THE CO TTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 3, 1858. 
270 
Kew and Hampton Court, to see what kinds stood the 
heat of June the best. Robinson s Defiance keeps in 
cold frames all the winter, with us of the Experimental 
Garden, just as well as the Calceolarias : we make 
all our stock of it in September, and keep them in the 
same pots, “ as thick as they can stick,” till the end of 
February, or later. A few other kinds keep as well as 
Defiance , but some never look healthy in the spring, 
however cosy we may keep them all the winter. 
My advice, therefore, to “Peter,” his friends, and 
neighbours, is not to attempt to keep a single Verbena, 
over the winter, more than will be sufficient to get up 
a stock of cuttings from in the spring, except it be one 
or two strong kinds, which they have proved already to 
be within their grasp, and one or two more by way of 
experiment, say a potful of cuttings of each for the 
first experiment, and to keep them in the cutting-pots 
all the winter. 
Without trying some experiments, I do not see, 
myself, what is the real use of a garden at all. The 
best gardeners in the country try experiments every 
week of their lives, and, at the end of the longest 
life, one only begins to see how much more there is to 
do and to learn. The only secret about experiments 
which amateurs should know, is this—Never to depend 
on the issue of an experiment; make sure of your crop, 
or bed, or anything in hand, and let your experiments 
be extra. 
He certain you have plants enough in September to 
cut from next spring, and make as many Verbena 
cuttings, of strong kinds, as you can safely find room 
for. From that one can learn what no one else could 
teach so well, as every greenhouse, pit, frame, house, 
and cellar, has something about it, or between it and 
the one who looks after it, which is different from every 
other greenhouse, pit, frame, house, and cellar, on the 
face of the earth. Therefore, something can be done 
in all these places which could not be half so well done 
at another place not a mile distant; but no one knows 
what those things are without trying, and every trial, 
and attempt, to obtain an object, is an e:?ni>eriment. 
But the best plan would be to have all the V erbenas, 
for next year, struck before the middle of September ; 
and, between that best way and the most economical 
method for keeping the plants over the winter, there 
are many degrees more than good, better, and best. 
My own settled opmion, for years, has been, that 
amateurs who are not well up to the knack of nursing 
little plants, should never attempt to strike their Ver¬ 
benas in the autumn ; and that the best way for them 
would be to put small pots under the shoots, or 
runners, at the beginning of September,—just as gar- 
! deuers do with Strawberries for potting,—to shift the 
strong healthy plants thus made into 48-pots at the be¬ 
ginning of October, and to keep them in these pots, in 
good, loamy soil, till all the spring cuttings are got 
from them ; then plant them out on the mixed borders, 
orrockwork, or rustic baskets, or anywhere except in 
I the flower-beds. 
Blue Lobelias.— Speciosa is the best of them all; 
the easiest way to have them is to take up a few 
plants from the beds at the end of August, and to pot 
them singly into 48-pots, to keep them in these pots 
all the winter, and to cut from them in the spring for 
the general crop. The second best way is to make 
cuttings of them in August, and as early in the month 
as possible, and to put four of the rooted plants into 
one 48-pot—the four being equivalent to one plant lifted 
from the bed. The number of pots to keep over the 
winter must depend on the quantity of cuttings which 
will be required in the spring. Two or three pots will 
iurnish a sufficient number of cuttings for a small 
i garden, if the cutting-bed can be got ready by the 
! middle or end of February. But, to guard against 
accidents, it is safest to have a few more pots of all the 
winter store plants, than to run short of any of the 
kinds. It is a dangerous game to put off making this 
necessary provision to the end of the season. 
Trop^olum elegans. —This is one of the very best 
of all the bedding plants of a soft orange colour, and 
is best from early spring cuttings. Two or three 
stout bushy plants of it, kept over the winter, will 
supply cuttings enough for a large garden, as it roots 
so easily and grows freely, but is not by any means a 
rambler. The young plants must not be wider apart 
than nine inches ; it is the only one of the breed, as 
far as I know, which will make a perfect bed. 
The whole race of Nasturtiums, or Tropseolums, 
are favourites in the Experimental Garden. While 
on the subject, let me mention a very old plant which 
we have bedded in the Experimental these five years, 
and found most useful. It is an edging plant, and the 
best edging plant to a rustic bed, or basket, that I 
know of; it propagates like a weed, and is as hardy as 
the common field Daisy; but there is a “dodge ” in 
the way of managing it, and by that dodge it blooms 
from May to October. The dodge is, to part it at the 
roots early in May, when it is coming into bloom. I 
parted it with my own hands as late as the middle of 
last May, and made it into very small bits, in order to 
fill round a large rustic bed. It stands nine or ten 
inches above the level of the grass, and yet the heat of 
last June did not affect it in the least. It is one of 
the Violets from the Swiss Alps, and from the 
Pyrenees, where, we are told by one of our lady 
visitors, it blooms early in the summer, in such large 
masses as our Buttercups in our fields. I think it 
is Viola calcarata ; but there is not an authentic 
figure of that species within my reach, and I know 
there are two or three kinds which come very near it; 
Cornuta is one of them, but Calcarata is the palest 
blue of the lot, and our plant suits the best descriptions 
of Calcarata in our books. Generally, Calcarata has 
done blooming by Midsummer, or the end of June at 
the latest; but dividing it as late as May gives it a : 
fresh start, and it continues to grow, trail, and bloom j 
the whole season. It would make a front line in a ! 
ribbon, if the ribbon was alongside of a gravel walk, 
and Baron Hugel Geranium was the next line; no 
other Geranium would suit it half so well, or at all; 
and the pale blue, next deep green grass, would never 
do; but good gravel on one side, and the dwarf dark 
purple Horseshoe, and the bright scarlet, and white eye 
of the Baron, would be just the very thing for Viola 
calcarata. It is in the nurseries, among Alpine plants, 
and selling at from Qd. to Is., according to the size. 
Any nurseryman who may be in doubts about having i 
it true, may get out of the fix by enclosing a sample of j 
his kind, in bloom, direct to me, at Surbiton, in a letter. 
Talking about ribbons and edgings, reminds me 
that one of the handsomest and most beautiful edgings 
I ever saw is now in the Experimental. It is the first 
line in a ribbon, the Golden Chain Geranium being 
the next line, and the walk in front of the best- 
coloured gravel. Next year, if we are all spared, we 
shall have a new line behind the Golden Chain, of a 
plant which has just been named Harry Hieover. 
There is no need to tell the kind of plant just yet. 
Many of my readers, however, will remember the 
clever writer after whom it is named. In front of the 
Golden Chain is this wonderful beauty, one plant of 
the variegated Alyssum, and four next plants of Lo¬ 
belia speciosa; then one white and four blue all the 
way to the other end, each plant six inches from the 
rest, and not quite so much from the box next the 
walk. When looking along this line, against the sun, 
when he is on the meridian of the ribbon, that pro¬ 
portion of white to blue—say one to four—makes the 
