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T:iE COTiAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 28, 1860. 
arches are now covered to above the springing of the 
arch within, and so all round. All the arches being to be 
fringed with Ivy on the outer and inner edges ; then next 
to that fringe, or edging as we would say to a flower¬ 
bed, four or five feet wide of trellised white Perpetual 
Poses, which have attained the same height as the Ivy, 
or over twenty feet high, and the spaces between one 
arch and another will be covered with miscellaneous 
climbers. There is one particular kind of Ivy, called 
Hartioellii, on the north side, which I never saw' in use 
before ; but it seems a very good one with thicker and 
more glossy leaves than the Irish Ivy. And finally, 
before covering lower down, there are two twenty-feet- 
liigli Perpetual Poses—a match pair in full bloom ; and 
not one Pose-grower out of five thousand in England 
had ever seen that kind of Perpetual climbing Pose in 
bloom ; and the best thing they, the Pose-men of rosy 
England, could do would be to muster for one day, and 
do as the Forester’s do and did. Surely there are 60,000 
men and women in England who grow Poses, and would 
not grudge a run to Sydenham to see a new Pose—a 
Perpetual climbing one, too—which they never saw be¬ 
fore. I should bite off my nails to the quick if I had 
heard of such a thing, and not be able to see it the first 
season. But the Prince of Wales will be able to tell the 
people about the Court what like it is when he comes 
home; for surely the Americans, among other sights, 
will let him see their ow’n Queen of the Prairies, for that 
is the novelty I am upon. Did ever you see it in bloom ? 
Or do you know anybody who did? Well, it is a most 
beautiful Pose for a climber, coming in great clusters of 
Moss-Pose-looking blossoms as double as any Pose ever 
was, and when first opening looking just like the shades 
in the opening of a La Peine Pose ; but go and see it, as 
it will last yet a month, or may be three of them ; for 
nobody here knows if it will or will not bloom till Christ¬ 
mas. But unless I come to a full stop, I shall myself 
blossom like a Pose, pudibundus fashion, or for very 
shame for the length of my tale; and I am not on to the 
middle of it yet, as I intended to give it such a peroration 
about Sir Joseph Paxton’s garden, and his new Houses for 
the Million, and his luscious fruit, as would make your 
teeth water again. 
But I must stop short, and tell how Mr. Gordon does 
the Japan Lilies, and how well they look after being done 
so. Last fall he forked up all the big clusters of bulbs, 
shook the mould from them, divided them into moderate 
parcels, planted them the same day in some of the most 
exposed shrubberies in England, where they stood last 
winter safe as “ turncap ” Lilies, and where they are 
now in branched stalks and in flower-buds as thick as 
for a flower show; and just under them, as you go up 
from the great central basin to the main terrace, is a row 
of dwarf plants of Crystal Palace Scarlet Geranium and 
Flower of the Pay, time about, the whole way up, and 
looking quite a novelty, with lots and lots of Pink and 
Clove, and Picotee, Carnations; and I told them that 
Mrs. Capt. Whitty, who does the Waltonian so cleverly 
in Dublin, had written to me to say that all Clove Carna¬ 
tion cuttings, put in September under a hand-glass on a 
warm border, root with her as freely as her Yerbenas in 
the Waltonian in the spring, and she never disturbs them 
more than tilting the glass till the end of February. 
D. Beaton. 
PHPPLE LABURNUM. 
I REMEMBER reading in one of your numbers, about a year 
ago, a dissertation on the origin of the purple Laburnum. Now, 
I am inclined to think that the purple state may only be a 
certain condition, perhaps a diseased condition (transmissible by 
grafting, &e.), of the common Laburnum, for this reason—I saw 
this year two of those trees twelve or fourteen feet high, both 
full of bloom ; one of which had, with the exception of a bunch 
or so, gone back entirely to the yellow colour; and the other- 
had about an equal number of flowers of each colour, the mixture 
being frequently in the same bunch—and the yellow bunches and. 
flowers were all longer than the purple ones, the trees at the 
same time being in most vigorous growth. They grow in dif¬ 
ferent places, twenty miles apart; the soil, however, being very 
much the same—yellowish stiff loam resting on limestone, about 
two miles from the sea. The change began two years ago. Is 
it of common occurrence ?—D. C. M. 
[Quite a common occurrence; and next May all the purple 
Laburnums will be three parts yellow, and some almost all 
yellow, except the tufts of Cytisus. Just watch this prediction ; 
it will not be accidental more than the birth of Tom Thumb.'] 
Will you state the names of some Heaths which will succeed 
in front of my Rhododendron-borders ? 
[There are a hundred kinds of Heaths that will do out in the 
open peat-borders in summer better than ever they did in pots 
in nine places out of ten; but the bother is, they soon make 
such balls that no pots cau hold, and if you reduce their roots 
away they go as by accident. Therefore, all Heaths that bloom 
naturally in summer and autumn will do to turn out; but the 
ventricosas and those like them are the best to try crossing with, 
as being themselves the farthest removed by crossing from the 
wild type. The white one like Boiviana, called intermedia, is the 
only one before the ventricosus —that is, most likely to prove the 
idea of crossing African with European Heaths. That one was 
not in cultivation when we were young. And is it not equally 
strange that no African Gladiolus has yet crossed with a European 
one ? Make that also a string for your bow.] 
FLOWERS FOR CHRISTMAS. 
“ It has struck me that this is a proper time to begin to think 
what we should be doing to have a show of flowers at Christmas. 
Me so often drive the inquiry too late, and are as often dis¬ 
appointed. Will you kindly help us by giving a list of plants 
that we may have in bloom at that festive season, and what we 
require to be doing now and hereafter to obtain this ? I would 
suggest that some of your able contributors should poii^; out 
w'hat we may retard, and what w'e may push forwards, so that 
autumn and spring may shake hands together on Christmas day 
in a welcome group on our dinner-tables or sideboards.—W. G.” 
To meet more inquiries besides that of our correspondent,. I 
will enlarge the time, so as to include plants that may be had in 
bloom in the last and the first months of the year. 
Our correspondent has given no outline of his conveniences, 
but I must suppose that he has a plant-stove, a greenhouse, a 
forcing-pit or house, and a cold pit or frame. The somewhat 
random lists given will suit any one, however, according to the 
conveniences at his disposal and the means of heating at com¬ 
mand, if he should merely have a greenhouse and pit, or a pit 
and a window, or windows alone. 
STOVE PLANTS. 
Ardisia crenulata; JEchniea fulgens, Martenzii; Begonia 
fuchsioides, alba, coccinea, manicat a; and fine-foliaged ones for 
the beauty of tire leaves, as Ilex, granclis, Marshallii , argentea, 
maculata, &c.; Bletia verecunda, Shepherdii; Cannae, of sorts, 
as coccinea, iridiflora ; Centradenia rosea; Cymbidium sinense ; 
Cypripedium inngne; Crotons, Dracaenas, Marantas, and Cala- 
diums, for fine variegated and shaded foliage, Dichorisandra 
thyrsiflora; Epiphyllum truncatum, violaceum; Eranthemum 
pulchellum,verrucosum; Euphorbia jacqiiiniceflora; Franeiscea, of 
sorts; Hippeastrum, of varieties; Gesnera zebrina, &c.; Justicia 
Jlavicoma, speciusa, &c.; Passiflora princeps; Poinsettia pul- 
cherrima ; Zygopetalum crinitum, &c. 
There and in a warm greenhouse forced bulbs, as Hyacinths, 
Narcissuses, Tulips, Jonquils, Musk, Lily of the Valley, and such 
shrubs as dwarf Almond, Cerasus pygmcea, Deutzia gracilis, 
Kalmia glauca. Lilacs of kinds, Rhododendrons, and Roses 
chiefly China and Tea. 
GREENHOUSE PLANTS IN BLOOM. 
Andersonia sprengelioides; Acacia armata, juniperina, &c .; 
bulbs forced; Camellias, Cinerarias, from early sowing; Correa 
speciosa, and hybrids ; Chrysanthemums retarded ; Cyclamens ; 
Cytisuses a little forwarded; Daphne indica and rubra ; Erica 
Linnceoides, Wilmoreana, hyemalis, gracilis; Fuchsia serrati- 
folia; Geraniums, Scarlet, prevented blooming in summer; 
Rabrothamnus elegans; Jasminum nudiflorum; IAnum mono- 
gynum; Lobelia erinus or speciosa , for hanging in front of 
