162 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, June 21, 1859. 
with mere streaks, and some quite free from stains ; and 
when the Crystal Palace people bring out their style of 
ribbon you will see all these varieties, and all the other 
kinds of Irispumila, in the first or second row. Or by 
giving them an Italian winter, high up on an airy shelf 
in the orchard-house, they would come “ of themselves,” 
in aid of the early-forced flowers in January ; and believe 
me the bluish-purple of the pumila, at that season, if it 
is obtained thus without forcing, is as rich as any tint of 
the same kind in all the Gloxinias. 
It takes a long time to get up flowering plants of Iris 
pumila from seeds. Some I sowed in 1856, direct from 
the Crimea, will not bloom for a year or two. Mid¬ 
summer is a good time to divide and propagate all the 
fibrous-rooted Irises that have bloomed ; and so on through 
the summer divide, cut, and transplant full in the open 
sun any kind as soon as it is out of bloom. 
The fourth row on the ribbon border at the Experi¬ 
mental is a permanent row of the Iris tenuifolia, a bul¬ 
bous kind near to xiphium. It blooms from the middle 
of May, and is now in full beauty from end to end. Soon 
after flowering it dies back, and you see no more of it till 
next April. It is planted at a yard apart, and a kind of 
Narcissus comes in between each pair of Irises. They 
never disturb the “bedding rows,” and they are not dis¬ 
turbed themselves. A row of the true Iris xiphioides ,— 
the head of the great bulbous Irises,—would make even a 
better row than that; and if any one will send me a 
hundred “roots” of xiphioides to try against tenuifolia, 
I shall soon be able to tell the difference. 
But, it was about the bedding this year at the Crystal 
Palace that I intended more particularly to speak. Two- 
thirds of the “planting out ” were finished there on the 
day of the grand Show—the 8th of June. The style 
higher and more rich than ever. There will be hard 
upon three miles of edging of Mangle s Variegated Gera¬ 
nium alone. It takes the place in edging which the 
Cerastium, tomentosum occupied last year. The two chain- 
patterns in the sunk panels are edged with it throughout, 
and it girdles the Bose Mount, I think, five times ; and if 
that is not aristocratic planting, I should like to know 
what else it is. There was an avowed fault last year in 
the planting of all the match beds going up to the Bose 
Mount: there was no attempt to match, contrast, or har¬ 
monise the plants in these beds. The same avowal is, or 
was, in progress this year when I passed up to the 
Mount; but a new bed there, with a new edging to it, 
made up for the “ cock-eyed.” A game cock looks so high 
he cannot see what is close to his feet; and in private 
criticism one will need to be “ cock-eyed ” to look over 
pigs with one ear, and even little faults: and I see no 
harm in making “cock-eyed” a public insinuation against 
myself; but a man must be “ cock-eyed” if he cannot see 
a pig with one ear straight a-head of him. I think I heard 
some one say that such a bed was tried somewhere ; but 
I never saw it. It is composed of, I should say, last- 
autumn-struck cuttings of one of the New Zealand Ve¬ 
ronicas after speciosum, perhaps speciosum itself, for 
there was no name, or tally, to the bed. It is a public 
misfortune to see plants and beds new to one, and not be 
able to make out the name. In Suffolk they teach botany 
to the girls in the parish school; but here at the Crystal 
Palace Betsey Baker herself is not taught to know a 
Geranium from a Calceolaria; while at Kew and Hampton 
Court every bed and row is beautifully named in a plain 
hand, or in print. 
But about the new edging to the new Veronica bed. 
It is on the same principle as the variegated Geraniums 
are used, but with a variation:—the variegated leaf is the 
thing in the first; and the variegated flowers are the 
principal in this. Who will make out this new edging 
before this day week? I told the one-half here, anil 
surely you will make out the other half in a week. The 
grand edging plant, however, this year is the Tropceolum 
elegans, to which they allow one foot space to cover and 
run in; and the plants are put at ten inches or a foot, in 
single rows, for these edgings. You recollect the straight 
row of beds along the lower terrace-walk, between the two 
chain-patterns, is made up of a circle and an oblong alter¬ 
nately, the circle (being lately made pincushion fashion) 
with a standard in the centre. The half of that row is 
on one side of the middle cross-walk, up and down, and 
the other half on the opposite; and I think there are 
twenty-one beds in each half. At all events, both sides 
of all the oblong beds (each eighteen feet long) are edged 
with Tropceolum elegans —that is, the side next the walk, 
and the side next the grass. Nothing more gorgeous-was 
ever thought of. The pincushion-beds were not planted 
then; so we must put off the details of the arrangement 
of the colours till the beds are seen in bloom. 
The beds round the pedestals, in the half-circle of the 
Araucarias, in the centre of the terrace, are all of Tom 
Thumbs, or other scarlets, in three rows, and an edging 
of the Ploiver of the Day on each side of each bed. The 
chain-patterns are differently planted this year, by having 
a row of scarlets running through the centre of the 
yellows. Two divisions of the slope up the Bose Mount 
are planted with purple Verbena in seven rows each, 
with a row of Mangle’s Variegated Geranium along the 
bottom of the Verbenas, and two rows of the same 
along the top of the division. These three lines of 
Mangle’s are carried right round the Mount, outside the 
arcades. The other two divisions of the slope are 
planted, one with a Horseshoe Geranium, probably 
Village Maid, with Mangle's round the top and bottom 
as above, and one with Punch-, and the last two divisions 
of the slope with Calceolarias and Mangle’s Geraniums. 
The narrow border round the inside of the arcades on 
the top of the Mount is planted with one row of Tom 
Thumb and two rows of Calceolaria all round. The six 
beds in the six sunk panels on the top are thus planted 
in match pairs : two with scarlet Geraniums in the centre, 
one row of Ageratum round that, then a row of Calceo¬ 
laria, and the outside row of Heliotropes. Two beds 
with blue Salvia patens for centre, a row of Ignescens 
superba Geranium round, then a row of Calceolaria, and 
a lilac Verbena, or lighter than lilac, round the outside. 
The last two have the old pink, or purple, Nosegay Gera¬ 
nium for the centre, one row of Calceolarias, one of Tom 
Thumb, one of Verbena, one of Lucia rosea Geranium, 
and one Verbena round and round. All this is different 
from former years. The first angle, or corner bed, oppo¬ 
site the entrance from the railways, is of the Ignescens 
superba Geranium, which docs wonderfully weil on or 
round the Bose Mount. The old Diadematum woidd do 
equally well there ; and Diadematum rubescens the same, 
and would be the best of the three. The Imperial Crimson 
would glisten again on these slopes ; and with a row of 
Harkatoay, or, better still, Harry Hieover, same size as 
Harlcaway, all round it, would be a striking novelty 
among so much commmon-plaec scarlet and yellow. And 
in no place in England would the “ Doctor’s bed ” look 
better—that vigorous Irish doctor, who introduced equal 
quantities of white Petunias and scarlet Geraniums mixed 
in one bed. The “ Doctor’s bed” is the one there is most 
ado with at the Experimental Garden; and it is worth all 
the pains, for it is a first-rate thing. 
Mr. Eyles is now prime minister at the Crystal Palace. 
The whole weight of the garden is upon his shoulders. 
And if what evervbody says is true, the Crystal Palace 
Company were most lucky in securing his sound, prac¬ 
tical, and practically scientific head to lead the gardeners 
in the way they should go ; for all the gardeners like him 
and Sir Joseph Paxton much, and all the rest who come 
near them say the same thing. I found them both 
studying one of the most useful subjects in gardening. 
They told me as far as they went; and when they come 
to the end I shall have a share of the pudding. Sir 
Joseph looks better than I have seen him since the 
anxieties of the Crystal Palace of 1851 began. He is as 
