112 



THE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



especially fond of delpViiniums and 

 phloxes. If you should liave occiision 

 again to replant your border, trench two 

 feet deep, digging in a good quantity of 

 rotten dung, and a large dresbing of 

 unslacked lime, and you will not be an- 

 noyed with such pests for some time to 

 come. To prevent the devastations of 

 aphides, paint every part of the tree, 

 stem and twigs, with strong tobacco- 

 water in January. In pruning your 

 roses cut off every dead snag, however 

 small, as it is in the pith of these .snags 

 the eggs of those giubs are deposited, 

 whicli hatching ju^t as the leaves are 

 developing, make such sad havoc among 

 the queen of flowers.] 



Double Primbose. — Have you ever seen 

 such a primrose, single or double, as the 

 one I incloseabloomof ? Ifouudtliepbnt 

 growing wild. As you may see, it is a 

 true crimson — different from the doub e 

 one usually sold as crimson, which is 

 really a deep fiery red. Can you inform 

 me how to set about getting a double 

 one from this ? I suppose all the dou- 

 bles have been produced in cultivation 

 from singles found wild like this. — A. B. 

 [The primrose is somewhat darker than 

 the generality of dark piimroses, and is 

 indeed a beauty. Some five or six years 

 since we recollect meeting with some 

 very dark ones in an embowered nook 

 at I5romley, near Guildford, but not of so 

 rich a maroon as inclosed seems to have 

 been. It is quite worth keeping, and if 

 any flower with six or more segments 

 to the corolla should be discovered, mark 

 such flowers, as they will be the most 

 likely to yield multiple or double flowers. 

 If more than one flower possessing the 

 above characteristics should be dis- 

 covered, resort to an interchange of 

 pollen between such flowers, and there 

 will be a still greater chance of double 

 flowers. By continuing to sow the seed 

 of any improved variety that may be 

 raised, you may probably in the course 

 of years succeed in raising a perfect 

 double flower. In ail processes of this 

 sort it is necessary to bear in mind the 

 adage : — 



" If at first you rlou't succeed. 

 Try, try, try again." 



Begonia Fuchsoides. — Subscriber.— It is 

 scarcely possible to succeed to satisfac- 

 tion with Begonia Fuchsoides in a green- 

 house. In an intermediate house it may 

 do pretty well, but we will just say how 

 we used to manage it years ago, and we 

 certainly never saw it so fine as we used 

 to have it. Cuttings were put in in 

 April, and grown on liberally all the 



summer in the stove, and kept them 

 moving all the next winter, and the fol- 

 lowing spring until June, when if they 

 had gone on well they were in twelve 

 pots, and tine pyramids six feet high, 

 well furnished with branches from the 

 pot upward. The first week in June 

 they were set in a corner where they 

 Avcre sheltered from the sun and wind 

 on the south and west by a nine foot 

 wall, and from the north and east by 

 a thick shrubbery. Here they remained 

 till the first week in August, when they 

 were set in the greenhouse with gloxi- 

 nias, achimenes, cockcombs, and other 

 things. In this situation they began to 

 show flower immediately, and before the 

 end of the month they were one mass 

 of bloom, and so remained until the be- 

 ginning or middle of October, when 

 they were thrown away, as others were 

 coniing on for the next season. Our 

 plants wei-e the admiration of every one 

 who saw them. We attributed their 

 abundant flowering to the partial rest 

 they obtained the two months they were 

 out of doors, and the sudden excitement 

 caused by being placed in a large, airy 

 greenhouse, under the grateful shade of 

 vines, which partially covered the roof. 

 We used to treat in the same way very 

 successfully several members of the 

 lovely genus ^schynanthus. 

 Khododendron Cihatum, etc. — Sub- 

 scriber. — We have had but one letter of 

 yours, that dated April 2. Khododen- 

 dron ciliatum is quite hardy, and will 

 grow freely and flower well in a peat- 

 bed in a north aspect, We have had 

 plants of it out six years in a north 

 aspect, and the winter of 1860 did it no 

 harm. It is now in bloom. Messrs. 

 Fraser, of Lea Bridge Road, have a fine 

 form of it called Rliododendron ciliatum 

 hybridum, the colour of dauricum, with 

 large blossoms, and blooms in February. 

 It will do in a room without a fire ; in 

 fact, it hates fire in room or greenhouse. 

 Give it plenty of water till it has formed 

 a close point at the end of every shoot, 

 then less 'and set it out of doors to har- 

 den. We did not get your letter of 

 March 9, so send another cutting of the 

 plant. 



CUOUMBEES IX A GREENHOUSE, ETC. I^ew 



Hand. — To grow cucumbers in a green- 

 house use a mixture of turfy loam, leaf- 

 mould, androtten dung,equal parts ; make 

 up a good bed and plant init. Train thea 

 plants a foot from the glass, and stop at 

 every joint above the fruit ; that is, 

 where yousee fruit rub off the point'of the 

 shoot, leaving only one leaf beyond the 



