The Gardening World, April 3, 1909. 
MOTTO FOR THE WEEK: 
“ Flowers with nature’s tears bedewed, 
That the pencil of heaven itself hath blued.” 
— Browne. 
CONTENTS. 
Amateur’s Letter to Amateurs, An 217 
Cannas and How to Grow Them ... 222 
Competition Awards . 21S 
Competition, Prize Letter . 232 
Enquire Within .. 227 
Flower Garden, The (illus.) -. 225 
Fruit Garden, The (illus.) . 225 
Grafting Fruit Trees (illus.) . 221 
Greenhouse, The Amateur's .. 225 
Kitchen Garden, The (illus.) . 225 
Onions. How to Grow Large . 21S 
‘Orchids for Amateurs . 226 
Photography for Garden Lovers 
(illus.) . 219 
Potatos, The Culture of . 218 
Primula sinensis . 220 
Reserve Garden, The . 222 
Shrubs for the Rock Garden . 221 
Sweet Peas and Garden Peas at 
Eckford's Farm (illus.) . 223 
Work of the Week . 225 
*5 he, iUmowd, 2m. 
0 Almond tree; why do you lift, 
On winter-naked branches, 
A silken snow, a rosy drift, 
That every breath of air brings down 
Whirling upon earth's bosom brown 
Pink-blossomed avalanches ? 
“I had a dream of Spring, and she 
Was garmented as brides may be. 
Round the pearl fringes of her cloak 
A warm of golden crocus broke, 
And to her waist a fairv foam 
Of Meadowsweet and Campion clomb. 
" Alas, from my fair dream I woke, 
My boughs were cold for sorrow— 
But coloured like Spring's wedding 
cloak, 
A flood of rosy flowers outbroke 
On all my barren twigs—and lo ! 
I have forgotten frost and snow. 
I'm glad at heart because I know 
That Spring will come to-morrow.” 
Nora Chessox, 
In “One and All Gardening." 
CLXXXIX. 
It was a disastrous March so far as seed 
sowing is concerned, but as soon as genial 
weather arrives we must be desperately 
busy making up for lost time. Never dig 
snow in. Experiments have been made 
on light land as to the advisability of 
ploughing it in. But it was proved to be 
a dead failure—nothing at all was gained. 
Rose Pruning. 
The last week in March, or thereabouts, 
is the orthodox time, if genial conditions 
of weather are present, to take in hand 
the Hybrid Perpetuals; the Hybrid Teas 
follow next, and lastly there are the Teas 
which, in most districts, may be left over 
until April. Climbing Roses often present 
a difficulty to the novice, indeed, I could 
tell of one who deliberately cut down to 
within a few inches of the ground all the 
gopd sturdy young growths and left all 
the old weakly wood. “ I thought they 
were suckers,” he said. Now all the 
pruning a climbing Rose wants, as a rule, 
is this cutting out of old and weakly 
wood, and very often' I do not even do as 
much as this where the supply of wood is 
none too plentiful. I never prune such 
Roses as Dorothy Perkins until there is a 
mass of growth, and certainly only old 
wood from the Crimson Ramblers, but in 
some soils this would not be sufficient; 
here we are overtreed and Roses are not 
as luxuriant as they should be. 
Seed Sowing. 
Assiduous as we may be in sowing 
annuals do not forget that we may easily 
rear for ourselves many grand varieties of 
perennials; get good seed. I know I 
repeat this frequently, but I have experi¬ 
mented with cheap seed and have been 
disgusted with the inferior strains that 
have resulted. Take this for instance, 
Achillea Millefolium rosea, so called, but 
when the plants flowered, the familiar 
white weed was the result. But with re 7 
liable seed how splendidly can we stock 
our gardens, and that in the most decora¬ 
tive manner, for we have sufficient plants 
of the different kinds to make good bold 
masses. A useful selection would include 
Pyrethrum roseum; if double varieties 
are preferred, seed can be secured from 
double flowers and a fair proportion 
should be double. These plants remain 
in flower over a long portion of the early 
summer and may be regarded as indis¬ 
pensable. In a large bold border a line 
of them for edging, where a dwarf edging 
can be dispensed with (as it can some¬ 
times) nothing is more showy than this 
plant. I have used it thus, and have 
been pleased with it year after year. 
A Charming Campanula. 
Platycodon grandiflorum Mariesii is, 
in spite of its name, a charming Cam¬ 
panula. in full flower during July and 
August, and excellent, being unusually 
showy for its height as the flowers are 
large and tough. I first saw it at Kew, 
and I remember that even among a num¬ 
ber of fine plants of different flowers in 
its near neighbourhood it held its own 
well, and was conspicuous amid the rest. 
It was in the Rock Garden. It is easy to 
rear from seed. It is interesting to rear 
a batch of Carnations from good seed, at 
least, if we be content to grow’ plants that 
are minus names. I like to sow’ Carna¬ 
tions, and indeed almost all my seeds, in 
pans and boxes in the greenhouse and 
afterwards to transplant, except, of course, 
certain hardy annuals that arc better 
sown where the)’ are to flower. The very 
small garden has little space for indi¬ 
vidual plants that require much room, 
but in gardens of larger dimensions the 
Tree Lupine becomes a beautiful object. 
Yet for all that, I have, I think, a more 
particular delight in the L. polyphyllus, 
for this, in its different varieties, has to 
me more grace—those long slender heads 
of blue, or white, or blue and white are 
among the most charming of our early 
summer flowers. If seed be sown now’ we 
shall have grand plants to utilise in the 
borders next autumn. 
Sweet Williams. 
.And there are Sw’eet Williams—“stiff ” 
— some people say, but natural stiffness 
in a flower never offends me, and when 
we have a subject that is so rich in colour, 
so splendidly massive in effect, why then 
I say it is hard to overestimate its value. 
And there is this to be said for it. It 
will flower in the hot sun-smitten border; 
it will flower grandly in the most trying 
positions in the rock garden; and, on the 
other . hand, it will 'flower under cool, 
moist, and comparatively sunless aspects. 
I once had some plants under a north 
wall, that were so wet and sodden that 
the seeds on the plants all germinated, 
and hundreds of tiny seedlings could have 
been removed and planted. 
Now-a-days there are particularly fine 
self colours—a beautiful clear pink, and 
bright rose red and pure white. 
Buphthalmum salicifolium and B. 
speciosum are both fine showy plants 
easily reared from seed and producing 
their yellow flowers in June-July, and are 
particularly useful for cut flowers and to 
show in a collection of hardy perennials. 
F. 'Norfolk. 
-- 
R. H. S. 
The next fortnightly exhibition of the 
Roval Florticultural Society, of flowers 
and fruit, will be held on April 6th~from 
1 p.m. to 6 p.m. At 3 o'clock the'Rev. 
Prof. G. Henslow’, V.M.H., will lecture 
on "Illustration of the effects of the 
Forces of Growth.” 
Brighton and Sussex H. S. 
The Rose and Sweet Pea Show of the 
Brighton and Sussex Horticultural Society 
will be held this year on June 29th and 
30th, and the Chrysanthemum Show on 
November 2nd and 3rd. We regret that 
this Society suffered a loss on the last 
year’s working, the deficit amounting to 
over £ 60 . 
