82 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[May 9. 
keep in frames, and to increase. The flowers are borne 
on long stiff foot-stalks, which render them very suitable 
for the bouquet makers. 
Amongst other things, wo are noted here for keeping 
up to the fashion in bouquets; and when they are tastily 
made some of them look really very smart; but the 
makers are sad fellows to get the run of a flower-garden. 
I am obliged to have large masses of the most popular 
or suitable flowers for them reared in the reserve garden ; 
and yet I often catch them trespassing; and then the 
usual excuse of some great personage “just coming in 
to-night,” and something extra must be provided for the 
occasion, is sure to be urged. 
I have not had a bed of this blue Cineraria since 1845, 
but I see a couple of them are marked for this season; 
and by way of a little polish I intend adding about one- 
third of Lobelia ramosa, for it will be recollected that this 
annual lobelia makes one of the finest low blue beds one 
can plant; and I make three sowings of it in pots—one 
in March, and two in April; get them up in a little 
heat, and then harden them gradually. I am not sure how 
this mixture will look, and I forgot to try them in cut 
flowers; but something I must have to render the beds 
richer than the cineraria by itself, although we fixed 
upon it on the recommendation of a gentleman who is 
celebrated for his fine gardens. 
The Salvia chamadrioides is also a very old plant, but 
a very good one for a blue bed of no great size. It is 
next thing to being hardy, and creeps underground like 
spear grass, so that after you once get a bed of it by 
cuttings, you need never want it again—as by taking up 
the old roots at the same time as the Dahlias, and plant¬ 
ing them in sheds or cellars, or any dry place away 
from the frost, you may keep it for a life-time. In the 
spring, that is, near the end of April, we take out the 
roots of this salvia, part them according to the stock we 
want, and then plant them either in sand under a cold- 
frame, or, what is as likely, plant them at once in their 
flowering-beds, and that is as good as any other way with 
the Salvia patens, and with the dahlias also, when one 
does not want a large increase from their roots. The 
best way to deal with this salvia in beds, is to plant the 
roots or plants rather close, or, say, not more than six to 
nine inches apart according to then’ size; and as they 
grow, to train the shoots round and round until the 
ground is matted with them. Their side branches from 
this net-work will rise in thick and close succession till 
the end of October; and the height under this manage¬ 
ment will be from a foot to eighteen inches, according 
to the richness of the soil. We need hardly remark, that 
all oiu salvias are partial to a rich pasture. Of all our 
blue beds, this has the darkest shade; and after all that 
has been sung and said on the subject, there is no way 
of bringing out the full effects of blue, purple, and pink 
flowers so successful as planting according to the shades 
in these colours. We can hardly meet with three plants 
with blue, purple, or pink flowers which are exactly of 
the same shade or tint. We have the blues from this 
dark blue salvia to the slate or gray bluish tint in 
Isotoma axillaris, of which I said enough last autumn 
to serve for one' year at least; but I have another new 
bed to day in this light blue tint, and an excellent bed 
to the bargain. It is made with Selago corymbosa, an 
old plant, it is true, and casts a reflection on us gar¬ 
deners for our haste in discarding such useful plants 
after a few seasons, because we happen not to find out 
the proper mode of treating them at first, not only for 
the flower-garden, but for any of the gardening purposes. 
I believe the credit of introducing this new bed into our 
gardens is due to my worthy friend Mr. Smith, Curator 
of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. The way to 
manage this blue bedder is to treat it as a biennial, 
that is, to sow its seeds one year, and to flower it the 
following season; and this is a very good time to sow its 
seeds to come in next year; the plants can be taken up 
in the autumn, and kept over the winter with very little 
trouble; but although a soft wooded plant it does not 
readily yield a supply by cuttings. 
Speaking of Kew Gardens, reminds one of the curious 
turns fashion takes in flowers, and in other things. 
Although they have the largest collection of plants in 
the country there, the most curious, rare, and expensive, 
and although they cultivate them in the first-rate style, 
since they have had proper accommodation, yet, they 
must have their flower-gardens, and plant them too, in 
the most approved style of fashion, just as I have been 
stating in these articles on bedding plants. Now, this 
is a very harmless and enjoyable way of amusing the 
public; and yet there are those in the high places of 
gardening who sneer at all tire modern improvements in 
arranging flower-gardens, whether public or private; 
and who, assert that an unskilful race of degenerate 
gardeners have brought about such a state ot things, 
substituting yards of this, that, and the other kind ol 
vebenas, and scarlet geraniums, with “ patches of 
petunias, &c., &c., for hollyhocks, gilliflowers, and “ her¬ 
baceous plants,” which are all most beautiful in their 
way. So they are, sure enough ; but a gardener of these 
days who could produce nothing better than these good 
things in their way,” might as well sing, “ Bundle, and 
Go,” and be off at once to New Zealand. They say a 
shoemaker cannot go beyond his “ last; and there are 
critics whose flights of imagination cannot reach above 
the range of their own natural atmosphere ; but the 
“ cant of criticism ” looses its point in such hands. Out 
of the thousands of “ beautiful plants ” introduced into 
or indigenous to this country, very few, comparatively 
speaking, are found to possess the qualities necessary loi 
the flower-garden, or for the purposes of high cultivation 
in any department of our craft—as any one a little 
versed in the subject may see shortly, at the first ex¬ 
hibitions of plants in the world, in the neighbourhood 
of London. I would give very little for the head and 
ears of a gardener who attended these great exhibitions 
of our skilful or unskilful efforts for a serious of years, 
who could not tell before hand not only the names, but 
the actual dimensions of eiglity-five out of every hundred 
plants that will be staged in London this season lor 
competition; notwithstanding that bushels ol gold and 
silver medals have been offered and awarded, to stimulate 
the exertions of collectors and cultivators. No, like the 
flower gardener, we shall have nothing better than the 
old dish over again this season ; but the flower gardener 
lias the advantage of his “ brother chip of the exhibition 
tables, for he can cook many of his old dishes over 
again, and so produce a more apparent variety. The 
truth of all this, however, is simply this, that gold and 
silver can no more turn the tide of fashion, than skilful 
or unskilful gardeners, and critics, can change the 
nature of those plants they cultivate and describe, and 
it is very little to the point to say, that gardeners ol any 
stamp are more potent than gold and silver. Seeing, 
therefore, that those things are so past our control, 
would it not be better for us to work each in his own 
calling, and endeavour to assist and please each other, 
rather than bandy about hard names, and ungracious 
epithets? 
The principal plants for displaying the more distinct 
colours during the summer and autumn, have now been 
mentioned; those for the other half of the flowering 
season, or from February to the middle or end ol June, 
there is no groat hurry about for the present; and before 
I begin to enumerate those summer-flowering plants, , 
wliich either produce no decided colour or which keep 
in flower only a month or two, I wish to recommend seeds j 
of the following plants, chiefly annuals, to bo sown 
between this and the 20th May, to come in either for j 
