1879.] DECORATIVE GREENHOUSE PLANTS. 25a 



NOTES ON DECORATIVE GREENHOUSE PLANTS. 



BOTJVARDIAS. 



Considering the usefulness of the Bouvardias as autumn- and winter- 

 flowering plants, and especially when cut flowers are much in demand, 

 they are not so generally nor so extensively grown as their merits de- 

 serve. Even in many places where they are grown, they are not cared 

 for so well as they might be : indeed, one seldom sees what may be 

 called a well-grown plant, the general run of them being long and 

 leggy, with a tuft of leaves, and perhaps a small half-developed truss of 

 flowers, at the top. Now, considering how easy the cultivation of these 

 plants is, with a very small modicum of care they may be grown so that 

 they will be an ornament to the greenhouse instead of being the reverse, 

 and they will then amply repay the cultivator for the little extra care 

 bestowed on them. 



When there are a few old plants, they should be pruned back much 

 in the way we do Fuchsias, and put into heat early in February, to 

 get cuttings from. A vinery at work suits them well. When the 

 young shoots are long enough to make cuttings — that is, when they 

 have made three or four pairs of leaves — they may be taken off, and 

 struck in the usual way, say in 6-inch pots. The pots should be filled 

 with crocks to one third of their depth, and then a layer of ordinary 

 soil, merely to form a bed for the silver-sand, which should be about one 

 inch in depth. Insert the cuttings, press them pretty firmly into the 

 sand, water through a fine-rosed pot, and plunge the pots up to the rim 

 in a hotbed or other place where a brisk bottom-heat is maintained. 

 They must be shaded from bright sun, and get an occasional dewing 

 from a syringe in the evenings of hot days. They will have formed 

 roots in about three weeks, when they may be potted off either singly 

 in small pots or three plants in a 4-inch pot, using good fibry loam 

 and leaf-mould in equal proportions, and a fourth part of silver or river 

 sand. They should then be returned to the hotbed, or put into a 

 warm pit, and kept rather close, and shaded for a few days, until they 

 begin to root into the fresh soil. The temperature may range about 

 60° at night, with a corresponding rise by day. A slight dewing from 

 the syringe on the evenings of bright days will very much refresh 

 them. In the course of a few weeks they will want a shift into larger 

 pots, — those in the small pots into 4-inch, and those in the 4-inch into 

 6-inch. They do not care for large shifts. A little peat-soil mixed 

 with the other is an advantage to them, but not absolutely essential. 

 They should be kept well pinched while young, so as to make nice 

 bushy plants. In potting, the soil should be pressed firmly about 

 them, as they are fine-rooting plants, and do not like a loose damp soil. 

 In large pots especially, care is required in watering not to give it 

 oftener than needed, and then in sufficient quantity to wet the whole 

 soil in the pot. 



