THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, May 19, 1857. 107 
in the meadows of Yorkshire.” Where in Yorkshire ? We 
know many of them, but never saw this Tulip there. How 
many of our garden writers can point the way wanderer to 
where “ masses of the beautiful blub Anemone Apennina 1 ' 
grow wild, or of the “ contrasted Anemone ranunculoides of 
bright orange ? ” We never saw this beautiful blue Anemone 
till it caught our eye the other day in the show-house in the 
Pine Apple Place Nursery, and we believe this is the first 
time it has been mentioned practically in works on modern 
gardening. Miller says, “It grows naturally in some parts 
of England (specify the exact localities), but particularly at 
Wimbledon, in Surrey, in a wood near the mansion-house, 
in great plenty; but it is not certain that they were not 
originally planted there, as they are not found in any other 
place in that neighbourhood.” We knew of only one locality 
for Anemone ranunculoides in Suffolk, and that escapes our 
memory. We care not a straw for mere botanical plants, 
native or foreign; but we would sell the buckles off our belt 
to purchase spring flowers, rare natives of our common 
country, were we not aware that the experiment on our 
corporation would be dangerous to the interest of the com¬ 
monwealth. The first, last, and the only time we have seen 
Sanguinaria Canadensis done well in England was in the 
nursery of the Messrs. Dickson, at Chester, in 1831; but in 
the north it was one of the common flowers of our child¬ 
hood. It is as easy to grow, to flower, and to keep as the 
Scotch Crocus, and is one of the prettiest little spring 
flowers in the world. It is the Daisy of the Canadian woods, 
and with the red juice of its fleshy tubers the Red Indians 
renew their gloss annually after the melting of the snow. 
Iberis Tenoreana must have a capital T to the second name, 
being that of a most worthy Italian botanist of the present 
day—“ Tenore, our old friend.” The Pulmonarias , again, 
are most elegant spring flowers, which one hardly ever sees 
now-a-days, but they are as fickle as a fairy queen. Sibirica 
and maritima are quite as good as Viryinica. In most 
places they require a sheltered situation and a deep soil, 
composed of three parts sand and one part leaf mould, or 
the nearest compost to that standard. A bed just after the 
Scilla beds is the place for them, and the three should go 
together, being British, American, and Siberian forms of 
the same species or kind. 
The Trilliums , the last of this batch, we can only recom¬ 
mend to such practical amateurs as have had long ex¬ 
perience ; first-rate gardeners can do nothing with them— 
they require more care than gardeners can delegate to 
others. The best Trilliums we ever saw were in a sandy 
peat bed on the north side of a high hedge in the Chester 
Nursery at the time aforesaid, and we believe the Messrs. 
Low, of Clapton, to be the largest importers of them, and 
all such North American style of plants. But let us have 
the localities of our rare native spring flowers recorded 
while they are fresh in our minds. The Cottage Gardener 
is an excellent memorandum-book, which everybody reads ; 
and, which is even still better, everybody trusts it, and 
well they may.—D. B. 
Let us help friend D. B. as to the localities where Ane¬ 
mone Apennina have been found. In Wimbledon Wood; 
near Harrow-on-the-hill; Luton Hoe, Bedfordshire; and 
near Berkhampstead, Herts—“ all suspicious places,” as 
Withering observes ; but, suspicious or free from suspicion of 
having escaped from gardens, we shall be much obliged by 
any one saying exactly where this or any other rare beau¬ 
tiful native flower can be found.—E d. C. G.] 
TREATMENT OF AFRICAN BULBS. 
“ ‘ Harrie ’ has got some bulbs that came from the South 
Df Africa. She planted them some weeks since, and put 
them into a hotbed frame; still they do not show any signs 
of growth. She will feel obliged if the proprietors of The 
Cottage Gardener will tell her what she had better do 
with them—if they oughtito be kept wet or dry. The bulbs 
were put into sand and loam.” 
[You have done quite right—that is the way to treat all 
bulbs from South Africa. A “ hotbed frame,” however, must 
not be understood to mean a hotbed—that phrase belongs 
to an extinct race of authors ; the present-name is “ a cold 
frame." All South African bulbs should be potted and be 
put in cold frames, and should they remain three years 
before they are recovered they ought not, most certainly, to 
receive one degree of artificial heat during the whole time 
beyond keeping the frost from them like other greenhouse 
plants. All the small bulbs from thence ought to be first 
put into sandy peat, and be covered one half inch; and the 
whole of the large Cape bulbs will soon be poisoned, as it 
were, if their roots get into peat before they have recovered 
from the journey, and from having been dug up at the wrong 
season. They should not be in large pots, and yet it is more 
safe in our damp climate to have them covered up to the 
neck, this being the natural time for large Cape bulbs to go 
to rest. Your big one may not sprout till September, but 
never mind that. You may keep the soil a little damp the 
whole time.] 
FIG TREES SHEDDING THEIR FRUIT.—GUANO 
FOR LAWNS. 
“ I have three young and very healthy-looking Fig trees 
in flower-pots which were placed in the vinery this spring. 
They gave the promise of much fruit, but it has all dropped 
off, having previously turned yellow. Would you kindly tell 
me the cause, and how I am to prevent it in future ? 
“ Would you recommend a lawn that was made last year, 
partly with sods and partly with seed, to be watered with 
guano in the proportion of one ounce to two gallons of 
water, or do you think the lawn would be better without 
it ? M. F. 
[Young Fig trees will cast their fruit as you say if ever 
they get dry. Get the wood well ripened before autumn, 
and next year place saucers below the pots, and keep about 
half an inch of water in them. Your Fig trees will very likely 
give you a good second crop if you keep them in the vinery 
and give them light enough; but you must be sure of giving 
them plenty of water. In winter they want little or none, 
but when growing they can hardly have too much if the 
pots are well drained. Water standing about the roots will 
injure them, except just a little in a saucer when they are 
in pots. 
If the lawn is at all nice we should dispense with the 
guano—it will give so much work for the scythe.] 
MOSS AND PLANTAINS IN A LAWN. 
“ Will you inform me if there is any way of getting moss 
and Plantain out of lawns? I have had the Plantain cut 
out several times, and sown white Clover, &c., in its place, 
but find it soon comes up again, much to my annoyance.”— 
A New Subscriber. 
[You are not aware, then, that the lady’s friend, The 
Cottage Gardener, will not hear of a lawn without moss ? 
Short grass without a bottom of moss is only fit to walk on 
for about five or six weeks in the height of summer in this 
climate. When the Horticultural Society was in feather, 
some fifteen years since, they, or their representatives, 
opened a regular siege against mossy lawns, and they 
advised all sorts of nasty, dirty, stinking things to be 
thrown on the face of our carpet lawns to get rid of moss ! 
No wonder, therefore, that people so devoid of judgment 
came to the dogs. The want of a little moss has ruined 
thousands and tens of thousands of the best lawns that ever 
came from seeds, for this reason—gardeners will have 
closely-shaven lawns by the end of May, and every hot 
summer the grass “burns” more or less in June; thus 
in time all the finer grasses perish outright, and the worms 
take the lead; then scraping, scratching, and sweeping, will 
soon make a patchy lawn of it, and a welcome bed for the 
seeds of all kinds of weeds, from all of which, and more 
besides, a thin coat of moss would preserve us. But, like 
upstarts and gunpowder, moss makes a bad master; it must 
be kept under foot, and the winter, being its natural time for 
growing, is the time to look to it. A close mowing in No¬ 
vember, in February, and in March, will make it exquisitely 
comfortable to walk on, and preserve the finer grasses. No 
weed is easier to get rid of than the Plantain, for it never 
comes a second time if the carroty root-stock is got out; 
but to cut the root-stock half way down increases it fourfold. 
We wish that Daisies could be kept off'so easily.] 
