269 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 9, 1859. 
colours, would produce if they were put together properly. 
But what struck me so forcibly at the time was, that a 
countryman, who knows very little of real flower garden¬ 
ing, should have made a perfect model, according to some 
people’s ideas on the subject, and a perfect muddle at the 
same time. The form of that bed was perfection, and the 
symmetry could not be excelled out of a mould. The 
foundation and the corner-stone of planting may thus be 
without fault or blemish, and yet the effect be not worth 
one straw. 
The second bed was not quite a model of symmetry; 
but the colours helped each other as far as is possible for 
the same shades to do when placed in the most favourable 
positions. Next the Flower of the Day were two rings of 
a rich rosy Aster; then two rings of greenish-blue, a 
lighter and a darker grey, the lighter one being next the 
rose; the centre was dark blue. That is how a lady 
would place the same shades; but try them any other 
way, and the second would be as effectless as the first. 
The whole reminds me of a unique bed which is now 
in full beauty at the Experimental Garden—not a 
bed of Unique Geraniums, but a kind of bed, of which, 
perhaps, there is not a second in the three kingdoms. It 
is rather a mysterious bed in the making—it is a rustic 
bed, and yet it is not rustic. There was an old Yew tree 
there as thick as my chest, which was cut down to the 
lowest tier of branches,—say five feet from the ground,— 
that tier of branches forms now a rich ring of flourishing 
Yew, and inside that ring, resting on the stump, or trunk, 
stands a wooden vase four feet in diameter and entirely 
out, of sight by the ring of fresh Yew. Then round the 
bottom and bole of the ancient Yew, eight or nine Yew 
plants, four feet high, are planted ; both sides of the 
plants being closely clipped. A small copper wire fastens 
the young to the old Yew so closely, that you cannot 
see any of the old trunk, and the tops of these young 
plants mixing with the tier of old branches, help to make 
the top ring ; and one might fancy the whole to be one 
young healthy, vigorous Yew tree, cut on purpose to look 
like the centre of a rustic bed. 
Hound this Yew pedestal to the Yew vase is a bed four 
feet from the Yew to the outside of it, which is raised 
nine or ten inches from the ground by an edge of “ rustic ” 
bi’ickbats, which are covered with Ivy. Now, there is a 
rustic bed for you which will last as long as nobody knows 
how! None of those extravagant rickety things which 
are no sooner up than they must be patched, and botched, 
and propped up to keep them from going to smash by the 
next gale, with no end to the expense about them. 
You may fix on any knoll, however, which you can 
see from your drawing-room window ; and there, on the 
top of that knoll, get a man to dig out a hole as for a gate¬ 
post—say three feet deep ; put in a post of the hardest 
and most durable wood; fix it as firmly as possible, and 
let four or four feet six inches of it be out of the ground; 
trench a four-feet-wide space round the post two feet 
deep, but keep from the ramming space around the post 
itself; then raise a rustic edge to the trenched bed by 
placing first a row of stones, or brick-bats, on the edge 
of the grass; then, just on the edge of the dug, _ or 
trenched space, plant very small Ivy plants one foot 
apart, and draw them to you between the bats; then 
raise your edging to your own liking, and keep filling 
in the soil to make the surface of the bed as high, or 
nearly as high, as your edging of bats, or wherever it 
may be ; then fasten up the Ivy against the edging, and 
in three months you will have a substantial brickbat 
| edging that will last a lifetime, and a covering of Ivy on 
: it which will endure longer stjll, if well managed. 
Now go to a nursery and get four or five Yew plants a 
foot or more higher than the top of your post; clip one 
side of them into the bone before you plant them against 
the post. After planting, clip the other side, and make it 
look just like a green column of Yew that might have 
"been growing there for years and years. Fasten them 
well near tho top of the post, and put your own fancy of 
a vase on the top—something in basket and rustic stylo— 
which the tops of the Yews will soon embrace, and form 
themselves into the same shape, and hide the vase 
altogether. 
Plant what you like on the top ; have what trailers 
you choose to hang over the edges, and to be fastened to 
sprigs of the Yew all round ; but plant the bottom as I say. 
Over the top of the brick edging with the Ivy covering 
plant a row, at the end of April , of newly-divided plants 
of Viola calcarata —a very fight blue wild Violet, which 
blooms till October, be the season ever so hot; it will 
partly hang down over the Ivy, and the rest will make a 
close compact fringe on the top of the edge of the bed. 
Six inches inside this, plant a ring of the Lady Plymouth 
variegated Geranium, or the variegated Oak-leaf, as we 
say, all young plants of exactly the same size. Inside 
that, plant either two rows of young Baron LLugel, or one 
row of it next the variegated, and a row of old, plants of 
Harlcaway next. And a little in advance of the central 
Yew column, plant a ring of some pure white Nosegay 
Geraniums. The lumpy-headed ones, after Boule de Niege, 
are not so good in this fancy. Now, when all this is 
done, you will have the very best-looking rustic bed in all 
England—the very cheapest, too ; for if you keep the soil 
renewed from time to time, and do not forget to tar the 
inside and the outside of the box or vase, as you may call 
it, on the top, that bed will be quite fresh and sound for 
your grandson. Or you might have the centre pillar of 
brick in cement, or stone in good lime mortar, but 
never cover it with Ivy. Yew is the right thing, and 
the true background colour for the flowers just mentioned. 
D. Beaton. 
THE WATEHPOT: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 
A seasonable subject, surely. Few parts of England but 
have felt the pressure of the recent heats ; and few gardens but 
have had a thorough acquaintance with the waterpot. The 
evil effects of severe droughts are patent to every one; not so 
manifest, however, certain benefits which advantageously spring 
from such a condition. As to the latter, let me remind our 
fruitists of the influence such droughts have on our fruit-bearing 
trees—those, I mean, which are gross. Neither may we forget, 
that in our clime, which is, on the whole, noted for its humidity, 
the influences of a bright, warm, and dry period in facilitating 
the fructification of ensuing years. In all these things it is well 
for us to keep both eyes open to see the good as well as the 
evil, all things being so compounded on this side the moon. 
But to turn for a moment to the ill effects of drought and extreme 
heat, we have become in this respect a susceptible people : we 
have not only our native trees, shrubs, and vegetables to deal 
with, but denizens of other climes, requiring, on the whole, a 
variety of treatment. The Peruvian w r ho glories hi his Maize 
little fears the sun overhead—his plants are adapted to the 
climate : ho is more likely to meet with a coup de soleil than a 
crop of Maize offended by solar heat. But when we take into 
consideration the different departments of gardening, flowers in 
all their kinds, vegetables, fruits, and even trees, we shall 
presently find that the cultivator of a British garden is a most 
vulnerable character. Under circumstances of great heat with 
drought, the flowers only attain half their compass and dura¬ 
bility ; the vegetables lose that high succulence and tenderness 
which wo all delight in ; the fruits are ill fed or crack, and are 
hurried away prematurely before any possible chance of satiety 
can occur; and our shrubs, and even trees, become lean, withered, 
and yellow. Such, in the main, are the effects resulting from 
severe drought and intensity of heat. All this points plainly to 
one of the first dut ies of the landscape gardener, who is entrusted 
with the disposal of a plot of ground intended to be worthy tho 
name of an English garden,—no mean title as the world goes,— 
to secure a provision for water. Our worthy neighbours the 
Gauls are famous neighbours too; but wc can beat them with 
our Cabbages and our tall chimniesi 
To revert to the matter of water : What about supplies ? a 
have had the good fortune to be intimately acquainted with I 
hydraulic ram—one of the very best neighbours I have had for 
more than thirty years. As iihakspeare said hi “ Midsummer 
