368 THE FLORIST. 



All around Norwich there are many amateurs who devote a con- 

 siderable portion of their time to the cultivation of flowers, and this is 

 one of the advantages of having a good local flower-show ; it stimulates 

 persons in the neighbourhood, they try accordingly to outvie one 

 another, and thus the cause of floriculture is prospered ; and so a little 

 village, which but for it would never have been heard of in the flori- 

 cultural world, becomes celebrated as the home of an able and 

 accomplished florist. 



Deal, November. D. 



CULTURE OP THE GARDENIA OR CAPE JASMINE. 

 There is scarcely a flower so universally in demand as what used to 

 be called the Cape Jasmine, but now named popularly in Covent 

 Garden Market as Floridas, or, botanically speaking, Gardenia 

 florida. Not only are its blooms of the purest white, but they are 

 also most deliciously fragrant, and just the right size and form to make 

 up into bouquets ; so that whether as a pot plant laden with its sweet 

 scented flowers, or for cutting, either for glasses or bouquets, it is a 

 general favourite ; add to this, when in good health and well grown, 

 its dark glossy foliage is no mean accompaniment to its snow-white 

 blossoms. But the plant, though by no means difficult to grow when 

 once its treatment is understood, is but rarely seen in health or well 

 bloomed. 



To attempt to grow either Gardenia florida, radicans, amoena, or 

 Fortuni as ordinary stove plants will end in failure ; they require, and 

 must have, special treatment to do them well. This special treatment 

 consists of a strong moist heat whilst they are growing and producing 

 blooms, which, if accompanied with bottom heat for their roots, and 

 plenty of ammoniacal vapour with the top heat, will grow them 

 vigorously. To be short with the matter, Gardenias prefer a dung pit 

 or pit with dung linings to an ordinary stove, and such being the case 

 I shall now describe my own practice in cultivating them. 



My pit is a common brick one, with a hot-water pipe running along 

 he back ; a dung lining heats the front, the steam from which is 

 admitted through the pigeon-holed walls. The plants are grown in 

 pots, and are potted in three parts peat, and the rest sandy loam. The 

 plants are plunged in a bed well filled with tree leaves, which afford 

 them warmth during the 'growing season. Supposing the plants to 

 have made their growth during the preceding season, and to have been 

 kept comparatively cool and dry through the winter, we begin forcing 

 in February by applying a lining of hot dung to the front, and allow 

 the pipes to get warm behind them ; this soon excites them into 

 growth, and causes the embryo buds which terminate each shoot to 

 swell and develope themselves, and by April or May the blsoms 

 commence opening, and continue for three or four months to produce 

 a regular succession. The earliest formed shoots, which generally 

 proceed from the axils of those leaves below the terminal buds, will 

 have formed flower buds, which will open in July, and by these means 



