300 
TIIE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 10, 1858. 
many arc at tliis moment larger and better plants, and better j 
furnished than those more regularly treated. I am rather 
disposed to put some down in good-sized boxes, in the green¬ 
house, this autumn, and not to touch them till planting out in 
May or June. Do you think they will answer? Last year 
was so mild, it would not answer for a precedent.”— Jane. 
[Boxes with slate bottoms sometimes drain between the 
sides and the slate, which do not fit so tight as to hold water 
all round; and sometimes through holes made in the slate on 
purpose. No matter how shallow your boxes are. You may 
have the slate bottoms drilled so that a quill could pass 
through the holes; the rough parts of the compost for the 
cuttings will be sufficient for drainage. 
2. Late autumn cuttings of scarlet Geraniums keep better 
in boxes all the winter than in pots, when one like “Jane ” 
has an eye after them; but some, who let the leaves get too 
close and damp, lose half their stock before the new year. , 
Have you not read a score of times how we kept 5000 such 
■ cuttings, year after year, in one single box, made of turf sides 
and no bottom to it ? but the top of the box was glass; the 
glass was covered with a single told of mats, and the mats 
were covered one foot thick with stubble. This covering w r as 
equivalent to your climate; and in all climates, where scarlet 
Geraniums are safe in winter with a glass cover, the best plan 
is to “put down ” the cuttings, at the very end of September, 
in shallow, cold pits. Last October we planted 1,300 full 
grown and rooted Geraniums in one cold pit, in three inches 
of sand and leaf mould, without fifty leaves on the whole lot. 
One layer of mats and ferns kept them from the frost. They 
: were early planted out from that bed, and now they are the 
pride of the garden. But the same Lame w T ould hold 3000 or 
: 4000 cuttings, and that is to be the tune this season. 
3. All right. That is the way to astonish the natives, and 
to make sure of winning the game ; but there are thousands 
and tens of thousands who must not speculate on what is a 
sure game to one like you. Pray just give us a hint about 
I where you put the beauties to bed.] 
I _ 
I TERRACE GARDEN IN SUMMER AND SPRING. 
“ I hate a small terrace garden, which, as it lies directly 
under my windows, I should like to have gay as long as pos- 
! sible. In the summer, the usual bedding-out plants, arranged 
I one colour in a bed, answer admirably ; but when I talk of a 
succession of early and late spring flowers, I am met with the 
discouraging information—‘ But your summer plants will 
never do as w T ell, unless the beds are forked up, and left in 
the rough all the winter for the frosts to get in; besides being 
well dressed with manure in the autumn.’ Now, I have been 
following your directions, and making cuttings of all the good 
Pansies, Wallflowers, &c., which, with the help of early and 
late bulbs, and autumn-sown annuals, I hoped would make 
my little garden gay from February to June. But how can I 
plant them and sow the annuals, so that the first may be well 
rooted before the frost sets in, if these small beds must all be 
forked up directly the bedding plants are over ? 
“ I daresay this is a very simple matter to the experienced ; 
but I only began gardening this year, and it is a puzzle to me. 
I should also like to know whether any of the (Enotheras 
would do to plant in the place of yellow Calceolarias, which 
have failed ?”—Fly. 
! 
[You have been led astray by Job’s comforters as far as the 
poles are asunder. Yours is just the sort of place to be gay 
all the year round, and to be in bloom from the opening of 
the first spring flowers till the frost destroys the last Pompone 
Chrysanthemums; and, w 7 hat is still better, you will be easier 
i to teach than many, who have been at it for years. It is 
often with us, as at the riding-schools, w 7 here they prefer a 
man who never mounted—no, not so much as a broomstick— 
to my lord’s head-groom, who was taught by the old coach¬ 
man not to “ sit his horse,” but to saw his ways, like the 
top man on a sawpit, or the Lord Mayor on a field day. 
; It is true that all flower-beds should be forked over every time 
they are emptied, be it autumn, spring, or any of the summer 
months. If the ground is very poor, and does not give a 
nice show of flowers, it must be made richer ; the most rotten 
dung is the best. But thousands of acres, of the finest flower 
i 9 
gardens in the world, never get a morsel of dung ; when the 
beds show symptoms of weakness, the top spit is taken off, 
and wheeled into the shrubberies, or under trees, anywhere 
out of the way, and the same quantity of fresh compost is put 
in its stead. Now, fresh compost is the key to good flower 
gardening, and fresh compost is made up of 500 different 
things, and different ways, by different people,—everyone 
taking advantage of collecting what is within his reach or his 
means ; but one thing is common to them all, and that is the 
muck pie, which every garden in the kingdom furnishes once 
a year. The rubbish heap is this pie, and, of all things in the 
world, the contents of the rubbish heap, when thoroughly 
rotten and well mixed, is the best thing for flowers and bed¬ 
ding plants. It should be mixed, near the top for bedding 
plants, and for all manner of bulbs it should form the bottom, 
where the roots can reach. Keep this always in mind. Then, 
after helping off a crop of bulbs, it is in the best condition to 
be worked back to the very top of the bed; and the first six 
inches of all flower-beds should be twice or three times richer 
than lower down,—which is another great secret. One more j 
grand secret is, not to sow a single annual in the autumn 
where it is to bloom next May. Every one of them will 
remove in February, or later, and is much improved by the | 
change. The last and best secret is to know that every one 
of the spring flowers, bulbs and all, may be removed quite 
safe to another place as soon as they are out of bloom, or as 
soon as the time comes to put in pot plants. Now, if you 
look over the la^t half-dozen volumes of The Cottage 
Gardener, and read all about “spring flowers,” “bulbs,” 
and “ bedding plants,” till you are master of the general 
subject, you will have to write again and again for explana¬ 
tions, and more about them, but you will be coming more 
and more to the point each time ; and it is only pastime for j 
us to guide you to the top of the temple of Flora. Meantime, 
you are too late to put in GGnotheras, to make up this season j 
for Calceolarias that have failed. Can you get a handful of the j 
dwarf double-yellow Marigold, which will transplant for six | 
w T eeks after it is full in bloom, without flagging a leaf, and is 
always ready to be put in anywhere at a moment’s notice ?] 
CINERARIA AND CALCEOLARIA MANAGEMENT. 
“ On May 9tb, I sowed some Cineraria seed, according to 
instructions in ‘ Florists Flowers for the Many,’ and in due 
time pricked them out in small-sized pots. They are now 
healthy-looking plants, but seem to be too large for their pots. 
Shall I do right by moving them into the pots in which I 
intend them to bloom ? I presume I shall not want the cold 
frame for them till the end of August. 
“ I have also some Calceolaria seed. Must I sow that 
soon ? 
“ Will you also be kind enough to inform me, if the 
present time is good for striking Geraniums and Verbenas? 
Can I strike them in sand and water? I have tried some 
Verbenas but they have died.”—R, Wilson, Oswestry. 
[Give the Cinerarias a good shift at once, and let the soil j 
be holding, and not too rich, else your plants, having done so ' 
well, and being so early, may run too much into large succulent 
leaves, which will not stand the winter half so well as moderate 
leaves, which are firm in texture. Good holding loam to 
winter in, and a constant succession of very moderate doses of 
weak liquid manure from the middle of February, is the grand 
secret of those w ho exhibit them for prizes. W e never water 
them in spring without a little extra each time ; but the extras 
are very small indeed, it is the constant use of it, rather than 
the strength, which does the deed. The latter end of August j 
is just one month too soon to shut up young Cinerarias w r hich 
are so forward as yours. Let the glass be on in rainy and blowy 
weather, but let them have the free open air from early mom j 
to late at night, till the frost will change the tune. You are 
wrong to bring up Cinerarias in that delicate, tender way. 
They are more hardy than herbaceous Calceolarias were 
before they were ruined by too much indulgence, and they are 
much hardier than the present representatives of that race. 
It is now high time to sow Calceolaria seeds, to bloom next 
May and June. Sow them very thin, and put a piece of glass 
over the pots, and shade them ; but see that the soil is well j 
