August 4. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
339 
but Queen of Summer is a poor thing indeed in most 
places. 
He has beautiful beds of Lobelia ramosoides. This 
was first mentioned and recommended in The Cottage 
Gardener, and it has turned out just what I said from 
a single plant of it I saw exhibited from the Pine-Apple 
Place Nursery ; it is the best of all the little blue tribe. 
Beds of the Unique Geranium are made here from old, 
stinted plants; young plants of it run too much to leaf, 
and give fewer flowers, and they come much later than 
from old, straggling plants. The best way to do this 
Unique is to strike it from cuttings in February, in 
smart heat, when it will root like Verbenas; and when 
the beds are planted in May, the young Uniques should 
be potted singly in small pots, kept a fortnight or three 
weeks in a close, cold frame, and then turned out into a 
bed of sand, saw-dust, or coal-ashes, and the nots to be 
plunged to the rim, there to remain to the end of Sep¬ 
tember; they will root out through the bottom of the 
pots, and make a free growth, and produce flowers for 
nosegays, or glasses, all the autumn; but they are not 
to be cut back at all, even were any of them a yard 
long; the out-roots are trimmed off when the plants are 
housed, and the plants are staked, and kept in the same 
pots all that winter. The very tops are taken off next 
February for a fresh batch of cuttings, and the old 
plants are kept as cool as possible all through the 
spring, and turned out in May into the beds, and the 
shoots are trained at full length close to the surface of 
the bed; and, after such a long cramping at the roots, 
the old wood is so ripe that, on the first move of growth, 
flowers are up from every joint. Some such manage¬ 
ment is certainly necessary to get this beautiful flower 
in anything like profusion all over a bed. 
Under very large old Cedars of Lebanon, in the plea¬ 
sure-ground, they plant Ivy where grass will not grow, 
and cannot thrive, and it answers remarkably well, and 
so it will under any trees, where it is difficult to get grass. 
About tl^ end of September would be a good time to 
fork up under Cedar-trees, and to wheel on some fresh 
earth, and plant young Ivy plants at about a foot apart 
each way; then, if they were to be well attended to the 
following summer, with a good soaking of water now 
and then, both the Cedars and under them would be 
much improved. We often have complaints about such 
things, and that is one of the best and least expensive 
ways I know of. I do not know any forest or orna¬ 
mental tree that is sooner improved by ^ good top¬ 
dressing than the Cedar of Lebanon, and no manure or 
strong water is so good for it as three or four inches 
deep of any fresh earth from a common or road-side bank, 
after first scraping off the dry loose surface caused by 
the fallen leaves. 
In the experimental ground of the Horticultural So¬ 
ciety, I saw two or three very nice things for the first 
time:—A white variety of Seline Pendula, a most useful 
annual to come in at the end of April, and so on to 
Midsummer; and it may be sown now or any time be¬ 
tween this and the end of August, on any rough spare 
piece of ground, or among shrubs, the plants will shift 
for themselves through the winter, and will remove in 
the spring as easily as cabbage plant. 
Diantlius Qardnerii, a rich, purple flower, very good 
indeed, and propagated like other pinks. Cenia turbinata, 
a low, yellow-flowering annual, with leaves and growth 
like Chamomile, was new to me; it is more curious than 
otherwise, but may be useful for rock-work. Venidium 
eximium, another very curious rock-plant, a composite, 
and I suppose an annual, with yellow flowers, not un¬ 
like a Qazania; and Monolopia californica, a nice grower, 
and full of yellow flowers, a capital bedder, if it lasts 
long enough. It comes nearest to Galichroa platiglossa 
in growth and looks, but is altogether a more genteel 
looking thing; an annual, of course, and one of the 
newest from California, except Mr. Veitch’s new yellow 
i Leptosiphon, of which seeds will be advertised im- 
I mediately for autumn sowing. D. Beaton. 
STANDARD FLOWERING SHRUBS —THEIR 
UTILITY AND MODE OF SUPPORT. 
Take one of our great men—a recognised arbiter in 
gardening taste—and before you could fix upon his very 
opinion, would you not, and with no great success, be 
under the necessity of comparing his past and present 
views, and how these, again, were influenced by circum¬ 
stances? For instance, accompany him to the splendid 
gardens in front of the mansion at Trentliam. For a 
moment, the beautiful ground-work is shaded by the large, 
beautiful, standard Laurels, that, as it were, lift up the 
ground, and give to it massiveness and dignity. Our critic 
is in ecstacies. In his musings he is transported to the 
gardens of Italy, and the warmer parts of France. In 
these Laurels he sees nothing but Orange-trees, and the 
clever mode in which the deception is accomplished 
yields an additional pleasure. Hint that they look very 
artificial, and you are told the more they look so the 
better—everything in their vicinity being stamped with 
art and design. Ask if they would not have done as 
well planted out, instead of being raised above ground 
in tubs; and you are told, No. The tubs serve two pur¬ 
poses—completing the illusion as to the Orange-trees, 
and giving to all a bolder stamp of the artistic in design, 
as opposed to the more natural in style. With such 
ideas of standards seeking a comfortable lodging in 
your brain, you enter an exhibition room, or walk be¬ 
neath the awning that shelters exhibition plants. Almost 
the first things that strike your eye are some pretty stand¬ 
ards of plants you had been accustomed to look upon as 
low-growing bushes. You cannot conceal your admiration, 
but what is your surprise, to hear your mentor ejaculate, 
“What taste! unnatural! such stiltedness! regular 
mops!! a little longer handle, and what excellent fly 
and spider flappers for the housemaid!!!” But while 
you listen, thoughts are galloping through your mind— 
such as, that in the northern parts of the Island the 
Portugal Laurel is naturally more of a bush than a 
standard tree; that there is a difference in the beauty 
of the fine standard thorn on your lawn, and the brake 
of those bushes in your meadow:—that your favourite 
Rose-tree, with a head some two yards in diameter, 
has attractions which a bush on the ground, which 
you must stoop to examine, does not possess; and 
then, glancing along the tables, evincing such won¬ 
drous cultural skill, the idea will pop itself forward, 
in the Geranium group, for instance, that the level uni¬ 
formity in size and height detracts from their beauty, 
merely because there is little opportunity for light 
and shade, and no conspicuous point, uplifting as it 
were, on which the eye can repose, and which some 
beautiful standards raised above the common level 
would unquestionably give. But the words of the 
great arbiter in taste are ringing in your ears; and, 
amid conflicting feelings, you hardly know whether to 
give up the understanding this matter of taste in de¬ 
spair, or quietly follow the windings of an acknowledged 
genius in the matter, or manfully resolve, after taking 
a few prominent principles for land-marks, to follow out 
the promptings of your own perceptions of the beautiful. 
I believe that somewhere in this work I have said 
something of small, isolated standards, such as Rose- 
trees , with heads a few inches in diameter, as having 
too much of the mop style to be truly beautiful. It is 
true, they must have small heads before they have large 
ones; but that, though it should give us patience, need 
not interfere with the decision of the present. The 
I 
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