THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, March 16, 1858. 
366 
especially things that are out of sight, hut not secrets. They 
have a very large, and a most healthy, stock of fine leaved and 
variegated plants, and some very rare plants in the nursery 
department, which is private—recollect private, and no one 
(except a perfectly independent reporter) is ever allowed into 
the private sanctum—these, as they come of age, will “ come 
out” in the Palace from time to time ; so there is no danger 
of running short of popular plants, or of not making the best 
use of them for the good of the age. 
The sph’it seems to be that each department of the vast 
establishment, inside and out, strives to be at the head of its 
own craft, without elbowing the ones on each side of it, and 
; all working for the common good. I entered by the long 
Colonnade, and found all the trained plants had escaped the 
winter, and most of them were winter pruned. The Jasminum 
nudiflorum is splendid tliis winter: it is the best back wall 
of a greenhouse plant we have. Ceonotliuses, Stauntonia lati- 
folia , Veronicas, Clematis, Tea Boses, and Passionflowers, 
though almost hardy, and some of them quite so, do better 
under a slight shelter like this. Fodocarpus pungens , with a 
Yew-like leaf and growth, may be trained like a climber. 
Tacsonia ignea is there, and one kind of Nosegay Geranium, 
called there, purple Nosegay —it is the same as pink Nosegay , 
and as FothergiUii in “ Sweet’s Geraniacese.” The trees in the 
line of Deodars, outside the Colonnade, look as if they had been 
growing fast all the winter. The four corner flower-beds in 
the two end panels have been somewhat reduced, and their 
shapes have been a little altered—all to the better and better 
still. There is an Irish Yew, five or six feet high, planted on 
the grass near to the centre of each of these corner beds, which 
makes a wonderful improvement. These beds are now full of 
good-sized Rhododendrons, and the only plants which I had 
seen anyways protected, are the tree Fceonies , over which 
Ferns and some dry sticks are placed. 
The African beds, or bedders at the south end of the Palace, 
. were under alterations, so as to get all the plants out of the 
pots, and into the free soil. The wild beasts, and the black 
people there, remind one of Dr. Livingston’s discoveries in 
Central Africa ; the most curious of which, to a gardener, is, 
that the Cape Gladioli, Hsemanthus, and Ixias, should reach 
down to within a few degrees of the Equator, and on heights 
not more than five thousand feet above the level of the sea (as 
stated in the last days of his journal)—back from Loanda to 
the Zambesi Valley. Many of the Camellias are in fine 
bloom, and some of the Rhododendrons will soon be open 
•—they had to thin out some of the larger duplicate Rhodo¬ 
dendrons, and these are put into tubs, and now stand in the 
warmest end to be slightly forced into bloom; most handsome 
specimens they are, and full of blossom-buds. 
The tree Pomegranates are taken to a separate space, and 
are being pruned, by shortening the young wood; many of 
the large Orange trees have made a fine healthy growth, but 
j some of them, which had been exposed out on the terrace the 
first season, have not i yet recovered the severe cheek of that 
exposure, before they were established after their journey from 
Paris. I advised that two or three inches deep of the Cocoa- 
nut refuse, from Kingston, should be put over the roots of these 
Orange trees ; and the new roots, which are certain to be made 
in this stuff, will bring the trees round sooner than any tiling 
i else with which we are acquainted. The next best thing to 
! get unhealthy Orange and other trees to make fresh roots, and 
| good healthy growth, is spent hops after brewing. I have 
seen Orange trees almost brought to life in the Oxford 
Botanic Garden, by the free use of spent hops over the roots in 
their boxes. 
| Acacias, and Eucalypti are fast getting up out of the way 
of the under plants. Acacia melanoxylon , presented by Mrs. 
C. V ebb, is the most tree-like Acacia in the Palace, with a 
thick stem and cracked bark, and a splendid head, twenty 
feet high; but several Acacia afjinis are nearly forty feet 
high, and covered with bloom. Dealbata , which is very like it, 
I same. Fubescens next, but will not be in bloom for a 
; ra °nth from that day. TJudulcefolia is a fast grower, with 
very small leaves, and slender young growth. Longissima 
ditto, with Willow-like leaves. Sophorce , a broad-leaved kind, 
is particularly strong. Argyropliylla has the finest looking 
leaves of all^ the Acacias, they are silvery white, larger than 
those of the broad-leaf Myrtle, and as soft and downy as the 
uchcst satin; if not the best, it is certainly the most con¬ 
spicuous of all our fine-leaved plants ; but you see it nowhere 
but here—how is that ? Perhaps it is very difficult to strike 
from cuttings, like pubescens, and a few more of them; but I 
have seen the “Pine Apple Place Nursery” propagators 
increase pubescens by the scores, and the hundred, if not the 
thousand, this time twenty years back, by cuttings of the roots; 
and I myself have grafted many difficult kinds of Acacia on 
pieces of their own roots, and found them to “ take” as freely as 
any other plants. There is no valid reason, therefore, for Acacia 
argyropliylla being a scarce plant; it is certainly a most beauti¬ 
ful silvery plant, more so than the “ Silver tree” of the Cape 
Leucadendron argenteum. Nandina domestica , the sacred 
Bamboo, the evergreen Chinese Elm, which they dwarf so 
much; the Chinese Camphor tree, Ferberis Nepalensis , 
fourteen feet high ; Corynocarpus Icevigatus , from New 
Zealand ; Friostemon myoporoides , eight feet in diameter, and 
five feet high, just coming in bloom ; Seaforthia elegans , the 
Australian Cabbage Palm, in the utmost vigour, all over the 
beds of the colder end; Scottia dentata , aforesaid, sixteen 
feet high ; Fuchsia coralina , full thirty feet high, and as 
upright as a plumb hue; Ficlcsonia ant arctic a, quite young 
plants, twelve feet in diameter ; Pourrettias, with Bromellia- 
like leaves; Fucalyptus globula , fifty feet high; Fuddlea 
Findley ana , twenty feet high; Ceitonoplesium cymosum , a 
fast running plant, with Yew-like leaves, but longer, and 
cymes of small white flowers ; Mimosa purpurea , looking like a 
sensitive plant; Crotalaria purpurea, twenty feet high, and 
five feet through in the narrowest part ; Rhipidodendrons, 
with forty heads ; the dwarf tree Aloe of the Cape, and the old 
representative of the modern Yellozias or tree Lilies of the 
Brazils ; Anopteris latifolia, a fine broad-leafed dwarf ever¬ 
green; lots of the Elephant’s-foot plant, now in full leaf, after 
flowering; Fuonymus fimbriatus, from Japan, a fine evergreen, 
and a thousand more of such fine plants, are worth a day’s 
study, by any one who is fond of plants. 
The newest move, and one of their very best, is seen in a 
match couple, of five feet standards, of Mr. Fortune’s Indig of era 
decora. Yes! Indigofera decora , a true standard , five feet clean, 
and clear in the stem, and a blooming head to each. How is 
it possible, then, to believe, that wonders will ever cease, and 
who would envy the taste of a man, or mortal, who would call 
such work degrading to a British-born subject. Fly-flappers 
forsooth! 
In the Alhambra Court, the beds of Camellias and Fuchsias 
are hedged with broad-leaved Myrtles, which look very neat 
and appropriate. The beds and borders, in both ends of the 
Palace, are lined with the little Folypodium denticulatum , and 
strong yellow loam is found to be the best soil to keep it stiff 
and compact; they also keep it clipped, to have it perfectly 
even all over, and when they clip it they do not brush off the 
cut ends, but allow them to fall in among the rest, where they 
soon take root, and thus keep it as close as short grass on the 
lawn, which is a great improvement to its soft lively appear¬ 
ance. 
In the hothouse end, and what surprised me most, was to see 
so many plants placed on the water of the basin, pots placed on 
pedestals in the water, but sufficiently high to keep the bottoms 
of the pots just on the surface of the water. Ficlcsonia 
squarrosa flourishes this way in winter, much better than on a 
dry sitting ; also, Ficlcsonia antarciica ; some Date Palms, 
Asplenium nidus-avis , Marattia data , a fine Fern ; Cyathea 
elegans , Adianthum formosum , most flourishing ; Oymno- 
gramma ochracea with the underside of the leaves as yellow as 
can be, with the Sugar Cane, and Lemon Grass, all with the 
bottoms of the pots touching the water. 
Then, the groups of Ficlcsonia antarctica between, and in a 
line with the heads of the Spynxes, with taller plants of different 
kinds of Palms behind them, all grouped most artistically for 
effect; Clivia nobilis, flowering in the border ; groups of 
Musas, in fruit; the Peruvian Bark tree, Cinchona Calisaya , 
with a growth similar to a Luculia; Fimocarpus longan; 
Corypha sylvestris, one of the finest Palms; most healthy Coffee 
trees in fruit; a screw Pine, branched at the top and coming 
into flower; Fantana borbonica , the largest Palm, brought 
from the collection of the Empress Josephine, atFontainbleau, 
with others of the same family; together with an immense 
stock of young Palms, and other store and rare plants, all in 
first-rate condition, show what tins end of the Palace is 
capable of, under good careful management. 
