301 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 23, 1859. 
now grew amazingly. I am not easily surprised in a 
garden; but I confess I little expected to learn that 
Tritoma maria, like the Agapanthus, would live in 
water three of the hottest months in summer, if not four 
months. My plants were a3 much in water since the 
middle of summer as if they were in pots and in saucers 
of water, and I would risk a kingdom on the certainty 
that this very plant may be bloomed in pots, so as to be 
as fine as those in the flower gardens at J£ew. 
The way to do it will be this. In November plant 
strong pi.. -i of flowering-plants in the open ground, in 
very light and very rich compost, so as they may have 
a wide spread of roots before they are six inches high in 
the leaves. As soon as they are about six inches out of 
the ground lift them carefully with a fork, and put them 
into the flower-pots at once, keeping them out with the 
•Japan Lilies till we are up to summer heat; then give each 
pot a large feeder, a saucer, and begin with half an inch 
of water to see how they like it. After it is all right with 
them, keep the feeders full of water, and the moment you 
see the flower part rising in the centre, give liquid manure 
without waiting the clarifying jjrocess. I can vouch 
they will soon clarify it, and abundance of it too. Some 
of my leaves are over seven feet long, from the smallest 
sets. It may be possible to grow the leaves to ten feet 
high, and the flower-scapes in proportion ; but I shall not 
go now farther than I can measure. What noble things 
to bring in pots on the terrace, the front hall, and even 
the coldest parts of the conservatory, when the Dahlias 
are gone ! But about my price for them, as, under pot 
culture, there is no end to the seeds that may be perfectly 
ripened when the plants can be thus under control, and 
fit to put under cover on the slightest change of weather. 
Last autumn was so good, that seeds of Tritoma maria 
ripened near London, and vegetated as thick as grass. 
But I have begun another experiment, by which, I think, 
they will seed freely in the open border. D. Beaton. 
GLEANINGS AT WOESLEY HALL. 
BEDDING PLANTS FoS. STOCK — CUT FLOWEES. 
One of the greatest annoyances to the flower gardener 
at the present day is the insatiable and still ever-growing 
craving for cut flowers in rooms, independently of every¬ 
thing in the shape of circumstances. When his em¬ 
ployers spend part of the year in the metropolis, or any 
other large town, common sense would point to the 
propriety of sending cut flowers of all sorts, to keep them 
in mind of the beauties of the country and the charms of 
their gardens and greenhouses. When the gardens and 
greenhouses in the country are at a considerable distance 
from the mansion, the practice has much to say in its 
favour; and, provided these masses of cut flowers are 
looked upon as the principal result, the gardener has no 
reason to grumble or complain. But iu places where no 
principal doors can be opened but you come in contact 
with flowering plants—where not a window-muslin blind 
can be moved but the beauty of the parterre breaks upon 
the view—where a sash cannot be opened but the 
fragrance of flowers is wafted in—then the stuffing of such 
rooms with cut flowers, altogether irrespective of the 
more enduring adornments of these rooms, shows often 
anything but a refined taste. Where the arranging and 
attending to these are confided solely to the gardener, or 
the “ lady of the house,” there will be less to find fault 
with in the way of taste, and nothing to complain of as 
to improper treatment. But when baskets of flowers are 
to be sent in at certain times, to be arranged by anybody 
and attended to by anybody, need we wonder that these 
vases of flowers, intended to adorn and perfume, send 
forth an aroma at times at which even Father Thames 
when most abused would roll his eyes in astonishment ? 
If employers will have such masses of cut flowers, it is 
the gardener’s duty to get them; if they will have flowers 
in-doors instead of out-doors, that is their affair, not Ms ; 
and if the matter ended here, there would be no cause of 
grumbling or discontent. But when basket after basket 
has been cut from the flower-beds on a morning, so that 
scarcely a single perfect truss is left, and the lady or the 
gentleman comes in the afternoon and says, “ I am sur¬ 
prised our flower-beds look so poor in comparison with 
Lady B.’s ”—from which a cut flower is rarely taken; 
the gardener cannot be blamed if he respectfully states 
that it is impossible to have the best flowers on the beds 
and such masses of best flowers in the house at one and 
the same time; but yet, ten to one, his honest straight¬ 
forward statement will not meet with the requisite atten¬ 
tion. 
The same remark holds true with plants in rooms, and 
perhaps more so than with cut flowers. Myriads of fine 
plants are thus annually destroyed, and, in the majority 
of cases, their presence in rooms is such a deformity, that 
■when I visit a strange mansion I feel a tingling at my 
fingers’ ends to pitch the plants out of the' window, in 
order to secure unity of expression in the room. I have 
previously stated how Mr. Fleming reconciled refined 
ta3te with floral adornments at Trenfham. 
Some time ago a lady requested me to look at her 
greenhouse and sitting parlour, or boudoir. She com¬ 
plained the greenhouse was rather thin of flowering 
plants; her boudoir was most richly and artistically 
furnished—what are called objects of vertu being, if any¬ 
thing, too numerous. At each of the three windows were 
little white-painted stages, covered with nice flowering 
plants in the common red-coloured pots. On asking 
my opinion, I stated that the room was very beautiful; 
but as the greenhouse was connected with it, and only a 
few yards from it, that the greenhouse, the parlour, and 
the plants, would all bo greatly improved by the plants 
being moved to the greenhouse, and the stages to the 
lumber-room; and that, what flowering plants were in 
such a room should at least seem to grow out of one or 
two rich China vases which were then empty. Without 
such attention to artistic effect, and a background to 
harmonise, or neutralise, the rich furniture and the 
colouring of the walls, most plants in elegant rooms are 
just so many objects entirely out of place, and, conse¬ 
quently, partaking more of deformity than of refined 
interest. 
Cut flowers when carried to an excess, so that the 
tables of the principal rooms look like so many competition 
tables at a flower show, leave a similar impression on my 
mind. There is, however, another mode of lessening the 
interest of flower-beds, which, in the generality of cases, 
cannot be avoided. 
Under the present grouping system, there are but few 
places where the gardener can find room in winter for 
preserving more than rooted cuttings of the plants he 
wants for next season. Mr. Beaton rightly told us the 
other week that bedding Geraniums, put in as cuttings in 
the end of July, do far better every way than those put 
in later ; and yet with that knowledge clearly before us, 
I, and many more, delay, putting in cuttings later, just 
because we do not like mutilating in the least the outline 
of our beds when so many visitors and friends of our 
employers are likely to see them. It is true, that, if 
carefully managed, cuttings may bo taken from most 
things without much injuring the beds; but it is rare if 
many are taken in which a practised eye would not at 
once detect the result. Our friends near London gene¬ 
rally escape this annoyance, as their families so often 
move about grouse time. Now, in all places where there 
is more room in the kitchen garden than is actually 
wanted, the lessening of the interest in flower-beds, from 
cutting their flowers, or thinning them for cuttings, may 
be avoided by adopting Mr. Davidson’s system of planting 
large borders in the kitchen garden, in rough ribbon 
style, so as to have there close at hand enough of the 
whole of his bedding stock to secure abundance of 
