290 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, February 8, 1859. 
follows:—The rule was put, for this article, on the 
largest plant,—a double red,—and it reached just one 
yard straight across the pot. Thirty - four inches 
across were the longest when I had them last measured 
for report. Thirty inches across are the common run here 
for all the large plants of the double white Primrose. 
But the new double white jimbriata is much the best 
bloomer, with the largest flowers, and the strongest consti¬ 
tution ; yet it is in such demand in the trade, that, 
although it originated with them, the Messrs. Jackson 
have not yet been able to keep old plants of it for 
specimens. All nurserymen know it by this time, and sell 
it at sixpence or a shilling more than the plain double 
white, according to the size of the plants. Here, there is 
one whole house devoted to these double Primroses, and 
the best part of the next house. The conservatory is also 
gay with them, and some huge specimens stand on the 
north side of a span-roofed cold house, for specimen 
plants of Azaleas and others. 
But I shall begin at the beginning, and take the con¬ 
servatory, which looks on to the London ltoad. Every 
day in the year, that house is gay with flowers. They 
force on purpose to keep it so all the winter. At the be¬ 
ginning of January, it was full of single and double 
China Primroses ; single and double Hyacinths ; nine or 
ten kinds of Camellias ; and the following Heaths— 
hyemalis, gracilis, ramentacea, and intermedia, a kind ! 
which seems just like the old Bowieana, only that it \ 
always blooms in winter. The Epacrises which came the 
earliest were — delicata, ardentissima, hyacinthiflora, 
Tauntoniensis, impressa, impressa alba, and densifiora, 
a large, light creamy-white kind. The earliest Camellia 
is always, and in all places, the old variegata: it was 
only one week behind them, at the Experimental Garden ; 
but I have had it as early in bloom as the latter end of 
November, twenty years back : then Donclclarii; Gillesii, 
a good striped; Lady Idume, blush ; Mathotti, a very 
large dark crimson ; imbricata, Hendersonii, and a few 
others. On the back wall of this house, are fine trained 
specimens, up to twelve feet high, and as many across ; 
also, some noble standards, of the same size— reticulata, 
t welve feet; imbricata, in a pot, twelve feet; Lady Hume, 
ten feet; and many more. 
In 1856 and 57, I travelled 100 miles around London, 
looking for such Camellias, to cover at once the back wall 
of a conservatory, and could not find one half the number. 
I had to get full-grown plants, at from £5 to £15 each, 
and to cut off one side, just like dressing pea-stakes, so as \ 
to get them to fit up against the wall. A report on 
trained Camellias would then have saved my employer at 
least £100. 
In the same house there was, in bloom, a scarce green¬ 
house climber, Brachyceras acuminata, which remains in 
bloom three months, in the dead of winter. It is like some 
scarlet pea-flowering Kennedya, and is best in bloom-bud, 
for most of the flowers drop soon after getting full open. 
Pittosporum Tobira variegata was very bright; Daphne 
indica rubra, deliciously sweet; and Rhododendron Fal- 
eoneri, five feet high, with seven shoots from the bottom, 
was no less striking, among a houseful of large, fine- 
grown plants. 
file next house is called the Hew House; but it is 
two, if not three, years old. It is a span-roof, seventy- 
two feet long and nineteen feet wide, and is without a 
rafter—much in the same way as the new Camellia-house 
at the Crystal Palace, but without the trussed girder 
Across the roof. The support is a plain purline, from 
end' to end. This is -where the large China Azaleas, 
and many other specimens, are wintered. Here, are match 
pairs, duplicate matches, and three, five, or seven, huge 
plants of one kind, so as to get match pairs, and single 
specimens, out of one kind of plant. 
It is in the winter season, that most of the secrets for suc¬ 
cess at shows is to be seen in such places. Mrs. Lawrence 
and some gardeners used to say, that specimen plants 
should stand apart, so as to enable one to walk round 
them ; but here you could not find a place in all the 
house to lay down a memorandum book, nor yet room 
enough for your knife. The largest plants on the stages, 
which run all round the house, are raised on inverted pots, 
and smaller plants pass right under them, and all round 
them, as thick anct close as possible -.—Hedaroma (alias 
Genetilis) fuchsioides, in full bloom-bud. Azalea amasna, 
the little mite of a thing, is thirty inches and two feet high. 
Four match Tetrathecas ; twenty matches of Azaleas ; four 
or five matches of Epacris, Statice Holdfordii, and others 
of that stamp, all in matches, and all these matches 
grown from the cuttings, on purpose for exhibit ion plants. 
They sell every plant, no matter how big it is, and 
fill up from the rising stock, to keep up their own 
credit at the shows; and in the next house, where 
the men were then potting, we shall get an insight into 
how fast they can bring on many kinds, when they are 
pushed hard. There is a match pair, and an odd one, of 
Phymatanthus tricolor, or old Geranium tricolor, from the 
Cape ; and I am quite satisfied that the whole of Europe 
could not send out three more such plants to match them. 
It is not altogether their size ; but, taking all in all, they 
are the three finest specimens of the kind, or kindred, 
that I have ever seen. Recollect, kindred includes all 
the Pelargoniums, and yet I never saw three other 
such plants. But, to show the difference, let me say, one 
could buy this kind from a shilling to five shillings, in 
the common way, and yet each of the three I name 
is worth from four to five guineas. Two of them are 
just two feet across, and twelve inches high above the 
ball. The soil is little else than peat and sand, as for 
the stronger Heaths and Epacris ; and the third plant is 
a little larger, the exact measurement being two feet two 
inches across and fourteen inches high. Yallota, alias 
Lmatophyllum, three feet across, and two feet high: the 
seed pods, which are five-angled, show the plant to be 
much nearer Yallota than to Lmatophyllum. The bed 
along the centre of this house is full of large specimen 
plants of Azaleas, Rhododendrons, Camellias, Ferns, and 
Palms—such as Cycas revoluta, Plectocoma Assamica, 
Livingstonia Borbonica, Phoenix dactylifera, and Cor- 
dyline australis ; also, large Strelitzia regina, Dicl'sonia, 
or Tree Fern; Angiopteris erecta, the largest Fern; 
Asplenium furcatum, and Blechnum Corcovadense —all in 
and under the same winter treatment as Azaleas and 
Camellias. So that large Ferns, and noble looking Palms, 
may be had without stove heat, at any rate. 
The paths round this bed are lined on both sides, and 
all round, with Eugenia TJgni, and variegated plants— 
, such as variegated Hydrangeas, Cineraria marithna, the 
frosted silver plant; small, variegated, Orange tree ; and 
Centaurea argentea, a most effective plant, completely 
white. I had no idea of the good effect of—say, one- 
third of variegated and white-leaved plants, with two- 
thirds of dark green plants, of the same size, in one con¬ 
tinuous row. But so much depends on placing plants 
on some regular system, that there is no end to the thing. 
The next house, No 1, is a continuation of the last: 
it is kept at from 50° to 55° and 58°. It is forty feet long 
and nineteen feet wide, and the best stove plants are kept 
in that winter temperature. Here, Meyenia erecta was 
coming into bloom, a fine, close, bushy plant, three feet 
by three feet; Bilbergia zonata vittata, with leaves four 
feet long, and two large spikes of bloom, orange and 
crimson; Chamadorea elegans, the beautiful dwarf Palm, 
which blooms all the winter, and which grows at the cool 
end of the Crystal Palace, just as well as in the tropical 
| end ; Euphorbia jacquinifolia, in bloom ; TEehmeas, Be- 
, gonias, Yriesia splendens, Pandanus Javanicus variegatus, 
I with five principal stems from the pot, and each of them 
; branching into more heads a little higher up, altogether 
! making a splendid specimen, four feet only within the 
I curves of the leaves, and just eight feet by spreading 
I them out; Aspidistra lurida, the best of all the variegated 
