1*)G THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 18, I860. 
light rosy Verbena with which to edge it. If it (railed 
•in its growth like those in the bed, it could hardly be 
'called a distinct edging, train it how you would ; but as 
it is a close, upright grower and very dwarf, the contrast 
between it and those which fill the bed stamps it at once 
as an appropriate edging, although its flowers are of the 
same tint as the flowers in the bed. 
Now, take any other family of bedders, and see if we 
■can find another instance like that of Lucy Tait among 
them all, barring the G-eraniums. What is the best 
Petunia to edge a Petunia-bed with, or is there one for 
r that purpose, and how could it be managed? There is 
nothing of the kind which could be managed to pay for 
the trouble of doing. If you take the Calceolarias, I 
believe the same remark will hold good. You would need 
k cme of the original herbaceous Calceolarias, and a per¬ 
petual bloomer, to make an appropriate edging for a bed 
of any one of the present bedding kinds, unless you bed 
with those dirty black or foxy brown ones which few 
persons can look at or admire, and edge them with young 
plants of integrifolia—a sorry mixture, by the way, which 
ris not likely to be approved of; for, unless there is a 
marked difference in the leaves, or flowers, or style of 
growth of an edging plant from the plants in the bed, the 
planting will look vulgar and out of fashion altogether. 
In Geraniums alone can we find subjects to compare 
with the effects of Lucy Tait in their own sections. 
Scarlet Geraniums will make appropriate edgings to beds 
of scarlet kinds when their leaves are variegated; and 
pink, or purple, or any other shade of colours, will answer 
for beds of the same shades if the leaves of the edging 
lants are also variegated. The contrast is strong in the 
ifference of the leaves, and that counterbalances the ill 
effects of all the flowers being of the same colour in an 
■edged bed, just as the upright habit of Lucy Tait over¬ 
comes the sameness of pink and all pink in an edged bed 
of Verbenas. Recollect, however, that although I have 
put pink to pink, and purple to purple, with these dif¬ 
ferences of contrast, for argument’s sake, it should 
never be done in actual planting if it can be avoided ; and 
it is only among variegated plants, and more in k< eping 
with variegated Geraniums, that such mixings are at all 
admissible in stylish gardening. 
I have now in my possession, and in my mind's eye 
at the present moment, another plant which has never 
yet been proved as Lucy Tait has been—that is, to stand 
colour as an edging to the very same colour, ard yet 
maintain a strong contrast between the bed and the 
edging of the bed. I have just said that it is against 
the fashion to plant Lucy Tait for an edging, to, say, 
Beauty Supreme Verbena, on account of the sameness of 
the colours, notwithstanding the strong contrast in the 
style of growth of the two Verbenas. My new edging 
plant has just the same degree of contrast in its growth 
with that of the plant round which I am going to recom¬ 
mend you to plant it, as Lucy Tait has with Beauty 
Supreme; and the colour of my two plants is much 
nearer alike than those of the two Verbenas, and yet I 
venture to hope, as I really believe, that my two put 
together in this way will make the best bed of all the 
new beds which will be tried in this country next season. 
My two plants are about the same age as the Horticultural 
Society of London; they had as many ups and downs, 
and as much rough usage from friends and Fellows; 
they have also been just reviewed, as if on purpose to 
vie with the splend'ences of Kensington Gore next 
season; and he that runs may see the contrast, and the 
splendence of my new bed at once, and never forget it, 
for the bed will be run over entirely with Gazania 
splendens as with a Defiance Verbena, and the edging 
will be as stiff and erect with Gazania rigens as with 
Lucy Tait. The colour will be the same across the whole 
bed, and yet the contrast will be more than that between 
abed of the Crystal Palace Scarlet Geranium edged with 
Flower of llm Day. Tf <he summer of 1881 will be only 
half as dry as was that of 1859, this will certainly be one 
of the best telling beds in England and the newest, 
although the plants are as old as Chiswick Garden. I 
shall be out at the elbows if this will not be the first 
planted bed next May at the Experimental Garden. 
But where is rigens to be had in sufficient numbers 
to supply the hundreds who will enter the lists- against 
the Black Knights, or measure a lance with Ivanhoe 
himself? There will be a good demand for two good old 
plants next spring, certain—the true Gazania rigens to 
edge the beds of Gazania splendens; for, now that the 
true rigens has turned up, and splendens is recovered to 
its long-lost admirers, the first can only be put round the 
second at their next meeting, because they are not both 
best—because the one, splendens, is abedder, and spreads 
about like a Verbena; and the other, rigens, is not a 
bedder, or, at least, not of a bedder’s habit, but that close, 
compact, and upright style of growth which caused the 
Floral Committee to recommend Lucy Tait Verbena as 
the best edging plant “in its class.” And no doubt but 
two and three-year-old plants of Gazania rigens will 
make the best edging plant in its own section, if not in 
the order of compound flowers, or composite flowers, as 
we say; and I must guard this country and kingdom 
from a sure and certain prejudice which cannot fail next 
summer from coming down upon rigens round the beds. 
Rigens can only be had from little morsels struck in 
the spring, and they will not make much show the first 
season. Splendens, from the same amount of root 
strength, will grow six times faster than rigens, cover 
six times more ground than rigens, and produce ten times 
more flowers than rigens—that is, young rigenses struck 
that spring; but take up the old. plants of rigens in 
the autumn, and do the like with the same plants of 
rigen3 the second year and the third season; after that 
divide the old plants of rigens every year in February, 
and never grow or strike a cutting from it for the rest of 
your days or mine, and you shall never want the best 
edging plant among composites ; and the best way to 
plant it is three inches from the grass, and four inches 
apart all round the bed the first year, or that spring’s 
cuttings. The second year let the centre of your rigenses 
stand just four inches from the grass or gravel, and six 
inches from centre to centre of plant all round the bed. 
Then, if you could think of it, and have your plants so 
divided yearly as to come up to that figure 4 from the 
grass, and to the other figure from centre to centre round 
the ring, you would take the shine out of bigger folks ;— 
you might forget all that, and have their plants ever so 
big one year as to be a nuisance, or so little at another 
venture as to give the idea of poverty and starvation on the 
march round the beds. The best way to mind the thing 
is to call oneself No. 1, to say No. 4 from the side of the 
bed to the centre of the edging plant, and No. 6 to the 
distance from the centre of one plant to the centre of the 
next, or 1, 4, and 0, the three most useful figures in enu¬ 
meration for a No. 1 flower gardener, as the same pro¬ 
portions between the seifs and the self-doings hold good 
over a hundred ways. From all this, or from the half or 
one-quarter of it, anybody can perceive the difference 
between Gazania splendens and rigens without even 
seeing the plants. 
If Gazania rigens had been properly named in the first 
instance, no mistake could ever have happened between 
it and splendens. But there has been a spell on the 
whole family, to their prejudice, from their first appear¬ 
ance. Not one of them is rightly or appropriately named. 
Rigens ought to have been named heterophylla , because 
it is the only one of them which varies in the leaves on 
the same shoot or joint. Some and the greater part of 
the leaves of rigens are perfectly entire on the edges all 
round, and a few of them—that is, of the leaves of rigens, 
are lobed on the edges near the top, leaving two or 
three large teeth on each side of the leaf, and a long 
! point beyond the teeth; but when the plant is much 
