234 
TIIE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, July 20, 1858. 
land Park very well, tliat Mr. Fisli, “our own Special 
Correspondent,” plants out more bedding plants every 
year than either Mr. Fleming or Mr. Foggo. That 
took me by surprise, as he never hinted about the 
extent of his bedding ; but I am not going to surprise 
anyone, only to discuss the question of what is the 
best time to strike bedding plantSc I shall begin by 
saying, that, for the last five-ancl-twenty years, I have 
not had a quarter of the room which is thought to 
be necessary, to hold the number of plants, which I 
endeavoured to keep through the winter; and very 
likely the Messrs. F. F. F. (Fish, Fleming, and 
Foggo), have not an inch to spare the whole winter. 
Therefore, this question, as I have just said, affects 
us all alike, and “ Peter,” our correspondent, is not 
one whit worse off for pot room, than any one of our 
dukes and great gardeners. Therefore, the best time 
to strike cuttings of bedding plants, may not be the 
most suitable time for our convenience. If we could 
have all things best, we should propagate all our best 
bedding plants in the autumn, and pot off the smallest 
of them into single pots, not later than the middle of 
February, and we should have every one of them in 
bloom before they were planted out. Yea, some of us 
would grow those for the best beds into exhibition¬ 
looking plants, so tliat a change from spring flowers, 
to the bedding system, would take no more time than 
was necessary to change pots and plants. Something 
of that kind will be done after we are all dead and 
gone; but no one who is alive to day will ever see that 
system. Therefore, it is waste of money to give prizes 
for growing bedding plants into specimens, and it only 
makes people’s teeth water to write about plenty of 
room, in winter, for any one single thing we grow, and 
must keep from frost; for the man with a single garret- 
window is just as well off for room as my lord duke : 
all are in the same boat, fighting against the tide. But, 
holding the helm to-day, I shall steer into “ Peter’s ” 
harbour, where the whole country, as far as the eye can 
reach, is covered with bedding plants, and where there 
is no more room, to keep them over the winter, than 
one greenhouse and some cold pits. 
In these parts, experience has taught the fact, that 
by preserving all the healthy old Geraniums, of the 
Scarlet or Horseshoe breed, in a half-dried state, in 
different ways,—from the cellar up to the top of the 
house, and in the offices, if there be any,—a very great 
number of very small Geraniums can be kept in one 
ordinary pot the whole winter. Twenty-five plants in 
one pot will soon count up to a high figure, when they 
come to be all potted off in the spring;—but say a 
dozen well-rootecl cuttings of these Geraniums are put 
mto a number 32-pot Toy the middle of September. 
The smallest cuttings are used for this kind of work ; 
sometimes fourteen or fifteen cuttings, without roots, 
are put in for a dozen plants ; either way, September 
is early enough for that kind of wintering them. 
Then it follows, that as old Geraniums cannot be kept 
over the winter, in a fit state to give a sufficient 
number of cuttings in the spring, the best plan for all 
is, to make their Horseshoe Geranium cuttings late in 
September, if the room is very limited, and earlier 
and more early, according to the winter accommoda¬ 
tion for keeping them ; it will pay to make such 
cuttings as early as July ; put them singly into 
number 60-pots in October. Keep them in cold pits 
all the winter ; pot them again, into large 48-pots, in 
*;Wry ; and sell them, in good bloom, by the 10th 
of May, for 6s. a dozen—pots and all. I say this 
system, which is the best system of all, pays in the 
vicinity of the Experimental garden, and all round 
-London, lherefore, any of my readers, in that circle, 
v ho cannot strike, grow, and keep twelve such good 
scarlet Geraniums for less than five or six shillings, 
had much better not make the attempt, but buy them 
when it is time to put them into the ground. 
Fair Tom Thumbs can be had, in May, for 4s. 
a dozen, hereabouts ; but the very best, at 6s., are the 
cheapest to cover the ground w T itli. But I must say, 
that to plant so many Tom Thumbs, as they do about 
London, is downright vulgarism—taken as a matter of 
taste. If there must needs be so much scarlet, in the 
name of goodness let us have it from a dozen kinds of 
plants, and in as many tints of scarlet as the stock of 
kinds in the country can produce. Scunner (an old 
Scotch word, which means more than a surfeit) is the 
only word in the English, Scotch, or Irish languages, 
to represent the feeling produced on certain eyes and 
minds, at seeing so much uniformity of one kind of 
scarlet flower in the valley of the Thames, whose water, 
at London-bridge, gives the scunner to us of the country. 
It is not too early, then, to begin to make such 
Geranium cuttings this very day ; but it is six weeks 
too soon, for one who attempts to bring the greatest 
number of plants through the winter, in the smallest 
space in which they will keep alive. 
As the best kinds of bedders, from the greenhouse 
class of Geraniums, make only flowering shoots during 
the summer-like the Uniques; and as plants, made 
from such flowering wood, will always take to the 
more loose style of growing ; it is best to make 
cuttings of them early in the spring. But to one who 
cannot get up a good cutting bed, as early as 
February, this plan is not applicable ; the second best 
plan, is, to make cuttings of them early in August, out 
of doors ; and the third best plan, is, to make cuttings 
of them in pots and in-doors—in September. 
The reason for making them in August—a month 
earlier than the Scarlets—is, that some of them take 
double the time of the Scarlets to make roots, and that 
they do not get so gross and bulky as the Scarlets, 
although they might root in a w eek. Very strong 
kinds, of both classes, are more safe to keep in winter, 
by being rooted in pots instead of in the open ground. 
But when the thing is w r ell done in the open air, and 
the eye can tell the exact degree of vigour which the 
rooted cuttings should not exceed, before they are 
taken up and potted, it is astonishing the difference 
it makes in the health of the plants ; it is the next 
thing to making July cuttings, and to pot from size to 
size as the roots fill up. . But there is another thing 
connected with the vigour of the cutting, and that of 
the mother plant, which is w T ell knowm to, and practised 
by, first-rate gardeners, and which is best exemplified 
from the revival of fhe Golden Chain , which is one of 
the oldest of the present bedders. 
There was not a man alive in 1840, who could get 
one healthy plant from all the Golden Chain cuttings 
m the three kingdoms. It took five or six years to get 
them up, step by step, till a lucky mistake in the peat, 
compost put them on their legs. After that there was 
little trouble with them, peat or no peat. 
Now, or rather next February, nine out of every ten 
ietumas, from which cuttings are then to be made, 
will be no better off than the Golden Chain was in 1842 
or 1843. They are one-half starved and one-lialf 
flow er-bound, a new term to express a common con¬ 
dition of Petunias wdiich are made from old flowering 
plants. The best w T ay to have a few strong, healthy 
plants of Petunias, to cut from for spring cuttings, is 
to make them in J uly or August, from plants which 
f- Just begun to grow freely out of doors,—just as 
th e Golden Chain was, when it got to its standard of 
health m the compost of peat. If these early cuttings 
of 1 etumas get one good shift in September, and are 
stopped frequently, and not allowed to form a bloom, 
they w T ill be in the very best possible state for store 
plants, to take cuttings from in the spring. 
