THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
a ribbon ; tbe single tinctoria would not answer, because it 
is not a perpetual, or whole season bloomer. It must be a 
capital mixed border plant, but all ribbons should hold the 
colours till the frost comes.] 
ANEMONE RANUNCULOIDES.—CYCLAMENS.— 
WHAT IS A WEED? 
“You mention Anemone ranunculoides as a rare plant, and 
I believe that it is very rarely found as a wild plant in this 
country, if, indeed, it is indigenous ; but in my garden, so far 
from being rare, it has become a weed. It propagates itself 
most rapidly by its roots, and 1 think also by seed. One side of 
a ditch* which forms one of the boundaries of my garden, is for 
several yards full of it. In one part of my garden Cyclamen 
Coum and C. hederi/oliiim propagate themselves so freely 
that they almost come under the description of weeds. 
Different varieties, and, indeed, species of Crocus are 
with me most troublesome weeds, as is also Anemone 
coronaria , though the latter plant does not grow luxuriantly 
or bloom well with me, as the soil of my garden is rather 
gravelly and hot. I wish that you would give in The 
Cottage Gardener a definition of ‘ a weed.’ I can think 
of no definition but the following, namely, ‘A weed is a 
plant which grows where you wish it not to grow.”’—E. 
Simons. 
[The Cyclamens and Crocuses must propagate from self- 
sown seeds. How wrong it seems to keep these kinds of 
Cyclamens half-starved in pots as most gardeners do. 
Your own definition of a weed is complete. The best wheat 
in Norfolk would be a weed in a turnip field.] 
GOLDEN STONECROP.— PLANTS EOR VASE 
EDGINGS. 
“‘Abel Nott’ begs the Editor’s acceptance of a few 
plants of the ‘ Golden Stonecrop,’ gathered from a bank by 
the roadside in this neighbourhood. About this time last 
summer Abel planted a little of it in a vase some twenty 
inches diameter, and it is now a perfect cloth of gold, the 
brilliance of the tint being due to the blossom, which com¬ 
pletely covers the surface, so much so that he could not put 
the tip of his finger in a void place. Another vase opposite 
forms a sad contrast to this, Abel having in vain tried to get 
some plant of similar habit to the Stonecrop, but of different 
colour—blue or white by preference—and to bloom at the 
same time. He is just about sowing seeds on trial of A rah is 
lucida , Aubrietia deltoidea, Sedum Anglicum, and S. ceeruleum. 
Can the Editor help him ? Abel thinks, too, that if he could 
get some plant of a dark green foliage to plant round the 
edge of the vases, and to hang down over their sides, it 
would be a nice relief to the all bloom, above ; but he has 
found that two families in a house do not always agree. 
One is apt to monopolise all the room, and all the food 
too.” 
[Yours is not the Golden Stonecrop, but the common 
Sedum acre , and its flowers give the “cloth of gold ” as you 
say; but the Golden kind is just as much a cloth of gold 
in the dead of winter without flowers as this is in June with 
them, the tops of all the shoots being then like so much 
burnished gold. We believe the plant is not so gay during 
the summer; but we cannot yet say that we ever saw a 
morsel of it alive. Two correspondents were so good as to 
send it to us ; but we completely failed in blowing the 
breath of life into them. Sedum ceeruleum is the most 
likely thing we know of to match acre. The last experiment 
in the Experimental Garden furnishes the very thing our 
worthy correspondent wants. Isolepis gracilis will grow 
round all manner of vases in the open air, and hang down 
most gracefully, so that one might comb the grass right or 
left or all round. We grow it by the score, and it grows 
with us in the open-air vases better than it does with those 
in London in the Orchid houses. It is a green, grass-look¬ 
ing plant, but it is not a grass really. The drooping, 
grass-like growth is the same thickness from end to end, 
and the flower-heads come in small globes like the heads of 
pins, and no more. It is as cheap as common Verbenas, 
and one man sold 2,000 plants of it last year in London for 
“ furnishing ” alone.] 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, July 21, 1857. 255 
CULTURE OF MEYENIA ERECTA.—NECKLACE 
SEED.—PILEA MUSCOSA. 
“ What is the proper soil and culture for Meyenia erecta ?■ 
also the name of the inclosed seed, and whether there is 
such a plant as .Pylea muscata , as there is no mention of it 
in The Cottage Gardener’s Dictionary.” —B. R. 
[.Meyenia erecta does most capitally in the compost they 
use for the best Fuchsias, one-half of which is loam, the 
rest turfy peat, rough leaf mould, and river or pit sand, and 
the very same culture as they give the show Fuchsias will 
suit it perfectly. The seed you inclosed is the “ Necklace 
seed,” Abrus precatorius , and is the production of a weed in 
tropical countries, and not worth growing in this. Pilea 
muscosa has been talked about in these columns ever so 
often under the name of the Artillery plant. Have you 
forgotten our battles with it when they were thundering at 
Sebastopol? It is a Lycopod-looking stove plant of the 
very simplest and easiest culture, and by wetting it while in 
flower-bud the anthers burst “ pop, pop,” and the pollen dust 
is the smoke.] 
CULTURE OF STRELITZIA REGING3. 
“ What soil is best suited for the cultivation of a Strelitzia 
regince , and how often should the soil be changed? I have 
a plant in my greenhouse, where it has been at least ten or 
twelve years without blooming until last year, when it put 
up a weakly bloom, and it is now blooming again; and, as 
I am desirous of improving it, I thought I might do so by 
giving it some fresh soil after the present bloom is over. 
It is in a tub.”— Norwood. 
[Too much room at the roots and the want of a sufficient 
heat stimulus in the spring to set the plant into early growth 
were the cause of its being so long without flowering. The 
roots have now filled the tub, and the plant promises to 
bloom annually. You want to alter the conditions under 
this promise. You may succeed, and improve the plant cer¬ 
tainly ; but there are ten chances to one against you, if not 
twelve. This plant will most probably take another twelve 
years, under improved circumstances, to come to another 
flowering period. It is one of the least understood pot 
plants in England, though one of the oldest. If you could 
keep it at 50° from October to the end of February, and at 
from GO 0 to 70° in March, April, and May, it would bloom 
every year, and you might do anything Avith it; but as a 
greenhouse plant one pot or box in thirty years is enough 
for it, but be sure of the drainage.] 
ROSES ON A SOUTH WALL. 
“ I have a wall about thirty yards long and five feet high 
with a direct south aspect, on which I planted, about four 
years ago, varieties of hybrid perpetual Roses. I find, how¬ 
ever, I have committed a mistake, as the situation appears 
too hot for them. This year especially, notwithstanding 
frequent syringings, they are covered with aphides and 
‘honey dew.’ Would you advise their removal, and if so, 
with what floAvers or flowering shrubs Avould you replace 
them ? The locality is the midland counties. I. should, 
perhaps, mention that the Roses in the ordinary borders 
do very Avell, so that it evidently is but the soil or locality 
that disagrees Avith them.”—A n Amateur. 
[If perpetual Roses are on their own roots the extra heat 
from a tliree-feet Avail behind them would be of no sort 
of detriment to them if the soil was good. We ourselves 
had scores of them for years in front of eight-feet and ten- 
feet, and, in one instance, in front of an eighteen-feet-high 
wall, but in no case did we train them to the walls. If 
your soil suits Roses the only fault with your border is that 
it is too dry at the bottom; it is, most certainly, not one- 
fourth of a degree too hot for a single perpetual Rose now 
in cultivation—that we are quite satisfied of. If we could get 
a Avail fifteen feet high, with a border eighteen or twenty 
feet Avide, we would undertake to bloom all the Roses in the 
country. Those Avho live on Rose soils have no idea of the 
enormous quantities of water that should be given to Roses 
on indifferent soils. Very old cowdung and burnt clay, half 
and half, is a good compost to improve bad Rose soil, but 
