100 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
December 5. 
[We conceive that you mean to have a brick wall, nine 
feet high at back ; brick and glass, six feet four inches in 
front ; the ridge of the roof, in centre of the house, to be 
twelve feet from the floor. In such a ease, the roof next, the 
back wall will be flatter than the one in front. We presume 
it is to stand east and west. If it had stood north and south, 
we should have preferred both sides being alike. Even now, 
your house would look better, and there would be less drip, if 
the front and back wall were of the same height. As it is now, 
we would recommend a shelf, some twenty or twenty-four 
inches wide, round the front and ends of the house, and a 
border of the same width at back, and a shelf then above it, 
if deemed desirable. We would cover the back wall with 
creepers—Oranges, or Camellias. Then we would have a 
two-and-a-half feet path, and, if small plants were to be 
grown, wo would have a stage in the centre, corresponding 
to the roof, the tallest and single shelf being in the centre, 
and successional shelves falling regularly to each side, 
until the last was a couple of inches higher than the front 
shelf. By this arrangement, plants in bloom could be kept 
on the north side of the stage, and those growing on the 
south side. If large plants were wished, a flat, open, spar red 
table would be best.] 
MOVING LARGE DECIDUOUS TREES, EVER¬ 
GREENS, AND PERPETUAL ROSES. 
“ 1. Can I safely plant Limes, fifteen feet high ; Sycamores 
and Cliesnuts, twenty feet high, after the 25th December ? 
“2. The trees I shall get will, of necessity, be one night 
out of the ground. Will that signify much ? And can I do 
anything to diminish the risk of ill-consequences from their 
being so long out of the ground ? 
“ 3. Would it be better to have them home now, and 
cover their roots with soil and litter, so as to have them at 
hand to plant when I can find mild weather after Christ¬ 
mas ? (The laud does not come into my hands till after 
Christmas.) 
“ 4. I have just moved, from one part of my garden to 
other parts, three Lanrustinuses, six feet high, and at least 
six feet diameter, in full flower; two of them in sheltered 
situations; one in a situation rather exposed. I have also 
moved an Aucuba Japonica about the same size. Moved by 
many hands, with great care, very little damage to any loots, 
and those carefully cut. Would you recommend my mulch¬ 
ing them; and when ? Do you recommend my giving them 
shelter, covering with mats, sprinkling fern (of which I 
have plenty) over them; or putting stakes, and thatching a 
pent over them with fern, leaving the sides open ? Or, will 
you advise me as to any other measures for insuring their 
safety ? I am very anxious to preserve them, if I can, and will 
take any trouble to secure their preservation. 
“ 5. Ought I to prune Perpetual Poses, still in leaf, now ? 
And may they be moved while the leaves are green?—W. H.’’ 
[1st. Certainly, you can move the large trees if you go the 
right way to work, and trees of the same kinds of double the 
heights you mention. 
2nd. Choose moist, dripping, or drizzly days, and the 
roots of such trees take little hurt for two or three days and 
nights, if they are packed in a little hay, with mats all 
round. Avoid dry easterly, windy days, and frosty nights, 
and your trees will tako no hurt with a single mat round the 
roots. 
3rd. It would not be better to take up the trees now, and 
put them in by the heels till you are ready for them ; 
meantime, however, make sure of the very trees you choose, 
as, if they come from a nursery, under the rule of first come, 
first served, you will “be done for.” In troublesome times, 
like these, we never like to trust anybody about fancy trees 
and plants. We would mark our lot of trees, and come to 
I terms with the nurseryman, to let us have them as we were 
! ready to plant them. Butthereis aflawin your letterhere; and 
! yet it is the most business-like letter we have seen these six 
j months. We ought to have known whether the trees were to 
J be moved from your own land, or from some neighbour’s, or 
from a nursery. If from a nursery, you mil not bo able to 
get all their roots, except on this wise. See the trees, and 
the very men who are to take them up, the morning of 
; planting ; promise the men something extra if they took 
right pains ; stop with them all the day, and see how well 
they do it; lot them drink the health of the Field Marshal 
the Lord Raglan, before noon, and that of' Canrobert and 
our allies before it is dark. We have been planting evergreens 
from twelve to twenty feet high, not long since, and we got 
double the work done, and all the roots, by the same means. 
4th. If you had good balls of earth with the Laurus- 
tinuses and Aucubas, they will hardly feel the moving with- j 
out doing anything more to them except mulching; and all 
your large trees must be well and thoroughly mulched as 
soon after planling as possible. As you have plenty of i 
ferns, do not spare it over their loots, and among the j 
bottom branches of the Laurustinuses ; but the Aucuba 
needs no help, except the mulching on the surface. No 
plants are easier to move than Aucubas and Sweet Bays, 
as they make such abundance of white fleshy roots. 
5tli. If your Perpetual Poses are in very good condition, 
do not prune them till the end of February. If they are 
not in a good condition, prune them now; green leaves on 
Roses are of very little use to them after the first of 
November. Gardeners begin to transplant Roses early in 
November, when the Perpetuals are as green as leeks ; and 
they prune them the same day; but nurserymen send them 
out with all their leaves, because people like to see plenty 
for their money ; but that plan is now, we believe, the most 
barbarous and unpractical of all we do or sanction. Any 
Rose’ought to be fairly pruned before it is taken up ; and, 
if possible, a week or ten days before. We wonder that the 
trade never set their faces against a practice which is just 
as much against their interest, as it must be against the 
poor suffering Roses. The right way to buy Roses would be 
to go to the nursery, any time in October; buy and prune on 
the spot; take home your cuttings, plant them, and be in no 
hurry to get home your Roses till other works are finished. 
Any time before Christmas will do, as no one else will have 
them after they are pruned ; and they improve for planting 
all the while. 
fith. The best way to stake tall trees is to wind a hay- 
band round each before it is planted, at the place where 
three stakes meet—say from six to ten feet from the ground. 
This hayband should occupy about a foot of the stem of 
the tree; then the three stakes will never “ chafe” the bark. 
A handful of hay put in between a stake and the bark is 
just like “ love’s labour lost,” may do a great deal more 
harm than good. “ Sack-tyeing,” or what they use for tying 
sacks, is the best thing to tie stakes to trees with.] 
BLOOMING TROPCEOLUM TUBEROSUM. 
“ I have been trying, these last two years, the Tropceolum 
tuberosum, the great objection to which is the late period at 
which it comes into flower, having very little time before the 
frost cuts it up. Can you, or any of your readers, inform 
me, whether it can be made to blossom earlier, and by what 
treatment?—E. L., Thelford." 
[Some of our readers may know more than we, their in¬ 
structors ; but we fear that none of them are aware of any 
means by which to induce this plant to change its natural 
time of flowering, even for one week. Any information on 
this will be acceptable.] 
PLANTING AND PRUNING HOLLY—MOVING 
RHODODENDRONS. 
“ I am about to plant a Holly hedge on the inside of a 
wall recently built against a bank. The Hollies are fine and 
large-rooted. I think of clipping the sides of them, to make 
at once a more compact fence. Would you recommend me 
to do so ? They are from four feet to six feet high. Will 
it be safe to cut them down to an average height of about 
three feet when they are planted; or best to leave them until 
the spring? Is this a good time to bed out Rhododendrons ,? 
—A Constant Reader, Kent.'' 
[By all means, clip both sides of your Holly hedge as 
soon as you finish planting it. You may, also, cut the 
plants to three feet, at the same time; but what a dreadful 
sacrifice; and what for? See that the soil is well stirred 
full eighteen inchos below the bottom of the roots, and 
quite on to the wall. See, also, that there are no false 
or hollow parts between the top of the wall and the bank, 
where the rain will wash the soil into, from the. hedge in a 
thunder-storm. Plant the Hollies two inches deeper than 
they stood before, and mulch both sides of the hedge the 
' whole length. Two feet from the wall would be a good 
