324 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 28, 1860. 
and secondly, that no one found it out and pulled me over 
the coals for saying that which was certainly far from the 
mark. But think over what it could be till I come round 
to that side of the Mount. 
Verbenas have not suffered so much here as at either 
Hampton Court or Kew, nor have the Petunias either. 
Even the delicate Shrubland Rose Petunia is in good 
leaf, and some purple lciuds are overgrown and giving 
very few blooms. All the Variegated, as in other places, 
are first-rate here. Dandy as much as any of them. 
Bijou and Alma are the best trussers, and the best scarlet 
flowers of all their Variegatas; and the former is much 
the best grower this season, and in most places in all 
seasons. The Cottage Maid Horseshoe Geranium is this 
season the best Scarlet Geranium near London ; a dozen 
beds of it were in full perfection. Crystal Palace Scarlet 
is their second-best this year. Attraction is their next 
best dwarf Scarlet; and both are very far better than 
Tom Thumb in neighbouring gardens, for now they will 
not admit Tom into the Crystal Palace grounds. Punch 
and Cerise Unique are both first-rate, but not of such 
free growth as usual. Rubens has earned their prize 
medal for a match pair of beds on the Pose Mount. No 
more pigs with one ear are to be assembled there, and that 
scandal of our fair fame will be got rid of at last. APobin 
Hood with a red stocking and a yellow stocking would 
be no more like Sir Walter Scott’s Pobin Hood than a 
Scarlet Geranium-bed on the right side of a walk, and a 
yellow Calceolaria-bed on the left side opposite to it, 
would be like doing the thing as it should be done. 
I happened to be there on the Foresters’ day, when 
nearly 70,000 were in the grounds ; and I could see that 
the garden w as not one square yard too big for such a 
number of such people—1 mean people who can enjoy 
themselves and romp aboiit in public, just as I have often 
seen peerage people do, and not break their bones in 
private gardens and at pic-nics of their own making. 
Human nature is the same, fix it how you will, as Sam 
Slick would say. 
Calceolai ia integrifolia, the wild species, here called 
Ferguson's floribunda, is in all the beds as fine as any 
Calceolaria-bed was ever seen in this world, proving Old 
Moore’s Almanac about “ cold, cloudy, soft rain ” being 
just the thing for the Hesperian Calceolarias ; while aarea 
floribunda has not been one-fourth-rate, and no other 
Calceolaria could open a bud. All from the end of last 
•June Calceolaria amplexicauiis was one mass of sterling 
beauty in Kew Gardens ; here, six weeks later, it was 
just “ show'ing.” So there must be two distinct kinds of 
amplexicauiis, as Mr. Scott, of the Crewkerne Nurseries, 
always asserted in his flower-garden catalogues; and 
every one who has the late kind, or thinks so, ought to 
procure the one at Kew and prove the difference. I 
always understood that to be owing to the different ways 
of managing it, and I must find out how they do it here 
and at Kew ; but to find a thing of the kind among so 
many thousands was against Nature altogether. Princess 
Royal, of the Lucia, rosea caste, is only a fourth-rate 
bedder this season ; and Tom Thumb's Bride, or the 
strongest of the same race, is very little better ; while the 
dwarf clelicate-looking Pink Pet does famously. Pink 
Pet at Shrubland Park would hardly keep a leaf on in a 
dry season. “ The Doctor’s Boy ” had a good successor 
to it, which I lost last winter; and our friend the Tritoma 
uvaria seedsman sent me six plants of a seedling of the 
same stamp and colour of this Pink Pet, which has done 
famously with me this summer. Christine kept up a long 
time under adverse circumstances, but is now, or was 
then, falling back. St. Claire variegated Geranium and 
Kingsbury Pet, two kinds that are apt to get singed in 
the sun, have done famously ; and Farfugium grande 
grows, like Capt. Trevor Clarke’s and other people’s 
Begonias out of doors—that is, like Cabbages and Broccoli 
(see page 313). All that is free and easy talk : now look 
at my notes, and see if it be all the same there. 
The first corner bed opposite the railway-entrance is of 
Cottage Maid edged by Flower of the Day —perfection 
itself. Tropeeolum elegans remarkably well everywhere, 
and Tropceolum Triomphe de Hyris much like elegans in all 
respects save the flowers, which are large, and of a rich 
1 glit orange tint, with black spots; it is this season a 
1 ttle moie h afy than elegans, but in ordinary weather it 
will be quite as useful as elegans. Alma variegated 
Geraniums, ard other variegated kinds, with Empress 
Eugenie and Verbena pulchella to cover the ground 
quickly, are all very good ; and that plan has the farther 
advantage, that you can take up these variegated Gera¬ 
niums sooner in the autumn without making a blank bed 
t'll the frost is sufficiently severe to injure this hardy 
Verbena, which soon covers the rest of the bed when the 
Geraniums are potted. Verbena Sabiniana is used the 
same way, and is two degrees stronger than these striped 
varieties of pulchella. I mentioned Sabiniana in my 
notes on Hampton Court, but being only a dull purple 
flower, like pulchella plain, it is only fit for such large 
places, where a little of everything tells to advantage. 
N osegay Fothergillii, edged with Princess Royal, is 
good, but not so bright as was its wont since 1816 ; the 
last summer to be compared to this. Mrs. Vernon Nose¬ 
gay the same, which needs a scarlet by the side of it 
to bring out its pink-purple tint. Ignescens superha 
edged with Variegated Alyssum nine or ten inches wide, 
in full bloom, and not clipped, made several most perfect 
beds ; and their King Rufus, which is more like Rouge et 
JS/oir, this wet season the same. Calceolaria integrifolia 
in perfect mass, never seen more even, or in better bloom. 
The Purple King Verbena which edges it, or is set in 
contrast with it, about one-half so good as usual, and as 
h’.ir as anywhere else about London. The Verbena 
Defiance one-half, and Mangles' Variegated Geranium, 
make an excellent bed ; but none of the Verbenas here 
are so flowery or so good as Lord Raglan, both at Kew 
and Hampton Court. Lord Raglan is the best of all the 
Verbenas I have seen this season. The Unique Gera¬ 
nium, edged with two rows of Dandy, is most healthy— 
not too much growth or leaf, but only one-third of its 
usual flowers, under proper management. 
Brilliant Geranium remarkably well variegated, and 
edged with a broad band of Lady Plymouth, makes a 
charming bed. Surely there are two kinds of this Bril¬ 
liant, one of which is never well variegated. A little 
mass of the variegated Verbena, Empress Eugenie, half- 
and-half with Dandy, under a Holly, is most lovely. 
Petunias all under a cloud. Lantanas very healthy. 
Sellowii half in bloom. Crocea^ going that way. Lobelia, 
speeiosa remarkably good, and not a single failure all 
over the garden. It is mostly from cuttings, and it will 
soon degenerate from seeds, sure as fate. There is a 
marked improved variety of it here from seeds saved last 
season, when none other was in the garden. This has a 
larger white eye, and a brighter blue, but the same habit 
as the old one. This will be the apple of the eye, and the 
Crystal Palace Lobelia, no doubt; and next year the white 
of the eye will be turned up imploringly to get a morsel of 
it. A large corner bed of Punch —dear old fellow—resting 
on the most perfect edging of Variegated Alyssum. Salvia 
patens, not trained, in fine bloom. Flower of the Day in 
rings, one within the other, or concentric, the interme¬ 
diate rings of purple Spinach, alias Perilla of that random 
recollection. This is the best telling bed in the whole 
garden. The seeds of that charming purple came from 
Mr. Henderson, at Trentham; but whether he beds it 
there, or sends it in to the cooks for a side-dish of novel 
aspect, they did not say. Mr. Clark down at Lord 
Darnley’s grows it by the yard, but grows it for what I 
did not learn. This is a true purple ; Perilla is a bronze. 
The first time I saw it was about 1817 or 1818, in the 
compost-yard at Beaufort Castle, above Inverness. It 
was from self-sown seeds on a muck-heap ; but I forgot 
how high it stood, and I never saw it from then till now. 
