[Illustration]
Few things in the garden will make more show throughout the entire
season, even after quite severe frosts, than a bed of Petunias from a
paper of seed marked "Choicest Mixed from Show Flowers." They will
produce such a profusion of flowers, charming one from day to day with
their variations of markings, and of color. Some retain their
distinctive characteristics, while with others they are changeful as the
Kaleidoscope. Stripes, blotches, sprays, white throats, green edges,
they are just lovely. Then there are the double sorts; purple with white
spots, white with purple; rose color, white, purplish-crimson margined
with white; lilac veined with purple; white with stripes of purple in
the center of each petal, some exquisitely fringed; large and full as a
rose, and some almost as sweet.
In nothing, perhaps, has there been such a wonderful improvement by
culture and hybridising as the Petunia. Mr. Vick tells us how that half
a century ago, he saw for the first time, a Petunia. It was a novelty--a
strange flower from a flowery land, South America, and it was carefully
treated in green-houses. The flower was white and small, and looked
somewhat as if made of paper--such a flower as would now be destroyed if
by chance seen growing accidentally in our gardens. The novelty soon
subsided, and although it was ascertained that it could be grown in
gardens, it did not possess sufficient merit to gain popular favor. A
little later, however, about 1831, to the astonishment of the floral
world, it was announced that a new Petunia, of a purple color, had been
discovered in Buenos Ayres. It was first flowered and seeded in the
Botanic Gardens of Glasgow, and thence seed was sent all over Europe and
to America, where it soon became a great favorite. About thirty years
ago a double Petunia was grown and propagated by cuttings. It was only
semi-double and white, but it was the commencement of a new era in
Petunia culture. Truly wonderful have been the advances in development
of this beautiful flower.
The Petunia is divided into three distinct classes, the Grandiflora,
Small Flowered and Double.
The Grandiflora varieties have a strong succulent growth, the flowers
are not so numerous as some others, but are very large and double,
frequently measuring three inches in diameter, and some kinds are
exquisitely marked with various shades of violet, purple, maroon and
scarlet upon white ground; some striped, others bordered, some marbled,
some deeply fringed. The double Petunia gives no seed, and it is only by
fertilizing single flowers with the pollen of the double that seed can
be obtained. But Petunias of all kinds are easily multiplied by
cuttings.
The Small Flowered class are those that make our gardens so attractive
with their varied hues and markings. Some of the new hybrids are of
wonderful beauty. Last year gave two of the Double and Fringed sort that
have been frequently noted as gems of the first water.
Mrs. Edward Roby, color, a glowing crimson-maroon, edged with pure
white, very double and deeply fringed. Model of Perfection, deep maroon,
heavily edged with white, and deeply fringed. These were priced last
year in a Western catalogue at $1.50 each; this year they are priced at
30 cents. So one gains by waiting a year for high-priced novelties.
New Double Fringed Petunia for 1881, is President Garfield, which
originated with Mr. C. E. Allen, and is thus described in his catalogue:
"Color, light purple veined with deep purple magenta, edged with a broad
band of an exquisite shade of green. Very novel in its appearance and a
new color in double petunias; flower very large and deeply fringed.
Plants strong and vigorous; one of the finest sorts ever offered." For a
Petunia so unique as this, with its broad band of green, and now offered
for the first time; its price, 75 cents, is low.
Pansies.
"Open your eyes, my Pansies sweet,
Open your eyes for me,
Driving away with face so true,
The chilling wind and wintry hue,
That lingers so drearily.
"Open your eyes, my Pansies sweet,
Open your eyes for me.
Where did you get that purple hue?
Did a cloudlet smile as you came through?
Did a little sunbeam bold
Kiss on your lips that tint of gold?
Tell me the mystery.
"In your eyes a story I read--
A story of constancy.
After the storms and winter's wind,
Softly you come with influence kind;
Then as I bend with listening ear,
Your cheerful voice I plainly hear,
Preaching a sermon to me.
"So, whisper to me, my Pansies sweet--
Tell me in rustlings low,
Of that beautiful land where fadeless flowers
Brightly bloom in immortal bowers,
And no blighting wind doth blow.
"Tell of the care that is over all--
That gives you your garments gay;
Whose loving hand clothes the floweret small
That grows in the field, or by the garden wall,
Whose life is only a day.
"Yes, tell of the love, my Pansies sweet,
Of the love that knows no end;
That through earth's winter safely keeps
Watch over his children, and never sleeps;
The love that paints the violet blue,
And quenches your thirst with drops of dew,
The weary heart's faithful friend."
A Talk About Pansies.
"Pray you love, remember,
There's Pansies--that's for thought."
_Shakespeare._
I find my Pansies are coming up finely. My bed of Pansies last year from
"choicest mixed seed" sown in April, began to bloom in June, and
afforded me so much pleasure with their varied beauty, that I resolved
this year to have a great many of them. I see, now that the snow has
melted from the bed, that the plants have wintered well. I had all of
the colors shown in the chromo plate of my catalogue, excepting _Emperor
William_, dark blue. I think that somebody else must have got him, for
my packet of seed was divided and sub-divided. _King of the Blacks_ was
rightly named, a mere dot of yellow in the center, and _Pure White_ was
in striking contrast, while _Pure Yellow_ was golden, and _Odier_ was
splendid with its dark center banded with yellow and scarlet. Then there
was copper-colored and striped, and such rich purples with a dot of
yellow. How lovely they were! They were not very large at first, but in
August after a rain, I had superb specimens. They were bedded beneath a
fruit tree, where they were sheltered from the noonday glare. They
thrive best in a moist, partially shaded situation. The blossoms ought
to be picked as they fade, for if left to seed the strength is taken
from the plants and the blossoms are smaller.
This season I have sown musical Pansies. "Musical Pansies! what are
they? What sort of music do they make? Will it be of the Brass Band
order, or that of the hand-organ style?"
No, no! Not that coarse, harsh, loud sort at all. If you could hear
their low, sweet notes, you would be enraptured. But this cannot be. I
call them musical, because named for the great composers, Mozart,
Handel, Schiller, Goethe, Beethoven, Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Schumann.
They are the "New German Pansies," of which types are given in oil
colors, in the catalogue of B. F. Bliss & Sons, and represent the most
beautiful strains I have ever seen. They are no fancy sketch, but drawn
as true to life in color and size as it was possible to make them, if we
will accept the testimony of Dr. Thurber in the _American
Agriculturist_. He says, that "no doubt many who have seen the colored
plate published by Messrs. B. F. Bliss & Sons, have supposed that the
artist had exercised his imagination both as to size and the strange
combinations of colors. So far from this being the case, the flowers
are, if anything, rather below the real size, and as to colors, it would
be impossible to conceive of any artificial colors more brilliant, or
more strongly contrasted, than they are in flowers, produced by this
remarkable strain of seeds."
In my childhood I knew nothing of the Pansy. The little Heartsease or
Ladies' Delight, as it was then called, was alone cultivated. Mr. Vick
tells us how it grew to be the fine flower now so highly prized. About
sixty years ago, a very young English lady living on the banks of the
Thames, had a little flower garden of her own, and one bed she filled
with Pansies, selecting from her father's grounds the finest she could
obtain. The gardener, seeing her interest and success, became ambitious
to try his hand, and grew plants from the finest specimens. These
attracted the attention of professional florists, and speedily the Pansy
became a popular flower. Every country gives it a pet name--Heartsease,
Fringed Violet, Trinity Flower, Butterfly flower, and Johnny-jump-up,
while the French call it _Pensée_, from which our name of Pansy is
probably derived. It means to remember or keep in mind. A floral work
published in 1732, illustrates it with a colored plate, which shows it
to have been then small like the Ladies' Delight.