THE FLORAL WOELD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



87 



Nosegay GsEAKirM — SPEBcrLA — Gazaitia.— 

 J. R. — The geranium is one of the nosegay 

 section of upright growth, and will bloom freely 

 anywhere, and the poorer and drier the soil 

 the better. The individual flowers are meagre, 

 but the trusses are showy and produce a tine 

 effect. Gazania spleudens comes sufficiently 

 ti'ue from seed for all practical purposes, though 

 in a mass there will be a few rarying from the 

 type ; but it will not flower liberally the first 

 season. Plants from autumn cuttings begin to 

 flower early in the summer, and keep on bloom- 

 ing prodigiously till November, aud that, there- 

 fore, is the best mode of propagating. The best 

 way to use seed is to sow in May, to get bloom 

 sufficient to determine the character, to destroy 

 any that are not true, and to cut up the good 

 ones for the next year's stock. Legally, any 

 structure placed on the surface of the soil may 

 be removed by the tenant, but anything inserted 

 in the soil may not be taken away, not even a 

 favourite rose or a yard of box-edging. Pracfi- 

 cqlly, such thiugs are removed, and landlords 

 make no complaint. _ The human family does 

 not wholly consist of splitters of legal hairs and 

 exactors of the last dime. Our Spergula pilifera 

 was very lean and yellow after the frost for 

 about three weeks. During the frost, it appeared 

 unhurt ; it is now acquiring its i^roper lively 

 verdure. Try Spergula saginoides; we have 

 our doubts ii' Sagina will make a lawn plant, 

 that point we hope to determine this season. 

 You are mistaken iu supposing scarlet gera- 

 niums unfit for Loudon gardens. All the good 

 ones — Tom Thumb, Punch, Queen, Cerise, 

 Commander, etc. — do well if rightly managed. 

 Covr.RiNG A PoKCH. — C S. H. — The quickest, 

 safest, and cheapest covering would be Virginian 

 creeper. A little less quick would be semper- 

 virens roses, very beautiful, fast growing and 

 abundant bloomers, one only to each pillar. 

 These would require plenty of vrater, and the 

 ground heavily manured before planting, as the 

 chalky substratum will try them. Less quick 

 than the last, but in such a hot place very 

 suitable, eeanothus papillosus, which would 

 require some good turf chopped over with rotten 

 cow-dung. Hederaregneriana, a grand ivy with 

 huge leaves, would run up quick, and be rich 

 and shady. Clematis cocrulea would rejoice in 

 that hot, dry, chalky bottom, and go to the top 

 of the pillars at a rapid pace. Be content 

 with only one kind of plant, have no mixtures. 

 Tou are in time now to plant any of them 

 from pots. 

 Salvia GEsrEEiEFLOEA. — C. J. JP.— This should 

 be showing its bloom spikes now, and should, 

 therefore, not be shifted, but give it plenty of 

 liquid manure, or put a spoonfvd of genuine 

 Peruvian guano on the surface of the mould 

 every three days and wash it in with water. If 

 not now showing bloom it may be shifted, aud 

 you will have to wait for bloom till nest season. 

 Shorten the shoots of Jusiicia carnea major to 

 five or six inches in length, shake it out and repot 

 in rich compost, plunge in bottom-heat, shift 

 again as the plant advances, syringe frequently, 

 and by the middle of July it should be a hand- 

 some specimen, with from fifteen to twenty line 

 heads of bloom. The tops now cut off"ifi>lacedin 

 bottom-heat — say, a cucumber frame at work — 

 would soon make fine young plants. Gaillar- 

 dia, heli'tiopes, lobelias, and gazanias will all 

 bloom this season if sown immediately, and 

 pushed on in heat, but you ought to have set 

 them to work on the 1st of February. The 

 Linum we have always advised to sow where it 

 is to bloom, and to give it no artificial heat at 

 all. Campanula pyramidalis is a biennial. 

 Tacsonia ignea will not flower the first season; 

 it is a more eff'ective plant than pinnati stipula. 

 Acacias.— 7F. R, If.— There is no difficulty in 



growing any number of gi-eeuhouse acacias, but 

 the best way to deal with them is to plant them 

 out in conservatory borders, in a mixture o£ 

 good turfy peat, leaf-mould, and loam, and let 

 them grow almost as they like. You then have 

 the natural grace that belongs to them. Cut- 

 tings of young shoots, taken off' with a heel, 

 strike readily under hand-lights in sandy peat 

 during the summer, and should be grown on iu 

 pots till large enough to turn out. They may 

 also be propagated from pieces of the large roots. 

 The greenhouse kinds require a temperature 

 averaging iO^ all winter — it should never be low- 

 er than 35° — and at the turn of the season, when 

 they begin to push lor bloom, moie heat and 

 moisture. The most useful kinds are to be had 

 at all respectable nurseries. You willfind notes 

 on acacias at pages 143 and 281i of our second 

 volume, and at page 160 of our third volume. 

 The following are the best for amateurs : — 

 affinis, amcena, armata, dealbata, decurrens, 

 dolabriformis, emarginata, floribuuda, gr.andis, 

 juuiperina,rotuudifolia, lophantha,andtasifolia, 



PrcHSiAS NEWLY POTTED. — Df. N., Cork. — You 

 can only make them grow faster by means of 

 warmth and moisture. They want a splash 

 overhead every day now, and plenty of water at 

 the root. It is astonishing how much fuchsias 

 will drink up, and they will not grow well unless 

 their heads are often moistened. Use the 

 syringe morning and evening, or evening only if 

 j-ou are pinched for time, and let the water be 

 tepid. The salts you propose to use must be in 

 weak solutions. Strijo off' your coarse turf and 

 stack it up to use as compost ; make a smooth 

 surface, and sow at once the best lawn mixture, 

 and your turf will be good by the middle of 

 July. Had you sown at the end of February 

 we should have promised a good sward by mid- 

 summer. Leave it to the seedsman to choose 

 the sorts, but tell him the measurement of the 

 surface to be covered, and if the soil is in any 

 way peculiar say so. Sow thick ; rake aud roll, 

 and leave the rest to ZSature. For four years in 

 succession we stripped a large lawn and sowed 

 afresh iu March, and always had a beautiful 

 turf by the 1st of July, though, of course, the 

 surface was green a few weeks alter sowing. 



Feejjs — Mandevilleas. — G.B.M. — The fern sent 

 is Cyrtomium falcatum, and the same is sent, 

 we presume from the same writer, with the 

 initials II. B. G. The frond first sent is from 

 a seedling plant, it will produce spores when 

 about nine inches high. A frond two feet in 

 length, full of fructification is a most beautiful 

 object. — Pembroke. — The fern is Lastraea spinu- 

 losa. The treatment of Mandevilleas is most 

 simple. Now is the i-ight moment to prune them 

 back to a jjair of plump eyes, and encourage 

 growth by heat and moisture. If in a pot, 

 shake out the old soil, and repot in equal parts 

 peat, loam, and leaf-mould or very rotten dung. 

 Plunge in bottom-heat, attend to training and 

 good growth, and bloom will be the result. We 

 imagine you fail through insufficiency of heat, 

 or through starving the plants. 



0EANGKSAND'PoMEGRANATES.—<S'i(Jscrt5<?i'.— These 



fail in private gardens more through being starved 

 than through want of heat. The soil in the pots 

 and boxes is allowed to get sour and eflete, 

 whereas it should be renewed every year by the 

 removal of some of the old stuff round the sides, 

 as deep as can be without injury to t'ne roots. 

 The new soil should be Imnps of turfy-loam and 

 cakes of the cow-manure rammed in hard, and 

 during the few h ,t months Hquid manure should 

 be given once a-week. By thus insuring free 

 summer growth, bloom and fruit will result in 

 their season. They may be wintered at an ave- 

 rage temperature of 40', nay, we bave;kept them 

 in cool houses without fire-heat, except to just 

 keep froot out, giving them a steady rise of tem- 



