14.4 
THE COTTAGE 
GARDENER AND COUNTEY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, June 0, 1857. 
Pelargoniums and Fancies very good, and very 
evenly matched, every one ot the growers having a gooc 
many plants in common. There was but one plant ot 
jjna and of the Virgin Queen , the newest and the oldest 
of the best whites. Sanspareil was almost in every 
collection, and Governor-General was nearly as popular. 
The Fancies were much the same. There was not 
much novelty in seedlings of any class, the season 
being yet too early. Blanchefieur was there, but under a 
new proprietor, Mr. Cutbush, ot Highgate* having 
bought it since our May Meeting in Regent Street, 
whence I set out its character. Blanchefieur is the best 
trade plant we have had since Tom Thumb’s time. I 
should not be the least surprised to hear soon of a new 
class of Geraniums which will stifie the rage for the 
French spotted class—a class which will flower regularly 
for nine months out of the twelve. Dennis’s Alma and 
Blanchefieur are of that stamp ; both are large enough 
for any conscience, and Blanchefieur is as good as 
Pearl, and like it to begin with. 
Novelties were all from the nurseries. Mr. Veitch 
sent a new Platycerium , called biforme; Bendrobium 
Veitchianum, a botanical species, curiously streaked, 
greenish inside, and pale yellow sepals; the pretty rose- 
coloured new Gltysis Limminghi ; the white Ixora acutni- 
nata ; a most prolific white Pernettya of excellent habit; 
a new climbing Plectranthus, with large, purple, velvety 
leaves, which are also blotched ; the rare yellow Rhodo¬ 
dendron Brookeanum, from Borneo ; also Rhododendron 
Veitchii, the large, white-frilled kind which I told of 
from the Horticultural as being the best of all the new 
races; also his Princess Royal and Jasminiforum; a good 
plant of Embothrium coccineum, which improves every 
year, and will vie with the Ixoras when it gets about; 
Grevillea Drummondii, a strong; upright-branched spike 
of whitish flowers, a fine thing for a winter garden; 
Hippomane spinosa, another of the fine-leaved plants; it 
is holly-spined, with the leaves like some huge Theo- 
phrasta, and of a stout, upright habit. Odontoglossum 
Reichenheimi, fine plants of Wellingtonia, Thuja gigantea, 
Abies Kcempferi, Tradescantia vittata, and Meyenia erecta. 
Mr. Epps, of Maidstone, had the next group, which 
was a vase full of seedling Gloxinias, mossed over and 
fringed with pieces of Perilla, an excellent plant for 
garnishing in strong contrasts; two seedling Heaths ; 
and a cluster of the above Tradescantia vittata. 
After him stood Mr. Glendinning’s China novelties— 
half a dozen of the new Larch, Abies Kcempferi , by which 
he ought to make a handsome fortune, being the only 
possessor of a stock of it, and itself a more hardy, a faster¬ 
growing, and a better-looking plant than the European 
Larch, for which it will b e a powerful rival after the 
pleasure grounds are full of it; the Pace Paper plaut; 
a Stcitice macroptera; the lovely and most beautiful 
Gesnera Donklari; and his Farfugium grande, the king 
or queen of all the variegated plants: one of the plants 
of it was hard upon five feet in diameter. 
Mr. Green showed Rhododendron Balhousice. Mr. 
Mitchell, of Brighton, exhibited the true Pelargonium 
peltatum variegatum, which I said was all but lost, but 
his name for it was wrong. Mr. Cutbush had a Gene- 
tyllis Hookeriana in a collection of miscellaneous 
plants. Messrs. Jackson, of Kingston, had two remark¬ 
able Begonias, the true picta, which is in the way of 
Reichenheimi, and ricinifolia macidata, a fine Bromeliad, 
with a crimson ray across the centre of the leaves; the 
new Sikkim Rhododendron Blandfordijlorum, flowering 
irom the open ground, and the best Orchid we have had 
lor years; a new Lcelia, called Brysiana, a magnificent 
flower, which puts one in mind, firstly, of Cattleya crispa, 
and, secondly, of Lcelia purpurata. Just think for one 
moment of a larger flower than either, but made up, the 
outside from Cattleya crispa and the inside from Lcelia 
purpurata. 
The only collection of Bedding Geraniums was from 
Mr. Bragg, of Slough, the white Unique and Quercifolium 
superbum. In this collection they were each nearly 
four feet in diameter, that is, they were twice the size 
ever seen by the reporter, and each of them would make 
a good bed on a terrace. The Quercifoil was wrongly 
named, and the name of Diadematum erubescens was mis¬ 
spelled. The purple Unique was fine, and Sidonia was 
not amiss; but we have better Sidonias in the Experi¬ 
mental, eleven-year-old plants. Sidonia does not “ get 
her teeth ” till the tenth year, but after teething she is 
the best bedder of the race. 
Mr. Henderson, of the Pine Apple Place Nursery, sent 
a fine gigantic Lily in bloom ; also Rhododendron Bal¬ 
housice and Javanicum. I did not see anything from the 
Wellington Road Nursery, nor from the Tooting Nursery, 
nor did Mr. Lane exhibit his Roses here. 
Mr. Morris showed Rhododendron cirtnabariiium , which 
looks like Mr. Jackson’s Blandfordijlorum. Six col¬ 
lections of Everlastings ( Aphelexis ) side by side made a 
glittering impression. Criterion was the best light 
Azalea there. This is Mr. I very’s new seedling, two or 
three years back, in the way of Fxquisita. Extranii 
was the best of the rosy red Azaleas, and lucens the best 
dark red. Decora is my own favourite Azalea. Extranii 
is in the same way, but we have not yet beaten the 
Chinese in this class. 
Fuchsias. — There was a decided improvement in 
growing Fuchsias in one of the numerous collections. 
They might be called pillar Fuchsias, but they were 
regular columns from eight to ten feet, just as wide at 
the bottom, but no wider, than they were at the top. As 
the laws of pruning and training admit all and every 
form of departure from the natural shape of a tree or 
bush, I hold that the form which gives most flowers in 
the least house or tent room is the best; therefore the 
present form of the Pelargoniums must be the worst, 
and so it is. Until I see Pelargoniums at least twice as 
high as they are across I shall continue to believe that 
the florists cut the ground from under their heels. Any¬ 
thing to take off the insipid sameness of their training 
is welcomed by the public, and that accounts for the 
change in favour of the new French spotted breed. It 
is not that that breed is better* or a quarter so good as 
English Pelargoniums, but it offers a variety from the 
deadness and dulness of the style in which the florists 
exhibit a superior race. Pillar Fuchsias must not be 
taken for pyramidal Fuchsias. The pyramid is the 
natural shape of a large section of Fuchsias, but the 
natural is not the best form of a plant to show off 
beauty. A Fuchsia with a spiry top and wide-spreading 
branches at the bottom looks like a dragon-fly sitting 
on a balloon, or like a young lady with six-and-tliirty 
yards in the “blow” of her petticoats, and carrying 
her dress in her hands with all the earnestness of a 
water-carrier. I cannot, of course, swear positively to 
the fact, but I am almost certain that the “squat” 
training, as Mr. Marnock would say, suggested the 
present style of fashion in the dress of the fair middle 
classes, which style—but no matter. Duchesses and the 
higher ladies in the peerage call this style by a name 
that even I, with all my nerves, cannot pluck courage 
enough to write down in plain English, a fact I learned, 
not for the first time, that day. 
Well, to make a pillar Fuchsia, take up five or seven 
leaders from the very bottom, and never allow them to 
bulge out from the perpendicular, or to incline towards 
the top. Begin with a strong bottom in October, give 
stove heat all the winter, shift as nature and artifice 
demand, and by the time your plant is showing bloom 
the framework of it is ten feet high. Never lose that 
first winter's growth, but spur prune it as you would a 
White or Red Currant bush, and never tie another shoot 
except the five or seven which compose the frame, let 
