April 28. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
59 
The market is well supplied with all sorts of Veget¬ 
ables, such as they are. Anything in the shape of 
Greens can be sold; we have seen large quantities of 
things which were evidently never intended for any¬ 
thing else than Cabbage plants, make as much as 5s. 
per dozen bunches. Rhubarb, Sea-Kale, and Asparagus, 
are plentiful. Cucumbers are very lino, at from Is. Od. 
to 3s. Fruit is very scarce. Strawberries make Is. Od. 
to 2s. an ounce. Grapes 15s. to 20s. per lb. 
The Flowers are very plentiful, and consist of Gera¬ 
niums, Camellias, Violets, Tulips, Heaths, Epacrises, 
Mignonette, Cinerarias, Cgtisuses, and Azaleas. H. 
LISTS OF PLANTS—MIXED BORDERS. 
What is the greatest puzzle that a writer on gardening 
could put on paper?—what the easiest thing in the world 
for him to fill up space with?—and what is the most diffi¬ 
cult thing an amateur or young beginner can take in hand ? 
A list of plants, most certainly, no matter of what kinds— 
stove or hardy, sand or rock, peat, bog or swamp ; plants to 
grow on the tiles of a bouse, on the top of a wall, or in the 
middle of a fish-pond ; plants to grow under the shade of 
trees, or on the sunny side of a steep bank. Now, it would 
be just as easy to write out a list of names for any par¬ 
ticular purpose as to whistle “The Blue Bonnets over the 
Border; ” but without some reference and description, 
however short—without knowing where the plants could be 
had, or what the prices would be, where and when to plant 
them, what times they were in and out of llower, how to 
increase them, and the right kinds of soil and situation 
for them—such more lists are of no more value to the 
general reader than a list of the parties to a sham Company, 
who advertise on purpose to cheat and chisel. We of The 
Cottage Gardener cannot puzzle or cheat by filling space 
with the bare names of any plants—at least, not until paper 
space is free of duty; hence the reason of our descriptive 
lists, and the unreasonableness of those who ask for mere 
enumeration of names, under the strange idea that if they 
but knew the names of plants they could make their beds 
and borders gay enough to their hearts’ content. 
After this preface, I am going to turn to a new leaf, and 
write about Herbaceous Plants , Hardy Bulbs , and very loiv 
Shrubs, in earnest; but with no more system or arrangement 
than the spur of the moment may suggest. As to the proper 
arrangement of herbaceous plants, I must wash my hands 
of it at the first start; for, to tell the truth, I never yet saw 
even a good or tolerable disposition of such plants any¬ 
where; all that I shall aim at, when I take any aim at all, 
will be to keep tall plants at a distance from the walks, or 
sides ; and when I speak of two plants of the same height 
and time of flowering, the one with scarlet flowers, the other 
with rose, or bright pink—knowing that the scarlet is too 
powerful for the rose, or pink—I shall put a white-flowering 
plant between them. Also, when two colours do not well 
agree, as red and orange, a white put in between them 
restores the balance. Rose and scarlet agree very well, but 
then the scarlet is too powerful, and will drown the rose, as 
it were. I only go as far as the philosophy of the toilet 
carries me. Ladies, or at least most of them, are well aware 
that such and such colours, and such and such styles of 
dress, suit their complexions and figures better than others 
equally good in themselves, and they dress accordingly. 
One thing should never be lost sight of in arranging 
colours for a flower garden, and that thing is never thought 
of by painters— Every flower we use, whatever the colour, has 
some tint of green for a ground colour. Painters arrange 
colours for a flower-garden as if flowers could be bad with¬ 
out leaves at all, and that is just the key to the reason why 
a really good painter never yet succeeded in planting, or 
rather in showing how to plant, a garden fit to be seen. 
The nearer the complementary colours are brought together, 
the better their effect; lienee the superiority of the bedding 
over the mixed planting. In borders, contrasting colours 
stand wider apart, and so are less effective; but that is not 
all the drawback of the system—there must be such an 
overwhelming of ground colour, or the green of the leaves, 
as will drown the flowers. The ground colour is also of 
many tints of green, or patchy; and plant how you will, 
and transfer a true picture of your work to paper when at 
its highest of beauty, and what shall you have besides 
patches of green, and blotches of the various colours, set at 
regular distances. I maintain, therefore, and I shall stick 
to it, that you can never make a good picture out of beds 
or out of borders planted with herbaceous plants, and, 
therefore, that they cannot be compared, or be brought in 
competition, with a good system of bedding plants ; yet the 
one is as good as the other for those who prefer either, and 
in large gardens the one helps to set off the other by the 
strong contrast. 
First of all, let us take such hardy herbaceous plants as will 
do for bedding, or keep a long time in flower; here (Snot hern 
furnishes four very good bedding plants, and half a dozen 
for the mixed border, and young plants of all of them may 
be planted as late as the middle of May, and flower the 
same season. CE. macrocarpa and Missouriensis make two 
of the best match beds in the garden, the difference between 
them being only in the shape of the leaves. Missouriensis 
is more tender than the other, and in severe weather should 
bo protected by putting a thick layer of sandy soil, tan, 
sifted coal ashes, or leaf mould, all over the bed. Both are 
increased from cuttings, when they are four inches long, in 
May, or in March and April from old plants potted and put 
into heat like Dahlia roots, and the young sprouts root 
much easier than Dahlia cuttings. Both dislike very much 
to lie disturbed at the roots after once they are established, 
and their thick roots never sprout without the top part, 
where the natural buds are, just like the Dahlia. 
(Knothera prostrata. — One of the best very low yellow 
bedders, where the soil suits it, and the proper treatment is 
given. The soil should be light and poor, and old plants 
to lie divided, at the end of April, in small pieces, and these 
to be planted five or six inches apart. Every morsel of the 
root grows like couch grass. The best bed of this I ever 
saw was with a Rev. gentleman near Oxford, Mr. Lys. 
(PI no them speciosa. —S. P., Hush-mere , has added his testi¬ 
mony to that of The Cottage Gardener in praise of this 
beautiful plant, and Mr. Sims, of Foots Cray, in Kent, had 
kept it in store for us many years after it was all but lost to 
the country. By-tlie-by, Mr. Sims has one of the best 
Phloxes that ever was seen for a bed, quite hardy, and quite 
a perennial, flowering from July till stopped by the frost, 
although a hybrid between one of the good varieties of 
Drummondi and a descendant of one of the panicled section. 
The (Enothera speciosa blooms profusely for three months, 
grows a foot or eighteen inches high, according to soil, and 
propagates like the Musk plant, but is apt to be lost in 
hard winters. 
Alyssum saxatile and saxatile variegata. —This is just now 
in bloom, and there is not another plant in England that 
will come near to it in all the requisites of a bedding plant, 
or an edging for a bed, as far as it goes, but it only lasts for 
about three weeks in April, and ten days or a fortnight in 
May. It is about six inches high, and the mass of yellow 
flowers completely hide the leaves. It seeds sparingly, and 
they ought to be sown the moment they are ripe, and if so, 
and the practice were followed out, it would probably run 
into improved varieties. It is almost always increased-by 
cuttings at the end of summer, under a hand-glass, behind 
a wall; is as old as Double Daisies, and ought to be in every 
garden, however small. The variegated is perhaps less 
hardy. The flowers of both are about the same. 
Anemone japoniea. —This is just a contrast to the last, 
coming in at the other end of the season—in September 
and October—very gay, very strong, and as easy to keep and 
increase as Dandelions. It is the best plant we have to 
grow at the edge of a pond, or swampy ditch ; it is also a 
good rock plant, where the soil is good; I saw it that way 
at Claremont last year, and I never saw it finer. There is 
a hybrid variety of it, a much better flower than the one; 
both are purplish pink, and rise two feet high. 
Anemone vitifolia. —This is the pollen parent of the hybrid 
Anemone just mentioned ,and where it does well, is one 
of the best herbaceous plants we have. I have seen it in 
flower, a yard high, and eight feet in diameter, with perhaps 
