192 THE GARDENER. [April 1870. 



known raiser and cultivator of variegated Zonal Tricolor Pelargoniums, and he 

 writes as follows in reply thereto : " Lucy Grieve is one of the strongest and 

 rankest growers we have among the Tricolors. A strong cutting, rooted any time 

 between March and July, should in the following May be a plant 2 feet in 

 height, with foliage-leaves 3 to 4 inches across. It should be planted from the 

 cutting-pot at once into an 8-inch pot, well drained, and filled with rough pieces 

 of light sandy turf, giving full allowance of light, air, and moisture ; the same 

 treatment suits the whole tribe. Stimulating with manure I find wholly unne- 

 cessary. To grow a healthy plant well is easy, but to cure a sick plant is another 

 matter, and is seldom worth the trouble. For the information of your corres- 

 pondent, I give the following as my practice, and I never fail : — Wait till tJicre 

 is an appearance of growth, and consequent root-action, remove the plant from 

 its pit, and place it in a pail of water. Keeping the roots under water, manipu- 

 late them till wholly free from soil ; rinse the whole plant in clear watei', and dip 

 the roots while wet in dry silver-sand. The roots will, on being shaken well, 

 disentangle themselves, and each fibre will have a coating of sand adhering to it. 

 Re-pot in as small a pot as possible, using light sandy loam ; sprinkle the 

 foliage, but do not water till after a few days, and with a very gentle 

 bottom heat the plant will, in a very short space of time ; fill the pot with new 

 roots : then re-pot. If your correspondent will disbulb a young growing plant, 

 keeping it to one leading shoot till well established, he will soon alter his opinion 

 as to the ' shy growing ' of Lucy Grieve." 



An Aberdonian. — Your greenhouse that you have converted into a vinery 

 being circular, it will be expensive to heat it with hot-water pipes, and we don't 

 think an Arnott's stove, as you propose, will answer your purpose. In your cir- 

 cumstances, we recommend a well-built brick flue on arches, so that the roots of 

 the vines may pass freely under it. 



L. A., a Constant Reader. — Your Marechal Niel Rose seems to be growing 

 too strong to bloom well. Remove some of the rich soil, and replace it by 

 poorer, in which there is mixed some old lime-rubbish, and we think it will bloom 

 with you. Do not prune it too close. 



W. A., Chester. — You may burn the soil of your garden by getting any brush- 

 wood you can conveniently, and putting it together like a cone, with a vent at 

 the top ; then set fire to it, and pile your soil all round it. In this way you may 

 burn a good deal of it, and especially the stiffest of the clay. With regard to your 

 right to exhibit as an amateux-, while at the same time you sell a portion of the 

 plants and fruit you grow, we think you stand in the same position in that respect 

 as gardeners do whose employers sell a portion of the produce of their gardens. 

 They are not thereby disqualified from exhibiting as gardeners, and classed with 

 market-gardeners or nurserymen ; neither should you be, if you do not advertise 

 or issue printed circulars. 



Propagating Clematis bicolor (Amateur). — This is easily propagated by 

 grafting one-year-old wood on to the roots of Clematis flammula (the sweet-scented 

 kind). The plants should be potted as soon as grafted, and the pots plunged in a 

 gentle bottom-heat, in a glass case, in a stove or propagating-house. Clematises 

 can be sometimes struck from cuttings, taking the young wood with a heel to it, 

 and striking the cuttings in the mode adopted in propagating the Verbena from 

 cuttings. They can also be grown from layers in pots, but it generally takes a 

 year to root them. We suppose our correspondent has Clematis florida bicolor. 

 Has he the glorious C. Jackmannii ? If not, he should obtain it. 



