November 26, 1887. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
201 
WADDON HOUSE, CROYDON. 
At the residence of Philip Crowley, Esq., a well- 
known member of the Fruit Committee of the Royal 
Horticultural Society, there is an excellent display of 
Chrysanthemums to he seen just now. Something like 
700 plants are grown, the houses devoted to them being 
two large vineries for the Japanese varieties, and the 
orchard house for the incurved. Mr. W. King, the 
gardener, although a successful exhibitor at the local 
summer shows, has only this year put in an appearance 
at the Croydon Chrysanthemum Show, with the result 
that he was awarded first honours for a box of twenty- 
four varieties of Japanese blooms in a keen competition. 
The blooms are of excellent character, and it would be 
difficult to name the best of them without mentioning 
nearly the whole. 
The houses at Waddon are well built and very 
conveniently situated; the large stoves contain many 
fine specimen plants, which often gain for Mr. King 
the best awards when they are staged for competition. 
It may not be out of place to mention a few plants that 
are not so frequently seen. The most noticeable, 
perhaps, is a fine plant of Hoya imperialis, trained to 
the roof in the Palm house ; this 
is growing in -a 9-in. pot, and 
blooms freely every year, requiring 
no special care beyond keeping it 
clean. Urceolina aurea is another 
plant that deserves to be more 
extensively cultivated. It is a 
Peruvian bulb, the leaves resembling 
those of the Eucharis, and it re¬ 
quires about the same treatment as 
that plant. The flower stem is 
about a foot high, and produces 
four or five flowers on the top, 
which are pendulous ; the colour is 
bright yellow tipped with green, 
and it remains in beauty throughout 
the winter. Dipladenia boliviensis 
and Allamanda Hendersoni are a 
mass of bloom, and also trained to 
the roof. Calanthes are sending 
up scores of spikes ; these are grown 
singly in 4-in. and 5-in. pots, and 
will soon be an additional charm 
to the stoves. A pretty basket was 
noted of Adiantum gracillimum 4 ft. 
through, and some nice pieces of 
Gleichenia. Impatiens Hawkeri, 
6 ft. through, is a remarkably fine 
specimen, well bloomed; and 
Lachenalia pendula is well repre¬ 
sented in good strong plants. 
Thyrsacanthus rutilans, occupying 
some of the shelves, are sending 
out their long drooping racemes ; 
good plants for table decoration are 
also numerous. 
In another house, devoted to 
Azaleas, Heaths, &c., are some good 
specimens, Erica ventricosa tricolor 
being one of the best. In the con¬ 
servatory, Lapageria rosea and 
L. alba are very conspicuous, and 
although not so gay now as they were some weeks ago, 
yet there are hundreds of blooms of the former, and 
many of them being a dozen in a cluster. The fernery 
adjoining is very interesting; the floor is of rough 
stone, and the whole resembles a natural rockery to 
the roof, which is clothed with choice Ferns, intermixed 
with the variegated section of Begonias, and overhang¬ 
ing is Passiflora quadrangularis, with many of its large 
showy blooms. 
Orchids are well grown: some Coelogyne cristata, in 
15-in. pots, are bristling with flower spikes, and two 
specimens in 32’s are nearly 3 ft. across ; the bulbs are 
formed one on the top of another, and hang over 
the pots, entirely covering them. They stand on 
inverted pots, and the foliage touches the stage, while 
they are no less than 28 lbs. each in weight. Liparis 
pendula is in bloom in several plants, and resembles 
the Dendrochilums in habit, while the graceful 
drooping spikes of bloom are very fragrant, and a 
greenish yellow in colour. The lovely white Dendro- 
bium Dearii has made large growths, and is flowering 
freely ; also a large plant, in a basket, of Sophronitis 
grandiflora, a superior form, with a hundred or more 
leaves. A magnificent variety of Vanda tricolor, 
Cypripedinm Spicerianum, with one spike bearing two 
perfect blooms ; Cypripedium Sedeni, having ten 
spikes, and which have borne as many flowers. 
Other Orchids that have done well, and some of 
which will soon be in bloom are : Masdevallia tovar- 
ensis, Odontoglossum vexillarium, O. phalrenopsis, 
Lselia anceps, L. purpurata, Cymbidium eburneum, 
Maxillaria picta, Phaius grandiflora, with fine spikes 
in a 9-in. pot. Among the Dendrobiums is a large 
D. moschatum with about sixty long growths, trained 
just under the roof, where they receive abundant light, 
producing numerous young ones and aerial roots. It is 
well syringed during the season of growth, and annually 
yields a grand display of bloom. D. Jamesianum has 
made growths 2 ft. in length, which is three times the 
size of the old imported ones ; D. formosum giganteum, 
often a difficult one to manage, has done well here on 
rafts suspended from the roof ; D. Wardianum and D. 
crassinode are equally satisfactory, some of the growths 
measuring 44 ins., and well ripened. Peristeria elata 
in an 11-in. pot has made enormous bulbs, and carried 
several strong spikes. 
In the cool house in bloom are Odontoglossum 
Alexandras, 0. Pescatorei, 0. pardinum, a very pretty 
and showy species ; 0. tripudians, 0. Uro-Skinneri, 
0. Kossii majus, and Masdevallia Veitchii. In the 
Chrysanthemum, Mdlle. Elise Dordan. 
same house are some wonderful large plants of 
Hymenophyllum demissum, Trichomanes radicans, 
and a few good Todeas. The pretty Aristolochia 
elegans was blooming freely on the roof of a warm 
Fernery ; and in another house Vanilla aromatica is 
luxuriating, trained to wires above the path, and 
sending down a quantity of long fleshy roots ; Vanda 
teres and Eucharis are also at home in the same 
moist atmosphere. Everything reflects great credit on 
the painstaking gardener, Mr. W. King, who ought to 
be proud of his charge .—An Annual Visitor. 
-->:Ko- 
THE PANSY. 
My earliest recollections of flowers appear to cluster 
principally about the Pansy, for beds of them were my 
father’s delight. I am writing of nearly a half-century 
ago, when Pansies were very different to what they are 
at the present day. The flowers were small, and there 
was then but little of the fine dense, bold, well-defined 
blotch seen in the leading varieties now grown. Forty 
years ago the best varieties were Achilles, Attraction, 
Climax, Constellation, Duchess of Rutland, Duchess of 
Norfolk, Great Britain, Model of Perfection, Optimus, 
Othello, Perfection, Rainbow, Rupert, Supreme, Won¬ 
derful, and Zabeli, a fine collection in those days. Our 
leading raisers in those days were Hooper, Thompson, 
Hunt, Brown, Bragg, Hale, Youell, Gossett, and Cock. 
The late Mr. C. Turner was then just commencing to 
raise Pansies; anyone having the good fortune to 
possess the first volume of The Florist (for 1848), well 
remembers that Mr. Turner contributed to that period¬ 
ical some papers on the cultivation of the Pansy, which 
he afterwards published in pamphlet form. The Florist 
for February, 1848, gives diagrams of Pansy blooms, 
showing the ideal rather than the actual Pansy, and 
they are all of circular form. Those who can refer to 
them will notice that the blotch in the centre was 
more or less rayed, and had not attained to that density 
and smoothness which come with later improvements. 
In 1852 a great advance was made by Mr. Turner, 
raising in 1851, and sending out in 1852 the then fine 
yellow ground, Sir John Catheart, and the equally fine 
white ground, National. Other first-class varieties of 
that time were Marquis of Bath, yellow ground; 
Marchioness of Bath, white ground ; Hale’s Monarch, 
yellow ground ; Velvet, dark self; Samson, yellow 
ground ; Sir J. Paxton, straw ground ; St. Andrew, 
dark self ; Marian, straw ground ; Flower of the 
Day, dark self; Pandora, yellow ground ; Pompey, 
dark self; and others. Some of 
the foregoing were Scotch flowers, 
for Messrs. Downie & Laird, Dick¬ 
sons & Co., Handasyde, and others 
in the north were busy raising the 
standard of this favourite flower. 
In the early part of 1853 I went to 
Slough, and up to the end of 1857 
I witnessed a wonderful advance ; 
and I think that between those 
years the Pansy attained to a 
climax as an exhibition flower. But 
in 1856 a kind of disease set in that 
made the growing of Pansies at 
Slough a very difficult matter. 
Our practice was to make cuttings 
of the young growths put forth in 
the spring ; they were rooted in 
little handy frames under hedges, 
and in July and August planted out 
in prepared beds. When placed 
out the plants died wholesale ; a 
kind of rust set in on them, and 
they literally withered away. Many 
precautions were tried, but the 
result was that it practically ended 
the cultivation of the Pansy on a 
large scale at the Royal Nursery, 
Slough. 
In those days we used to raise 
many hundreds of seedlings every 
year, and they were planted out in 
the open to flower. When in bloom, 
anything that was of a promising 
character was marked, and the 
majority of the second-best flowers 
were sold. In those days five or 
six dozen plants would he taken up 
of a morning, each one named, and 
carefully wrapped in paper with 
damp moss round the roots, so 
that the flower would show above 
the edge of the paper. They were then carefully 
packed in a small hamper—placed at each end of it, 
and securely fastened, so that the flowers would not 
rub against one another—and then sent to London to 
Messrs. Hooper & Co., Central Avenue, Covent Garden 
Market, where they were retailed. A package of four 
or six dozen plants was sent three or four times a week. 
Nothing was known of bedding Violas then, and no 
one dreamed that the mauve-coloured V. cornuta would 
come to play so important a part a few years later ; 
while we were absolutely ignorant of the fancy or 
Belgian Pansies, although Mr. John Salter had in¬ 
troduced a very few. They came a little later, and in 
a subsequent number I hope to tell the story of the 
introduction of the fancy Pansy to this country. It is 
a story full of interest. It suffices to say now that 
when the fancy Pansy came to be appreciated it effected 
quite a revolution in our estimate of that family as 
decorative plants. 
I grow a few of the English show Pansies annually. 
They are loved for their own sakes, and recall the 
pleasant days of forty years ago when I was so much 
among them. I never attempt to take cuttings. I 
top-dress the plants well during the summer months, 
and this induces them to throw up young growths 
from the bottom, which make roots towards the 
summer, and when these plants are pulled to pieces in 
