THE

FLORICULTURAL CABINET,

DECEMBER 1ST, 1846.

PART I.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

ARTICLE I.

GARDENIA FLORIDA; VAR. FORTUNIANA.

THERE has recently been introduced into this country several splendid additions to this beautiful and much esteemed genus, and the one now figured is a very valuable acquisition. It was discovered by Mr. Fortune, the London Horticultural Society's collector, in the north of China. The particulars relative to it, as inserted in the Journal of the Horticultural Society, are,

"It is a greenhouse shrub. The common single and double varieties of this plant are known to every one. That which is now noticed differs merely in the extraordinary size of the flowers, which are nearly four inches in diameter, and in having fine broad leaves, sometimes as much as six inches long. It is one of the very finest shrubs in cultivation, and ranks on a level with the double white Camellia, which it equals in the beauty of the flowers and leaves, and infinitely excels in its delicious odour."

VOL. XIV. No. 166.

2 A

ARTICLE II.

ON THE CULTURE OF THE CHRYSANTHEMUM INDICUM.

BY MR. WILLIAM CHITTY, STAMFORD HILL, NEAR LONDON.

THE cultivation of the Chrysanthemum is a subject upon which so much has been written, and well written too, that it may appear perfectly superfluous to add thereto, but as there are items of management in every cultivator's mode of managing this plant different to every other, and the kind of treatment I have adopted with them the last few years enabling me to produce nice neat and bushy plants, flowering in tolerable perfection, I am induced to send you the particulars for insertion in the FLORICULTURAL CABINET.

The latter end of March, or beginning of April, I select the strongest suckers from the old plants, and plant one in a 48-sized pot, using the richest soil, consisting of equal parts of loam, bog, wellrotted stable manure, and leaf mould. When I have put off as many as I have occasion for, I set them in a cold frame, and keep them close for a fortnight or three weeks, by which time most of them are well established in the pots. They are inured by degrees to the open air, they are then taken out and placed in an open situation until the pots are well filled with roots, which will be by the middle, or from that to the end of May; they are then shifted into the pots in which I intend them to flower, some into 24's, and some into 16's, according to the strength of the kinds, using the same kind of compost for them. I then plunge the pots up to their rims in a south border, about 2 feet 6 inches apart each way, which allows plenty of room for the plants to grow without drawing each other, and for performing the operations of tying, watering, &c., which they from time to time require. In this situation the pots soon become filled with roots, and protruding through the bottom of the pots the plants luxuriate with very great vigour. In order to keep the plants snug and bushy, continual attention to stopping is necessary, commencing with the plants when they are four or five inches high, and subsequently as often as they have made four or five joints till the middle of July, when I leave off stopping and let them run up for bloom. As soon as the flower buds are well formed, which with me is mostly about the last week, or last week but one, in September, I tie up the plants to neat sticks, and arrange them in the way I wish them to

flower. I have placed sticks around the sides of the pot, and so tied the shoots as to have flowers and foliage quite down to the rim of the pot; but though the plants so arranged have a very neat and pretty appearance, they do not flower either so abundantly or fine as when the stems are trained upright. By the middle of October most of the sorts are showing colour, when they are taken up, giving them a twist round to separate the roots that have protruded, and placed in the greenhouse. The late blooming sorts are left out another week or two, or until there is a danger of their being injured by frost. Although when taken out of the ground the largest portion of their roots are without the pot, they seem not to suffer the least check, but when placed in the greenhouse go on expanding their flowers as though they had never been disturbed. By the above mode of treatment the dwarf sorts grow from a foot and a half to two feet, and the taller sorts average about three feet six inches in height, well furnished with branches, and mostly clothed with foliage nearly to the rim of the pot, and exhibiting throughout November and the first half of December an assemblage of beauty not to be surpassed by any tribe of plants whatever. So much do I admire this tribe of plants, that I have often said if I must confine my attention solely to one class of plants, it should be the Chrysanthemum. And certainly in the varied forms, from the modest appearance of the tassel-flowered varieties to the bold fronts presented by Princess Maria, and similar flowers, and in the exquisite colouring, from the purest white to the richest purple and crimson, there is sufficient to command the admiration of every lover of flowers. Would it not contribute to the extended culture of these plants if greater encouragement was held out by the Horticultural Societies for their exhibition. They are most commonly exhibited as cut flowers, but if they were to be shown as Pelargoniums and Calceolarias; for instance, in pots 12 to the cast, or 24 to the cast, or what not, a sufficient number of competitors would be forthcoming to render a floral exhibition in November or December as interesting and attractive as at Midsummer. I hope the above remarks will be useful; if the process be practised I am confident the results will prove satisfactory.

ARTICLE III.

ON DISPOSING PLANTS IN MASSES.

BY AMICUS.

THE system of disposing plants in masses, so frequently and ably advocated in this Magazine, is becoming very general, and certainly produces a much better effect than the tedious monotony of an indiscriminate mixture. In the practice, however, of this superior method, it should be remembered that the groups and masses ought to be considered as parts of the whole, and as such, should harmonize and unite with each other, with regard to form and colour. Without attention to this point, the several disunited and independent parts will no more form a gardenesque landscape, than the colours arranged on the painter's palette will of themselves form a picture. I have known more than one small garden spoiled by a disregard of proportion, the shrubs and flowers being disposed in groups of far too large a size. In such a situation, a single plant, or a group of two or three, must be considered to bear the same proportion to the whole, as much larger masses or groups bear in the case of a park. Although I approve, as I have said above, of the principle of placing different species in groups and masses, I think that there are cases in which, like all other principles, it may be carried too far. In a small flower garden, which I very much admire, I have seen a group, composed of myrtles and China roses, planted alternately in quincunx order, the larger plants being in the centre; and in my opinion, a better effect was produced than if the two species had been in separate masses; the rich green colour of the myrtles' leaves, forming a ground to the beautiful white of the mingled colour, and the associations connected with both, made an impression upon me which I shall not easily forget. In the same garden there is a group consisting of an acacia, the broader and more shadowy plumes of the sumach, and the pendulous clusters of flowers of the laburnum, composing a little picture of the most highly finished character.

Gardeners might find much instruction by an examination of cottage gardens, in many of which I have seen a degree of good taste that is not always found where there is more reason to expect it. In such gardens, it often happens that very striking effects are produced by a judicious disposition of plants of the most common description,

and I think it would be a very useful study to endeavour to imitate them with plants of more rare and choice species. I was once much struck by a particular effect, (not, however, of sufficient general interest for a place in your Magazine,) produced by a plant of the common hop; and it was not until after many trials that I could find a substitute for it among more choice plants; at last, however, I succeeded to my own satisfaction by means of one of the genus Clematis ; the species I do not with certainty know.

In small gardens, nothing can be more unpleasing than a want of neatness and high finish; it reminds me of a flower-painter of the last century who used the most dingy and sombre colours that he could find, saying that he imitated Raphael, and painted for posterity. In the case of a small garden, it should be remembered that, whatever may be the beauty of the design, constant attention, and the frequent removal of plants are indispensable; three or four years of neglect would leave nothing, either to posterity or the designer himself, but a tangled and matted thicket of such plants as might come off conquerors in the struggle for life, incident to want of sufficient space.

ARTICLE IV.

REMARKS ON THE HOLLYHOCK.

BY CLERICUS.

THE Hollyhock is an old acquaintance in this country, and one of the noblest decorations of the flower garden, whether exhibiting its magnificence in the garden connected with the Royal Palace or seen in gradation downwards to that of the humble cottage. It has long been much admired by myself, and having travelled much through Great Britain, I have been increasingly delighted in my journeyings through the country villages and the environs of our towns and cities to notice the general admission of it to the gardens, and further to observe the rapid improvement now made in the increase of fine varieties of good form and decided colours of distinction. Such are the merits of the entire class of kinds, that I think they deserve to be much more recommended and cultivated. In the improvement in character of the flowers, I observe a class is progressing, having the outer, or guard petals, of a fleshy substance, that is more firm than the flimsy poppy like texture of others.