104 
THE COTTAGE GARDENEE. 
November ]3. 
west of England ; and which appears to ho produced 
by the Cynips liynicola of Harteg, and not by the C. 
quercusyietioli, as had been supposed. 
HAMPTON COURT GARDEN. 
{CoitUnued from fage 84.) 
Although little or no efiect can be produced with any 
amount of flowers in such a place as Hampton Court, ' 
where the flower-beds and borders arc already smothered | 
with useless, and very ugly old trees, the gardening part 
of the business there is much better done than in any of 
our public gardens, not excepting the Crystal Palace; 
the beds are nearly as numerous as they are at the 
Crystal Palace; and, for every kind of plant which is 
used in the beds at Sydenham, there are four kinds 
used at Hampton Court; and the flower-gardening at 
Kew is as that of a cottage-gai'den, compared with the 
flower-gardening at Hampton Court. 
The best bed of the Unique Oeranium I have seen, 
and with which I closed last week, is eighteen feet one 
way, and fifteen or sixteen feet the other; but, like all the 
flower-beds here, it looks square, and there is not an inch 
from the gquare in all the corners of all the beds there. 
There was not a leaf in that bed larger tlian the rest, and 
the rest were of medium size, such as you would see on 
a good, liealthy pot specimen ; and, what is as much to 
the purpose, there was not a leaf too many in the bed. 
Now, did you ever see a bed of Unique in that condition 
at the end of September ? I never did. Well, that large 
bed was just as full of bloom as you would like to see a 
specimen-plant in a pot, and no more. The whole 
surface of the bed was as the four beds of Gazania 
unijlora at Kew, which I mentioned the other day. 
This Gazania, and that Unique, are two of the most 
difficult plants ever used for a flower-bed, to keep in that 
style of bloom and growth which we call the perfection 
of a flower-bed; and the secret about the Unique is 
this;—The plants are more than a year old, and they 
are all in pots, the pots being plunged out of sight, 
and the shoots are trained along the surface as soon 
as they are through the plunging. The size of the pot 
is the (i-inch over the top, or No. 32 ; so many of them 
being sold in the “ caste.” Here, then, is a confirma¬ 
tion of the good effects of planting some kinds of plants 
in their pots; and there are some gardens wliere most 
of the Geranium tribes would do better that way than 
in the free soil. Wherever Geraniums, or other bedding 
plants, go too much to leaf, and give but few flowers in 
the autumn, the plants ought certainly to be kept in 
the pots; and, for the general run of plants. No. 32-pots 
seem to be the best size for plunging in beds. 
A bed of the Zelimla Dahlia, eleven yards one w'ay, 
and six yards the other, was as rich as any bed could 
be; nothing but flowers seemed to occupy the whole 
space, and there was not a flower in the bed three 
inches higher than the rest; tlie average height being 
twenty inches. There never was a bed of Dahlias more 
rich in dark purple than this. The florists, with all 
their shapes and circularities, cannot come up to this 
way of showing Dahlias. To see tlieir boxes of cut- 
flowers at shows, seems like children at play, as com¬ 
pared to a good bed of Dahlias in a flower-garden. But 
there is a bright scarlet Zelinda Dahlia’ that will bed 
just as well as this^jaryj/e Zelinda; it is a little l)igher 
than the purple, the flowers are not half the size, but 
they are on longer footstalks, and in immense numbers 
in a bed. The style of the growth and the colour being 
thus so very unlike in the plants, they make a good 
contrast, let them, bo ever so fur apart, in a largo flower- 
garden. 
A bed of standard liases, edged with Ageralum Mexi- 
canum, eleven yards by six yards ; the next bed, five by j 
six yards, was filled with Lucia liosea Geranium, or one j 
of that breed ; another, six by six yards, of standard ; 
Roses, and covered all over with Mignonette, shows that j 
two regular crops are taken off one bed in more than i 
one place—a very good practice, to which Mr. Eish 
alluded some time since;—another bed, five by six yards, 
was filled with Cloves and Picotees, leaving it bare in 
autumn; another bed, seven by six yards, was tilled ! 
with Prince's Feathers and yellow ISIarigolds —not a 
good combination; the next bed, eleven by six yards, 
was of standard Perpetual Roses, edged with China j 
I Asters (the Asters were very numerous, and particularly | 
I good, all over the garden); the next bed, eight by six j 
yards, was filled with Love lies Bleeding, and edged with [ 
Calceolaria amplexicaulis ; then, five by six yards of the i 
White Lvy-leaf Geranium, and one row of scarlet Verhenu 
all round ; the next bed, five by six yards, was filled 
with dwarf Malmaison Roses on their own roots. This 
bed was brimful of large, white, or nearly white, flowers, j 
The next bed, five by six yards, was filled with Scarlet 
Geraniums, and edged with Flower of the Day, very rich 
and gay ; then, a bed, six by six yards, of qdnJc Verbenas, 
edged with white ones. One of the best Verbena beds 
I have seen this season was of three distinct kinds— 
Beauty Suj)reme in the centre, Emma round it, and a 
white one round the whole; but the three were allowed 
to run into each other, and the efl'ect was very good 
indeed. This was in a private garden. The next bed, 
four by six yards, was of the variegated Ageratum, and 
edged with Cineraria arnelloides; the next, six by six 
yards, of Tom Thumb, edged with Calceolaria angusti- 
folia, very good ; the next, six by six yards, standard 
Roses, and the ground covered with mixed Verbenas, 
another double crop, and very good; the next, five by six 
yards, Devoniensis Rose, all dwarf, strong plants on their 
own roots, in splendid bloom. All the Roses do well 
here in very light soil. The next bed, five by six yards. 
Flower of the Day Geranium, edged with Mahernia in- 
cisa, an old edging, but making a variety in such a large 
Ijlace; the next bed, six by six yards, of standard Roses, 
the ground covered with Tom Thumb, and edged with a 
light Verbena, very good ; the next, six by six yards, 
Shrubland Rose Petunia, edged with Hamlet Verbe^ia, a 
tine bed; the next, seven by six yards, all Heliotrope; 
the next, five by six yards, all of the yellow Alyssum, in 
tolerable bloom ! How this was managed, I confess I do 
not know. This Alyssum blooms naturally in May only, j 
j Probably it could not be depended on for the autumn 
I another year. The next bed, six by six yards, was all of 
I Andre Verbena, one of the best, if not the best, purple 
Verbena; the next bed, seven by six yards, Shrubland 
Rose Petunia, edged with Verbena Defiance; the next, 
j six by six yards, all of the variegated Ageralum Mexi- 
, canum, a noble mass; then, a five by six yards bed of I 
■ Devoniensis Rose, followed by a four by six yards Moun- I 
tain of Ijight Geranium, having a broad band I’ouud it 1 
of the variegated Alyssum. Although the Mountain of 
Light is a better flower than that of the Flower of the 
Day, it does not make such a good bed as the latter; 
for the flowers of this Mountain (f lAght do not seem 
to like either much sun or wet. . AVe are still in want of 
a good Scarlet variegated Gcranium, vnth flowers as good 
and free as Tom Thumb, and that will stand all weathers. 
Of many kinds of Geraniums which 1 tried this season, 
none stood the rain so well as Lady Middleton. One 
more bed, and 1 shall be done with their dimensions; 
it is six by six yards, })lanted with tall, standard Roses, 
which were mixed with the plain green-leaved 
and a broad edging of Cineraria arnelloides, with a thin 
row of Mignonette behind the Cineraria. An entire bod 
of the largest size, or thirty-six feet long and eighteen 
feet wide, filled with Fuchsia Ricortonii ;—1 never saw 
such a mass of it before; a magnificent bed, sure enough. 
