THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION, May 5, 1857. 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
SPRING- FLOWERS. 
“I have been much interested in Mr. Beaton s paper on 
Spring Flowers, and would fain add my mite of discussion, 
not information, to the subject. Why, then, do we not see 
more of the Winter Aconite, which is quite hardy, and as 
early, or nearly so, as the Christmas Bose? Then I am 
sorry to find a large class of spring flowers nearly gone out 
of cultivation, such as the Dog's-tooth Violet, the American 
Cowslip, and a double white Saxifrage. I have not for many 
years seen a certain Star of Bct/ile/iewiy which had pui pie 
flowers, a close, compact spike, and grew about nine inches 
hmh. I may just mention that I have a CoronUla in full 
flower under the drawing-room window, which stands back 
from the rest of the house, so as to be much sheltered and 
very dry. It usually flowers the first week in April. I con¬ 
fess myself one of the novices who fear dividing Hepaticas , 
having a great respect for these lovely flowers, but thinking 
them very impatient of any interference. As to Lilies of the 
Valley , I would nearly fill the garden with them ; but I have 
tried them in various aspects, and they do not succeed well 
in any.”— Mary Heseltine. 
[“ Discussion ” is the proper word. Let us all discuss 
the subject of spring flowers, and we shall not want for 
subjects. The Winter Aconite is always in the bulb catalogues 
in September—the wrong time of the year to make new 
customers for spring flowers, and the old ones are nearly 
worn out. Hence “ why the Winter Aconite is not more 
seen.” If one were to advertise it in January he would sell 
it by the thousand, and tens of thousands would run after it. 
The best way to make an Aconite impression on this genera¬ 
tion is this I—Let it be enacted that every couple who is 
“ engaged,” and all those between whom the knot will be 
tied before the end of next October, that all those who 
finish their education this season, and all such as go a 
schooling for the first time this year, with the rest of the 
family in their turn, should have the initials cut out in very 
large letters under some deciduous trees near the house, 
where hardly a blade of grass can grow in summer, and to 
have the lines of the letters planted with Winter Aconites, by 
their own hands, three inches root from root, and each root 
one inch deep. The ground is never to be disturbed. No 
gardener must come near the place till the leaves die down 
after the bloom. But all the marriage parties ought to 
have their names in full, so as to show them in glistening 
gold at the beginning of the new year; and there is “ no way 
in the world ” better than to have Winter Aconites under 
trees, where the soil is not disturbed from one generation to 
another. They and the Pilewort, the old Ranunculus Jicaria, 
and now Ficaria verna, will grow to actual perfection where 
nothing else would, that is, under an old Beech tree whose 
boughs sweep the ground all round. So much for that 
“discussion.” The next is Dog's-tooth Violets. We have 
“bushels” of it about Kingston, and the Messrs. Jackson 
are “ full of it. This valley from Richmond downwards, 
goodness knows how far, might be named after this pretty 
flower. It seems as if this was its native place; but the 
American Cowslip is not seen amongst us out of the nursery. 
The double white Saxifrage, S. granulata plena , is indeed a 
great loss. No one sees it now-a-days. What a nice white 
edging for a May bed! All the common Stars of Bethlehem 
are white, and the uncommon ones are mostly yellow. What, 
then, can this purple have been? Probably the Portugal 
Squill, Scilla Lusitanica; but if so, it was never half so 
common as it ought to be. The Coronilla is the very best 
verandah plant we have. Keep it dry and sheltered, and 
the frost has little influence on it. There is not a plant in 
the catalogue which pays better for dividing than Hepatica; 
but as it is going out of bloom and beginning to make new 
leaves is the right time to divide it. The nurserymen divide 
some of them every year, and never lose one out of ten 
thousand. Now, the best spring bed which we have seen these 
twenty-five years is now as full of bloom as ever a Verbena 
bed was, and much in the same way. It is composed of 
one single plant, the finest specimen of the kind we ever 
heard of, and this is at Surbiton. The bed is a circle, four 
feet six inches across, and the plant fills it completely. It 
is the Daphne cneorum— the sweetest of all the Daphnes.— 
REMOVING CROCUSES. 
“ In a recent number you told us that Crocuses and other 
bulbs ought to be now taken up; but you do not tell us 
whether they are to be put away at once in a dry place or 
into pots of sand or earth. Last year I took mine up about 
this time, and kept them in sand for some time, and the 
consequence was that a great many died, and of the rest 
the new bulbs formed were not worth putting out, so that I 
was obliged to buy more for this year. Will you please be so 
kind as to tell me what I should do with those I now have 
when I take them up ?”—Lucy. 
[You misunderstood the question. It is not the best 
thing to move the Crocus or any other bulb when it is growl¬ 
ing ; but when it is necessary to move it in a growing state 
it is far better to remove the Crocus as soon as it has done 
flowering than to leave it till early in May, and then to have 
to move it in full growth. We have arranged a whole garden 
of bulbs this very spring, and moved more than two hundred 
patches of a dozen or fifteen kinds so as to tell better next 
year, besides half a bushel of Crocuses. We ordered them 
to be done exactly as they do Cabbage plants, not injuring 
the roots, giving them better soil, more room, and a good 
watering or two—that was all.] 
SPRING FLOWERS. 
“ I have for some years had my beds in flower at this 
season of the year, and the plants I have used for them are 
white and red Virginian Stocks; Nemophila insignis, alba, and 
maculata; Pansies, sown in July, and transplanted into the 
beds when the greenhouse bedding plants have been re¬ 
moved in the autumn ; sometimes Platystemon Californicum, 
but this will not always stand the winter; and Lasthenia Cali- 
fornica. The Nemophilas will stand almost any amount of 
frost here. No weather ever hurts the Pansies, and very 
seldom the Virginian Stocks. I sow the seeds of these 
annuals in the first week in September, and transplant them 
into the beds in the early part of February, fixing on a rnild 
day for the purpose, and they afford a very beautiful display. 
At the latter end of May they are removed for the green¬ 
house plants. The yellow Alyssum is now in flower, and 
there is a hardy Heath, deep red colour (the name I know 
not), now in beautiful flower, w'hich would make a good show 
by being kept in pots, and plunged so as to remove them 
wdien other plants are to take their place.”— Jonathan. 
[The Heath is called Erica herbacea, and need not be 
potted. One could move it every week in the year with balls 
to the plants. This is the kind which is so much used at 
the Crystal Palace for edgings. There are two kinds—one 
of them a deeper red in the flowers. 
Here is a secret which we have been seeking to unravel 
for years—the true mode of using Pansies in flower gardens. 
When Mr. Barnet was gardener to the Caledonian Horti¬ 
cultural Society he astonished all Scotland with his Pansies. 
We saw them, and from that day we saw no more in Pansies 
than namby-pambyism and “children’s play;” but Mr. 
Barnet had a knack of getting his Pansies true from seeds. 
Every plant in whole rows of twenty yards each used to be 
just like the mother plants. How was that ? Sowing at the 
beginning, middle, and end of July would give a succession 
of Pansies.] 
CLIMBERS FOR A BLEAK HOUSE.—SOWING 
BROCCOLI. 
“ My house is in a very bleak situation on the seashore, 
fronting south-east. Are there any pretty climbing plants I 
can get to grow well in such an aspect, so as to cover the 
front walls of the house quickly, and where can I procure 
the plants ? or can I sow the seeds now of any quick¬ 
growing climbing annuals that would look gay for the 
summer and cover the walls ? Give the colour of the flowers 
and the time of blooming. 
“ Is this a good time to sow Grange's White Broccoli and 
the Walcheren Broccoli ?”— F. J. Persse. 
[Plant the Japan Honeysuckle against the house. It is 
almost evergreen, flowers all the autumn, and is as sweet 
as a Violet. Also plant a crimson Boursault Rose, on which 
