May 12. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
99 
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sun, and the sun will draw the new growth, as it were, 
to the south to fill up the space, like killing two birds 
with one stone; the best position for the plant to be in, 
and the surest way to fill up bed space. When a plant 
is trained south the leaves lie the other way, which is 
not so good for them ; and if, by any means, a leat must 
be turned upside down, it is ten times better for the 
plant that it should be cut off. One very easy way of 
fixing a young plant where you require is to lay it | 
nearly flat on the ground, to make choice of a leaf near 
the end of the shoot, to make a little hole under this 
leaf in the bed with the forefinger, then to turn down i 
the leaf into this hole and to fill it up gently with soil, 
as if you wero planting some nice cutting. Sometimes j 
two leaves must be fastened down, one on each side of 
the shoot; this mode is called “ tying in by the ears,” ; 
and the youngest boy in a large garden understands the , 
phrase to mean nothing else, except, perhaps, his own j 
ears, if he does not finger the plants properly. 
The philosophy about the functions of leaves is not 
outraged by such practices in the least degree, although 
burying the half or three-parts of a leaf into the soil is 
as bad as pulling off another that was turned the wrong 
way upwards. Neither of them comes within the letter 
of the law at this moment, for this reason, the best of us 
cannot, and never did, remove one plant from a pot for ' 
planting elsewhere, or for repotting into another pot, 
without some slight injury to one or more of the roots; 
then, as the leaves and roots help each other, and sym¬ 
pathise with each other, the least injury to a root with- i 
draws so much sap from a leaf, or so many leaves, 
that it becomes actually a work of scientific skill and 
discrimination to pull off this or that leaf, or fasten the 
plant by it, at a time when the force of the roots is 
thrown out of balance. It is true enough, that all the 
world do not take this view of the question; and a very 
good thing too; for if all the world knew the right way | 
of doing things, there would be no use for books on 
gardening, and all the gardeners might go to the 
diggings. 
There is a trick, well known to expert planters, by 
which they can save appearances, and I think it is the 
very last secret that I have to put on paper. I have 
made use of it myself scores of times. The causes for 
it often arises in this way. The stock for bedding is ! 
made out in the preceding autumn; the chief of the ! 
plants are then propagated, and the rest from February 
to the end of March; but from some alterations in the 
garden, or from a change of purpose in the minds of 
those concerned, a whole side, or a certain number of 
beds must be planted with quite a different lot of 
plants from those marked out lor them in the autumn. 
Instead of thirty-three or forty-three plants for the dark 
purple bed, No. 12, that bed, at the eleventh hour, is to I 
be planted, and must he planted entirely with white 
Verbenas; and, in looking in the propagating book, you 
discover that, at the farthest, there can be no more than 
eighteen or twenty plants of white Verbenas to spare 
from the distribution that was made of them last 
autumn. Here is a fix—thirteen plants short for one j 
bed, and thirty-three plants more than enough of the I 
opposite colour, and no use for them ! If we say that 
fifty or a hundred beds are thus in opposition to the 
propagator’s book, and I have known as much ten times 
over, the-difficulty is really more than a fix—a regular 
loosening of all the bands and bonds which keep the 
whole garden together. Now, without harm to any¬ 
one, my last secret can bring about a balance in less 
time than most of my readers could believe, and No. 12 
bed will give the references to all the rest. Last autumn 
it was marked for thirty-three dark purple Verbenas 
(Emma), now it is to be of thirty-three white ones ( White 
Perfection), and you have only twenty to do it with. 
Then plant round the bed in full, as T said before, all 
with whites, and put the centre ones wider apart, then 
fill up the ground with the dark ones, and put a bit of 
stick by the side of each, that you may know it from 
the white ones. The man in the moon could not know 
the white Verbenas from the dark Verbenas till they 
came into flower, and somehow or other, the dark ones 
never do flower till the white ones are spread all over 
the bed, when it is time to pull up all the blacks, be 
done with them and say nothing about them. It is 
very likely some one pulls off the flower-heads of the 
false plants, or, rather say, those in a false position, 
before the flowers open ! But it is very difficult to have 
out that part of the story, and as the rest of it may 
come in very useful at this very season, to save appear¬ 
ances for a while, we must not pry too closely whore 
nothing is to be gained by it. 
About the middle, and to the end of May, is a good 
time to sow biennials ami perennials to come into flower 
next season, after being once or twice transplanted—first, 
in September, to nursery beds, and in February or 
March to where they are to flower. Also, some that 
will flower this next autumn. Of the latter, Mignonette, 
Sweet Peas, and the Eschsclioltzias, are the most de 
serving, and all of them will flower on to the very last 
day in the season, if they are sown by the 20th of May 
where they are to flower, and both the Mignonette and 
the Eschscholtzias may be sown in the same front row 
which is now filled up with some edging plant that will 
be over by the middle of July, so that there need not he 
a spot unoccupied all the season through. 
Antirrhinums and Wallflowers, from a May sowing, 
come in very handy to plant out next October, when 
tho summer plants are removed, to help to keep the 
beds green all the winter, and early in the spring they 
may be disposed about as circumstances may require. 
Hollyhocks to be transplanted next October or No¬ 
vember; Scabious the same, but should be well guarded 
against frost, when they would flower three months 
sooner than if put off till next spring. The Poppy 
and Russian Anemones (A. coronaria and prwcox), to 
bloom late next autumn, through a mild winter, or early 
in the spring; all the Aquilegias and Campanulas that 
one can buy seed of. Catananchc ccerulea and bicolor, to 
flower next year, and afterwards. All the perennial 
Larkspurs, as tho Chinese ( Delphinium Chinense), than 
which we have none better for blue beds, when tho best 
varieties are selected from a seed-bed, and the roots 
taken up and preserved like those of Salvia patens. 
Delphinium azureum, lazidinum, speciosum, tricolor, aud 
puniceum. All the Foxgloves and their seeds may be 
scattered in any wild ground that was lately dug over. 
Dianthuses, in a vast variety of sorts, of which the 
following are all gay and lasting flowers—the best Sweet 
Williams (Dianthus barbatus) ; Indian Pinks (D. chi- 
nensis), keep over the first winter, when sown as late as 
the end of May ; D. plumosus, or plumasius, tho 
sweetest of all the Pink tribe, and will do on rock- 
work ; also D. deltoides, with bright pink flowers, on 
rock, or edge of a border, and all of them in some quiet 
corner, to come in for cut flowers. Dianthus atro- 
rubens, hispanicus, and latifolius, with superbus, run into 
a great number ofuseful and very gay varieties from seeds. 
Qearns and Potentillas can be had in dozens, by sowing 
seeds of them at this season. All the best perennial 
Lupines are still in good time for sowings, and getting 
scarce for want of such supplies. Lupinus polyphyllus 
and polyphyllus albas are the two best Lupines of the 
perennial class ; and L. grandi/olius, ornatus, and sjwci- 
osus are not much behind them. There are more tlian 
a dozen of sorts of the Rock Rose (Helianthemum) that 
can be had in the seed-shops ; and this is just the time 
to sow them, to be removed to the rockeries, or root- 
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