?10 
THE GARDENING WORLD; 
July 7, 1894. 
Uriah Pike, one grower of which has at present a 
daily average cutting of 200 dozen blooms, which he 
hopes to increase. 
I think I have rambled pretty well amongst the 
cut blooms. I see my friend Mr. George Monro 
here, who without doubt, is the largest cut flower 
commission salesman in the world, and who pro¬ 
bably could have given you a paper on this subject 
more interesting than myself. Certainly his know¬ 
ledge of where they come from, and go to, is based 
on a very long and wide experience, and a list of the 
addresses to which he sends a weekly cheque would 
doubtless surprise us all. I suppose the effects of 
our cut flower and plant trade reaches even beyond 
the things themselves. 
Look at the bulbs and seeds we grow and import 
—Holland, Germany, Japan, East and West Indies, 
the colonies, every quarter of the globe sends us 
roots and seeds. One little feature of our home 
trade must not be forgotten. 1 mean the humble 
moss. Fern, and ornamental foliage and grass so use¬ 
ful and increasingly sought for. Winter and summer, 
spring and autumn, each season sends us its repre¬ 
sentatives. The tinted sprigs from the early hedge¬ 
rows, the Primroses, Ivies, and moss of woodland 
dells, the brown and yellow autumn-tinted leaves, 
the berries of Hawthorn and wild Dog Rose, 
nothing of beauty in Nature is too insignificant for 
London supply. I think I cannot better conclude 
my observations than by adding up a mornings items 
somewhat after the fashion of a market buyer or 
salesman. 
A Morning Supply. 
One morning this May—item 268 large van-loads, 
114 small loads or barrows of boxes, 370 stands, 
with every available shelf packed to overflowing; 
gangways blocked, corners used, out space crammed 
full; about 300 sellers. Here is a bill for the mathe¬ 
matical inquirer. How many buyers ? How many 
horses and vehicles to take them away ? What 
value ? How many acres of glass ? How many miles 
of houses? How many miles of piping ? How many 
tons of fuel ? How many casts of pots How many 
hands employed to plant, tie, water, cut, and pack 
them ? What capital is invested in the trade of the 
producers only, to say nothing of the shops of the 
tradesman, or the living of the coster or flower girl 
who sells. Verily the subject of our varied, continu¬ 
ous, and increasing Covent Garden flower supply is 
worthy the pen of a Thackeray or a Dickens, and I 
would that some more able pen had introduced it to 
your notice, and I trust market friends present will 
not fail to supply material to fill up any weak spot in 
the design of carpet bedding I have had the pleasure 
of planting for your survey this evening.— J Assbee, 
Superintendant, Covent Garden Market. 
- .t. - 
THE WAYWARD 
GARDENERS. 
It is generally supposed to be good for us to occasion¬ 
ally see ourselves as others see us, and a writer in 
The Standard has recently obliged us by affording an 
excellent opportunity for benefitting by this very 
salutary process. At the same time he has shown 
once more that even as applied to journalists what a 
monument of wisdom there is in the old saw which 
affirms that " where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to 
be wise,” for certain, it is that like many of his order, 
he has no real knowledge of the subject he undertook 
to write about. To represent the majority of those 
who love their garden’s as being at the mercy of con¬ 
ventional assistants who know how to grow flowers but 
few of whom know how to set out a garden, is a 
manifest travesty of the truth. It is touching, he 
says, in the extreme to see right-minded persons, 
who being anxious to have an artistic garden taking 
counsel of some professional, and vainly endeavour¬ 
ing with his assistance, to realise his object. But 
how, says the writer, can he produce that which fie 
cannot conceive ? Well, it has been my lot through 
life to see a great many garden’s, and whatever may 
be the short comings of some of them from an artistic 
point of view, there have not been a great many 
among them devoid of some feature, which a true 
artist would not delight to place on canvas. 
It is quite true that many of our fine gardens 
were originally laid out by experts, but is it not 
equally true that they would long since have become 
scenes of discordance and ugliness had the gardeners 
placed in charge of them been so devoid of artistic 
taste and the due appreciation of natural beauty as 
our writer suggests ? The men, who will on occasion, 
arrange a group of plants after a style which no 
artist could improve upon, cannot be devoid of 
artistic taste, and the numberless shows held all 
over the country during the summer seasons afford 
ample evidence that the gardening profession in¬ 
cludes among its members a large number of men, 
who have the artistic element in their nature, de¬ 
veloped to a high degree, and a walk round the gar¬ 
dens they preside over will afford abundant evidence 
to the same fact. Whilst it may be, and in some in¬ 
stances is quite true, that beds and borders of the 
same or very similar patterns are repeated by some 
with but little variation year after year, it does not 
necessarily follow that this arises from inability to de¬ 
velop new ideas on the part of the poor misguided pro¬ 
fessional. In very many instances, as every gardener 
knows, he is powerless to make any alteration which 
involves expense for labour or material, because the 
owner will not provide the means, and it is this dis¬ 
inclination to spend money, and the lack of appre¬ 
ciation of the beautiful in Nature on the part of the 
owner that compels the gardener, so often, and 
greviously against his own inclination, to work on 
the same lines year after year. The possession of 
beautiful gardens involves expense for labour and 
materials as well as the exercise of brains and an 
artistic taste, but if the owner will not provide the 
former of what avail is the possession of the latter 
by the gardener. But there are some persons in the 
world who think they have done all when they have 
paid the gardener his beggarly weekly wage, to 
secure themselves the luxuries of a Rothschild, but 
of course they do not get them, and hence so much 
croaking about the waywardness of the unfortunate 
gardeners. 
That there is a growing love for hardy herbaceous 
plants among professional gardeners I have had 
pretty fair opportunities of judging, and our 
gardens are greatly enriched by them, but it 
is not everyone who aspires to have a really 
beautiful garden, who, in search of a model, 
would care to betake themselves to the old world 
places where, says the writer, professional has never 
penetrated, yet where still linger the charming 
perennials our grandmothers cultivated. All very 
delightful no doubt, but leaving much to be desired 
and to be discovered. My own earliest recollections 
concerning gardening matters take me back to the 
garden in which I was reared, which was possibly as 
rich in its collecticn of hardy perennials as it was in 
hardy trees and shrubs, as any which wealth and 
genuine enthusiastic devotion to gardening could at 
that time bring together. My own acquaintance 
with it dates from the time when bedding out was in 
its infancy, and before the advent of Tom Thumb 
Pelargonium and Robinson’s Defiance Verbena, and 
although this was a long while back I could even 
now draw a rough plan of it from memory. But 
What does memory say with reference to the treat¬ 
ment of and variety of hardy plants familiar to us 
in those days ? Has nothing been added to the 
knowledge treasured under our grandmother’s 
caps? Have we learnt nothing since ? Why every 
old gardener knows that the number of hardy plants 
suitable for flower garden purposes has been increased 
in variety to an almost incredible degree, and hosts 
of them are acquisitions of the very highest order 
of merit. Anyone attempting to stock his hardy flower 
garden now from the neglected legacy of his grand¬ 
mother would be years behind the age ; but that the 
idea is practical most professional gardeners will 
readily admit. 
The writer goes on to say that the most successful 
and best gardener is he who is most Catholic and 
comprehensive in his taste and, presses into his 
service the infinite variety of Nature and the inex- 
haustable resources of harmony and contrast. All 
this is very flowery yet very true, but what is it that 
stands in the way of the realisation of his ideal ? 
We will let him speak for nimself; it is the in- 
acceessibility to ideas which render the professional 
gardener such an obstruction. Left to himself he 
will repeat the same beds, patterns, and borders year 
after } ear. In conclusion the writer adds, It is no 
unkindness to remind him of his foibles and to try 
and lift him out of the rut in which he perennially 
works, and imbue his soul with some love of beauty 
and some appreciation of Nature.” In common with 
the profession generally I really feel most grateful 
to this writer in Tfis S/an(fa)vf for his kindly appre¬ 
ciation and good intentions, and hope that when well 
out of the ruts, which this good Samaritan has 
found us in, we shall all cherish a kindly remem¬ 
brance of our friend. But what sort of gardens and 
gardeners is he really acquainted with ?— One of the 
Wayward Ones. 
- ^ - 
PLANTS RECENTLY CERTIFICATED. 
The undermentioned subjects were certificated at 
the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society on 
the 26th ult. 
Clematis Countess of Onslow.— In this we 
have a new variety or hybrid of very distinct appear¬ 
ance. The leaves are pinnate, with ovate leaflets of 
a soft green. The flowers consist of four sepals that 
are erect in the lower half, forming a pale purplish 
tube, then spreading above the middle and revolute 
at the tips. The inner face of the spreading portion 
has a scarlet band along the centre, and broad, 
bluish-purple edges. First-class Certificate. Exhi¬ 
bited by Messrs. Geo. Jackman & Son, Woking. 
Dracaena Ouvrardi.— The leaves of this variety 
are about as wide as those of D. rubra, and are 
oblong, and deep shining green, with a broad, irregu¬ 
lar, pink edge which is sometimes creamy in its 
early stages. It will make a useful, decorative sub¬ 
ject. Award of Merit. Exhibited by Mr. J. Ouvrard, 
Child’s Hill, Kilburn. 
Croton Mayii.— The leaves are so narrow and so 
numerously arranged as to give the plant a dense, 
bushy habit of great decorative value. They are of 
a dark green with a golden midrib and margins, and 
some of them are often wholly yellow. They may 
be compared to those of C. augustifolium, but are 
much shorter and more numerous. Award of Merit. 
Exhibited by Mr. H. B. May, Dyson’s Lane 
Nurseries, Upper Edmonton. 
Carnation Mrs. F. A. Bevan. —The flower of 
this beautiful variety is large and very double, with 
broad, entire petals of a rich shade of salmon-rose, 
flushed here and there with violet. Award of Merit. 
Exhibited by Mr. W. H. Lees, Trent Park Gardens, 
New Barnet. 
Spiraea astilboides floribunda.— This variety 
is a great improvement upon the type as it 
approaches the graceful habit of S. aruncus, while 
still retaining the dwarf habit of S. astilboides as 
usually seen. The panicles of creamy-white flowers 
are larger with more numerous branches than in the 
last named. Award of Merit. Exhibited by Mr. M. 
Prichard, Christchurch, Hants. 
Eryngium alpinum. —We consider this as one of 
the best of all the Eryngiums. About thirty years 
ago it used to be an easily-grown cottagers’ plant in 
the far north. The lower leaves are heart-shaped, 
and the upper ones palmately lobed. The finely cut 
involucral leaves number fifteen to twenty, and theyi 
as well as the flowers and the upper part of the stems, 
are of a beautiful steel-blue. In a cool climate it is 
not particular as to soil. Award of Merit. Exhibited 
by Mr. M. Prichard. 
Begonia H. J. Infield.— The flowers of this 
tuberous Begonia are of large size, double, and of a 
bright glowing scarlet. The petals are arranged 
round several centres, but the redeeming features are 
the glowing colour and the erect flowers. Award of 
Merit. Exhibited by Messrs. H. Cannell & Sons, 
Swanley. 
Begonia Dr. Nansen. —This also belongs to the 
tuberous class, and has brilliant, crimson-scarlet 
flowers, with the petals arranged round a single 
centre. The outer petals are very broad, forming a 
guard, as it were, to the short inner ones. Award of 
Merit. Exhibited by Messrs. H. Cannell & Sons. 
Hemerocallis Frances. —In this we have a 
variety of H. flava, with flowers of greater sub¬ 
stance and darker colour, being of a rich golden 
yellow. Award of Merit. Exhibited by Mr. G. 
Yeld, Clifton Cottage, York. 
Paeony La Perle. —Here we have one of the 
forms of P. albiflora, with fully double flowers of 
medium size. Most of the petals are broad and 
flesh-coloured, but near the centre are some layers 
of small, ragged, nearly white ones. Award of 
Merit. Exhibited by Messrs. Paul & Sons, 
Cheshunt. 
Sweet Pea Emily Henderson. —The sweetly- 
scented flowers of this variety are of large size and 
pure white. Two blooms are the usual number on 
the flower stems, but those shown often carried 
