The Gardening Worj.d, December 14, 1907. 
MOTTO FOR THE WEEK: 
“ Take up thy plastic spade, it is thy pencil.”— Mason. 
CONTENTS . 
Amateur’s Letter to Amateurs, An... 779 
Aster, A Rose-coloured (illus.) . 781 
Bulbs Without Drainage, Growing ... 781 
Carnations : Work for -December . 785 
Chrysanthemums at the Crystal 
Palace . 79 1 
Chrysanthemums, Propagating . 780 
Climber, An Uncommon (illus) . 7S4 
Competition Awards . 78° 
Competition, Prize Letter . 782 
Daisies, Globe . 7 & 2 
Enquire Within . 7^9 
Flower Garden, The . 7^7 
Fruit Garden, The . 7^7 
Greenhouse, The Amateur's . 787 
Kitchen Garden, The . 7^7 
Lawn Scraper, A Rapid (illus. ' ...... 7 86 
-Meadow-Saffron, The Showy W hite 
(illus.) . 785 
lOenothera Caespitosa . 7®3 
lOrchids for Amateurs . 788 
Petunias, The Culture of . 783 
Polygonatum multiflorum . 785 
Raspberries, Autumn-Flowering . 780 
Rose Liberty, Hybrid Tea (illus.). 783 
Work of the Week . 787 
-- 
Away, November! month of leaden looks, 
Lips breathing frost, and locks of ashen 
grey! 
Bare boughs are thine, and skies with¬ 
out a ray, 
And empty nests in solitary nooks. 
No reaper in thy fields will bind his 
. stooks, 
And in thy w 7 asted w 7 oods no children 
play. . 
Weep thy wan life out 1 v 7 ho will bid it 
stay ? 
The w-eary world thy plaint no longer 
brooks. 
But hail, December! peace within thee 
dwells. 
Peace and goodwill, allied as flower 
and fruit. 
Care not for fields turned white and 
woods left mute, 
Save when the Old Year his stormy re¬ 
quiem knells— 
Thou hast, with these, the robin’s fear¬ 
less flute, 
And the red berries, and the Christmas 
bells. 
S. Gertrude Ford. 
In the “Daily News.” 
CXXI. 
The Crimson Rambler Rose. 
Not long ago I heard of someone who 
had planted this Rose at the base of a 
south w 7 all. In case others should do like¬ 
wise, I think the subject is w 7 orth a few 7 
words. This Rose demands a plenitude 
of air to show itself to its full advantage. 
I should like the man or woman who 
laments that his or her Rambler on the 
wall never flowers as it should to see a 
long screen of these Roses in the bleakest 
and most exposed position possible, with 
winds blowing through them from every 
direction and no shelter whatever. I have 
never come across Roses one-half as grand 
as these in their season. The same thing 
is to a certain extent true of the good old 
Gloire de Dijon ; this, of course, is a wall 
subject, and does well on a wall; all the 
same, I find that specimens that are in 
windy, airy' wall positions produce a 
greater crop of blossoms than those that 
are more protected. Thus of specimens 
growing on east, south-east, south, and 
west walls, I find that all are more suc¬ 
cessful than those due south, which wall 
happens to have a projecting wing of the 
house to shut off all the breezy 7 easterly 
winds, and also a belt of trees on the west 
which still further shelters it. This is 
practical experiment, and all the trees 
have been established several seasons. 
Somehow, I think there is a great deal of 
truth in a good old gardener's way of ex¬ 
plaining this need for plenty 7 of air. 
“Why 7 ,” he said sagely, “the wind exer¬ 
cises the leaves, to be sure, and that is 
just what they want!” 
A Beautiful Piece of Planting. 
The time is with us when many are 
planting hedges, and I should like to call 
attention to one of the most striking and 
grandly effective hedges I have ever heard 
of. Nothing less than a hedge of Copper 
Beech. Think of it! What a subject for 
a background; and when it becomes a 
background for great clumps of the White 
(Madonna Lily, beautiful as anything well 
can be in the garden-scape. To come 
across such a hedge is to know that you 
will never forget the impression it has 
made upon y 7 ou. It is not by 7 any means 
all of the hardy flowers that do well close 
under a hedge, though many 7 of them 
flourish better under a deciduous than an 
evergreen one. Among the subjects that 
succeed best are the Madonna Lilies (L. 
candidum) already mentioned, Crown 
Imperials, Tamarisks, Scilla hispanica, 
Tulips, Foxgloves, Rock Roses (if at the 
same time it is a sunny aspect), Wall¬ 
flowers, Honesty, Anthemis, and for an 
edging to the "border, White Pinks, or 
Stachy 7 s lanata, but if the hedge be of 
the Copper Beech the one or other is 
especially desirable, as nothing is more 
effective as a colour contrast than this 
line of white. 
A Charming Plant for the Conservatory. 
The plant I mean is the Kalosanthes, 
known at one time as the Crassula. To 
my 7 mind it is just the subject for mixing 
with other plants, because its distinct and 
upright rigidity gives pleasant variety, 
and when in flower it is a general 
favourite. It requires very little heat to 
carry it through the winter, and after 
flowering should stand outside for some 
time. I do not know anything that strikes 
root more readily any time during the 
summer months. It is a native of South 
Africa, and happily of a family that en¬ 
joys a longer duration of blooming than 
many, 
A Note on Convolvulus mauritanicus. 
This is one of the exceedingly dainty 
subjects among hardy plants, and the col¬ 
ouring of the flowers is a beautiful shade 
of jiastel blue or lavender, whichever we 
like to call it. It is a capital subject 
for the rock garden. I have called it 
hardv, but I suppose rightly speaking I 
ought not to do so. But my plants in 
this situation came safely 7 through last 
winter and that in a cold neighbourhood. 
The plants were reared from seed and 
flowered their first season; when winter 
came in earnest they had some dry leaves 
around them, though not enough to keep 
aw 7 ay 7 a good circulation of air. They 7 
w 7 ere rather late in making their spring 
growth, but they 7 have produced their blos¬ 
soms throughout the autumn. As the 
flowers expand with the sunshine the sun¬ 
niest position should be selected for them 
that can be found. 
A Plea for Rock Gardens. 
I w 7 ould remind my readers that the pre¬ 
sent is an excellent time to make these, 
and to suggest how greatly 7 a garden 
grows in interest and in beauty 7 when it is 
arranged to yield distinct and character¬ 
istic features. A rock garden gives us 
flow 7 ers in a setting quite different from 
beds or borders. In it we grow a number 
of plants that have characteristic habits 
of growth. These denizens of mountain 
slopes and wind-swept arctic regions have 
learned through countless ages that to 
combat the bitter frost winds they must 
grow 7 low dowm to the soil, just creep 
along its surface, and grip it hard and 
tight, and only thus can they hope to sur¬ 
vive. This geographical sense is v the 
more w 7 e study it, full of absorbing in¬ 
terest. For some of us these flowers of 
the far-reaching silent north will have a 
