August 12, 1905.] 
MOTTO FOR THE WEEK: 
“There is in the air a fragrance like that of the beautiful Garden of Paradise 
in the days that were.”— Longfellow. 
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-— 
AN AMATEUR'S LETTER 
TO AMATEURS. 
’W ith the enthusiastic gardener it is never 
the work for present effect that proves so 
engrossingly interesting as that which con¬ 
cerns the future. At the present time we 
should be working to achieve beauty in a 
year yet unborn. There are certain 
perennial plants that flower during their 
first season if the seeds be sown early 
enough, but it should be remembered that 
they will produce many more flowers and 
these will be finer and of longer duration if 
the plants have a winter’s growth upon them 
pi’ior to flowering. 
A Valuable Lychnis, 
Among these subjects Lychnis haageana is 
a plant well worthy of careful cultivation, 
and seeds may be sown at the present time. 
The veriest novice may attempt to grow 
them, the seeds germinate easily and the 
plants are quite hardy and die down com¬ 
pletely during the winter. Mr. Robinson 
n his “ English Flower G-arden ” calls this 
ine of our most valuable permanent bedding 
plants; this is praise indeed, but the plant 
s worthy of it, althougn in its cubivation 
a few points should be borne in mind. It 
revels in a cool moist soil, and is never so 
happy as when growing on the north side of 
a wall. I often wonder that the plant is 
not more often recommended to correspon¬ 
dents of the gardening papers who write 
despairing that they can get nothing to 
flower satisfactorily in such positions. Now 
here is a plant that actually cries out for 
such an aspect. It is often a failure in a 
dry parched position and soil, but give it 
conditions that it likes, and the dazzling 
scarlet blossoms will be in evidence for 
weeks. Now and then the flowers come a 
pale flesh colour, and even white, but if one 
makes, as it were, a hobby flower of this 
Lychnis, sowing from the seed that has been 
most carefully selected from extra fine 
blossoms, then these paler-coloured plants 
should be rooted up as soon as their colour¬ 
ing is shown, indeed, assiduous “ roguing ” 
should be practised and in time an excellent 
strain may be worked up. The variety is a 
hybrid from L. fulgens and L. Sieboldii, so 
that it is not to be wondered at that now 
and then we get a paler-tinted blossom. 
Fraser’s Evening Primrose. 
Another excellent perennial thoroughly 
to be recommended for the cool, m list soil 
and aspect on the north side of wall or 
paling is Oenothera Fraseri. It is one of 
the dwarfest of all the upright Evening 
Primroses, rearing itself not more than one 
foot, the stems rising from fine rosettes of 
leaves. In colour it is a brilliant and clear 
yellow, and, like the Lychnis, is rarely well 
grown in a dry, sun-b iked position—I might 
say, never. It is easily grown from seed, 
but is far less trouble to propagate by means 
of division, as the plant makes many off¬ 
shoots, and they, with a little care and 
attention, make as many plants. The 
attention I always find it necessary to 
bestow, if the division has been made in 
the autumn—and this is certainly the best 
time—is after a spell of frosts. Plants of 
this rosette habit of growth loosen very 
easily during frosty weather, and they 
require the earth to be pressed home firmly 
about them as soon as a thaw commences. 
Anyone growing this charming plant—or, 
rattier, failing to grow it—may probably 
find that it is due to this cause, if the plants 
be newly established especially ; any way, it 
is a point to bear in mind when the season 
of frosts appears. It is not long ago that 
an enthusiastic gardener, botanist, editor 
wrote to me concerning this plant that he 
had only lately become acquainted with : 
“It is the best of all the varieties I have ; 
as I planted it near an overflow pipe, where 
it gets plenty of moisture, you can imagine 
how it flourishes.” 
The Secret of Success. 
It seems to me it is the whole secret of 
successful gardening to find out the plants 
that can be grown under the particular con¬ 
ditions we can give them, and it is the great 
fault of most amateurs that they grow 
plants because everybody else grows them, 
and not at all because th-y are best suited 
to their particular soils and positions. I 
have, for instance, seen a quantity of 
Helianthemum (Rock Roses) growing on a 
cold, wet border, and, in a dry, parched 
position in the same garden a large colony 
of the moisture-loving Primula japonica 
If but the two had changed places they 
might have been seen growing to perfection ; 
as it was, each was in a pitiful plight. It is 
in such matters as these that the novice 
should seek information ; the study of the 
habits of plants is interesting enough, and 
the knowledge of them generally spells 
success. F. M. W. 
WEEKLY PRIZE COMPETITION. 
- RESULT - 
The prize in the Readers’ Competition was 
awarded to “ R. Thatcher,” for his article on 
“ Cineraria Stellata,” p. 627. 
A prize for a supplementary reply was 
awarded to “ D. V. E. ” for his article on 
“ Front Garden,” p. 625 ; and another to “ Wm. 
Taylor” for his article on “Canon Hall 
Muscat,” p. 626. 
Winter Cress. 
We have so long been accustomed to 
growing what is known as American Cress 
in gardens, that we had got the idea it was 
a native of that country. Two species are 
more or less used in this country as a pot 
herb, but both of them are European plants. 
Barbarea vulgaris is the common wild one, 
very little used as a pot herb ; whereas B. 
praecox is known as the American Cress, 
and is nearly always used in gardens. \V e 
learn from the “ American Botanist ” that 
B. vulgaris is mostly obtained in old fields, 
and it is gathered for use under the name of 
“ Poor Man’s Cabbage.” It does not seem 
that the other species is known, although we 
have been describing it as the American 
Cress for so many years. The common one 
(B. vulgaris) which grows there is evidently 
an introduction, and probably an escape 
from cultivation, just as B. praecox is in the 
British Isles. Possibly the name may have 
arisen by the American seedsmen procuring 
seed from Europe, and that our seedsmen 
had in turn got their first supplies from 
America. Possibly, however, the Editor of 
the above journal may inform us. 
