128 THE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



manure, and in this soil plant the marrows. If the plants have been much exposed 

 previously, and the weather is mild, they will want no further care. But if the 

 plants are rather delicate, or if the weather changes to cold, put empty flower-pots 

 over them every night, or better still, keep hand-glasses over them night and day 

 until they are so much advanced as to be capable of bearing full exposure. Vege- 

 table marrows may be grown on a much more simple plan. Sow the seeds two 

 together in the open ground, six feet apart every way, and take no more notice of 

 them. In due time gather the fruit. The careful way is tlie best, and pays 

 well ; in fact, there is nothing that pays better for good culture than the vegetable 

 marrow. 



Zonal Pelargoniums as Annuals. — C. C. — Sow the seed immediately in a 

 mixture of equal parts loam and leaf-mould, using large shallow pans. Put 

 these pans in a stove or propagating house, or on a flue. When the plants have 

 three or four leaves each, pot them singly in thumb pots. When these pots are full 

 of roots, shift to GO size ; when these are full of roots, shift to 48 size, and in these 

 let them flower. Keep them all under glass, and very close to the glass until the 

 flowers appear. 



Shaded Hedge. — Anxions One. — If the hedge is not used for a boundary, the 

 best way to deal with it would be to destroy the greater portion, only leaving such 

 patches as will harmonize with the general plan of the garden. Then plant the 

 bare places with clumps of holly, box, and aucuba, so as to give to the line of the 

 hedge the character of an irregular plantation, with here and there some bold clumps 

 in advance of the general line. Berberis repens will make a good foreground sub- 

 ject, as it does well under trees. Before the planting is done, the ground must be 

 deeply trenched, every particle of weedy and rooty material be thrown out and 

 burnt, and the ashes spread over the soil. Then put on a heavy dressing of rotten 

 dung, and dig it over again, and plant. Add to former notes on creepers for south 

 sides, Clematis vitalba, C. flammula, Aristolochia sipho, and Ayrshire Koses. 



Culture of Hydrangeas. — Karry. — We grow a great number of Hydrangeas 

 in the same way as Fuchsia coccinea, and such things out of doors. We plant in 

 deep loam on a shady border, and give abundance of water all the summer. In 

 autumn they are cut over close, and mulched with leaves to protect from frost. In 

 spring they throw up strong shoots, and flower as freely as a Monkshood or a Dielytra. 

 The shoots require a little thinning, to give shape to the plant and strength to the 

 bloom. For pot culture. Hydrangeas may be struck at any time ; and nothing 

 roots with more certainty if young side-shoots are taken and put in sand, with a 

 little bottom-heat. Old ripe shoots wiU strike in the open air, but take longer. 

 The best soil is one-third rotten dung, one-third leaf-mould, and one-third strong 

 loam ; the pots to be well drained, and the plants to have plenty of water. Weak 

 manure-water promotes the formation of fine heads of bloom ; cuttings struck in 

 summer, and grown in a greenhouse, and stopped in the autumn, will flower early 

 the next season ; and there is no plant more certain to bloom freely, if the wood 

 is well ripened in the autumn. For bedding-plants, the shoots containing bloom- 

 buds may be taken ofl", and struck with a moist bottom-heat, and then bedded out 

 to bloom ; they manage them this way at the Crystal Palace. When in active 

 growth, it is almost impossible to give too much water. 



Green-Fly. — Alpha. — To fumigate yoiir small pit take a 24 sized pot, 

 and fit within it a piece of old tile, such as is used for covering smoke flues, or, 

 better still, a piece of iron one inch thick and three inches over. Get a quarter of a 

 pound of strong shfig tobacco, and soak it in a strong solution of saltpetre, and 

 when quite dry, make the tile or iron red-hot, drop it into the pot, place the tobacco 

 on it, and shut the pit close, so that none of the smoke can escape. Leave it so all 

 night, and in the morning syringe the plants. A week after repeat the process if 

 it appears to be necessary, and you will be free of fly for months afterwards. Two 

 smokings are better than one, because there is usually a second crop of fly pro- 

 duced by such as escaped the first smoking. 



