August 15.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
It is a very good plant to train against a post or pillar, 
or against a back wall in a greenhouse, where it will 
flower in April and May; and if the wall is damp it will 
root into it all the way up like the ivy. A large plant 
of it in a pot, plunged, against a pillar out of doors, has 
been beautifully in bloom for the last two months with 
a friend of mine—a reader of these pages—to whom I 
am indebted for my hints on such things. 
The Solarium jasminoides, another climber of con¬ 
siderable merit, has stood the last hard winter here, and 
in many other places, without any protection, and there¬ 
fore may be put on the list of hardy climbers for the 
flower-garden. Abelia nipestris, a comparatively new 
plant, is also all but hardy, and for covering a low wall 
comes in very useful; and for a fast growing climber 
against an open wall, the old Bignonia jasminoides comes 
in for a first-rate place. I have it now most beautifully 
in flower against an east wall, and the individual 
blossoms are much superior to those produced under 
glass, but in winter the plant requires to be well protected 
from frosts. One good way of managing it, and many 
others of the half-hardy climbers, for the flower garden, 
is to take them up every autumn and protect them in a 
greenhouse over the winter. This would give them a 
yearly root-pruning, as Mr. Errington wishes fruit-trees 
to be dealt with, under certain circumstances; but, for 
people who are not expert at potting or transplanting large 
plants, perhaps the safest way would be to keep them 
in large pots, and to plunge, pots and all, in the ground 
at the time of planting in May. One good arising from 
plunging or planting out old half-hardy plants in their 
pots is, that as soon as the surface of the pot is buried 
in the earth the roots spread upwards from the bottom 
of the pot, occupy the whole of it, and then escape into 
the free earth over the top of the pot. There is no other 
way, that I know of, so effectual in keeping the roots of 
some plants in all parts of the pots as this of plunging 
them over the top, whether in a bark-bed or in an open 
border. We all know that roots of most plants will go 
down to the very bottom of pots, and there coil round 
and round rather than spread about the whole ball; 
but no sooner do we bury the pot in the earth, or in 
plunging material, than these coiled roots send up 
feeders in all directions. I ought, however, to tell of 
some dangers which attend this pot-planting in sum¬ 
mer, in some soils, &c., viz. —that if put in a hole no 
larger than will just hold the pot, and deep enough to 
allow it a couple of inches under the general surface, 
if the soil happens to be at all strong or retentive 
of moisture, this hole will drain the soil for a given 
distance all round it, and as deep as the hole itself, 
and this drained water lodges round the pot, and 
when you come to water it, or when the rain helps, 
the pot cannot part with the extra water, at least for 
some time, and then the plants are in a much worse 
condition than those growing naturally on very wet 
land or on undrained farms. If the bottom of a border 
rests on a bed of clay (the most hopeless case for our 
pots), and that to get depth enough for burying the pot 
we must cut a few inches into the clay bottom, then 
there is no other means of security for the welfare of the 
plant than that of cutting a side drain from the bottom; 
but on any other soil a lodgment of water round the pot 
may be got rid of without a drain. The more common 
way is to make the hole six inches deeper than the pot, 
then to put two brick-bats in the bottom of the hole, 
and rest the bottom of the pot on the bats, so that it 
stands four inches clear from the under soil, and this 
allows room enough for drainage ; and some make the 
bottom of the hole like an inverted cone, and allow a 
foot or more of open space helow the pot; this is a good 
way to keep back the roots from working out of the 
bottom into the free soil. I believe the flower gardener 
from Surrey, whom I mentioned lately, told me that he 
3l)3 
covered a long stretch of trellis, pillars, &c., with half- 
hardy climbers plunged in pots; but the soil of the 
garden he manages is so light that he needs no precau¬ 
tion for drainage. 
Rose Stocks. —I have said already that the dog rose 
stock will not live long on our light, chalky soils here; 
indeed, before “ the Rosary ” was properly made, three 
years was about the usual time that Mrs. Elliott, the 
freest grower of the perpetual roses, could look healthy 
on the dog rose, while on the crimson and purple Bour- 
saults it, and all the strong growing roses, flourish to, 
I was going to say perfection, but, to my satisfaction is 
a more modest term. And yet I have heard and read of 
the dog rose as the best, and the Boursault stock as the 
worst that could be used; but, I believe, by writers 
whose experience of their respective merits was con¬ 
fined to one kind of soil—just the source from which 
half the mistakes and disappointments in gardening 
take their rise. I have said, over and over again, how 
to make cuttings of roses and other plants so as to 
prevent their ever sending up a sucker from the collar 
or any part of the stem, but when we meet with a plant 
whose natural way of increasing, or rather extending 
itself, is by making long underground shoots from the 
roots, we are baffled; and that is the habit of these 
Boursaults, and therefore I have been reluctantly obliged 
to cease budding on them. The Italian rose, called 
Manetti, introduced by Mr. Rivers, promises to be as 
good a grower on our soil as the Boursault; and they 
say it does not produce root suckers; and if that be 
true, I have no doubt but that it is all that has been 
said of it on light sandy soils, so that it fills up a void 
we experienced for years where the dog rose would not 
live. I have a rose here which I have known for ten 
years, and of which I entertain great hopes as a stock 
to work on; it is a real cross hybrid, raised by the late 
Dean of Manchester, and, I believe, with the view for a 
stock for chalky soils; but any light soil suits it, and all 
that I have worked on it have done well yet. 
D. Beaton. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Floeists’ Pelargoniums—Cuttings, &o. —The wood 
being prepared by hardening, &c., as alluded to last 
week, the next thing is the selecting of the cuttings; or, 
if many are wanted and it is desirable to make the most 
of the old plant for another year, then all the shoots 
should be cut down at the same time, in order that 
fresh growth in the different parts may proceed simulta¬ 
neously. If the plant is large, we cannot err in cutting 
low enough, provided a single joint or bud is left to 
each shoot. Even this is not absolutely necessary, hut 
fresh shoots will be formed sooner than if we stumped \ 
the plant in to the two-year-old wood. If, however, the 
plant be small, and with few shoots, and you wish to 
have it large the following season, then several buds 
may be left upon each shoot; and if they break at all 
nicely, you will obtain a large flowering plant earlier, 
because much stopping will not afterwards be necessary. 
Notwithstanding your preparing the plant, it will 
sometimes bleed after you cut it down; hut that may be 
easily stopped by dropping a pinch of quick lime on the 
cut part, and this is better than resorting to watering, 
which often, when given in such circumstances, imparts 
a gouty habit, which the young shoots are long in 
getting free from. Instead of watering at the roots, it 
is preferable to dust the stems slightly with lime-water 
from the syringe, for a week at least, and to keep the 
place, pit, or frame, &c., in which the plants are situated, 
rather close and moist. The clear lime-water from the 
