THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, March 24, 1857. 433 
root; and to make an edging of it at once, six inches apart 
is the best distance to plant it, hut ten inches will do. The 
same distance would do from the edge of the bed. 
Delphinium formosumr, from seeds in the spring, will not 
make a flower bed that summer, but if got up in March it 
will show bloom late in September. One-year-old plants of 
it for a bed should be planted in March or April fifteen to 
eighteen inches apart, and it rises eighteen to twenty inches 
the first year. Older plants should be a little wider apart, 
and in good ground will grow two feet high. Calceolaria 
amplexicaulis will do as you propose, and so will the Mint; 
but the Mint next the Zelinda and Calceolaria rugosa out¬ 
side would look better. One row of the Mint outside a bed 
of Zelinda would much improve it anywhere. Oblige us 
with more of your propositions.] 
LUXURIANT OLD JASMINE NOT BLOOMING.— 
PRUNING MYRTLES AND FUCHSIAS WHICH 
HAVE BEEN WINTERED DRY. 
“ I have a white Jasmine on a wall, rather a low one. It 
sends up stroug branches, four to six feet or more, every 
year. I am obliged to cut it to keep it in reasonable bounds, 
and consequently get no bloom at all, or only at the top of 
the wall. It is very old, ancl has great stumps. Can I do 
anything to improve this state of things ? 
“ A favourite Myrtle, about two feet high in a pot, has 
dropxred its leaves, wdiich look scorched. Should I cut it 
down and repot it? 
“ My Fuchsias I have kept in a room in-doors all the 
winter without any water, and not cut down. Some have 
kept sprouting, and some are dry. Have I done right, and 
what should I do now ?”—H. S. 
[The long suckers from the large stem of the old Jasmine 
should have been stopped several times, and if there was no 
room to train all of them some of the strongest ought to 
have been cut out when they were six inches long, and the 
side-shoots from the stops would flower in time. 
No plant bears the knife better than the Myrtle. Cut all 
the young wood to little stumps next April, and wait till the 
plants are green again before they are fresh potted. 
It is best to cut down now such Fuchsias as were kept dry, 
then let them be watered, and when the young shoots are a 
few inches long shake the. soil from them, and repot them 
in fresh soil.] 
CONCRETE WALKS. 
“ Mr. Beaton’s receipt in The Cottage Gardener’s Dic¬ 
tionary seems to be an excellent one. If the Editor thinks 
that the best, would he explain what it is that is to be well 
rolled and watered to the thickness of three inches ? Does 
it mean that the six inches of stones, brickbats, etc., with 
the layer of chalk, are to be rolled and watered until from 
six inches they are reduced to three inches?”—W. W. 
[That is the intention, and with a heavy roller it is easily 
done. The railroad people in chalk districts do their yards 
in the same way, and also carry chalk long distances for the 
same purpose. There are many samples of the plan to be 
seen at most of the stations in Surrey and Kent.] 
CULTURE OF THE DWARF WHITE ROCKET. 
“ I shall be obliged if some one of your readers will inform 
me how to cultivate and manage the old-fashioned dwarf 
white Rocket. The French Rocket lives year after year, 
but I always lose the old-fashioned white dwarf.”— Rusticus. 
[The old-fashioned double white Rocket, Hesperis malro- 
nalis, like the old single-flowered parent and all the rest of 
its varieties, should be taken up every year when the borders 
are dressed off, and divided and replanted in new or fresh 
places. If the wish be to have them again in the same 
places, whether in beds or bunches in the mixed borders, 
the whole of the soil should be changed for them. They 
will flourish in any good common garden soil, and all the 
better when a spadeful or two of leaf mould, or a little nice 
earth from an old hotbed, is well worked into the spots 
where the plants are to be again planted. This planting we 
always do with the dibble, just as we do with a Cabbage 
plant, taking care to fasten it well in the earth. With this 
attention we have found all the varieties of the Rockets to 
do well, and yield an abundant increase at their roots for 
division again the following season, without the trouble of 
making cuttings. Slugs are particularly fond of, and very 
destructive to, these plants, and secrete themselves among 
the leaves and in the old flower-stalks, where they will eat 
oft' and soon destroy the whole crown before one is aware 
of them. 
It has been said that the Rocket does not flourish in the 1 
neighbourhood of London and l*aris. Miller, and Martyn, 
the editor of his “ Dictionary,” made the blunder to call it a 
biennial; but there is no question that it is a perennial, 
though rather a miffy one. We have bad the single for 
years in the same spot; but, nevertheless, it is a much neater 
way and gives new life to the plants to take them up and 
divide them, and plant them in fresh places annually. If 
the wish be for good large bunches in the mixed borders, 
plant, after well preparing the soil, three or four well-rooted 
pieces in a triangular form, pretty closely together, thus 
We know of no hardy border plant that is more worthy of 
this little attention than all the Rockets are. They may 
well be called “ Dame’s Violet; ” but these sweet flowers have 
many other English names; as, for instance, Common 
Rocket, Damask Violets, Winter Gillyflowers, Queen’s Gilly¬ 
flowers, Rogue’s Gillyflowers, and Close Sciences. The 
common yellow Rocket, or the Herb of St. Barbara ( Bar- 
barea vulgaris), should be dealt with just in the same 
manner as directed for the double Dame’s Violet, and it then 
forms a very ornamental plant in the flower-border, flowering 
about the same time. The Rockets all delight in a new, 
good soil, and in rather cool situations. We have seen them | 
wild on ditch banks, and could name many of their localities, j 
although it is properly called a rare plant in a wild state by 
botanists.] 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Cinerarias (R. H.).— Your pips packed in wool—it should have 
been damp moss in a small box—were dry and shrivelled. The colour, 
however, shows that they are not deserving attention ; there are hun¬ 
dreds of the same blue tint. 
Hogg’s Garden Tiles ( Inquirer , Lancashire). — They are now 
made hollow, and of a different material. We are informed that they 
stand the weather well. No one but the most thoughtless would back a 
cart or drive a wheelbarrow over an edging. No edging would endure 
such usage. 
Mowing Maciiine (Ah Inquirer).—We know of none better than 
those advertised in our columns. 
Seedling Salvia (F. T -, Jersey), —You say the foliage and habit 
are those of Suloia splendens, and we can say decidedly that the pale 
scarlet colour of the flowers is very beautiful and original. 
Garden Plan (H. G.). —Your own way is just the right style of 
planting such beds.,. Can you not get some Variegated Mint to mix with 
Flower of the Day in the centre bed, and also an edging to it of pink 
Virginian Stock, to be sown now four inches from the grass? then, with 
an edging of white Virginian Stock round the Tom Thumb beds, and in 
all their sharp points, you will look as smart as possible, and just in the 
first style of fashion. 
Hyacinths, &c. (A Constant Subscriber). —We have seen Hyacinths 
much as yours ; when growing freely they had received a check from frost, 
or had been allowed to get quite dry. You are quite right in blaming 
the nurseryman if he knowingly sent you inferior or unsound bulbs ; but 
the best and most experienced will be deceived in bulbs at times, and 
tradesmen are often deceived as well as their customers. We would not 
prune your plant much. Keep it rather closely as respects air. Give it 
a shade with a muslin curtain in bright days. Sponge its leaves, water 
freely as it requires it, especially in a fortnight or so after finishing 
flowering. Give more air and exposure to light in autumn, and we trust 
you will have flowers about Christmas. It is a small kind. 
Small Greenhouse ( J. Masters).—We hardly understand your 
letter, but if we do not you bad better be more precise. It is not a 
usual thing to have a house, seven feet high in front, and five feet high 
behind, is all the light admitted by the front windows? If you have a 
roof of glass, then dwarf plants on the front shelf will not shade the 
plants on the stage. Until we knew more we should advise you to 
confine yourself to Camellias, Geraniums, and Fuchsias. The first will 
bloom in winter and spring, the second in summer, and the third in 
summer and autumn. 
Work on Gardening (Short of Education). — There is no work 
better adapted to your wants than Tiik Cottage Gardener’s Dic¬ 
tionary. The emphasis is put there over the proper syllables of the 
names, and the names are translated. 
Skeleton Leaves.— Jerminius would be much obliged by informa, 
tion how those exhibited in Regent Street were prepared. 
