30 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, October 16, 1860. 
tired of seeing it yield to the season, there is one parti¬ 
cular use to which it could be put to please the boys—and 
that is, to cut the spikes and to let them dry in-doors till 
about Christmas, and then give them to the boys to play 
at volunteers with. Without tarring an enemy, they can 
feather him from top to toe, and the feathers will stick 
to every part of his dress better than if it were first 
smeared with tar. The time it takes to clear an army 
from the effects of a right Pampas battle will be sufficient 
to prevent invasion altogether. But let the boys prove 
the fact. 
The next plant in season is Tritoma uvaria. This was 
lost too in some places by the frost of last winter, and 
this season has given it no strength at all; not but that 
it has grown as well as usual, if not longer, but a South 
African like it will never make bone and muscle, accord¬ 
ing to the weight of flesh, without much sunshine : there¬ 
fore, see to having it provided with some slight covering 
from the frost till it comes round again. Every one of 
the seeds I had made nice little plants with the same 
treatment as an ordinary cold-frame plant; but of course 
none of them did bloom, and who could expect it ? There 
were fifty seeds in the packets, and mine made sixty- 
two plants, 30 I had a few extra seeds. The seedlings 
were planted out at the end of May, and now they are 
of the size of Wheat plants when the sheath folds for 
the coming of the ear. Then you can judge your luck 
with them. Mine will be taken up as soon as the 
frost tells on the leaves. The whole sixty will be put 
into two large pots full of the cocoa-nut refuse, and 
placed down in the cellar till the end of February ; but, 
of course, they will be often looked at, and if the place 
seems too mild for them, and they show the least symp¬ 
tom of growing again, they must be removed to a colder 
place. I shall also mulch over the old plauts with cinder 
ashes, enough to keep the frost from crusting the earth, 
all round and over them. 
At the Experimental Garden Farfugium grande is not 
to be left out this winter, the slugs being more hurt to it 
than frost; and as it will live dormant without the leaves 
the whole winter without harming it in the least, it will 
be taken up, and put in by the heels, as we say, in some 
cool corner—probably under the stages in the green¬ 
house. At the end of March it will be set to work, and 
early in May it will be turned out of doors for fancy 
decorations of sorts. 
Talking about fancy furnishing after the regular beds 
are filled in May, why half the best of the gardening of 
the country has been done in that style for years and 
years. Every movement out of the regular routine of an 
age of gardening is a fancy way. Some of the fancies 
are and have been most ridiculous, and some very supe¬ 
rior to the notions then prevailing on the matter of filling 
one’s extra borders, and out of the common capabilities 
of his situation. And some of our best hits in gardening, 
both in planting and raising stock, have had their origin 
in fancy decoration, which decoration embraced every 
degree and every point from the bottom of the scale up 
to blood heat at one time or another. Some do not like 
fancy things, or things out of the common run, and 
others think them the pink of perfection. And after all 
is said, every one of us has some fancy of his own in 
planting different from the rest: therefore, I never knew 
any strange or fancy thing to fail in gardening from the 
first day till now. 
The last fancy will certainly never fail, for it is founded 
on the philosophy of our common nature, but it will bear 
repetition. “We lately recommended a young lady to 
plant Crocuses in the lover’s knot style ; and she told us 
the effect was charming.” Of course it was—I never 
knew it otherwise. But did you ever hear such a fancy 
way of planting as this of the Messrs. Carter & Co., of 
High Holborn ? Depend upon it, their “ Yade Mecum ” 
will reach from pole to pole for that very fancy. Young 
ladies, lover’s knots, sound bulbs, and deep rich sandy 
loam, would make a paradise of a desert. (See Cottage 
Gardener, page 19.) 
You recollect there was a lover’s knot in the lady’s- 
locket way of planting that design at Kew this last plant¬ 
ing. So you see, from the highest to the most favoured, 
that knot is a talisman over all the tales in creation. But 
my fancy to-day must take a more uuambitious turn. It 
is to try to keep the planted-out Begonias with fancy ; 
leaves on the same model as Earfugium grande—that is 
to say, in a dormant state from October to late in the 
spring ; and why not ? Earfugium was bright and shining 
the whole winter; but that made no addition to its 
strength or beauty when planted out of doors, but the 
contrary. All the Ilexes and double X’s, the nebulus 
and nebulosus, the Miriams and Mirandas, and all up to 
frosted and snowflake-like leaves in Begonias, must be 
humoured into the condition under which Farfugium 
grande rested from its labours from the 17ch October, 
1859, to May day, 1860, and yet did more work for the 
last six months than any other thing in its way, short of 
a lover’s knot. And why not Begonias ? But will they 
keep dry or half dry in the balls they take up with them, 
through the whole winter? No, they will not, take my 
word for it. If you put them under hatches in their 
native warmth under the stages of an Orchid-house, or 
other plant-stove, that stimulus would cause them to 
make fresh leaves in less than a month ; and if there is but 
one leaf there is no rest, after the manner of this fancy. 
Then, the question is two-sided. At what degree of 
temperature will these fancy-leaved Begonias cease to 
make actual growth in winter, that would be a safe—the 
safer degree to rest them at P The other side of the 
question is, Which is the lowest figure at which the roots 
and rootstock of such Begonias can be kept during the 
winter without shrivelling up or dying off with sheer cold ? 
This last degree is yet a problem in gardening to be 
proved. We in the Experimental mean to solve this 
last point this winter. The kinds which are yet out in 
the borders there, and which have done remarkably well 
notwithstanding the cold, wet summer, will be taken up 
with balls of earth about the roots, the leaves will be cut 
off, and the balls will be planted in cocoa-nut refuse, 
which is of the consistence of sawdust, just under or very 
near the liot-water pipes in a common greenhouse, along 
with Farfugium grande, from which the leaves will also 
be cut. The condition of being neither wet nor dry the 
whole winter will be the rule for these “roots.” 
Those who have hothouses of diflerent temperatures, 
and old blocks of Begonias to spare for the experiment, 
ought to assist in the inquiry by trying for that degree 
| of warmth which will preserve the plants from growing for 
some months. ISTo matter if the plants have not been 
out of doors like ours, the experiment will pay its 
cost for in-door work just as much as for fancy planting, 
as very old or very large specimens could thus be kept 
over the winter at no cost of room or labour; and in the 
summer they would come in very handy to fill the show- 
hoiise with such magnificent specimens as would be very 
difficult to obtain in any other way. 
There is no doubt about Begonias being used in the 
flower garden in various ways; but it is only in rock 
and rustic work that they will tell best. The exotic flora 
of the flower garden is about as pleasant a thing as one 
could hit upon, and nothing of an out-of-the-way-look 
will ever come amiss in this department. Then, if we can 
manage to keep them like so many old cut-down Gera¬ 
niums in winter, thousands would soon have them who 
have now no idea of their looks or nature. 
Writing about flowers takes various turns, like all 
this variety and variation in the leaves of Begonias. 
For instance: Three or four or five years back/'a new 
half-hardy climber was introduced into the London trade 
from the Continent, I believe, but no one in the upper 
crust of botany could tell aught about it. Nothing of 
the sort having ever entered their books, it must have 
