180 



THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



year after next, and then 'will be strong 

 plants. Strawberries to fruit in pots next 

 year ought by this time to be strong, and 

 in need of a tbifc. The soil should be 

 strong loam, well chopped over with 

 rotten dung, and the plants to be potted 

 firm. 



Okchakd House. — Potted Trees must 

 have every necessary attention now to 

 complete their growth and ripen their 

 wood. No more pinching, and the pruning 

 of useless growths to be deferred till the 

 sap is down. Peaches and nectarines to 

 be put in a position where they will be 

 roasted with sun-heat, as near a hot wall 

 or fence. The lights of the peach-house 

 should be off for a month at least, and any 

 training neglected, to be done at once, that 

 the wood may ripen perfectly. 



Vinery. — Vines for early forcing 

 should now be thoroughly cleaned up, and 

 if possible the lights removed to harden 

 the wood ; any way, all ventilators should 

 be open night and day. Vines ripening 

 crops to be kept rather dry, and with a 

 free circulation of air. Vines in pots to 

 be ripened off, and the pots laid on their 

 sides, to check the growth and put the 

 roots to rest. 



Flower Garden.— Bedding Flants to 

 be propagated without delay for next 

 year. To save trouble, both now and 

 during winter, select a few strong plants 

 of verbenas, tropnsolums, petunias, and 

 lobelias, and pot them in large pots, 

 with one-third of drainage in the pots, 

 and shut them up in a frame and keep 

 shaded for a week ; then let them be 

 exposed to all weathers till the probability 

 of frost requires them to be housed. Keep 

 these to fii ce for cuttings next spring, so 

 as to be free of the necessity of propagating 

 any of them now. The whole stock of 

 geraniums and calceolarias for next year's 

 bedding should be struck this season — 

 geraniums at once in the open ground, 

 without shade ; calceolarias in a moist 

 shady pit. Save seed of Cineraria rnari- 

 tiraa, if you want anything new in the way 

 of silver edging*. Cerastium may be left 

 out all winter, so no need to propagate th?.t 

 now. If thought desinible to propagate 

 verbenas now, in order to have an early 

 bloom next year, take the points of grow- 

 ing shoots about three inches in length, 

 and strike in pans of sand, and from these 

 shift — not into pots — but into shallow 

 boxes of any convenient form and size, in 

 which they will winter better, and occasion 

 less trouble in watering, etc., etc. 



Carnations, Picotees, and Pinks to be pro- 

 pagated largely now from 1 ayers and pipings, 

 both easy and certain methods. We con- 



fess that we prefer to take cuttings about 

 half a dozen joints long, remove only as 

 many leaves as will leave a clear stem to 

 fix them in cutting pans filled with half 

 loam and half sand, and put bell-glasses 

 over. By this method the plants may be 

 cut as freely as verbenas after the bloom is 

 over, and in three or four weeks the cut- 

 tings are all well rooted. Pinks already 

 rooted to be planted out. 



Chrysanthemums require special atten- 

 tion now ; pompones to be topped for the 

 last time ; large flowering kinds not to be 

 stopped any more, all to have sticks and 

 ties if needful ; and plants intended for 

 exhibition to have the surface mould re- 

 moved from the pots, and a mulch of sheep 

 or deer's dung, or fat half-rotten dung from 

 a cucumber bed. For decorating the house 

 late in the year a few pompones may yet 

 bo struck as cuttings, but they must be 

 shifted on in pots, for if turned out at this 

 late period there will be no certainty of a 

 bloom. 



Dahlias want a heavy mulch after the 

 ground has been lightly forked. This is 

 said to harbour vermin, but practically its 

 few disadvantages are balanced by the 

 superior health of the plants and the beauty 

 of the flowers, and the labour of watering 

 is got rid of. As for earwigs they always 

 go upwards, and may be trapped with 

 certainty. 



Evergreen Shrubs may now bo moved 

 with a better chance of success, whether 

 they be large or small : aucubas, laurels, 

 Portugal laurels, lauristinus, arbor vitas, 

 etc., have all done growing; their wood is 

 hard, and if lifted now will make fresh 

 roots while the surface soil is in the best 

 condition of warmth and moisture of any 

 period of the year. Where new gardens 

 are being laid out, the gain of three months 

 upon the ordinary planting season is no 

 small matter, as it enables the planter to 

 get the chief operations finished at a time 

 when the men enjoy the work, and the 

 proprietor is enabled also to enjoy the 

 result, and all to the advantage of the 

 plants. Layers and cuttings of hardy shrubs 

 put down now, and left till April or May, 

 may then be removed, and planted in 

 nursery rows with good roots. 



Geraniums should be propagated at once 

 by cuttings put in the open ground in a 

 sunny place, or singly in thumb pots in 

 frame or on a moist bed in a bouse facing 

 south. If this work is postponed, the 

 plants will be more difficult to keep through 

 the winter. If quantity is an object, every 

 two joints, one joint in and one out, will 

 make a good plant ; but one joint will do 

 very well of any variety it is necessary to 



