THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, September 7,1858. 
358 
Chiswick, and at St. Stephen’s. The first and last 
righted themselves in time, and time, which mends all 
things, will right the Horticultural Society. Time 
also rewarded me for my trouble ; for just fifteen years 
after that I was called in by Sir W. Hooker, and the 
Curator, Mr. Smith, to consult about the flower gar¬ 
dening at Hew; and, to my great surprise, I found 
the greatest and most promising botanist of the age, 
Dr. "Joseph Hooker, to be a regular flower-garden 
man, after the manner of ladies. He helped me out 
in some of the suggestions I made, which, I believe, 
would not have been adopted, were it not for his 
valuable assistance. I always found fault with the 
new designs of the flower garden there ; but I did not 
know till then that the design was meant for a very 
different purpose,—a botanical arrangement of certain 
families of hardy gay plants ; and a very good design 
it was for that purpose, but not for flower gardening, 
on any known principle. 
The original plans have been altered, as far as it 
was practicable, along the whole length of the great 
principal walk, up to the lake, and also on the terrace, 
and round the large conversatory. But more improve¬ 
ments have been made since this time last year, the 
best of which is by Mr. Craig, the flower-gardener 
himself, and consists in cutting four of the worst de¬ 
signed beds that ever disfigured a “plan” right 
through the middle, and again dividing each of the 
half-beds into two distinct colours, by which he has 
effected what I once thought impossible. Next year 
they will transpose two more beds, to please me,—that 
is, change the shade of colour in each, or, at least, in 
one of them, and transplant the plants which are now 
growing in No. 1 bed to bed No. 2. After that is done, 
if I live, I shall point to that terrace garden as a model 
of scientific planting in groups or terrace fashion. 
Moreover, in my own defence, I must also state, 
that several letters and plans passed between Mr. 
Smith, the Curator, and myself before I would consent 
to go, and at last I made it a condition that I should 
be allowed to charge nothing for my talking; there¬ 
fore, this is to be no precedent, or excuse, for others 
to call me from my own fancies and experiments to 
alter and amend their gardens. The whole thing is 
told plainly as it happened, in order that I may not be 
considered partial in my review of those gardens, or 
when I shall refer to them as public models for plant¬ 
ing in the most approved styles. In order, also, to 
show how enthusiasm in a “ fancy ” will lead away the 
best of us, I freely own, that I actually invited the 
flower-gardener at Kew to see the Experimental 
Garden, and all my plans for recovering the first pos¬ 
session of man. 
The next thing I would wish to do, is to put life and 
common-sense into the botanical collection of herba¬ 
ceous plants at Kew. I never yet saw anything that 
way so thoroughly ugly, and so elaborately ill done, 
and so monstrously expensive to keep, in comparison 
with the good it is ever likely to effect. Nine out of 
ten examples of the perfection of the natural system of 
botany, in all the botanic gardens in Britain, are full 
of botanical errors from end to end,—the collection at 
Kew among the rest. Every one of them, also, is on 
a wrong system; and that may be the reason why 
botanic arrangements are so repulsive to the natives. 
We want botany itself to be represented in gardens, 
not the whims of botanists. One might learn some¬ 
thing of botany if botanic gardens were on the repre¬ 
sentative system, instead of the present plan of “ com¬ 
pound fraction ” and double “ cube root,” of which 
we have already had enough. Instead of a real 
Michaelmas Daisy to represent the Asters, the head 
of the largest order of plants on the earth’s surface, 
we have at Kew an endless collection of fractions 
called species, where a generic distinction would be 
sufficiently ample for identity, or for understanding the 
whole group. Cross-breeders have abundantly proved 
how baseless and artificial is every botanical arrange¬ 
ment which is founded on specific distinctions, as all 
plants are planted in botanic gardens. 
But let us see and examine the flower garden ar¬ 
rangements. Here we find every bed, and every , 
group of beds, on an improved and fashionable plan. ' 
The first thing which attracted my notice, was an 
avenue right across the botanic arrangement of the 
herbaceous plants of the old Kniphofia uvaria, as ! 
they call Tritoma uvaria, the most showy of all our 
old autumnal flowering plants,—a row on each side 
of the way, in circles on the grass, the circles being 
from eighteen to twenty inches only ; and in that 
small space no less than seventy spikes of bloom 
were counted. No one can possibly imagine the 
splendid show they make. There are four large 
circular beds of the same plant in the centre of the { 
promenade lines, from the old conservatory up to the 
lake, which are equally splendid. If these four beds 
were each edged with a thick row of Tritonia aurea, 
nothing could be more in character, or more richly 
gay. We might call them, also, on the representative 
system. The first representing one section of the 
Tilies, the other that of the Ixia section of Irids,—two 
great allied families of exquisitely beautiful flowers. 
Make a memorandum of this, and order six plants of 
Tritoma uvaria, —the better name,—and eighteen bulbs 
of Tritonia aurea. Plant the first in a circle of two feet 
across, in November,—where it can be seen from the 
drawing-room,—and keep the bulbs dry till the end of 
February; then plant them four inches deep round the 
Tritoma, and next autumn you will have the gayest 
object in the garden for less than ten shillings. The 
very last experiment I tried goes to prove that Tri¬ 
tonia aurea is four times better out in the borders than 
in pots : every seed of it should be saved and sown as 
soon as they are ripe. But it will be the second 
autumn before their full beauty is displayed. Several 
roots of it stood out last winter with a single mat over 
them during the frost, and they were in bloom ten 
days before those which were dried and kept in-doors. 
Tritonia aurea is, therefore, established as a first-rate 
autumnal ornament to the flower garden. I said, long 
since, that it is the thirstiest of all the South African 
bulbs. 
The best flower-bed at Kew, and the best in England, 
at this moment, is a mass of Flower of the Day Gera¬ 
nium, about four feet across, and ever so long, with 
one row of Brilliant all round, and a fourteen-inch 
edging of Purple King Yerbena. The newest and 
most out-of-the-way bed is equally good. It is a 
large circle, filled with Flower of the Day, and edged I 
with one row of the dark purple-bronzed Perilla. 
The latter is sown in February, in heat, just like any 
other half-hardy annual, and can be kept to any size 
by trimming. 
The best bedding Geranium at Kew is Punch, but 
they had the true sort out of my own hands. They 
have llarkaway, and Baron TLugel, but not in suffi¬ 
cient quantities to edge their beds with. They have 
Jackson s Variegated Nosegay, and Patrick's Seedling, 
a poor, dark-flowered Nosegay, with a most excellent 
habit. They have also the oldest Nosegay, as at the 
Crystal Palace. They have Cerastium tomentosum, 
and the variegated Mint, and they make very good 
use of both. They plant one half variegated Mint, 
and one half Mangles' Variegated, in one edging, and 
nothing of the kind ever did better. They have 
Annette, the mother of Bridal King, and the only 
aunt of Countess. 
Pohinson's Defiance is still the best scarlet Verbena, 
