THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
304 
j have seen a more rapid growth, and filling up of the 
j beds, than we experienced last month, and were it not 
! that the summer-roses and a few other flowers suffered a 
good deal from the rain, I never saw a finer prospect for 
a splendid bloom about the beginning of August. But 
now, even we, on this dry soil, high situation, and fine 
open country all around, are obliged to curtail the luxu¬ 
riance in some of the beds—quite a new practice to us; 
and now I am quite confident that much may be done 
in this way in places where it is natural to them 
to go too much to leaf, and the simplest way is to pick 
oft' a good number of the largest top leaves. When we 
cut off the greater part of the leaves of the common 
Indian Cress, or Narsturtiums, as they call them in this 
country, to show off their rich blossoms when we use 
them for edging plants, the sudden check caused by this 
cutting stops their growth just as quickly and effectually 
as you would lock a door by tinning the key. In 
exactly the same proportion as the leaves of any of our 
Geraniums are curtailed, will the growth of the plants be 
affected. But let us just go to the nearest bed and show 
the practice of what we preach. It happens to be a bed 
of the Fuchsia Carolina; this, the very finest of all the 
Euchsias, is a most notorious leafer in a bed, and unless 
we strip off at least one-half of them, the bed will not be 
worth looking at all the season. From the main skeins of 
this Carolina, smaller branches come forth, right and 
left at every joint, except a few joints at the bottom, and 
at every joint there are two leaves, and sometimes three. 
Now, as soon as the small side branches grow two joints 
from the main stems, these pairs or triple leaves should 
be picked off; after the end of June, all the bottom 
leaves below where the secondary branches grow should 
be removed, and, by following the rule of taking off the 
leaves at all the joints where branchlets have issued 
from, the bed has an airy, graceful look from the growth 
of the plauts, and the richness of the flowers are seen to 
full advantage. The Salmon Geranium bed; no, but 
the next one to it, Cherry Cheek, is the one which needs 
our first attention after the Coral Fuchsia. In light, 
rich soil, like ours, this Cherry Cheek is a lazy child of 
mine, and I would cast it on the world, were it not that 
the ladies are so fond of it. On stiff, heavy land, and 
on very poor soil, whether stiff or otherwise, Cherry 
Cheek comes out a very chip of the old block himself, 
and there is no cause to grumble with it, or pluck off 
one-third of its largest and last-made leaves; but here I 
must always give it a good check as soon as it is well 
established, before I can get a decent truss from it, and 
for the rest of the season it goes on fair enough. Punch is 
never at home so much as at Shrubland; and 1 never cut 
off a leaf of Punch till this last July, and that only from 
one row in a large box on the new terrace. This box 
was made late in the season to fit a recess, one of Mr. 
Barry’s good hits. It is nine feet long, eighteen inches 
wide, and eighteen inches deep; this was filled and 
planted in a hurry, with the best and richest compost one 
could make, and the best pot plants we could cull out of 
all our frames, and before one could think of it, Punch was 
so leafy that the finger and thumb had to be applied to 
it in earnest, and so also with a row of the Salmon, 
| which runs behind it. Next to Punch himself, this 
Salmon is “the best geranium that ever was invented,” 
1 as one of our lady visitors remarked this morning. Here 
it might be remarked, “ why do you make so violent a 
contrast as to plant a row of Punch, and another of the 
Salmon in the same box?” If I wanted to evade the 
question, I might easily get off by saying, that I had no 
■ better plants on hand on the spur of the moment—that 
' the thing was got up at the eleventh hour, or, indeed, a 
hundred excuses which might seem reasonable enough. 
But I wish rather to explain ;—all the terrace and parts 
of the house facing it, arc of the best Caen stone, almost 
as white as marble, so that none but the brightest or 
[August 14. i 
• 
highest coloured flowers can have any chance of standing 
so much glare, without being, as it were, drowned, j 
One has only to place a box of scarlet geraniums against 
a red brick house, or a box of Queen Victoria geraniums 
against a white brick wall, to understand how one colour j 
drowns another, in the language of flower-gardeners, j 
Mixing colours which could not well be drowned, there¬ 
fore, was the first reason for putting the two in this box; 
the next reason is one to which 1 wish to call particular 
attention. When we put a box of flowers, say of gera¬ 
niums, in a window-sill, the flowers all grow out to the 
light, with their backs to the window, so that those living 
inside cannot see the face of the bloom without going 
round to the outside. The long box with the Punch 
and Salmon geraniums was in a predicament of this 
sort, which I wanted to correct by the style of planting; 
it stands in a recess in the south wall of the conserva¬ 
tory terrace, and the top of it stands nearly on a level 
with the top of the terrace-wall;—all the flowers would 
turn towards the sun, as those in a window-sill, and 
people on the terrace could only see the back of them. 
There is another terrace running parallel with the con¬ 
servatory terrace, but on a lower level, and people 
walking on this lower terrace would see the face or front 
view of the plants in the long box, while those on the 
upper terrace could only see the wrong side of them. 
Now the planting of the box was intended to get over 
this awkward siding of the flowers, and the same plan 
will cause plants in a window-sill, or, indeed, anywhere 
else, to look two ways, so that we can now make the 
half, at least, of the flowers outside a window-sill look 
into the room, which is a great help indeed, where this 
style of furnishing, as with us, is carried out to a great 
extent. We generally plant as many flowers that way, 
namely, in boxes, vases, and all kinds of portable things 
as would make a tidy flower-garden to some of our 
neighbours; and this season, on account of the new 
arrangements about the mansion, we have doubled the 
number. 
But out of all this array, the two boxes of Judy, on the 
conservatory terrace, which I have often mentioned, are 
by far the best and the most admired by all the visitors 
to the place, and they are many. It will be recollected 
that these boxes of Judy are managed on Harry Moore’s 
plan of not turning them out of the mould for years; 
nor have they had the least pruning these four or five 
years, and there they are at this moment as good, if not 
better, specimens of that style of decoration than have 
yet been produced by any other means. Judy is, with¬ 
out any doubt whatever, the very best geranium for box 
culture, that is, the best that can be had for money— 
Tom Thumb cannot approach it; I have had them both 
side by side, in boxes, for years, and although I can do 
very little good with Tom in the beds (not better than a 
third or fourth-rate, as compared with Punch), I can get 
him up to the mark in pots and boxes as well as most 
people; but it would be a libel on flower-gardening even ; 
to think of comparing it to pretty little Judy, and yet j 
Judy is only second favourite here. A seedling from her 
by the pollen of Cherry-cheek has produced a far superior 
variety, as much so, indeed, as Judy herself is above others 
in the same section. But I am running away without 
explaining how to get two faces, not under one hat, but 
in a flower-box in a -window—one face to look in towards 
the room, the other from it; or, according to the situa¬ 
tion, looking to two opposite points of the compass, for 
this long box has a Salmon face inclined to the south 
terrace, and at the same time a Punch face looking as i 
intently in the opposite direction, the north or conserva¬ 
tory terrace, so the box must stand east and west. The | 
row of Salmon geraniums was planted first with three- 
years’-old strong plants fifteen inches high ; the Salmon ! 
being the strongest of those that will do well to be kept 
low for box culture, and a row of Punch on the north 
