August 28.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
333 
not come into an arrangement of colours; but is in 
itself muck richer with the two plants, and by giving- 
more of the one colour we seem to be striving to do an 
impossibility. To turn one of the best neutral beds we 
have to the character of a decided coloured bed—a red, 
or, say a more reddish border, given to the bed by a row 
of the Zauschneria —does not war against this criticism, 
because it is but deepening the shade at the sides, as 
one may see in the paintings of the first masters. I have 
two instances of the same principle in a couple of 
basket-beds, ten or twelve feet in diameter, the basket 
part being of fancy wire-work, eighteen inches high, and 
sloping out like the limb of a Convolvolus. In the centre 
of each basket is a patch of Salvia patens, blue and 
white, and live feet in diameter, leaving a yard all round 
to be filled with something else. If the whole of the 
baskets were to be planted with blue and white Salvias, 
nothing could be easier, as blue and white look well, 
either mixed or in rings, of one colour; not so, however, 
when another colour or colours is to be added on the out¬ 
side of the Salvias, as in the present instance. The very 
centre is all of blue Salvias; round this, blue and white 
Salvias in equal quantities; and to produce a greyish- 
blue or ash-colour in this ring, I mixed a very light-blue 
corn-flower with the blue and white Salvias, and the 
effect is most pleasing. Now, if a very distinct colour 
was placed outside this shading the effect would have 
been lost; and here the planter was tied down to two 
points. A lower plant than the Salvias and corn-flower 
must be used to graduate the height from the centre to 
the side of the basket, and that plant must not have a 
distinct colour in the flowers. In one of the baskets 
I tried four kinds for this outsiding, but they are all 
wrong, and they offend the eye every time I pass. But in 
the second basket I succeeded perfectly, and that, too, 
with a plant which I did not at all expect at the time 
would look anything but so-and-so. I used it rather be¬ 
cause I had plenty of it to spare at the time; so difficult 
it is to tell the effect of two plants, or, indeed, any new 
arrangement with flowers before an actual trial is made. 
The plant is the Viscaria oculata, and in a mass of it, 
two shades of red or pink are always seen, and a third 
and lighter shade after the flowering begins to fade. 
Trained on the wire, and as a rim to this bed, is a pure 
white Petunia. The whole basket is, just now, perfection 
itself. D. Beaton. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
A Group oe Leguminous, Pea-blossoming Plants 
Hovea. —This genus consists of evergreen species, 
natives of New Holland. All of them are very beautiful, 
but somewhat difficult to get into a sturdy, bushy, 
compact habit of growth. The flowers are either purple, 
or a deep purple-blue; and are produced most profusely 
on the youug well-ripened wood of the previous season, 
a fact which furnishes the key to their successful culti¬ 
vation. Another recommendation is, that they all bloom 
freely in the early spring and summer months, when 
flowers are comparatively scarce in other departments. 
I shall merely instance a few where all are beautiful. 
II. Gelsii. —Habit rather straggling ; height from two 
to five feet; leaves somewhat lancolete; flowers deep 
purple-blue, produced at the base of the leaves, often in 
whorls, or masses ; one of the most beautiful of the 
family, flowering generally from April to July. 
II. pungens major is another beautiful species, with 
blue flowers, introduced a few years ago from the Swan 
River, and which I have not yet seen, except as a 
specimen figure, I forget where; but which will, no 
doubt, soon be plentiful. 
H. latifolia. —A beautiful species, with leaves broader 
and larger than Celsii; part of the flower the standard 
blue, and the keel purple; the flower is also larger, and 
the plant altogether more strong growing. 
II. elliptica, with roundish oval leaves; ilicifolia, 
with curled holly-like foliage ; lanceolata, spear-like 
leaves; longifolia, long leaved; and many more, are all 
species having purple flowers, blooming from March 
and April to June and July, and worthy of culture where 
room can be afforded them, more especially as from two 
to four feet in height, and rather less in diameter, may 
be taken as their general rauge of growth, when full 
justice is done to them; and all requiring similar culture, 
though Gelsii perhaps, of all others, requires the greatest 
attention. I shall shortly allude to their general manage¬ 
ment. 
Propagation. —This is effected by seeds. Most of them 
will ripen their seeds, but very few should be allowed to 
remain, and only those from the first-formed flowers, for 
two reasons: the first is to prevent the plant being ex¬ 
hausted of its strength; the second is to enable you to 
prune back the plant as early as possible after the beauty 
of the flowering season is gone. The seeds, being ob¬ 
tained as early in the summer as possible, may be dried 
and sown as soon as ripe, or they may be preserved in a 
dry cool place until the following March. In both cases 
they will be better for being sown in sandy peat, and 
then plunged in a sweet hotbed, giving more coolness 
and air as soon as vegetation has taken place. If not 
sown until the following spring, steeping the seeds in 
warm water of 130° for twenty four hours will cause 
them to vegetate sooner. As soon as the plants area 
couple of inches in height they must be pricked off 
round the sides of a pot, in sandy peat, with a trifle of 
leaf-mould; and kept close for a little time in a mild 
hotbed, or if in the heat of summer merely a close frame, 
until growth has fairly commenced. 
By Guttings. —These should be the points of young 
shoots, getting a little firm, in April or May, or, better 
still, some nice stubby side shoots, about two or three 
inches in length, cut clean off close to the stem, or so 
near as not to injure it. Cut a cross at the base with 
a sharp knife, and remove merely the leaves there and 
one or two above,—success greatly consisting in re¬ 
taining as many leaves as possible, and then taking care 
that these leaves should act as absorbers quite as much 
as perspirers, by keeping them in a close atmosphere, 
and in as much, but not more light than they can bear 
with impunity. For this purpose, the cuttings when 
made should be inserted in pure white sand, over sandy 
peat, well-drained,—in fact, in all these operations, 
more than three parts should always consist of drainage. 
If the cuttings are placed round a pot, inverted in the 
inside of a larger one, as sometime ago recommended 
for the Ghorizema, success will be all the more certain, 
and less trouble will be occasioned for drainage than by 
any other mode. When settled and firmed by watering, 
and allowed to get dry in the shade, clean conical- 
shaped bell-glasses should be fixed in the sand around 
the cuttings, and then the plants should stand in a close 
frame or pit, where the heat will only be a very few 
degrees higher than what the plant enjoyed before the 
cuttings were removed. If during the day the heat 
from the confined air should become too high, and thus 
have a tendency to spindle the cuttings upwards—a 
tendency always increased by dense shading,—it is 
better, instead of thus increasing shade, to damp that 
already in, and give a little air at the back of the pit or 
frame to allow the heat to escape. From inattention to 
this, we have known valuable cuttings so attenuated, 
that healthy plants from them afterwards could hardly 
be expected without great future care and trouble. A 
moist, close atmosphere is of the first importance in 
striking cuttings in general; shading from bright sun- 
