July 31. COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 307 
I have known plenty of young men who could strike , 
Heath cuttings, and cuttings of all hard-wooded Gom- 
phologies, with little or no loss, and still they could 
make no hand at Variegated Geraniums; more than one- 
half of the cuttings would damp or go off, nobody knowing 
why ; but the why was plain enough to common sense ; 
they kept them too' close, and gave them five times too 
much water, just as if they were little bits of twigs from a 
birch-broom, or their own hard wooded plants. Another 
thing was much against them ; they pressed the sand 
and compost too much—just as they would for Heath 
cuttings; but that is not so good as a moderate closeness. 
If a bed for Geranium cuttings is as firm as you would 
make the earth in a Geranium-pot at potting time, it is 
exactly the right state. 
SOIL FOR GERANIUM CUTTINGS. 
Some people run away with the foolish notion that 
you cannot have the soil too firm for any cuttings, 
but, believe me, they are as wrong as they can be on 
that score. I do not like leaf-mould in a compost 
for autumn cuttings, and for this reason, that it holds 
the moisture longer than pure earths, and the moisture 
from it is too fat for many cuttings; but for spring 
cuttings, when you have plenty of bottom-heat in a cu¬ 
cumber frame, you might have one-half of leaf-mould, the 
rest of sand and loam, or peat, because the stimulus 
from the close-bottom heat is only about equal to the 
extra fat, or stimulus of the leaf-mould; but now the 
balance is not fair for fair hands to take advantage of; 
so you see, after all, that a young beginner might be 
very lucky in the spring with a hotbed, and yet fail 
with more common things in the autumn. At all 
events, it is as well to know the difference. 
The best compost for Geranium cuttings may be 
made with the top soil of a kitchen-garden, or even a 
shrubbery, with sand enough to make it light, or a little 
peat and sand ; and if it is put into a frame or pit, to 
have it no more than three inches deep, and a little 
clean sand on the top. 
PLANTING GERANIUM CUTTINGS. 
Put in the cuttings in rows across the beds, and 
rather thick, three inches from cutting to cutting in the 
rows, and four inches from row to row, or thereabouts; 
but the size of the cuttings and of the leaves makes 
some difference; one thing is sure, which is, that the 
leaves do not get bigger till the roots come to make 
more leaves; any length, from three to five or six 
inches, will do for the cuttings. I would make all the 
cuttings of the variegated sorts of Tom Thumb and 
Baron Hugel as long as the shoots would allow, as no 
more cuttings can be got this autumn from the fresh 
growth after the first cuttings; still, I would have an eye 
to the old plants, and cut so as to leave the best form j 
of plant. Some people are so bent on haviug every j 
morsel of a young shoot made into a cutting that they 
spoil their old plants. The right way to take cuttings is 
to leave at least one joint of young growth on the old 
shoot; as long as that plan is followed, it is impossible 
to hurt an old plant; as all such joints will break again, 
whereas, if the young shoot is cut close to the old one, 
the chances are against another shoot from that part. 
BEDDING GERANIUMS. 
SJceltoni is a newish bedding Geranium, with nearly 
white flowers, and horse-shoe leaf. I believe it to be 
the best of the white-flowered ones for a bed; but we 
shall soon prove that from a good-sized, round bed of 
it, which they planted this season at the Crystal Palace, 
near the new Rosery, between the Rosery and the end 
of the west wing. Boule de Niege is a nice pot plant 
after the pride is taken out of it, that is, after the strong 
growth is over, and it becomes pot-bound. I am almost 
certain that the older this kind is the better it will be as 
a pot-plant. For beds it is hardly suitable, and not so at 
all in a first-rate garden, because it goes too much to 
leaf according to the flowers, and the flowers do not 
stand rain or wind. Even the Flower of the Bay, and 
all that breed, do not make a mass of bloom as one 
likes to see in a bed; but then their leaves and their 
close habit of growing are the very perfection of a showy 
bed. If I was “in my element,” I would use Mrs. 
Woodrooff Verbena to throw a nobleness of scarlet into 
a Flower of the Bay bed, which would surprise all the 
Duchesses, even if I had to pick off some of the leaves 
of the Verbena, and all the dirty red flowers of the 
Geranium, just as I used the Buchesse of Amaule and 
Hyder Verbenas, to throw moi’e grey into the Heliotrope 
beds, aud as I pricked off the flowers of the Golden 
Chain, and the leaves of the common Nasturtiums, to 
let the flowers be seen. 
Of all the Geraniums, Compactum makes the most 
regular show, and it does very well everywhere, but it is 
a bad scarlet—being neither a scarlet nor pink—still we 
have no flower like it for compactness of truss, and till 
we have, never want a stock of young plants of it from 
August cuttings, and take special care of the old plants, 
they are so useful for the middle of a bed, and, being of 
a muddling colour, almost any other kind will do to 
plant round it or before it. One good way would be 
thus, in a circle; but any form of bed will do, only the 
circle allows me to tell easier than any other form of 
bed. Take one bushy Compactum, full three feet high, and 
plant it in the middle of the circle; then make a 
circle round this plant twelve inches from it, or two 
feet across; just outside this circle plant four more 
bushy Compactums, at least ten inches shorter than the 
first plant, or a little over two feet high; eighteen 
inches from them plant a row of your biggest plants of 
Flower of the Bay, Mountain of Light, or Silver King. 
These ought to be eighteen inches high, and their leaves 
ought to meet round in the circle the day you plant 
them, and a row of purple Clarlcias, from a seed-bed of 
last April sowing (10th April), must be planted between 
Compactum and the variegated, to fill that space to the 
middle of July; one foot from the Flower of the Bay 
plant another row of it with shorter plants, and another 
of still shorter ones, making a gradual falling with 
three rows of Flower of the Bay, or, if you could, 
the first row with Silver King, the second with Moun¬ 
tain of Light, and the third with Flower of the Bay ; 
the leaves are much alike, aud there are two if not three 
shades of scarlet in the flowers. Now plant a double 
row of Eucaridium grandiflorum, which will occupy one 
foot when at its full spread in July, but only four 
inches when you plant them in May from a seed-bed, 
like Clarlcia. Suppose we have nine inches more, then 
let them be filled with the darkest of the little blue 
Lobelias in two rows, or in three rows, if the plants are 
small. The different green of the bands of Clarlcia and 
Eucaridium will be a good relief on each side of the 
variegated mass all through June. At the beginning 
of July the Clarlcia will be in bloom, if you sowed the 
seeds on the 10th of April; and by the 10th of July 
the Eucaridium will be in full bloom. I do not know 
two other plants which are more suitable for this bed 
than those two ; their flowers are two shades of purplish- 
pink, and the Eucaridium is by far the prettiest of the 
two, and looks as if it were a grandchild of Clarlcia; 
the two will bloom till the end of the first week in 
August, and by that time the Compactum will press 
hard on the Clarlcia; and the Lobelias, with the front of 
the variegated mass, will want relief from the Eucari¬ 
dium. But if there should be open spaces when the two 
are cleared off, go at once to the China aster beds in the 
