22 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 14. 
fashion, which goes to relieve the blaze of a large 
flower-garden fully as much as the neutral tints, 
Daphne cneorum is one of the lowest and very best, during 
the short time it is in flower we must make up our 
minds to it, and the flowers will soon be over. A light 
sandy soil suits this best, and, indeed, all the Daphnes. 
Ledum buxifolium or thymifolia, is another very low 
evergreen plant, with an upright style of growth, well 
suited for green beds; this requires, and must have 
peat to grow in, and it is the only evergreen-bed in 
which I think a border or edging of another kind could 
be properly introduced, and that might he of Poly gala 
buxifolia, a very common old plant. Most of the hardy 
Heaths would answer in different-sized beds, hut in this 
style no more than one kind is admissible in one bed. 
The little spring-flowering Heath, called herbacea, would 
match a bed of the trailing Daphne , while the bushy, 
upright Heath, called stricta, would come in to pair with 
such plants as some of the Pernettias. All these, and 
many others, I have seen in practice, and I can vouch 
for their good effect; and from plans that are sent to me 
the style seems to be gaining favour generally. The 
plan which is engraved for this month shows a very 
good way of using permanent evergreen-beds. 
In the new American-garden at Ivew, on the south 
front of the large conservatory, most of the beds are 
planted with one kind of plant, and the effect is a won¬ 
derful improvement on the old style of mixing all sorts 
together, like the old herbaceous borders. There you 
see a large bed filled with hybrid Rhododendrons, all of 
one strain ; another large bed with nothing hut Rho¬ 
dodendron hirsutum ; another of Andromeda foribunda; 
one Pernettia mucronata, or Oaultheria shallon, or Gaul- 
tlieria procumbens, Kalmia glauca, Andromeda pohjfolia, 
Andromeda axillaris, and Andromeda acuminata, these 
last two they call Leucothce, in deference, as I suppose, 
to Decandolle and his Prodomens, which seems a first 
authority at Ivew ; hut a good plant cannot be spoiled 
by a false name, whatever the authority may be; and 
certainly the masses, great and small, of these beautiful 
evergreens, planted in these beautiful grouuds, must 
give a good turn to public taste, in the way of arrange- 
ing beds, even in the smallest gardens. 
The catalogues of the Bagshot, and other growers of 
American plants, furnish a host of names of plants 
suitable for mixing in a good flower-garden, in lieu of 
neutral beds, or in addition to them, and the rose- 
growers have now thousands upon thousands of little 
plants in small pots, ready to be planted-out about the 
second week in May, of a great number of good bedding 
Roses, and Roses that do better in beds for the first two 
years than in any other way. Paul Joseph was one 
of the best bedding Roses I saw at Kew last year; 
and it was there only that I saw the old White China, 
which I have so often recommended for beds: it has no 
other name. Bourbon Queen, budded on the Manetti 
stock quite close to the ground, was another rose-bed 
of great beauty which I saw last autumn ; hut most of 
the dwarf and medium-sized Bourbons budded so low, 
and planted young, make the best of beds on soils that 
will not grow Roses in general; and all they want is a 
good dressing of rotten dung, and to be planted thicker 
than is usual for rosaries. We shall be at a sad loss 
for autumn-sown annuals to fill up and flower between 
the bedding-plants next May about London; we had 
hardly any snow to shelter them ; and I never recollect 
such destruction among them before so late in the 
spring. Blue annuals are always the scarcest. The blue 
Nemophila sown now, or any time in April, will not be 
in flower the beginning of July ; and if the season is dry, 
as we all expect it will be after so much wet and hard 
weather, it will be over by the second week in August; 
but the Lobelia racemosa, the next best, if not the best 
blue flower wo have, will go on to the middle or end of 
September from sowing about the end of April, and it 
will transplant well, which is a great comfort at times, 
when we want the same colour in a bed that goes off 1 
early. Most of the hardy annuals that are sown from 
the middle to the end of April, begin to flower soon 
after Midsummer, or early in July, even if we have a 
cold May. The end of May is time enough to plant out 
Saponaria calabrica where it is to flower; but it should 
he in a forward state now, and he soon fit to plant out 
singly, in front of a wall or house, to be nursed all 
through May ; it is the prettiest of all the little annuals 
that flower to the very end of the season, and is always 
scarce, from not ripening seeds very freely when the ! 
autumn is wet like the last. The Eucaridium grandi- j 
Jlorum ought to find a small bed in every garden, and 1 
be sown rather thick where it is to flower, and no ! 
ground can he too rich for it. The white and purple 
Clarkias, mixed, is another bed which no one should j 
miss; it will be in its prime by the 20th of July, if sown i 
within the next ten days, and will last to the end of 
August. A large sowing of China Asters, about the 
20th of April, and again about the 10th of May, will { 
provide good mixtures for second planting after-annuals, 
and no one can safely use the summer annuals without 
a good stock of Asters to follow them. 
The old Rose-scented Geranium, mixed with Scarlet 
Verbena, is a bed that should not be forgotten; almost 
everyone approves of it. The old Touchstone Geranium 
bed, I mentioned last autumn as being so rich with the 
Rev. Mr. Lys, near Oxford, should also be kept in 
mind; it is fully as good as Lady Mary FoX, or any of 
the Diadematums; and now I should think my own 
seedling Diadematum, which is called Regium, could be 
had in sufficient quantity for beds. It grows far better 
with me here than on the Suffolk chalk. D. Beaton. 
STRAWBERRY FORCING. 
“I have managed my Strawberry plants exactly as 
you have recommended; and yet, neither in my warm 
greenhouse, nor in my small heated pit, have I suc¬ 
ceeded. What is the reason?—is it owing to the season? 
Few, it would appear, have shown themselves at Covent 
Garden; and there were none at the Rooms, in Regent- 
street, in March. Has the season been so peculiarly 
unpropitious?” 
Such is the substance of a hatch of queries that have 
reached me, chiefly from ardent young amateurs. In 
reply, I would say, that neither the Rooms, nor Covent 
Garden, are an accurate test of general success, inas¬ 
much, as market suppliers do not, in general, prepare 
for market until they can depend upon a briskisli sale ; 
and gardeners in the country, with a table and dessert 
every day to provide for, unless where the means are 
extensive, cannot easily spare an extra good dish for 
exhibition purposes early in March. Last autumn, cer¬ 
tainly, was not over-favourable for ripening the buds of 
Strawberries; and yet attention could do much; for 
this blaming a season, though a very convenient excuse, 
too often acts as a barrier to progress, making us rest 
satisfied when we should try and do better. Many j 
gardeners have been very successful this season. I have, ; 
myself, gathered rather sparingly for the first week in 
March, and fine fruit very plentifully afterwards. 
Perhaps the best way to enable some of our readers 
to perceive in what they have been deficient, will be to j 
glance at some of the minutiae necessary to success; 
leaving them to study the papers of Mr. Errington and } 
others for fuller details. 
1. Preparation of the Plants. —Round London, run¬ 
ners of the previous summer are generally used. These 
are either encouraged to root on the beds, and are then 
potted, or they arc at once fixed on a little mound of 
