THIS COTTAGE GARDENER, AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN Mat 25, 1858. 
blue, to soften the strong contrast between the white 
of the vases and the very deep crimson of this Tulip. 
The best yellows we had this spring were, lirst, Doroni- 
cum Austriacum ; next, a fine soft yellow Polyanthus ; 
then, the old yellow Alyssum; and, a few days later, 
the newer yellow ditto, called G-emonense, the one we 
had from Mr. Rivers ; and lastly, a most useful yellow, 
bedding Pansy, a large, deep yellow flower, with a 
dark eye, one of two bedding kinds which were sent 
by Mr. Sians, of the nurseries, Root’s Cray, Kent, one 
of which did not survive the journey. This Pansy 
bloomed from the 5th of May, this season; but 
generally it flowers from the end of April, till stopped 
by the frost, and is the most useful of all the Pansies. 
Arabis grandiflora, a variety of Aljpina, is our earliest 
white spring flower. It grows in all the gardens here¬ 
abouts “ like a weed.” We cannot anywhere find 
Anemone amplexicaulis, which is the second earliest 
white that is really good. The third earliest white, a 
fine thing, is Anemone nemorosaflore-pleno, which seems 
to be an earlier and dwarf variety of sylvestris, the 
common Snowdrop Anemone. Anemone ranunculoides 
comes in one month earlier by the help of a cold frame 
all the winter—we had it five weeks in bloom in a pot ; 
and in the open border it comes just one month behind 
the frame plant. Anemone Apennina, a light blue, will 
succeed the blue Hepatica in spring, and look like it at 
a distance. It is a-lso a nice pot plant to come in-doors 
all through April. Anemone palmata is just coming 
into bloom under a west wall, and Saxifragagvanulata 
flore-pleno was in full bloom on the 10t,h of May. 
Iberis unifolia is the best of the family. It has the 
compact habit of a true bedder, and is one sheet of 
white from the 20th of April, and will last to the end 
of May. The double Crowfoot, the richest yellow of 
all our native plants, will follow it, and last another six 
weeks. The white and pink Silene pendula, like all 
spring flowers this season, are later than usual ; but 
I name them as common things, to show how easily 
we graft the spring flowers on the bedding system, 
Every one of our spring bulbs, and other spring 
flowers, and autumn sown annuals, are planted in 
regular rows, and at such and such distances from the 
edge, and from one another, that we can bed out the 
bedding plants without hurting one of them ; and this 
we are now compelled to do, as most of our spring 
flowers are hardly past their prime at the middle of 
the month. Last year, we lifted about two dozen large 
herbaceous Paeonies when the bloom was over, and 
only returned them last February, and they seem to 
bloom all the better for the check and change : that 
was a good hit. What is the use of keeping great 
lumpy plants of herbaceous Paeonies in sight after they 
are out of bloom, even in a mixed border, when scores 
of plants are waiting in pots for room to show off their 
beauty. 
We never make cuttings of the variegated Mint now. 
We fork out the old plants in the spring, and cut them 
up into two or three joints, and plant the pieces in 
April, and they are all over the ground by the time 
the rest of the bedders have got hold of the ground. 
We do not make cuttings of Oenothera prostrata till 
after the 10th of May, as, by that plan, they are in 
bloom by the time they are rooted, or nearly so, and 
no strength of soil, or land of season, will cause them 
to run too much to leaf after that. The old plants are 
divided after the cuttings are taken ; and, after docking 
their roots to one half their length, we use them to 
edge and hang over rustic baskets, vases, and in any dry, 
poor soil about the garden, where they bloom most 
profusely the whole season ; but on our soil we should 
have no good from them, unless we divided them, and 
shortened their old roots and tops late in the spring. 
We have just planted out 1,300 scarlet Geraniums, 
113 I 
of sorts, which were never in a pot; about one-third 
of the number were half standards, as one might say, 
with clean stems of from nine to eighteen inches. The 1 
eyes were picked out of closely-planted seedlings last 
year;—these will never throw up suckers, and will be 
capital stock for the back, or near the back, rows of 
ribbons. They were planted out in a cold pit last 
October in three inches deep of very light compost, 
and had about three waterings all the winter. In 
taking them up for planting, they would not carry one 
particle of soil with the roots ; it was so light and dry, 
that it would not adhere to the roots, and that is the j 
principal reason why Imention them; as,throughout my 
bedding experience, I have always found that the less 
soil one had about the roots of bedding plants, at the | 
time of planting, the more safely the work was done . 
in the hands of most of the new and young beginners. 
When one has from twelve to twenty hands, at a push, 
in planting, and only four or five of their number are 
up to the mark, all that can be done is, to give out the : 
ball plants to the four or five—the best planters. Any- j 
body can plant a Cabbage-plant, if the ground is dug 
and lined off for him, as well and as safely as a philo¬ 
sopher could do; and the Cabbage is safe enough, and j 
sure to grow ; and the reason is, that there is no ball 
of earth to the roots of a Cabbage-plant. But it is 
not everybody, nor yet everyone of the feelosopliers 
that can be trusted to plant a plant that has a ball; 
and yet, when you come to think of it, would it not 
sound more reasonable to say, that a plant with a ball 
to its roots would be more easy and more safe to plant 
than one with no earth at all to the roots. No ; not a 
bit of it; the thing depends on the skill and experience 
of the planter. Some can plant any way, or any how, 
and their plants will do, and be safe under all circum¬ 
stances ; but for every safe planter, there are ten men 
who are not safe to trust to plant balls, and my rule 
has been, to have as little soil to the roots as possible 
for planting out. 
Well, the great secret of keeping old bedding Gera¬ 
niums in winter, is to have as little earth about their 
roots as possible, and not to be in pots, if one can help 
it, that is to say, provided they are to be wintered on 
the shift system. When one has large greenhouses, 
or vineries, or pits, it is best to have the Geraniums j 
in pots, in the usual way; but, when one comes to have j 
them by the thousand on the shift system, what I say 
is the best way. 
We had a most capital contrivance to winter another 
large lot of old Geraniums last winter, and, as the 
Tom Thumbs did very well in it, there need be no fears j 
about it. An old Thorn Acacia was sawn into boards 
and made like beer coolers, four feet wide, and four 
inches deep. These beer coolers were raised on i 
tressels, made out of the Acacia, and placed along the j 
front of the “ old laundry,” which has glass windows 
along that front, but all the rest is plastered like a ! 
common room. The plants were planted in the beer j 
coolers, with a depth of four inches of soil onfy. A 
set of two-incli hot-water pipes was fixed to the j 
copper of the laundry, and the whole turned out , 
capitally. D. Beaton. 
HARDY FERNS. j 
(Continued from page 84.) 
Propagation. — By Seed. —It is only for very rare 
species, that this mode of increasing the number need 
be resorted to—such, for instance, as the Woodsias , j 
the Trichomanes, and the American species. Save the 
seed as soon as it is ripe, which may be known by the 
bursting of the seed cases. The seed is exceedingly 
small, appearing like brown dust, every particle ol 
which must be carefully preserved. Though so small, 
