352 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
October  18,  1900 
Some  Good  Azaleas, 
Many  thousands  of  splendidly  grown  Azaleas  are  imported 
annually  from  the  Continent,  which,  with  a  little  attention,  will 
amply  repay  the  cultivator.  The  plants  reach  us  out  of  pots,  and  so 
the  most  suitable  size  will  readily  suggest  itself  when  they  are 
unpacked,  and  I  have  invariably  found  that  for  the  first  potting  they 
should  be  only  large  enough  to  accommodate  the  roots  and  allow  of  a 
little  new  compost  being  added. 
Thoroughly  drain  the  pots,  and  have  a  compost  of  good  fibrous 
peat  and  rough  silver  sand  ready,  placing  the  rougher  pieces  of  the 
peat  over  the  drainage.  Take  the  plant  and  press  the  root  into  the 
pot  until  the  surface  is  half  an  inch  below  the  rim,  afterwards  tilling 
in  carefully  between  the  roots,  making  the  compost  firm.  Water 
rnoderately  and  place  in  a  house  or  pit  where  frost  is  merely  excluded, 
giving  air  on  every  favourable  opportunity.  If  water  was  given  in 
the  first  instance  very  little  will  be  required  during  the  winter  months, 
as  frequent  applications  at  that  period  of  the  year,  when  the  roots 
have  not  the  slightest  hold  on  the  new  compost,  often  lead  to  leaves 
falling  and  buds  turning  brown.  One  thing  that  cannot  be  too  strongly 
impressed  is  the  necessity  for  immediate  attention  on  receipt  of  the 
plants,  for  if  they  are  allowed  to  remain  until  the  roots  and  soil  get 
almost  shrivelled,  no  good  results  can  reasonably  be  expecied.  i  have 
before  me  a  list  containing  about  200  varieties,  and  to  anyone 
unacquainted  making  a  selection  the  task  becomes  a  difficult  one 
indeed. 
With  a  view  to  assisting  those  growers  who  have  not  much 
experience  with  Azaleas,  I  have  made  a  selection  which  will  be  found 
of  much  benefit  to  cultivators,  the  selections  being  so  that  the  whole 
or  a  portion  may  be  ordered  without  fear  of  clashing.  In  whites, 
Deutche  Perle,  the  earliest  white  ;  Pucille  de  Gand,  extra  fine  ;  Mdlle. 
Marie  Planchon,  semi-double,  snow  white ;  Bernard  Andreas  alba, 
strong  grower,  double  white,  fine  for  Eastertide  ;  Reine  du  Portugal, 
double  white,  fine;  and  Souvenir  de  Fran9oi8Vervaene,  white,  splendid 
forcer,  flowers  excellent  for  wreaths.  Good  striped  varieties  include 
Apollon,  large,  white  faint  pink  stripes  ;  Baron  de  Vriere,  snow  white, 
banded  poppy  red,  yellow  blotch  ;  an  I  Elise  Lieber,  whitish,  regularly 
striped  violet  with  greenish  veins.  I  find  the  best  rose  and  red 
coloured  are  Madame  Van  der  Cruyssen,  lively  rose,  crimson  blotch, 
fine,  one  of  the  best  for  forcing;  Memoire  de  Louis  Van  Houtte, 
enormous  flower,  brilliant  rose  with  bluish  reflex,  upper  divisions  deep 
carmine  blotched  ;  Phoebus,  a  peculiar  shade  bordering  on  orange 
vermilion  ;  Dr.  Moore,  lively  rose,  white  and  violet  reflex,  fine  ; 
Empereur  du  Bresil,  double  rose,  washed  and  striped  with  deep  rose 
and  white.  Ot  varieties  with  a  white  margin,  Vervaeneana,  very 
handsome  Souvenir  de  Prince  Albert,  double  rose,  edged  pure  white, 
an  old  variety,  but  one  of  the  best;  Tmperatrice  des  Indes,  salmon 
rose,  festooned  white  and  dark  carmine ;  Comte  de  Chambord,  salmon 
rose,  striped  and  bordered  pure  white  ;  President  Osw^ald  de  Kerchove, 
semi-double  pink  edged  white,  carmine  blotched  ;  and  Comte  de  Paris, 
single,  round  petalled  pink,  broad  white  edge  are  excellent. — R.  P.  R. 
- *  % - 
Gardening  in  Western  Canada. 
Dear  L  , — We  often  talked  about  gardening  when  we  were 
ill  London  together,  and  I  owe  many  pleasant  thoughts  to  your 
kindness  in  sending  me  seed  catalogues,  plants,  and  packets  of  seeds. 
Ihere  is  no  plant  you  can  find  in  a  catalogue  of  any  of  the  great 
English  seed-growers  that  would  not  do  as  well,  and  even  better,  in 
a  well-tended  state  in  British  Columbia  ;  but  it  is  so  difficult  to  get 
the  labour  required  that  it  is  absurd  to  say  that  a  British  Columbian 
garden  is  as  enjoyable  as  any  moderate-sized  garden  in  England.  I 
think  the  plan  of  those  who  love  flowers  should  be  to  select  vigorous, 
audacious,  and  self-asserting  flowers  that  will  resist  the  vigour  of  the 
weeds  which  are,  in  many  cases,  garden  flowers  in  England.  It  is 
true  that  here  “  many  a  garden  flower  grows  wild,”  though  never, 
from  the  time  of  the  Creation  here  a  garden  smiled  ;  ”  and  some  of 
these  weed  flowers  are  terrible  tusslers  for  their  rights  of  precedence. 
Lilies,  such  as  Turk’s  Caps  and  a  blue  Lily,  are  wild,  and  I  expect  in 
a  year  or  two  we  shall  have  the  Shirley  and  other  garden  Poppies 
wild  too.  There  are  no  wild  Poppies  yet.  Then  the  colour  you  can 
revel  in  in  any  London  park  in  August  can  only  be  obtained  in  a 
rough  way  with  Phloxes,  Poppies,  and  heaps  of  Iris,  which  do 
gloriousiy.  I  can  stroll  into  the  roughly  laid  out  flower  borders  of 
the  experimental  farm  here,  and  if  the  flowers  that  triumph  there  had 
the  advantage  of  a  setting  of  smooth  turf  and  neatly  rolled  gravel 
walks,  the  effect  would  be  sumptuous.  I  have  always,  like  you,  loved 
flowers  individually  for  themselves,  and  each  flower  has  an  association 
of  ideas  for  me.  I  have  seen  them  in  the  borders  of  many  old  gardens 
with  the  Cabbages  just  out  of  sight  and  the  Currants  and  Gooseberries 
as  a  background.  I  know  gardens  that  have  been  gardens  almost  as 
long  as  the  gnarled  Oaks  that  stand  by  their  gates  have  been  growing, 
and  know  the  smart  Italian  gardens  that  were  laid  out  when  I  was  a 
boy ;  but  you  cannot  vulgarise  the  old-fashioned  or  the  new-fashioned 
flowers,  or  the  Paigles  that  Chaucer  saw  growing  in  the  orchard  at 
Woodstock,  or  any  of  the  dear  things  that  marked  the  changing 
seasons  in  our  mothers’  gardens. 
I  am  trying  to  make  a  garden  on  a  bit  of  ground  that  was  really 
forest  primaeval  the  year  before  last.  The  huge  stumps  and  the  small 
roots  mean  work  and  fatigue  to  clear  away,  and  the  trees  we  have  left 
standing  from  the  forest  are  too  tall  to  be  very  useful  for  shade  ;  but 
it  is  better  to  have  these  than  none  at  all,  and  we  notice  that  they  are 
thickening  out  and  getting  more  shapely  now  that  they  are  left  sole 
possessors  of  the  light  and  air.  Maples  with  huge  leaves  (not  Sugar 
Maples),  Nuts,  Alders,  and  Birch  ;  one  fine  Birch  tree  was  cut  down 
before  I  came,  and  it  has  taken  horses  and  much  labour  to  move  the 
fine  trunk  from  the  garden  plot.  I  never  saw  such  large  Birch  trees. 
Then  I  have  left  all  the  clumps  of  stumps  and  wild  shrubs  of  flowering 
Raspberry  and  Elder  for  the  present  in  the  outer  verges  of  the  garden, 
and  with  a  huge  scoop  or  scrapper  with  harrows,  and  lastly  with 
rakes,  we  have  made  the  lawn.  For  the  present  I  have  cut  out  the 
beds  round  this  unevenly  shaped  enclosure,  and  I  sowed  the  grass  and 
filled  the  beds  with  the  annuals  you  sent  me,  and  with  others  bought 
at  the  village  store.  I  am  now  occupying  myself  “going”  violently 
for  weeds,  and  setting  the  collie  to  drive  out  the  hens  without  hurting 
them,  and  he  enjoys  the  chase  as  much  as  the  old  hens  like  the  lawn 
grass  seed.  I  have  some  Lilacs,  Laburnums,  and  some  other  English 
trees,  but  Laurels  and  Laurustinus  are  no  good,  for  once  or  twice  in  the 
winter  there  comes^  a  wind  down  the  valley  that  bites  the  very  life  out 
of  some  tender  evergreens.  The  small  Cedars  are  lovely,  and  make 
thick  edges  if  they  are  well  clipped.  In  due  season  all  over  the  farm 
we  can  find  these  seedling  Cedars,  and  if  transplanted  in  September,  or 
even  in  August,  they  will  make  a  good  show  the  next  year. 
You  would  be  delighted  with  the  bulbs  here.  Tulips  have  only  to 
be  left  from  year  to  year,  and  all  the  Hyacinths  flourish.  I  have  not  got 
my  first  Phi  x  or  Lilies,  but  when  I  do  will  enjoy  the  sight,  and  the 
colour  will  excel  the  wheel  window  of  Winchester  Abbey — I  mean 
the  north  wheel  when  the  sun  is  setting  at  midsummer.  Then  I 
ought  to  talk  to  you  about  Japanese  shrubs  and  Firs.  We  have  in 
British  Columbia  many  lovely  shrubs;  one,  the  Dogwood,  is  really 
grand.  I  have  seen  trees  50  feet  high  covered  from  the  ground  with 
large  white  single  Camellia-like  flowers  for  a  month ;  and  then  the 
Spiraea  are  beautiful,  and  some  of  the  tribes  have  been  so  brilliant 
with  huge  red  blossoms,  and  the  Berberis  when  fully  grown  is  a  fine 
flowering  shrub. 
But  the  Japanese  shrubs  do  grandly  here,  and  as  I  can  afford  them 
I  hope  to  have  a  garden  with  such  rare  things  as  the  Mikado  and  his 
Daimios  have.  It  is  not  fair  to  be  invidious,  as  any  of  the  large 
British  nurseries  can  send  every  kind  of  bulb,  root,  or  shrub ;  all 
that  is  wanted  is  the  ready  cash  to  pay  for  the  goods-carriage,  and 
I  must  add  the  duty,  for  the  Canadian  nurserymen  have  brought 
their  trade  to  very  nearly  as  good  a  state  as  that  of  England  by  hard 
work,  and  they  think  they  protect  their  interests  by  having  a  duty 
placed  on  all  British  nursery  stock.  You  know  I  am  nat  of  the 
same  opinion,  though  I  am  too  new  a  resident  to  be  sure.  The 
Canadian  catalogues  I  sent  you  show  that  they  run  the  British 
grower  pretty  close  ;  why  do  they  not  beat  him  in  quality  and 
price  ?  An  Hungarian  neighbour  of  mine  has  set  me  up  with  some 
dear  old-fashioned  herbaceous  flowers  and  Moss  Roses.  I  am  going 
to  get  lots  of  his  Phlox  and  Tulips,  and  the  hundred  things  that 
stand  out  all  the  year  at  home. 
I  ought  to  tell  you  about  the  far  more  important  matter — our 
kitchen  garden,  which  is  already  a  success.  Last  we  grew  the 
vegetables  just  where  we  could  find  a  patch  free  from  the  stumps, 
nettles,  and  other  flowering  wild  shrubs,  and  grand  were  the  Cabbages. 
Peas,  Beans,  and  Cauliflowers  we  had  till  December  15th,  when  a 
cold  snap  came  and  we  had  to  fall  back  on  our  store  of  Potatoes  and 
Carrots,  Beetroots,  &c. ;  but  now  behold  a  neatly  fenced  square  kitchen 
garden  without  a  stump  or  weed  in  it,  with  soil  like  that  our  old 
gardener  used  to  collect  from  under  those  old  trees  in  our  pasture  and 
mix  with  all  sorts  rich  “amendments”  from  cow  byre  and  stable. 
The  only  thing  this  new  garden  wants  is  lime  ;  nearly  all  the  seeds 
are  up,  and  the  Strawberry  bed  beats  the  one  at  G - .  I  have  no 
Asparagus  yet,  but  my  neighbour  has  three  fine  beds.  When  you 
come  we  will  refresh  you  with  Melons,  which  do  well  here  outdoors. 
I  mean  those  netted  Melons  that  we  had  to  give  2s.  6d.  for  in 
London.  I  have  rows  of  Raspberry  canes.  Blackberries  (American) ;  the 
Currants  and  Gooseberries  I  planted  too  late  to  be  of  any  use  this  year. 
Of  course  first  efforts  look  very  rough,  and  would  raise  a  large 
smile  on  the  face  of  any  old  English  gardener,  but  if  he  looks  again  in 
a  year  or  two  he  will  see  that  gardens  grow  better  and  faster  here  than 
they  do  in  England.  The  real  danger  here  is  lest  flowers  become 
weeds,  and  lest  vegetables  overgrow  themselves. — A.  H.  Outlook. 
