54 
September 24, 1898. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
CACTDS DAHLIAS. 
On looking at the stands of Cactus Dahlias, with 
their perfectly twist-petalled blooms forming dainty 
trusses, one cannot help looking back a year or two 
and comparing the Cactus Dahlias of to-day and 
their parents of, say, six seasons ago. In the earlier 
years of this grand autumn race a large bloom, ugly 
perhaps to the extreme, was invariably placed before 
the smaller but more compact competitor, but now 
the preference is usually given to the lighter made, 
and more elegant specimens. 
The result is that raisers aim more particularly at 
getting medium-sized flowers with their florets 
twisted from tip to base, and so far have they been 
successful that we now have a'most a complete set 
of true Cactus-flowered varieties. The habit, too, of 
the older kinds left much to be desired, but this is 
now being remedied to a very great extent, and 
several varieties, such as Britannia, Night, Fusilier, 
Harry Stredwick, Mary Service and Capstan com¬ 
bine grand flowers with good habit. 
It is somewhat interesting to note the quantity of 
new Cactus Dahlias put into commerce every year 
and the few that come up to the standard of excel¬ 
lence required by the growers of the present day. 
The past year is a striking instance of this fact, as 
out of some fifty-five varieties introduced last spring, 
only about nine were to be seen at the large exhibi¬ 
tions. The novelties for 1899 are not quite so 
numerous as in some former years, but the quality is 
surpassing. Amongst these, Mr. James Stredwick's 
Magnificent leads the way. This is a truly magnifi¬ 
cent Cactus-form, and well merits its name. The 
blooms are large, very pointed, and of a delicate 
shade of rosy-salmon. It is undoubtedly the best 
Cactus yet raised. 
Messrs. Keynes, Williams & Co. have, as usual, 
some first-class flowers, Viscountess Sherbrook being 
the most promising, and a very fine flower. The 
Clown, a new fancy Cactus, is also nice, as are also 
Radiance, Countess of Lonsdale and Progenitor, the 
last-named having notched petals—quite a novelty. 
Messrs. Burrell & Co. have also some splendid 
seedlings, Lucius beiog best. Next follow Antelope, 
a flower of the Fantasy type, and Mimosa. 
Of the varieties sent out last spring the following 
have done best with us :—Britannia, a flower of large 
size, fine form and habit; Night, a very dark flower 
which seems to be a general favourite owing to its 
colour, form, and habit; Arachne, a very pretty 
striped Cactus, which, however, has a very bad 
habit, the bloom stems being quite pendent; 
Capstan and Mary Service, both good for cut flower, 
having long stems ; Daffodil, the c-'w yellow which 
is, however, very erratic but most beautiful when in 
form ; Island Queen, a mauve Cactus flower, very 
pretty, but rather too small for exhibition; and 
Keyne's White, the best of the whites. 
It is to be hoped that next year will be more 
favourable to Dahlia growing than the present one, 
when perhaps some of the new varieties which have 
done badly ihis season will come to the front.—H.S 
--*B«— - 
LESPEDEZA BICOLOR. 
The value of this hardy shrub for autumn flowering 
has not yet received that recognition which it 
deserves, although it has been in this country for 
the last sixteen years at least. It is a native of 
North China and Japan, and is hardy in the southern 
counties of Britain, if not further north. Some fine 
bushes of it in the pleasure grounds of Kew Gar¬ 
dens were quite a picture last September aDd 
October It throws up a great number of stems of 
slender Willow-like growth, and these give off more 
slender, twiggy shoots of a most graceful character. 
The main shoots are perfectly self supporting, while 
the rest swing about loosely or sway in the lightest 
breeze, especially when laden with myriads of 
flowers. The latter are rosy-purple, pea-shaped, 
and produced in racemes in great profusion over the 
wood of the current season, so that the whole plant 
is thickly covered with bloom and very effective 
when almost every other shrub has long given up 
flowering for the season. The leaves consist of 
three obi ong leaflets of moderate size, and are in keep¬ 
ing with the general aspect of the plant, which is 
altogether graceful. Several shrubs with flowers of 
similar size enjoy a greater reputation than 
Lespedeza bicolor, even although they entail a 
greater amount of trouble on the part of the grower 
to preserve and flower them satisfactorily. The name 
Desmodium penduliflorum is often applied to the 
Lespedeza bicolor. 
species under notice, but that forming the heading 
is the correct one. The accompanying illustration 
represents the tip of a shoot reduced, but the raceme 
of flowers at the bottom right-hand corner is natural 
size. 
PERENNIAL ASTERS AS BEDDING 
PLANTS. 
The perennial Asters or Michaelmas Daisies as 
they are popularly called, are usually to be seen 
dotted here and there in the mixed herbaceous bor¬ 
der in the majority of gardens, or in larger and more 
pretentious establishments they may even be given a 
border all to themselves. I do not wish to deprecate 
this method of planting, for the Asters give a good 
account of themselves in almost any position in 
which they may be placed, but I should like to point 
out their great utility as bedding plants when taste¬ 
fully employed with other subjects. The foliage of 
many of them is graceful and elegant, and associates 
well with many summer-flowering plants. I see 
that advantage has been taken of the fine habit of 
A horizontalis to mix it with flowering plants in the 
beds in Hyde Park. Apart from the flower, which 
is, of course, very showy, this Aster is well worth 
growing for its foliage effects alone. It is so elegant 
and graceful, and, besides, it exhibits a very pretty 
shade of green. 
In my own garden one of the prettiest beds at the 
time of writing is a bed of Madame Desgranges 
Chrysanthemum, round which for edging are two 
rows of dwarf plants of Aster acris. These latter 
plants are certainly not* more than 1 ft. in height, 
and they are simply a mass of flower. They were 
obtained by taking the tops of the shoots of the 
older plants late in the season. The cuttings were 
just dibbled into a bed of sandy soil made up in a 
cold frame. The lights were kept rather close for a 
day or two, and shading was carefully given. In a few 
weeks plenty of roots had been made, and the young 
plants were then lifted up carefully and put out in 
the quarters where they are now blooming. A. acris 
is the only form that I have yet treated in this way, 
and it has answered readily enough, There seems 
no reason, therefore, why other species and varieties 
should not be served in the same way.—C. J. 
-- 
£5 Penalty threatens those who kill or dye seeds, 
and offer them for sale. 
SUMMER BEDDING IN THE LONDON 
PARKS. 
There is always a tendency to too much sameness 
in the bedding arrangements that we see made in 
private gardens. Time was when we saw beds of 
scarlet, or pink, or white zonal Pelargoniums 
repeated almost to infinitude. They might have 
been varied perhaps with Calceolarias, Coleuses, 
Verbenas and other common subjects usually 
planted in masses, but the range of material em¬ 
ployed was never very great and the result was that 
in large flower gardens where there was large sys¬ 
tems of flower beds the monotony was very striking 
and the eye wearied of the constant repetition. 
Nowadays a more artistic as well as common 
sense method of furnishing and adorning our flower 
gardens prevails. Hosts of subjects whose value in 
this direction was either not known or carelessly 
neglected have been impressed into the service of the 
decorative gardener. Not only have the stores of 
available material thus been greatly augmented, but 
more taste has been exercised in disposing of them. 
We no longer see frequent repetitions of bright 
masses of the same colour, or the painfully rigid and 
circumscribed edgings, but instead there is variety in 
colour and variety in arrangement, differences of 
habit and appearance have been made the most of, 
and a modern flower garden, if it is to be up-to-date 
must yield as much charm of variety as was formerly 
expected only of the conservatory. 
In this laudable enterprise the managing 
authorities of our public parks have played a most 
important, nay, a vital, part, and they have indeed 
been in the van of progress—progress which has 
been and is in the right direction. It is to the parks 
that many a gardener turns for ideas which he may 
practise in the flower garden of which he himself has 
charge. He goes to the parks not only to admire 
and appreciate what he sees there as only a practical 
man can, but to elaborate the ideas that he sees 
there expressed and to flatter these expressed ideas 
by the most sincere of all flattery—imitation. 
As the public park is to the private garden, so are 
the parks of London to those of our other towns and 
cities—they are indeed “ metropolitan ” in the 
double sense. 
HYDE PARK. 
This, the most popular of all our parks is not well 
adapted for the display of the gardener’s art. It is 
too flat and too much cut up with huge drives and 
sweeps of gravel, and yet taking these disadvantages 
into consideration it is wonderful how much is done 
year by year by Mr. Browne and his staff of 
assistants to show to the people of London how 
many plants there are that will grow and bloom with 
freedom in the heart of the largest city in the 
world. 
As most of our readers are aware it is in the long 
series of beds stretching nearly from Hyde Park Cor¬ 
ner, on the south side, and right away to the Marble 
Arch, on the north, that the most elaborate part of 
the bedding is to be seen. These beds are of 
different sizes and shapes, although most of them are 
large. They are all cut out in the grass, and for the 
sake of protection to their occupants, are, with their 
setting and sward railed off from the too close ap¬ 
proach of inquisitive members of the great British 
public. 
In addition to these beds great things have been 
accomplished by the pluDging in the grass of num¬ 
bers of sub-tropical flowering and foliage plants. 
The monotony and flatness of a long series of beds 
cut on what is very nearly a level is thus destroyed, 
for many of the plants thus plunged in the grass are 
of good size. Such Palms as Seaforthia elegans 
Phoenix canariensis and P. rupicola, Bamboos, huge 
pyramidal Heliotropes and Ivy-leaved Pelargoniums, 
the charming Plumbago capensis with its clustering 
trusses of caerulean flowers, the charming Araucaria 
excelsa and the stately Blue Gum tree, Eucalyptus 
globulus, with its glaucous foliage like nothing else 
that we have at command are all employed in this 
way with excellent effect. Perhaps the most charm¬ 
ing instance of what may be done in this way is 
afforded by a group of five noble clumps of Bambusa 
Simoni which adorn the crest of a small mound 
about half-way between the Grosvenor arid Stanhope 
Gates. The tallest of these clumps is fully 14 ft, in 
height. 
Fuchsias have been very extensively; used through¬ 
out, and in every case the visitor cannot fail to be 
