258 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Janttaby 25, 1859. 
of those “ broomstick ” articles about it, which are so 
purely, and so usefully domestic, that they come home to 
the iireside of every one of us, no matter in what station 
of life we may be in. Or, if there is one being in the 
kingdom who is indifferent about flowers, at this season 
of the year,—I mean the season of Christmas,—I should 
like this article to make a lasting impression upon his 
ideas of comfort and merry-making. I say his, because 
I happen to know that no lady could be found to whom 
flowers are indifferent, in some shape or other. 
Cut flowers, without leaves, or sprigs of shoots, soon 
get very tame to a good eye, and that is the reason why 
so many dislike the Guernsey Lily ( Nerine Sarniensis), 
and other bulbs which throw up a naked flower-stalk— 
that is, which bloom before the leaves come, as the au¬ 
tumnal Crocuses do. But this is the very reason why 
others are so fond of such flowering bulbs and plants ; 
and I am one of the latter. My reason for this fondness 
of naked flowers is, that I can believe they were given to 
us on purpose to raise our ideas of the works of nature, 
and to warm our affections to such a point, that we could 
not look upon a natural flower, which was naked, without 
wishing for an opportunity, and the means of clothing it, 
in leaves, or shoots, or sprigs, or whatever was thought 
to be the nearest tp Nature’s way of doing it. The wished- 
for opportunity occurs every time we come into possession 
of a new nudijlorum. 
The last best nudijlorum that we received is to be the 
first special nudijlorum that I shall mention, and re¬ 
commend to day, for clothing, during the Christmas 
sympathies. It is the one on which I bestowed my own 
diligence, and the one which rewarded me the most of all 
the real nudijlorums, or naked flowers. Jasminum nudi¬ 
jlorum is the plant. It covers round the front door, and 
on a north-west aspect blooms, with me, from the end of 
November till early in March, more or less, according 
to the severity or mildness of the winter. The frost 
does not seem to have any very great power on ■ the 
flowers, unless the sun comes to help the nakedness, 
which it very seldom does on that aspect, while nudi¬ 
jlorum is in its prime. 
In summer, when the plant is in leaf, it is just as useful 
as now, for it clothes, in its turn, the flower-boxes in the 
windows, and you can see nothing but green all round, 
and flowers on the top. No insects, nor other ailment, 
hinders it from being in the most flourishing, green, and 
shining condition at that season, on the said aspect; and 
with a liberal supply of water, it is just as good full in, or 
on, the south aspect; therefore, there is no doubt but with 
a half liberal supply of water on an east wall, or on a 
west aspect, it would do equally well. So that it will do 
all round a house equally well. But, to come in for 
Christmas use, I think it ought to be at the back of the 
house, if the front door faces the sun, in this latitude. It 
is very cheap, very clean, very hardy, very useful, and 
will grow up or down with equal freedom and vigour, 
and may be trained sideways to cover anything. More¬ 
over, it ought to be cut down as low as possible, at the 
end of April, after planting, and pretty close for the next 
two seasons, at the same time. After that, it requires no 
spring or summer pruning, on my system, as long as you 
have space for it to run over. All the pruning I give my 
best plant, is from the first of December to about the 
middle of February ; and it is partly pruned during every 
week of that period, “for the sake of somebody,” for 
cut flowers. At last, the whole plant is thinned pretty 
freely ; but no young shoot that is left is touched with 
the knife, which is the grand secret of growing it to per¬ 
fection. What you cut, cut clean out, and what you 
leavo, leave untouched. That is the golden rule for 
pruning Gooseberries, nudijlorum , and a few other plants, 
and some hybrid China Boses. 
Now, the portion of our people who despise the 
Guernsey Lily, and the “likes ” of it, would gnash their 
teeth at a handful of shoots of this nudijlorum being 
brought in to them. But I shall turn them and their tune 
with this article. Do as I do, for I do as I say, and I can 
truly say, that Jasminum nudijlorum is the best plant in 
the catalogue, to teach people to like naked flowers, to 
dress and clothe them, and then to admire them as much 
as flowers clothed by Nature herself. After a good many 
ways, this is the best way to clothe a naked-flowering 
J asmine. 
' First of all, get a vessel to hold it—anything will do, 
from a punch-bowl to a golden goblet, without holes at 
the bottom or at the side, and no harm in the matter if 
there be holes. Mine, which is not my own, is a pale 
green-coloured glass, in the shape of a wide-mouthed 
funnel, with a long leg, as for filling a cask, but without 
holes at the bottom ; the long leg of the funnel goes down 
into a socket, in a frosted silver stand, which is over a 
foot in height; and the top of the funnel-like glass 
stands just fifteen inches high above the dinner-table. 
The flowers stand above that height, and spread over or 
round a circle, whose circumference is over four feet— 
sometimes more, sometimes less, according as this vase 
is filled. Anything, however, will do. The vase, or 
vessel, is then filled to within one inch of the top with 
very soft earth. I used the cocoa-nut refuse, the best of 
all moulds. On the top of the mould, I placed as much of 
the Golden Stonecrop as made a thick, close covering, with 
some of the same hanging down a few inches from the 
edges of the vase, in a regular fringe ; and I gave the whole 
as much water as the mould would hold, without floating 
on the surface. The more common form of this plant—the 
green Stonecrop, Sedum acre —would do just as well. 
This is easily to be had anywhere, and to plant it is one 
of the easiest things in the world; if you press the root 
side of it on the moiild, that is all it requires : it takes to 
the soil at once, and in a warm room the little ends stand 
upright next day, like the ends of my fringe, and nothing 
could look more clean, more fresh, or more tidy. The 
next turn was to plant so many shoots of Jasminum nudi¬ 
jlorum, in full bloom, and from nine to fifteen inches long, 
into the vase, taking care not to bruise or displace any of 
the Stonecrop. The mode of placing, or planting, the 
shoots was with a small, long-pointed stick, as a dibber. 
Eight of the shoots—all from nine to twelve inches long 
—were put in very firm in a circle, one inch within the 
rim of the vase, and placed so as to spread out three 
times the size of the mouth of the vase, at one regular 
distance, shoot from shoot, all round. A little within 
this circle, I planted another of five shoots, in the same 
way ; and in the centro of the vase I put in three more 
shoots—the three longest in a small triangle, and I was 
much pleased with the effect: it was neat, regular, and 
very rich in colour. The yellow of my Golden Stonecrop 
was changed to a pale primrose, from the richer yellow 
of the nudijlorum. Something more seemed wanting 
now, besides the ground surface in green and primrose, 
to set off so much bloom—to clothe the vase, in fact; and 
I was somewhat puzzled how best to effect this, as I 
wanted the nosegay to be first-rate. Nothing seems so 
vulgar, to my eye, as putting heaps of flowers together 
without taste, or some kind of design. 
As far as I went I had nothing to complain of; but 
the whole put together—the frosted silver stand, the pale 
green glass vase, the Stoneorop, and the nudijlorum — 
made too much of a good thing of it. I now read some 
chapters of Chevereul on colours, and I could see plainly 
enough whatwas wanting; yeti could not hit off the 
remedy to my own satisfaction, and Christmas was nigh 
at hand. But the remedy came by itself, as it were. A 
countryman, with a cartload of stolen Holly, on his way 
to Covent Garden market, called at the door to offer 
some. He declared he “ came by them as honest as 
anybody, ” that the churchwardens of such a parish 
were amongst his customers, and that he could sell them 
cheap. The time of year rendered Holly just the thing 
for my fancy, but I fear my fix caused me to buy stolen 
