The Gardening World, October 5 i 1907, 
MOTTO FOR THE WEEK: 
The fattest soil brings forth the most weeds.” 
CONTENTS. 
mateur’s Letter to Amateurs, An ... 643 
ilcony Plant, A Good (illus.) . 645 
oiler, A New Conservatory (illus.) 649 
irysanthemums : Work for October 645 
impetition Awards . 644 
impetition, Prize Letter . 646 
arthworm (The) as Benefactor and 
Pest . 648 
nquire Within . 652 
lower Garden, The . 650 
ruit Garden, The . 650 
arden, A Pretty Lambeth (illus.) ... 647 
reenhouse, The Amateur’s . 651 
itchen Garden, The . 650 
rchids for Amateurs . 651 
lloxes, Herbaceous . 644 
>insettias, How to Grow . 644 
reet Peas, Vagaries of. 646 
ork of the W T eek . 650 
-- 
She Sat&mt’s YfiU. 
Ihose sweet Rose to be my bride, 
Of flowers she is the queen— 
he summing up of all good points 
That on this earth are seen. 
le has no London Pride nor ways, 
Mo .Devil’s Herb is she, 
or one of Venus Fly Traps and 
-0' e Strife can never be. 
!ge and a Merry Tree I found 
in Holy Rose unite, 
ith Honesty and Thrift to form 
The Gardener’s Delight. 
- Love in Idleness is mine, 
he are no Prickly Pear, 
1 Preachers in a Pulpit we, 
^or Medlars hard to bear. 
Lady in a Meadow I 
let by My Lady’s Bower, 
t artsease and Everlasting crown 
lur Happy Wedding Flower. 
Baynton-Taylory 
CXI. 
On Spring Bedding. 
Even more than I dislike monotonous 
beds of Geraniums, Calceolarias and 
other plants that are planted ad nauseam, 
do I dislike what has come to be known 
as spring bedding. There is a certain 
amount of fitness and suitability in this 
bedding out of tender plants, but with the 
spring things, Wallflowers, Daisies, For¬ 
get-me-nots, and others—all hardy peren¬ 
nial subjects — to plant them for this tem¬ 
porary, flitting period is contrary to 
the true spirit of gardening; to me it even 
offends the canons of good taste. Many 
will say it cannot be helped. Spring 
effects are needed, and these subjects are 
the best that can be selected. In that 
case we must make the best of a sad 
matter, and use them with as good a grace 
as we may. I once saw a wonderful 
effect in a large “front piece” of a town 
garden. The whole bed and border space 
was filled with red or white, or combined 
red and white, Daisies. There were, I 
think, something like five or six thousand 
plants used, and the effect was brilliant, 
so very unusual was this free use of red 
in a spring garden. I need not say that 
had Wallflowers, Polyanthuses, or indeed 
any other subject, entered into the scheme 
the wonderful effectiveness would have 
been lost. That the Daisies were rooted 
up and carted away in barrow loads to 
the rubbish heap while still at the height 
of their beauty and effectiveness was a 
deplorable necessity ; but the summer bed¬ 
ding season followed hard on the spring 
flowering subjects, and the spring 
flowers had to go the way of all things. 
I have no alternative to suggest for this 
state of things where bedding-out systems 
prevailall I can do is to urge fewer beds 
and borders devoted to it, and a far freer 
use of permanent bedding—bedding with 
mixed hardy subjects that are selected to 
make an effective display over as long 
a period as possible. This style of gar¬ 
dening can never be so vivid and striking 
as bedding in masses of a single variety, 
but it can be, and it is, far more interest¬ 
ing, and indeed offers a good deal of 
scope for skill. 
Rockwork Edgings. 
In my book, “ The Suburban Garden 
and What to Grow in It,” I made the 
suggestion that for small town gardens, 
where it is almost impossible to find space 
for different features and phases of gar¬ 
dening, that to make rockwork edges to 
beds and borders was a means of intro¬ 
ducing many effective alpine and other 
rock-loving plants into gardens of the 
most limited space. A correspondent 
tvrote and told me that he was delighted 
with this idea for the reasons I have men¬ 
tioned above, and I mention it now be¬ 
cause it seems to me an artistic and pic¬ 
turesque means of introducing a wealth 
of spring flowering subjects that need not 
be ruthlessly up-rooted while yet in their 
full beauty, and with years of growth in 
them if left. You see by making these 
brilliantly gay edgings there is not the 
same necessity to fill the interior of the 
beds with Wallflowers, Forget-me-nots, 
and other subjects. Where the beds must 
be filled, bulbous subjects suggest them¬ 
selves ; but where the rockwork edging 
fringes a border, may we not let that 
border be permanently filled with a 
variety of hardy things, some of them 
spring flowering, to carry the eye back 
from the front portion, but mainly for a 
later display when the extreme bright¬ 
ness and brilliancy of the edging shall 
have passed. The rockwork edging can 
be made as early as possible in the 
autumn, and when the soil has had time 
to settle the plants can be established. 
What to Grow. 
We will suppose this edging is to fur¬ 
nish to a great extent the spring display 
of a small garden. Some grandly effec¬ 
tive subjects will be Saxifraga apiculata, 
a charming yellow flowered variety, and 
an early one, S. Boydii, S. burseriana, 
S. Rhei, S. Camposii, quite the best and 
finest of the white flowered varieties of 
the mossy section. To give distinct 
character Here and there there is nothing 
to beat ffce fine bold foliage of S. 
Megasea. The old-fashioned variety, M. 
cordifolia, is charming, but still more 
so the pale blush-coloured M. Stracheyi, 
which by the bye, is so well grown at 
Kew. It is quite a feature in the rock 
garden there during the spring. The 
Aubrietias nowadays cover a much 
larger range of colouring than they 
did a few years ago, and scarcely any¬ 
thing that can be named is more effec¬ 
tive for spring display, and with care the 
plants can be kept within bounds, even on 
a narrow edging. The double Arabis is 
more difficult to keep within prescribed 
limits, and I cannot recommend it for 
such a position as I am describing, the 
white-flowered Saxifrages, moreover, 
yield ample supply of well-massed white. 
The double Alyssum saxatile compac- 
tum fl. pi. must be included whatever is 
left out, as nothing else yields richer, 
clearer, or more massive patches of yel¬ 
low. Hardy Primulas, such as Polyan¬ 
thuses, Auriculas P. denticulata, P. rosea, 
the double and blue Primroses, may be 
planted in clumps of three or five a few 
inches, say, half a foot, apart. Gentians 
may be treated in the same manner. 
