318 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
in England is, if he would name it, and become the 
sponsor, to which he readily consented, and suggested 
for a name— The Hon. Lcuhj Middleton, if her ladyship 
would make no objection ; and, as luck would have it, 
we met her ladyship on one of the terraces along with a 
large party of ladies, to whom the whole story was told, 
and the naming of this seedling was soon over, Mr. 
McIntosh being the sponsor; and as I crossed the seed¬ 
ling four years before, that part of the ceremony had not 
to be repeated. After consenting to this incident being 
told to The Cottage Gardener, we both parted, under 
the conviction that as long as two geraniums are culti¬ 
vated in England for the flower-garden, Lady Middleton 
will be one of them. The colour comes in between 
Cherry Cheek and Judy, or the light shade of what the 
French call ponceau ; the next nearest to it in colour is 
Princess Alice; but for beds and boxes, or pots and 
baskets, it is far beyond all the shaded ones; and that it 
may get about freely, and true to name, I shall ask Sir 
William Middleton’s permission to send cuttings of it 
to Mr. Appleby and other nurserymen. Many visitors 
had cuttings of it last year without a name. 
White Geraniums. —Out of a large batch of seedlings 
which have just flowered here, there are eleven plants of 
the scarlet breed, with flowers as white as snow, and yet 
they are not worth a farthing a-piece. Those who be¬ 
lieve in the doctrine, that a long course of good culti¬ 
vation will so change the nature of a wild plant, as that 
at the end of a given period it will produce a better 
kind than itself from seeds, cannot reconcile that doc¬ 
trine with this real fact, in the case of the White Horse¬ 
shoe geranium which produced these seedlings. It has 
been in cultivation upwards of thirty years, without 
receiving a particle of that mysterious power, and three 
times thirty years of good culture would very probably 
find it just as it is now proved to be, 
Enough about seedlings to-day; let us rather make 
the best of what we already know 10 be good and useful. 
The new bed, which I suggested in the spring, of equal 
numbers of Cuphea strigilosa, and Zauschneria, is a 
marked improvement on either of them by itself. At a 
little distance the red of the Zauschneria : gives a great 
deal more richness and consequence, if I may use the 
term, to the flowers of the Cuphea, so much so, that the 
bed has been mistaken already for that of a new Cuphea, 
and without looking very closely, no one can tell that 
there are two kinds of plants in the bed—the growth 
and flowering of the two plants being so much alike. 
Here, then, is a bed any one may have without an inch 
of glass. If you put a layer of'pea-sticks all over this 
bed, and over that three or four inches deep of old 
leaves, or any litter, the Cuphea will be safe from frost. 
It stands out without the least protection in a mild 
winter, and seedlings from self-sown, will come up in 
abundance. Those who keep bees should have a large 
bed of the Cuphea on purpose for them ; they will leave 
white clover or heather bloom auy day for h' taste of the 
Cuphea. 
The most exotic bed one can have, is the Agapantlius, 
and Gladiolus psittacina, planted thick, and this requires 
no aid from glass. Those who have only seen the Aga- 
panthus in pots, can form little idea of the improvement 
which a rich bed and a few seasons’ growth give it. 
I he little yellow (Enothera viparia or prostrata, struck 
from cuttings at the beginning of May, is now a sheet 
ot blossom with me. It is used in imitation of a yellow 
ribbon wound round a set of beds. The ribbon is ten 
inches wide, and perhaps a hundred yards long. There 
is another ribbon for tying round the same beds, but 
in another direction; it is a light blue one, made up of 
the Lobelia erinus grandijlora, in four varieties. This is 
an original composition by the Hon. Lady Middleton, 
and tried this season for the first time, and they all say 
it is exquisitely beautiful. These Lobelias, and the 
[August 21. 
(Enothera, may also be had without the aid of a pane 
of glass. A slight covering will save the Oenothera, 
and the Lobelias come early enough from seed sown on 
an open border at the end of April. That was the way 
we raised some thousands of them this season for this 
blue or shaded blue ribbon, although we have glass 
enough. 
What a charming ribbon could be made in the spring 
with Crocuses, and so could a set of chains, for that was, 
and is now, the form given to these band-like stripes of 
beds, in most places. But chain patterns of flower¬ 
beds are getting out of date, owing, I suppose, to their 
sameness, and a more elegant is being introduced in 
scroll-work, where fancy designs suit best, or are better 
liked. In a very few years we shall have all the colours 
for a flower-garden in plants hardy enough to pass the 
winter without glass altogether, and with very slight 
protection in winter. Dahlias would of themselves 
furnish all the colours except the blue, but we have 
only three or four kinds yet really fit for a flower-bed. 
Anything above two feet high on the richest ground, and 
all the bullish muddling colours of the florists, are un¬ 
fitted for distinct beds of Dahlias, and fortunately the 
form of a flower of any kind never enters the head of 
a real flower-gardener; purity of colour, whatever the 
colour may be, is the first and prime requisite in a flower- 
garden plant; the power to withstand the sun and rain 
being the second essential point, and a good habit of 
growth cannot be dispensed with. If we get those three 
essentials combined, anything else is a mere splitting 
of straws. I must keep these points on the carpet, 
and alive, too, now that the florists are aggressive, for 
if they once get a footing in the flower-garden they 
will drive all the ladies out of it; and I should like 
to hear who would care much about a flower-garden 
after that. We have it now, in our own pages, and on 
the best authority, too, that colour is the last point 
insisted on for a new flower by these crazy people ; and 
we are really in very great danger, because they have 
the run of raising seedlings among themselves; so that a 
seedling with all the good qualities for a flower-bed, has 
no chance in their hands, if it comes up in their own 
pots, away with it they will as soon as they get the first 
look at it; and if you send them a bright scarlet, or a 
pure white Dahlia that will not grow up above eighteen 
inches high, no matter how desirable such a novelty 
j would be to thousands, the florists would pooh, pooh, 
it out of the country, and, may be, out of cultivation 
too. Talk about the Cardinal, indeed, it is nothing to 
this kind of innovation on our rights and privileges, and 
on our colours and shades. But we must battle them. 
D. Beaton. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Acacia. — I am not insensible to the charms of 
novelty, but neither am I blind to the interest con¬ 
nected with plants that are useful, though it may be 
they are chiefly seen among old-fashioned people, who 
can love the beautiful because it is beautiful. Towards 
many such, getting discarded from unique collections, 1 
experience sensations akin to those which I feel when 
thinking of other days, and of friends still dear to me, 
though seldom seen. The heading of this article has 
been suggested by a lady remarking, the other day, her 
surprise that country gardeners did not grow the yellow 
acacias more, as she was quite delighted, in the early 
part of summer, in noticing the beautiful, small, flower¬ 
ing-plants in vendors’ baskets in the streets of London. 
Another reason for referring to them is, that they can 
bo easily and quickly grown, and thus may soon be 
made to ornament a greenhouse, until others of slower 
