THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, September 0, 1859. 
333 
sorts, Azurea, an old species, being tlie best blue. 
Amphicome Emodi, a beautiful cold-frame plant, and 
looks most flourishing—more than could ever be said of 
arguta, the first of them. 
Among the Delphiniums Jules Burgois is the finest 
light blue; but not of the class of formosum. Artotis 
grandiflora, one of the best autunm-bloomers from the 
Cape, very dwarf, very bushy-like, and next the Gazanias 
in looks and kindred. Anemone vitifolia in sheer peat is 
still the best of the wild Anemones, then in fine bloom ; 
Scutellaria macrantha, a bluish mass for large patches on 
rocks and ravines. Platycodon grandiflora, for which 
Fortune well nigh lost his head in China. Liatris squar- 
■rosa, to creep out in a mass under the ledge of an over¬ 
hanging cliff. Centaurea candidissima, which is the finest 
silver-leaved plant in cultivation ; but keep some in a frame 
till you have enough to edge a bed with it, and let the 
Queen see it first. Blue and white Campanula, Carpatiua, 
which no one ever yet did properly out of Suffolk, should 
be divided as small as mincemeat at the end of April every 
year, and then to be planted as thick as grass, or thicker. 
One need not go far in these days to see “ lazy beds ”— 
no parish is without them. Gaura Lindhemeri is an 
elegant border mass plant when people will learn to put 
more than one plant in one place on a mixed border. 
Gnaphalium or Antennaria alpina, a native rock plant 
that would make an edging like Cerastium tomentosum. 
Eestuca glauca, a grey-looking Grass, six inches high, to 
tuft a rock with, or to edge a rustic basket. Staticc 
Banduelli, a dwarf, yellow kind, much better than 
Eortuni. Salvia argentea, large leaves, shaggy, with a 
woolly down, and large white blooms. Calandrina um- 
hellata, for rocks or shelving by the' seaside, to be always 
renewed by seeds—a real gem. 
Of rock plants there is no end here; but now I cannot 
climb rocks as I used to do. Ligularia, three or four kinds, 
all now to us, and all for the front of rocks or ruins ; they 
look like green Farfugiums, and would be just the thing in 
some situations. Convolvulus althceoides, a purple climber 
for a wall, blooming all the autumn ; Selenium atro-pur- 
purcum, with winged stems like amobium, and blooming 
like a Coreopsis—very curious, and a yard high; Bud- 
lecJcia hirta. the best of them, and a border, plant; 
Echinops and other curiosities in the rigid Thistle way ; 
and Carduus affinis, a Silver Thistle; Indigofera dosua, 
a half-hardy wall-trainer, like the Swainsonias; double 
Petunias against walls. A new variegated Arundo from 
China will look a tree of the Gardener’s Garters some day. 
But, good gracious! what is that on yonder border? 
Be these the flowers afore the flood, or what? Why, 
man alive, these are the new Japan “ Indian Pinks ” 
which made such a sensation at the “Park” Show. 
What will the florists say of them ? They will knock all 
their Pinks to gymcriclcs; they are the most beautiful 
flowers of all the Dianthus tribe, and when they come to 
be Carnation and Piccotee fashion, no mortal will look at 
the older ones. Every flower is as wide and flat as a 
two-shilling piece, or wider, and as highly crimson as the 
richest spot that ever was seen on Dianthus latifolius, or 
any other like it. There is also a dash of light colour 
over some of them, and some are fringed on the edges. 
Their habit is excellent; their looks as if crossed between 
the European Pink and the Indian Pink. They came 
from Japan through a Russian or a Cossack, and they 
will be shortly sold in seeds from the original stock, 
thanks to Lord Elgin for opening the trade of the Japan 
florist. 
A Deodara viridis was new to me. It is as green as 
the Larch in spring, and as different from the common 
Deodara, in shade of colour, as the Yew is from the 
Scotch Fir. Swainsonia Oslorni, galegifolia, atro-pur- 
purea; and the best white bloomer of all greenhouse 
plants, Sivainsonia galegifolia alba, all blooming most 
beautifully, seedling-like weeds against low walls, and as 
healthy-looking as "Vetches. They should never be in 
pots after bedding-out time till the frost comes, and no 
garden should be without them. 
The new Hypericum oblong folium blooms abundantly, 
and as late as to September. Laurustinus Bowardi, after 
Her Majesty’s supervisor at Osborn, looks a giant; and 
I am sure it is the right thing, else Mr. Loward would- 
not have it called after him. 
There is a good beginning here of the best old hardy 
and half-hardy bulbs—the greatest want in all our gar¬ 
dens, which, with our improved knowledge of the wants 
of plants, we would soon supply if we had access to 
such collections. Argyropsis Candida, and Zepyhranthus 
Atamasco, and rdsea, with Cooperia tubispatha, were all 
in bloom in the open ground that day, and all in one bed; 
and I was told that Cuinmingia trimaculata bloomed there 
this spring, the rarest and one of the prettiest dark blue 
little bulbs ever cultivated. Also, Trichonema cruenta 
and speciosa, than which wo have nothing so elegantly 
rich. 
Here wo stumbled on the wreck of one of the best vessels 
in the florists’ navy ; but having lost it about twenty years 
back, they were never able to give us hybrid perpetual 
Phloxes. It is called Phlox criterion, and when well 
done it blooms nine months in the year. A rich purple, 
with a white stripe in each petal. 
In the pits were all the greenhouse plants, not out of 
doors. The spring Cyclamens were just potted and 
cradled. Everything looked healthy and clean. An im¬ 
mense number of bulbs from South Africa, some of them 
I never saw. Lilium giganteum has crossed with one 
of Groom’s hybrids. Vallota or Imatophyllum miniatum 
has crossed with I. Laubantii, a Chyrtanthus-flowering 
and newer kind. Good news this ! Berberis trifareata 
was in bloom, a tassel of fourteen separate flower-spikes— 
a fine thing. Portlandia platantha, just bloomed, white 
funnels four inches across. Dipteracanthus affine, the 
splendid scarlet, Petunia-like bloomer figured in the last 
number of the “ Illustrated Bouquet,” is a free, healthy- 
looking plant, and seems easy to grow and bloom and 
propagate. Lots of it are on sale. But the stoves were 
all too hot after a hot day’s hunting abroad, and too damp 
for dry livers, so we only ran through them. r 
The new Grass, Spergula, is all over the borders, and 
fields are laid down with it next the pond where they get 
the water from, and there is no doubt or hesitation about 
the thing answering to the very letter. On light soil it 
wants the roller often, but on solid clay hardly ever; 
but the more it is rolled the better it grows. 
_D. Beaton. 
SIMPLE HINTS ON PROPAGATING BEDDING 
PLANTS. 
SCARLET GERANIUMS. 
Many inquiries having been made on this subject, I 
thought I could not do better than give them ventilation 
in our serial. Simple as the matter is, the great variety 
of modes resorted to tend to bewilder the amateur who 
is merely a beginner, and who, when he visits a gardener, 
has all his eyes open to that particular operation in which 
he is most interested. “ Mr. A. tells me, that at one cele¬ 
brated place the man had large cuttings of Scarlets, 
with almost every leaf on them, and he was laying them 
in a border full in the sun, by making a slit with the 
spade, laying the cuttings in the slit, and pressing the 
earth to them. At another place the leaves were reduced, 
but still fully a half left, and the workman was dibbling 
them in rows on a border. At one place this kind of work 
was done in July; at another in the middle of August, 
and here are you engaged on the same work in the end 
of August! One gardener, again, puts his cuttings in 
pots, and places them in a spent hotbed, or close pit, and 
here are you putting them in boxes that will hold two or 
three score, so as to move all at once! And what puzzles 
mo most of all, here are you using very small cuttings, 
