354 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[September 4. 
borders, more perfectly ripened than we can obtain them 
| in many seasons from a wall in the north. 
Like some of our friend Beaton’s “ bedders,” they are 
; but too apt to become overgrown, to run too much to 
leaf, and means should be taken in the end of damp 
| summers to check this exuberance. Here we always 
plant them above the ground level, and the plan answers 
much better than planting below the level. Like high 
planting with some tender fruits, every little drought 
speedily tames them ; aud they, of course, grow shorter 
jointed, and swell their fruit quicker, for the foliage is 
neither so large nor so abundant. All blossoms which 
show after the middle of August we cut entirely away; 
and at the same time pinch the top from every shoot; 
reducing, also, every sucker, which they are very prone 
to produce. If they continue too gross, we cut all the 
larger leaves in two, about the first week in September; 
this throws much sunlight immediately on the fruit, and 
hastens their colouring. About the same period, too, 
they are root-pruned; all that is necessary is to give a 
couple of perpendicular cuts with the spade, full depth; 
after this the plants have no tendency to an enlarge¬ 
ment of their frame-work. 
It would appear that in their native country, some 
parts of South America, they are perennnial, for we 
have heard of the same plants being grown in some 
English gardening establishments a second year with 
much success; the plants, of course, with abundance of 
heat, becoming somewhat shrubby in character. 
E. Errington. 
THE FLOWER-GARDEN. 
Companion to the Calendar for September.—I 
am glad to see that our calendar for this month is not a 
heavy one, and what is of it, is of the common blue- 
apron cast, no philosophy or anything at all that way; 
and if I can keep to the mark, and not let the pen 
ramble, we shall have it short and practical all over to¬ 
day, Beginning, then, at the top of the alphabet, we 
have Aconite (winter ) to plant at the end of the month, 
and that is the key-note to a host of bulbs and tuberous- 
rooted plants, which ought to be got into the ground 
before the month is out. The best way to bring one’s 
memory to the point about this entry, is to make a clear 
jump over the winter, and set the mind’s eye on a bank 
of Snowdrops , and then follow on to the Crocuses, 
Daffodils, Crown Imperials, Hyacinths, Tulips, aud so 
on to next June, when the whole family of Spanish 
and English bulbous Irises will finish the beauty and 
blaze of “ spring bulbs.” Now, although each and all 
of these may remain for another month or six weeks, or 
say to the last days in October, just as they happen to 
be at present, whether in the ground or among the diied 
stores, it certainly is the best practice to think of them 
j in time, and get through with planting them before the 
frost comes to set us all a potting. A spade is not a 
safe tool to work with among a lot of bulbs at rest; a 
garden trowel is little better; indeed, all sharp-edged 
tools had better be avoided, and a three-pronged fork 
taken instead; with it all bulbs of fibrous-rooted plants 
may be dug out of the ground, when, after the bulbs are 
cleansed from old skins and roots, and are sorted into 
sizes, they should be, at once, put into the places where 
they are to flower. If Mr. Eisli has got tired of growing 
the beautiful Japan Lilies in the greenhouse, or if he 
will hand over to us his whole stock of young ones of 
them, this would be a good time to look out a nice bed 
! for them, and get them planted, too, before the leaves 
die off; not but that these fine lilies may be put off till 
next February or March, but this is the proper time to 
allot a place for them, and if they can be got in all the [ 
better. It is quite a national misfortune that we do not I 
grow these lilies by the thousand in the flower garden, 
for after a few year’s growth, without being disturbed, 
they would come up so splendidly as to make an annual 
eclipse all over the garden, instead of once^ or so in a 
lifetime, as the astronomers have theirs. Their beds 
might be kept just as gay as any others while they were 
growing, and those who forego the use of annuals might 
have a few choice ones in the lily beds, after crocuses or 
hyacinths, or, indeed, any of the spring bulbs, were 
over. But instead of whining, let us come to the point j 
at once, and get the good lady of the house to second 
us, and the thing is done. We have only to watch for 
my lord being in good humour, and the value of a dozen 
flowering roots will not go much to his heart; that will 
be enough to begin with. We shall do them just as 
Mr. Beaton says; and, “You know, my dear, that having 
done so much already, according to The Cottage 
Gardener, is the real secret of our garden being so 
much talked about by every one who sees it.” 
Anemones, plant the best. Towards the end of the 
month, a row or two of turbans should be planted to 
come in early next April. Some more of them, or of 
any of the varieties, should be planted at the end of 
October,—some a month later and some in February 
and March ; but now is the right time to think about 
what time in the spring one would like to have most 
of these flowers, and to plant accordingly. The first 
planted ones will not flower till April, unless it be one 
here and there; but the bloom may be kept, by this 
way of successive planting, till the end of June, if after 
the middle of May the ground is kept well watered and 
mulched. 
Annuals. —September is the best time in the year to 
get in lots of them; those that were self-sown any time 
in July or August, seldom sprout till the dews and 
longer nights of this month affect them. If it were not 
for the annuals, I might just as well have gone to bed 
when I beard the Prince was coming at the end of 
June; and I dare say hundreds who had seen the 
garden that week, and well know what it is to have a 
good garden, wondered what would become of the 
garden when all these annuals were over, and some of 
them were over in less than a fortnight afterwards. 
But the grand secret of using annuals, is not to trust a 
single one of them by themselves, except those that 
remain in flower all the season. Another great point, 
is to meet this demand on the strength of the beds by 
a timely dressing of something rich every winter. The 
i best gardeners in England have yet to learn much 
about annuals. But after the worst planting-out time 
in the memory of the oldest of us (last May), having 
got me safely over a difficult pass, and maintained the 
famed credit of the Slirubland Gardens, I shall never 
give up singing their praises, if I was punched on the 
head for it. I have sufficient brass in hand to keep 
ding-donging about them till I shame half of the country, 
at least, out of their antipathy against annuals. I have 
learned a great deal about them for the last two years, 
and I had a notion for a long time that we did not well 
know the best way to manage them. I am now con¬ 
vinced that not one of them should ever be allowed to 
flower without being transplanted, except the Migno¬ 
nette and two or three others, unless it were for a very 
temporary shift. I am also persuaded that it is not 
safe to follow my own advice, in all places, about the 
exact times of sowing and planting some of the best of 
them, for on comparing notes the other day with Mr 
MTntosli about them, I found a considerable difference 
in our times of sowing, &c. However, none of us can 
! do wrong now to put in lots of them, but for me to say 
| which of them will stand the winter and which will not, 
or whether it is best to get them in now or let them go 
till the spring, would be breaking the butterfly on the 
wheel; all that wo know of them is, that some will 
