immense quantity of Eoses, though this has 
been a bad season for autumn-bloomiug ones; but large 
quarters are now filled with beautiful Deodars, and other 
genera belonging to the Pinus and Cupressus groups. 
Larger quarters still are filled with fine, liealthy fruit- ’ 
trees, trained and untrained, while a prominence is i 
given to great numbers of young trees in pots,—of ! 
Gooseberries, Plums, Cherries, Apricots, Peaches, A pples, I 
and Peavs, for fruiting in pots, either by forcing or grow- j 
ing in cool Orchard houses—a mode which, 1 have no I 
