346 THE GARDENER. [Aug. 



NOTES ON DECORATIVE GREENHOUSE PLANTS. 



The Cyclamen. 

 What a treasure we have in the Cyclamen as a spring-flowering 

 plant ! The handsome form of its flowers, the variety of its colours, 

 the beauty of its foliage, and its free flowering, as well as the endur- 

 ing quality of its flowers, combine to render it one of the most useful 

 spring greenhouse plants we possess. As a house plant, it is in great 

 request, and its flowers continue fresh a long time when gathered. 

 It is a very easy plant to manage, and though we very often see it 

 with long straggling leaves and flowers, this is the result of improper 

 treatment. Formerly it used to be the custom, in growing Cycla- 

 mens, to ripen them by withholding water from them nearly if not 

 altogether : this was called " drying them off," and then they were 

 laid away on their sides, under some greenhouse stage or other out- 

 of-the-way place, until the time for starting them came round again. 

 A better and more common-sense system now generally prevails, how- 

 ever, and the plants are benefited accordingly. 



Under the old system, we have seen the corms grown to an im- 

 mense size : at one place in particular we recollect noticing a great many 

 that measured from 6 up to 10 inches in diameter, the larger size 

 being grown in 11 and 12 inch pots. They produced an immense 

 quantity of flowers, but generally small, and not well formed. A 

 great improvement has taken place in the varieties, as well as in the 

 mode of cultivation, some of the newer kinds beiDg exceedingly 

 beautiful. Such good kinds can now be raised from seed, that most 

 growers raise a few in this way annually, and with them replace the 

 older plants, which are now seldom kept longer than three or four 

 years at most. They are about at their best when three years old. 

 Good seed can be had from most of our seedsmen, though some of 

 them make this and kindred subjects a speciality. 



Having procured good seed, sow in February, in a well-drained 

 pan, and in a mixture consisting chiefly of leaf-mould and sand : 

 cover with a piece of glass until the young plants appear, when the 

 glass must be removed, and light admitted freely. From their 

 earliest stage they should be placed in the light and near the glass. 

 When the young seedlings have made two leaves, pot them off singly 

 into small pots, using the same mixture, with a little good loam 

 added. It will be an advantage, in regard to moisture, to plunge 

 the pots in a box of sawdust, or something like that, and kept in a 

 growing temperature of about 60°. When they have rooted nicely in 

 these pots, they may get a shift into 4-inch pots, using richer soil, 

 made so by the admixture of well-rotted cow-dung or bone-meal. 



