311 
TEE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Attgttst 21, I860. 
in pi’ime beauty; the second pair in Hamlet Verbena, 
and old Heliotrope, edged with Calceolaria rugosa, or 
one in that style ; the third in Brillante de Vaise Ver¬ 
bena, edged with Variegated Mint; the fourth Ageratum, 
edged with Tommy Verbena, which is two shades darker 
than Geant des Batailles Verbena ; the fifth with Perilla, 
edged with Calceolaria amplexicaulis, trained low down ; 
the sixth Brillante de Vaise again, with Mint round it; 
seventh, Hamlet and Cherry-pie again, and edged with 
French Marigold ; the last pair with Amaranthus specio- 
sissimus for the centre, Campanula Carpatica (blue) 
round it, and edged with the Cerastium. But what on 
earth is that Amaranthus-? Why, the “Prince of Wales’ 
Feather,” if you please, only owing to the absence of His 
Eoyal Highness it grows there from three to twelve 
inches high, and blooms from the surface of the ground; 
and, -if you believe me, I booked it for a new species 
without guessing its origin when I passed on the way to 
Chiswick ; but of course I did not tell of the mistake, 
when they told me it was all owing to the season, lest 
they should have the laugh against me. 
The run of this walk through the pleasure-ground is 
lined with pillar Boses, two and two on either side ; then 
an umbrella Acacia, and so on to the next gate. All the 
Boses are pincushioned with Cerise unique and Calceolaria 
amplexicaulis, and have done wonders up to the very top 
of the stakes already, and as luxuriant-looking as Brambles 
in an old sawpit. They certainly went the right way to 
have pillar Boses. I know people who have forgotten 
how many years- since they planted for pillars which are 
not quite up to the mark yet; but then they made such 
small holes, and what they put in them no one remembers ; 
then they put up iron rods at once, and every gardener 
knows how that ends. Every plant under a long stake gets 
soon overdosed with domestic guano from a familiar 
gentleman called Cock Bobin. Gardeners never hit 
robins ; but they hit on a plan to do him out of his merry 
crickets on the top of their stakes, by putting a pin in the 
top of each. Tom cannot sit or stand on the head of a 
pin, and is too proud to lean by the side of a pin or 
needle. But two pennyworths of pins go a short way on 
a long Dahlia-border. The best way is to order them by 
weight. 
From the terrace garden to the head of the grand 
central walk begins the promenade style of beds, such 
as those at the Crystal Palace—a circle and an oblong 
alternately. But here this style is thrown into separate 
groups by a pair of..Cypress or Junipers standing in the 
line of the beds at certain intervals. The first of these 
groups, beginning from the terrace, stand thusfour 
circles, two on each side of Delphinium formosum, with 
an oblong bed between each pair of circles; these oblongs 
of Countess of Hllesmere Petunia struggling for life. 
Then a pair of Junipers, and a similar group, thus :—the 
four circles in Cherry-pie and Hamlet Verbena, with 
amplexicaulis Calceolaria in the centre; the two oblongs 
very fine with Floioer of the Day and Brilliant, with a 
centre of Purple King. At the top of the grand centre 
walk next the lake, and round a circle, are four beds of 
Bunch in very fair bloom, and beautifully edged with the 
Variegated Mint and Mangles' Variegated Geranium; 
and a tall vase is placed in the centre of the circle of grass 
in which this walk terminates. This is a marked improve¬ 
ment on former times. 
The first group of promenade-beds below Bunch con¬ 
sists of four circles in Cuphcea ignea, edged with Cerastium 
—all very fair, with a pair of oblong beds between the 
circles, which are of Ageratums, and edged with Geant 
des Batailles Verbena; then a match pair of Cupressus 
thyoides; then a pair of oblongs in Calceolaria amplexi¬ 
caulis, edged with Purple King Verbena; then another 
pair of upright or Swedish Juniper; next to these a pair 
of circles of Perilla, edged with Calceolaria aurea flori¬ 
bunda, and centered with the dwarf Prince’s Feather 
twelve inches high ; two oblong beds next of Cerise unique , 
edged with Cerastium—very good. Next pair of circles r 
Salvia patens, trained down with Heliotrope, and edged 
with Calceolaria aurea floribunda ; then a pair of Juni- 
perus thurifera ; and after them a pair of oblong beds of 
dwarf standard Boses, edged with dwarf Bose bushes, all 
the Eose-beds with Mignonette ; another pair of Juniperus 
Chinensis; then a pair of circles in Ageratum, edged with 
Tommy Verbena ; two oblongs of Lord Raglan Verbena, 
edged with Variegated Alyssum—very fine; two circles 
Cherry-pie, edged with Tropceolum elegans; another pair 
of Juniperus Chinensis, and an oblong of Calceolaria 
amplexicaulis, edged with Burple King Verbena—also 
very good; a pair of Cupressus thyoides; two circles of 
Brilliant variegated Geranium, edged with Hippodrome 
Verbena—a light one with a deep eye; an oblong in 
Mangles’ Variegated Geranium—fine, and edged with 
Tommy and Geant des Batailles; two shades of dark 
Verbenas ; two circles of Heliotrope and Hamlet Verbena, 
edged with aurea floribunda Calceolaria ; then a pair of 
Cupressus thyoides, an oblong of Boses as before, and a 
pair of circles having Humeas in the centre; Prince’s 
Feather round them, and edged with the Bibbon Grass, 
here named Bhalaris arund'naria variegata, and that 
completes the one-half of this grand promenade. 
The other half is not just a duplicate of the above ; but 
we may assume it to be such, in order to get on the 
speedier; but here in the centre two walks cross the main 
line, so as to leave room for a large Oak on one side, and 
a half moon of grass on the opposite run. Here are eight 
more oblong beds with their ends to the great walk, two 
on each side of the great Oak, and two on each side of 
the half moon of grass. These are very fine after this 
fashion the two next the main walk have four feet of 
Floioer of the Day in the centre, fifteen inches of Bril¬ 
liant variegated Geranium next, and Furple King Verbena 
fifteen inches—all most bearitiful. The next two of Zelinda 
Dahlia, edged with yellow Calceolaria; and the other four 
are duplicates of these. 
The most telling bed in the lower half is an oblong of 
Perilla edged with Fothergillii and Mrs. Vernon Nose¬ 
gays trained down—a fine mixture. Jaclcsons Variegated 
Nosegay is also very good this season; and Baronne 
Hugel round a long bed of Mangles' is also up to the 
mark, but the Tom Thumb Nasturtium is .too common¬ 
looking for this style of bedding. 
In an open court among the plant-houses is a bed 
thirty feet long on gravel with a grass verge planted in 
mixtures, but in regular rows of Cineraria maritima, 
Variegated Alyssum, Calceolaria amplexicaulis, Furple 
King Verbena and Perilla; here is a row of seedlings of 
Cineraria maritima all round, and just as variegated as 
the old plants from cuttings. This, therefore, is, as 
Miller says of it, a naturally woolly-leaved thing, and 
not a sport from a green species. 
In another part on the grass, in front of one of the 
houses, is a toilet subject in flowers—a queen with a locket 
of something most precious suspended from a rich chain 
round her neck, and with a handsome bow in the centre 
of the chain between the neck and the locket in front. 
The queen is a Magnolia conspicua on a circle of grass 
sixteen feet in diameter. All round this is a three-feet- 
wide bed with Bunch in the inner circle, Furple King in 
the centre, and Golden Chain all round. This brilliant 
neck-chain falls down in front one yard or so in Tom 
Thumb, also edged with Golden Chain, then the bow or 
knot across in two knot-like beds of Flower of _ the Day, 
with Furple King and scarlet Verbenas running round 
them like the figure 8; then four feet more of Tom 
Thumb chain, to which a golden locket is suspended in a 
circle of seven feet across of yellow Calceolarias edged 
with Purple King Verbena—a pleasant idea. 
There is no end to the beds in pairs, or in groups along 
the minor walks ; but take this as a fair type of them. A 
circle with Humea in the centre, a row of Perilla round 
it, then yellow Calceolarias, Purple King Verbena, and 
