One point practised here by the gardener, who was not brought up to the profession, though not new, is too much neglected. He always keeps a strong reserve of well-grown bushy wallflowers in loamy soil or in pots, and whenever any bed becomes naked in the autumn, he fills it with wallflowers, which, being evergreens, have a lively appearance through the winter; and if the bed is not wanted for other flowers, they make a fine show in April and May, till the beds can be filled with geraniums, verbenas, &c. Many gardeners profess to adopt this plan, but for want of time, or some other cause, neglect it. It ought to be adopted as a rule, that no flower-bed in front of a house should at any time be left naked. It is scarcely necessary to add, that the kinds of evergreens for covering beds in this way should not be confined to the wallflower and the stock, but should be extended to other evergreen herbaceous plants and low shrubs, such as pinks, sweetwilliams, saxifrages, creeping thyme, common thyme, rue, sage, rosemary, periwinkle, tutsan, heaths, box, rhododendron, and all similar plants that may be grown in No. 32 pots, or that, when planted in the common soil of the garden, may be taken up with abundance of fibrous roots, so as not to cause them to flag or check their growth. In some cases the plants may be grown in thin beds of rich loamy soil, bottomed with flagstone; in which case all the roots might be taken up by inserting the spade between the soil and the flagstone, and taking the plants up in masses, like turves, to be laid down where they are wanted. To grow the plants in pots, however, is perhaps the best mode for all those that have ramose roots, such as the wallflower, stock, &c., using the proper means to prevent the roots from growing far through the bottom of the pot, by giving the pot a twist round occasionally. For saxifrages, pinks, &c., the turf-transplanting mode is perhaps preferable. Where the trouble of keeping a reserve of plants cannot be taken, a reserve of turf ought to be maintained for the same purpose.
