325 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 28, 1860. 
So it cannot be a very common thing, and no wonder 
that none of the new gardeners could tell the name of it, 
more than that it was the purple Spinach. The old name 
is Garden Orach, Atriplex horlcnsis rubra. It is said to 
be a native of Tartary, and to have been introduced three 
hundred years back The green Orach was cultivated 
for the kitchen as late as Miller’s time, “ though in 
general it was not esteemed amongst the English; but 
the French (then) cultivated this plant for use.” 
The prince of gardeners goes on to say, “ There are 
three or four varieties of this, whose difference is only in 
the colour of the plants, one of which is of a deep green, 
another of a dark purple (our Crystal Palace bedder), 
and a third with green leaves and purple borders ( Rex 
of course). These are generally supposed to be only ac¬ 
cidental varieties which have come from the same seeds j 
but in thirty years which he cultivated these sorts, he 
never yet observed them to vary. What do you think 
of it now ? 
“ There is cauld Kale in Aberdeen, 
And Castocks in Strathbogie,” 
but at the Crystal Palace there is purple Spinach to 
match every mortal thing that is woolly, white, or varie¬ 
gated, from here to the banks of the Alma, or on to 
Tartary whence we had them; thei’efore, they must be 
as hardy as any Siberian plant. A basket of plants of 
Stachys lanata, and a packet of seeds of this purple 
contrast, would be as bread and jam to a schoolboy over 
in New York, where our whites and contrasts do not do 
so well as here. My word for it, old gardeners and old 
authors are the best authorities for old plants in young 
hands. Just hear what Miller said of the seeds in that 
packet:—“ These plants are annual, so must be sown for 
use at Michaelmas, soon after the seeds are ripe, at which 
time it generally succeeds better than when it is sown in 
the spring.” The whole treatment from sowing time till 
Apjil is the same as that for Wheat, to keep it from 
weeds and “ varmint.” It will come from cuttings as fast 
as anything, and if kept from seeding it goes on the 
whole season like Mignonette. Even if it were half grown 
at the time of bedding out, it will transplant as easily as 
Asters, and should in that state be planted laid on its 
side, and to regulate it afterwards by pinching off aspir¬ 
ing tops, as is done with Variegated Mint. But recollect 
we must never call it purple Spinach, as that would take 
the shine out of it at once ; and as Atriplex hortensis is 
rather pompous for everyday use, we had better say 
“ purple Orach,” sounding it like Orage. That will be 
how The Cottage Gardener will say, till some one will 
discover the Bex variety with “green leaves and purple 
borders.”. 
Sidonia, one of the very finest bedders of the very old 
Geraniums, has been one mass of bloom the whole season, 
the plants very healthy, but never spread an inch since 
the day they were planted. It is an upright-growing 
beauty that always required close planting. 
One bed of Tropceolum elegans edged with nine inches 
of Mangles' Variegated Geranium on the south side of 
the Bose Mount, at the top of the walk, is a perfect 
model that, possibly, could not now be matched in 
Europe ; but you must go and see it, and also the one 
with the Flower of the Fay, and the purple Orach afore¬ 
said, which you will find on the north side of the Mount. 
On the south side is also a bed of Lady Downe’s, a dwarf 
Scarlet Geranium of the Frogmore race, which you will 
not often see. It is next to Attraction, a bed of which 
you will see to the left as you go up the centre terrace 
to the great transept, just opposite the second Araucaria 
to the right. But on the south side of the Bose Mount 
look for a bed of Lobelia speciosa, mixed half and half 
with Dandy. That, also, is perfection in contrast. Look, 
also, there for a bed of Flower of the Day, half and half 
with Variegated Alyssum, and say how you like it. 
Most people do like it, but to my eye it is absolutely the 
worst combination of tints I ever set my eyes on. They 
are two opposing tints of white, supposing to combine to 
make a white whiter. To me the Flower of the Day looks 
a dirty, dingy yellow by the side of Alyssum ; and the 
Alyssum a hard, wiry grey by the side of this Geranium 
—just say how it tells on your eye. 
You will find Boule de Niege in the centre of a bed 
near at hand—white as possible. It is a second planting 
to make good a failure, and teaches that, if old plants of 
Boule de Niege were long cramped in pots, and planted 
out in poor soil with their balls entire, it would make 
a good white Geranium-bed. 
The Tropceolum elegans and Calceolaria integrifolia 
have done splendidly in the broadbands round above the 
Boses ; and the Geraniums there are very fair, but the 
purple Verbenas there suffered severely. The six beds 
in the six sunk panels on the top of the Bose Mount are 
the best and fullest in the whole garden; also, the best 
designed about the planting of them, three good colours 
in each, and each well contrasted. 
Now, I shall tell you a trick on travellers. All flower¬ 
beds, whether they be large or small, curved or straight 
on the edges, look best and most telling if they are made 
entirely of one kind of plant, with an edging in contrast, 
provided they or any of them form part of a whole, or 
composition of beds, as on a terrace pattern, not other¬ 
wise ; no, not by any means. But when a bed stands on 
its own merits, and is apart from all other beds, only, 
perhaps, a match to it opposite, it is the height of 
poverty of conception of the beautiful to have it all in 
one colour, however rich, or soever well contrasted by 
its own edging, and three are the smallest number of 
colours that will make a perfect contrast in flower-garden¬ 
ing, and the edging must be considerably wider to allow 
it to be numbered as one of the three colours ; and the 
six sunk panel-beds under review are the nearest to what 
I mean of all that I have mentioned this season. There¬ 
fore, whenever you hear two or more persons arguing 
about the best kind of bed, just try and make out where 
their beds would be, and then you can see at once who is 
right and who is wrong, and, perhaps they are both 
right, or both not right. 
The most telling of the sunk panel-beds are the pair 
planted with Cottage Maid Geranium, about four feet in 
width, and as much of Calceolaria integrifolia, and a 
broad edging of Variegated Alyssum in full bloom, over 
a foot across, and not apparently trimmed ; the three up 
to perfection in growth, leaf, looks, and bloom. The 
reason seems to be, that such a depth of white flowers in 
front, resting on a white ground, the variegated leaves 
throw so much light on the yellow, as to cause the yellow 
not to weaken the scarlet, which it does nine times out of 
ten; although we are so much accustomed to see the two 
in contrast, as to vitiate our estimates of scarlet and 
yellow together. 
Another most beautiful pair of these beds are filled in 
the centre with four-feet wide of King Rufus or Lgnes - 
cens superba, four feet of Tropceolum elegans all round 
it, and ten inches or a foot of Mangles’ Variegated Gera¬ 
nium all round the whole, and Mangles’ done to a T, as 
they do the Variegated Mint at Kew. The partial failure 
of Purple King Verbena detracts from the next and last 
pair, which have centres in Cerise Unique middlemosts 
of the said purple, and broad, flat bands of Cerastium in. 
front. The four beds for the ends of the four guy ropes 
to the flag-staff on the bare surface of the centre of the 
Mount, where you might think nothing could exist in 
such a situation as this, are fully as up to the mark as 
those that are screened in the sunk spaces ; but you must 
see, when you are there, that the climbers have now 
so clothed the pillars, or double pillars, and double frame¬ 
work for climbers, all round the top, as to confine the 
force of the wind to the walk-entrances; and every year 
this will go on more and more till every inch of the 
arches and trellis work is clothed in climbers, as will soon 
be the case. The four pillars to each of the arabesque 
