May 19. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
121 
them in loam, like us, under their clearer and hotter 
sun. Their compost is a soft, boggy peat, which holds 
water like a sponge. They invariably repot their 
Camellias in October, so as to have this soft peat full of 
their roots before it is time to begin heavy watering in 
the spring, and English gardeners look with wonder on 
the very small pots which carry such healthylooking 
plants, and so full of bloom-buds, too, as come over 
from the continent every winter to our markets. But 
these plants are the very incarnation of deception 
i itself, for they had not been repotted for the two pre¬ 
vious years, and the art of man can hardly drive the 
roots out of the hard, peaty ball, and putting such into . 
large pots only hastens their ruin, the balls being water¬ 
proof in the middle of plenty. 
The finest Camellias in bloom, in the large conser¬ 
vatory here, when I first called, was Bealii, trained 
against the back wall. It was one mass of bloom. Of 
the old Camellias, this comes nearest to the red im- 
bricata in shape, and of the new ones, the Duchess of 
Buccleugh ranks next to imbrioata. Her Grace was a 
seedling raised by Mr. Jackson, of Kingston, and 
another of his best seedlings is called Martinii, in 
compliment to the liberal owner of Bank Grovo. 
There is a very good figure of this fine Camellia in 
the Florist of May, 1852. It is the nearest to scarlet 
of all we know of, and the tip of the petals are marked 
with an angular white spot. Some think that Lady 
Broughton, a deep crimson flower, is the best of the 
Kingston seedlings; for my own part, I would first 
choose this Martinii, and next to it the Countess of 
Ellesmere, which is a cupped flower of a blush-white 
ground, delicately striped with rose, and the cupped 
form holds good to the last. Fine examples of all of 
them are to be seen here, and the finest variegated of 
all, a seedling by Mr. Chandler, of Vauxhall, called 
Prince Albert, or Albertus, has attained a full size 
Nothing in its way can be more beautiful than this 
flower. It comes the nearest in colours to the Chinese 
Azalea, called Exquisita. The habit of the plant is 
very close, like that of tricolor, another great beauty 
here, growing as closely as the narrow-leaved myrtle. 
Fimbriata and T Voodsii, the companions for many years 
of the “Lion of Surrey,” are removed to this house, at 
the suggestion of Sir W. J. Hooker, from Kew. Elegans, 
one of the most favourite of all the rose-coloured ones, 
was in magnificent bloom on the back wall; but when 
all are so good it is a puzzle how to point out singly. 
Chandlerii, in a slate box, by the drawing-room door, and 
trained up to the wall, was the most healthy looking 
Camellia I ever saw ; it was loaded with flowers of 
nearly as deep a colour as Carolina, and not a single 
trace of the usual white stripes and blotches; and 
DonheUirii was less marked here than I ever saw it 
before. The truth is, they grow these variegated ones 
too well, and I expect it is the same with the Marchioness 
of Exeter Camellia, trained against the back wall in 
another house, which I wanted very much to see in 
flower, for I have never seen a bloom of it yet; but no 
man in his senses would give that name to an inferior 
flower, nor could he to a more worthy patron of high 
gardening. 
In the regular Camellia house these plants look on a 
par with those in the Conservatory, and all along the 
back wall the plants are growing in slate boxes, set on 
a stone pavement. Also on the back wall of another 
long bouse, which is entirely devoted now to a full col¬ 
lection of the finest seedlings of Chinese Azaleas, every 
plant of which is a specimen plant, not quite so large 
as they now bring to the shows, but as finely grown as 
any that were ever exhibited. 
Were it not for the specimens of Heaths which I have 
seen in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, I confess I 
should be inclined to assent to the general belief round 
London, that there is no peat in the world so good as 
that from Wimbledon Common for growing these plants 
in. Mirabilis is one of the best of all these Azaleas, the 
colour is that between rose and geranium colour, which 
almost all ladies admire; the substance waxy, and the 
shape perfect for a florist; macrantha, a large purplish 
flower; atrorubens, deep carmine; speciosissima, a deep 
rose ; formosa, with a purplish tinge; exquisita, eximia, 
magniflora, and, indeed, all the best of the race are here 
seen together in one mass of bloom at the beginning of 
May; and, when making their growth, they receive April 
temperature, that is, warm days, damp afternoons, and 
cool nights, while the Camellias, during their growth, re 
ceive May temperature, April showers, and warm, moist 
nights, with a slight shading from the sun, and the 
climbers strictly kept in to the rafters. Of these, the 
different species of Kennedy a and Zicliya, Sollya linearis, 
Habrothamnus elegans, with Fuchsia Carolina and ser- 
\ ratifolia, are the chief in use. The serratifolia blooms 
almost all the year through ; and to have it in pots, after 
seeing how it rambles away in the freedom of the open 
border, and how it flowers then, seems little short of 
caricaturing the plant altogether. 
In the stove, the chief climbers are the best of the 
Passion-flowers, as Kermesina, racemosa, or princeps, 
quadrangular is, &c.; Combretum purpureum, on the 
spurred system ; Steplianotis floribunda, Henfreya scan- 
dens, and another stove climber called Lettsomia tomen - 
tosa, a plant which needs to be corrected in our “Dic¬ 
tionary.” The real name of this climber is Argyreia ; 
it is a native of the East Indies, and was named Lett¬ 
somia by Roxburgh, but that genus was pre-occupied 
by Ruiz and Pavon with quite a different plant from 
Peru. Argyreia, Pharbitis, Ipomcea, and Convolvulus, 
are all brothers and sisters among the Bindweeds, and 
this Argyreia tomentosa is a large, woolly-leaved Bind¬ 
weed, to all intents and purposes. It has either not 
come to a flowering age here, or it must be shy to 
bloom. When it will bloom, if I am right, the flowers 
will look like our own large, white-flowered Bindweed 
in our hedges, and that will settle the question. Our 
“Dictionary” has “taken” so well, that in future we 
shall be thankful for any corrections that may be sent 
to us respecting it, to come in for future editions. 
The chief attraction out-of-doors, at this season, at 
Bank Grove, are the different views of the Thames, 
which runs down by the side of the pleasure-grounds; 
the majestic old Cedars of Lebanon, now casting the 
scales of their seed-cones in all directions; the fine old 
Elms next the house, with Wall-flowers springing out 
from their roots, as if sown by the nightingales before 
they left the Grove last summer—an original idea, well 
worth carrying out. A large clump, also, ot old Elms 
near the Rosary, covered three-parts ol the way up with 
huge mantles of Ivy. The full-grown purple Beeches, 
the Oaks, the Sycamores, and other large trees, which 
make up the “Grove,” the Arboretum, and especially 
the Pinetum ; but I must leave them to-day with regret, 
for want of room, and only mention a few very remark¬ 
able specimens. 
Of these there are three of Plolly-leaved Berberis (B. 
aquifolium) on the grass, now in full flower, each of 
them about seven feet high. One is just fifteen yards 
round close to the extremities of the branches, which 
sweep the grass; the second, a full yard more than that: 
and the third, no less than eighteen of the longest steps 
that I could make. Likely enough, those very plants 
cost Sir John Broughton five guineas a-piece; and 
although one could buy thousands of them to-morrow, 
at Kingston, for five shillings the hundred, the large 
specimens are each worth twenty guineas between two 
brothers. 
The real Pinetum was only begun by Mr. Byam 
Martin, in 1818, with the best specimens he could pro- 
