L7G 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
December 11, 
bwU's-eye, certainly, but it is a shade lighter than Lais, 
and not ffuite so tall, therefore, in a dark group, it 
would stand between Lais and Elise Miellez, with 
Daj)line on the outside; but mind me, 1 do not say that 
such a group should ever be made ; I name it only to 
show the relative “ heights and colours,” one of the 
])rincipal foundations in arranging a llower-garden. As 
we have so many light and so few dark kinds, we 
cannot yet atford to give up Lais or Atroi^os. 
The next shade is between violet and rosy-purple—a 
plum colour—the best of that colour, and one of the 
best pot plants we have is Requiqde. It was in the prize 
collections at the last meeting of the Horticultural 
Society. The name is that of a French clown, and 
should he pronounced Fiikdlee, with a strong accent on 
the a. No one who likes them ought to be without 
Requiqui another year. 
Helene is next to it, which would be only a second- 
rate kind were it not for the colour, whi(?li is very scarce 
and peculiar. 
We now come to the rosy tints; of these, Pouledetto 
is the best of all my stock; but Mr. Salter, of the Ver¬ 
sailles Nursery, Hammersmith, has several kinds of this 
tint, which may turn out better than my choice ; still, 
having only spent but one day with Mr. Salter, and liad 
to look over, examine, and compare some hundreds of 
plants and kinds, I must hold back my hasty opinion 
on his rose tints, and give only mj' own ripened judgment 
for this season. Yet, I must thus publicly express ray 
obligation to Mr. Salter, whom I bad never seen before, 
for allowing me to turn over or pull about his plants in 
any way I choose. He laid the first train for origi¬ 
nating the race from the “ Chusau Daisy,” which, as a 
F.H S., he was the first to introduce to Paris, and 
hence to the South of France florists, with whom the 
double ones appeared after the first or second batch. I 
should think Mr. Salter is the largest grower of all the 
tribe in Europe, and he leaves every one of them out- 
ofdoors all the winte]', without any protection, but then 
the plants were growing in the free soil all the season, 
and he agrees with me, that it is folly ever to put one of 
the Pompones in a pot till it is in full bloom, and fit for 
the bed, or the drawing-room. 
I have many kind neighbours here, who have assisted 
my experiments materially, by allowing me to see how 
the plants would stand the greenhouse, the conservatory, 
‘the lobby and front hall, the flower-beds, and the 
vases, after they Avere lifted from the ground in full 
bloom. In every one of these experiments we were 
successful to a degree which, sometimes, astonished the 
experimenter himself. But to our rose tints. 
PoNDELETTO is a very strong, stiff grower, and also a 
dwarf kind; comes in about the middle of their season, 
i and improves with age, until, at last, it is really a nice 
1 thing. It was one of the ])rize (lowers of 1854, in 
\ Regent Street; cuttings of it, in June, would make nice 
' little plants, ten inches or a foot high, for ornamental 
stands and glasses in the drawing-room. 
I had six plants there, five inches apart, in bloom, on 
the raantlepiece, in little stands, with no more capacity 
than a wine-glass, and with no drainage at the bottom, 
and you never saw such interesting pigmies in your life ; 
but so full of bloom—the kind was Hendersonii. 
Twelve cuttings were put in a GO-pot, about the middle 
of July, in nearly pure sand; the hall was afterwards 
turned out on a wall border entire, and in October, 
when they were in bloom, the ball had to be shaken to 
get the plants separated ; and yet they flowered, as I 
have told, without drooping a leaf, and so would 
Daphne, Pondeletto, Drine Drine, Antiimmini, and, in¬ 
deed, all the dwarfer kinds, for all these, and many 
more, are not nearly so tall as Hendersonii. 
Perle DU Prado is a lovely pot-flower of this tint, or 
a rosy-peach colour, which I saw with Mr. Salter, for 
the first time; and Trophee is the best rose-coloured 
kind I have ever seen. It was “ let out” only last May, 
at 5s., by Mr. Salter. 
The next tint would bring us nearly to crimson, or 
scarlet, and one called Brilli.\nt, a famous flower, 
comes the nearest of them to that; as it is, it comes up 
to a first-rate flower, but I only saw it willi jMr. Salter. 
I must here put oft' the rest of the fancy shades for 
another season, for want of more experience, and turn 
to the yellow's, where the magic force of Pompones breaks 
in upon us like a new idea. Talk of yellow Calceolarias 
for flow'er-beds; wh}', they are as shadow’s to a real 
thing in the comparison! You might plant a bed of 
yellow' Pompones as long as you could see, and never 
see a leaf in the bed the wdiole time they were iuflow'er. 
For a bed of one tint, I think Drine Drine must carry 
the palm, all qualities considered; but Barrol, La 
Vogue, and Sackasiento come in strong opposition to 
it; and Solfaterre, though a thin flow'er, keeps a pure, 
delicate canary-yellow tint through all weathers; but 
when w'e come to plant a bed of yellows in shades and 
heights, each of them will fall into a separate line or 
circle, and not one of them, I think, would then do in 
place of another; but of that I am not quite certain. 
Drine Drine should be pronounced as if written Dnj'ii 
Drean, or very nearly so, w’ith a strong accent on the y. 
This name has puzzled French and English alike. It 
is the name of a German national song, “ a jolly song,” 
and it should be written Drin Drin, instead of Drine 
Drine, as we have hitherto been doing. It has sup¬ 
planted Sacramento at the show in Regent-street this 
season, and nothing could be finer than it has been with 
me out-of-doors to this very day, except, perhaps. La 
Voyue (The Fashion). This, also, is a most lovely bed¬ 
ding plant—no amount of rain, hail, or wind, nor seven 
degrees of frost hurt it in the least, nor hardly any of 
my stock, except Hendersonii, and two or three of the 
more delicate white kinds. 
La Vogue is a pyramidal grower, branching from the 
bottom, and so flowering all the way up to the top ; the 
flower is large, reddish-yellow, and brown tips to the 
last, out-of-doevs; but at a short distance it looks one 
mass of reddish-yellow, while Drin Drin is as clear and 
soft, velvety-like, as the flower of an Alamanda. Berrol 
and Bernard I only saw at Mr. Salter’s. 
Fenella is a clear yellow, but of a diflerent shade. 
It is a capital thing in a bed, and is very distinct from all 
the other yellows in the open air by its own peculiar 
shade of yellow. \"ou might mistake several kinds of 
yellow, the one for the othe., in a bed, but no one could 
mistake Fenella for any other Porapone. In-doors, how¬ 
ever, it blackens, and is only a second-rate flower. It is 
the only yellow one which is fringed. 
There is a large white kind, with fringed petals; a 
first-class flower, called jMarabout, and if it will stand 
the weather, it will make the best white centre for a 
bed. Plume d’or (The Golden Feather) is a very fine, 
dwarf plant, with bright golden-yellow flowers, and fit 
for edgings, and Totson d’or (Golden Fleece) is the late.st 
of all the Pompones ; a very dwarf, still plant, which 
might very easily be had in perfection, in-doors, about 
the middle of January. I have perfect gems of it from 
cuttings struck last July, now full of blossom buds, 
which want more heat to open them ; and my old jdants 
came in but the other day, with hard eyes, and no great 
show; therefore, Tols’Oh d'or is not fit for beds in the 
face of so many yellows, but it is a valuable house-plant 
for its lateness. 
In the next shade of brownish-yellow, Jonas is one 
of the best I have, but T fear my plant is not true ; but 
Colibre is an exquisite out-of-doors, and very late; as 
the buds begin to open they are crimson. They open 
of a reddish-yellow, tipped with purple, but the yellow 
and purple change much lighter before the flowe^. 
