78 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 8 1859. 
ander; the Indian Bay; and, “ with most care,” Lemons 
and Oranges; but, “ to save room, we will here name 
other nice plants that must have the like care. The same 
directions for some will serve them all.” The bloody 
double "Wallflower, Amomum Plinii, Geranium node 
olens, Tuberose Hyacinths, blue Borage-leaved Auricula, 
Bear’s Ear Sanicle, Marura, and Martini Syriacum. 
These plants are set in cases, and with Oranges and other 
tender plants housed in winter.” These were not Wal- 
tonian “ cases,” but Orange-boxes, and Myrtle-tubs, 
instead of pots. 
That was the first time that a greenhouse Geranium 
was mentioned in our garden books. Geranium node 
olens (night-smelling). What might that Geranium be— 
a Horseshoe, or plain, or greenhouse Pelargonium, or 
what P Neither the one nor the other, but one of the 
tuberous-rooted kinds which is now called triste. Its 
flowers scent a whole room at night; but there is no 
beauty in them. Gilbert says of it, “ This is the only 
Crane’s Bill -worth our notice, and so called, because it 
smelleth sweet only in the night. It hath a great root 
like a Pseony, with large, jagged leaves. The flowers 
come forth in this month (April). The plant is tender, 
and, therefore, set in a pot, and grown in winter as the 
Cardinal’s flower, or housed and kept dry hi winter, for 
any moisture rots the roots.” 
So, at the beginning, there were two ways of wintering 
the one Geranium “ worth our notice.” To keep it 
green, growing in a pot, and in the greenhouse ; or to dry 
it off in the autumn, and winter it in-doors in a dry state. 
The first Geranium worth notice, therefore, was and is 
very different from all our bedding Geraniums ; but there 
are so many people in a fix just now from having had 
their Geraniums frosted, that I would advise the adoption 
of the second plan, as with node olens —that is, “ to be 
dried and housed,” and to be kept as dry till the be¬ 
ginning of January. 
Hot an eye or an inch of a Scarlet Geranium has been 
killed below the surface of the ground, where the frost 
told the hardest; therefore, there is yet time to save 
more than enough to give a full crop of cuttings in the 
spring, late or early, according to convenience. But 
there is no way of doctoring frosted Geraniums half so 
good as that of drying them, as if they had roots like 
Pseonies, in the first instance ; then the frosted parts, that 
would now ruin the rest, by dying back, or moulding 
by inches, will dry off, and be like so much cork by 
Christmas; and when the lots are looked over, all the 
small fibrous roots, and all the corky parts must be cut 
clean away, and the stumps be put into shallow boxes 
with moist earth, and no watering for the first month, or 
till leaves come forth; unless, indeed, the soil gets too 
dry for allowing young roots and leaves to be made. Al¬ 
together, it will be an up-hill work, but with care and 
perseverance there is no more fear of running short of 
plants than last winter, or the winter before. 
_As there is no one living who had seen such early 
winter weather, and such late equinoctial gales in Oc¬ 
tober, there is no telling how these may affect the coming 
winter. But old sailors, shepherds, and gardeners, used 
to make it a rule to expect a mild winter after such No- 
vember weather as we had this last October. Perhaps it 
may be more mild after coming in so early ; but mild or 
medium, there is no use, or anything to be derived from 
grumbling and vexation at what has happened, and what 
is lost. Put the best face on it, make the most of what 
is yet safe. Your loss is not so much as mine, ten to 
one; but I shall have more plants next spring by the 
same practice which I now preach, and by all the con¬ 
trivances that I can think of. My mats were in the 
Yarmouth Roads when the frost was at the door, one 
half of my glass was wet in paint and putty the same day, 
and after covering up, for the night, I could only see the 
nakedness of all my resources, and ruin staring down 
upon my seedlings. But to vex oneself would only be to 
make things worse. If I had no Geraniums I could lose 
none, and if I had not so many, my means would save 
them, “ and what is the use of saying more about them 
till the frost is over ? ” Nothing like patience, like taking 
it easy, and like being thankful that, whatever it is, it is 
not worse than it is. When I come to count the cost, I 
am ten times better off than I expected ; I have lost 
nothing of any account, only the looks of my prize plants 
are not quite so refreshing as they were. 
All young plants from cuttings, and all the little seed¬ 
lings which got frosted in the tops, I shook out of the 
pots, and cut them in just to the bottom of the frosted 
parts, and no more. I then replanted them on the colo¬ 
nising plan ; four, or five, or six, or seven of them, ac¬ 
cording to their sizes, being put together in bundles, and 
planted in a frame, or in boxes, or in pots, also according 
to their size, and just like putting in cuttings. The 
largest, tallest, and strongest of the young stock were 
then put in a two-light box, as close as cuttings in a pan, 
with nothing but the cocoa fibre, or refuse. The same 
in the boxes, with one-half earth and one-half cocoa dust. 
Also the same in the pots for very small seedlings. They 
are all doing wonderfully well. Dry sawdust one-half, 
and dry half-decayed leaves rubbed through a wide sieve, 
with a little coarse sand and charcoal dust, or the ashes 
of burnt turf, or any wood ashes, would make the nearest 
compost like to the cocoa-nut refuse or sawdust, so to 
speak, and nothing is better for frosted plants. 
When Geraniums get frosted in pots or boxes, or in 
frames out ox pots, it is little short of madness to leave 
them in the same soil one hour longer than one can help. 
The stroke is like death to them in principle, and thev 
ought to be so arranged as to begin life afresh, as from a 
seed or a cutting ; then, whatever be of life within them, 
it is sure to come out and flourish on a sound bottom of 
plant, root, and soil. Then a sudden check like this 
overtakes a plant in a pot, box, or bed, and the conse¬ 
quence is a dead stagnation at the roots ; but shake the 
soil from the roots, or lift them if they are in the ground, 
and put them in some light compost for a while, and 
immediately a set of new roots issue from all parts of the 
old roots, and in time these will restore the life and vigour 
of the plants; whereas, the leaving them to their fate in 
the old soil would only hasten their destruction. 
M y young brood are now fast forming their new white 
loots; the leaves stand up as if nothing had happened; 
and the whole disaster will only cause a lapse of a month 
or six weeks in their progress and vigour. Meantime 
they occupy much less space, and I am inclined to think 
that a sudden stop like this, caused artificially in October, 
would be the best plan to adopt with such a stock each 
season, every year; putting them early to rest, as it 
were, so as to occupy but one half of the room till the 
dead of winter was got over. They would be making 
active, roots the while, to make them ready for a new 
start in fresh soil at the more seasonable period of the 
early spring. 
My old plants have all been gone over in the same 
way the tops cut off as far as they were frosted and no 
more, as I have ample stoi’e room for them, and time to 
look after them ; but in the more common run it would 
have been more safe, or at least less trouble, to have had 
them cut down close to the hard wood, and to dry them 
off for two months, and then to start them afresh as I 
have done at first. But I shall lose the benefit of my 
yearly.stock of half standards—a style of growing them, 
which is coming more into fashion evei'y year for parti¬ 
cular places and purposes. 
The . way I begin to make such standards from the 
beginning is this. In the spring, I plant the seedlings 
not more than six inches apart in the rows, and the rows 
are from one foot to eighteen inches asunder, according 
to the breeds. The soil is as rich as I can make it, and 
they soon come up as thick as grass, but cannot get 
bushy : the leading shoots having room to grow upwards 
