i8g5. 



• • GARDENING. 



277 



A GROUP OP BEGONIAS IN SCHENLEY PARK. PITTSBURGH. 



not a ■!! one. EUiild si les oflumbcr, have 

 i-.vprcss saglibars, 14x24-incli double 

 thiek American glass, and hand the ven- 

 tilators at ridge, using rod, rope and 

 pulley for opening them. The posts may 

 be red or white cedar, locust or chestnut, 

 the siding of hemlock lined with building 

 ))aper, and novelty siding on the outside. 

 The plates should be of pine. The front 

 and back benches may be 2V2 feet wide, 

 path on each side 2 feet or 2 feet 3 inches 

 wide, and center bench 6Vi or 7 feet wide. 

 If this is too wide for you for middle bench 

 reduce it by increasing the width of the 

 side benches. Pine is better than hemlock 

 or spruce for the benches; but well sea- 

 soned barn boards will do very well. 

 Have stout cross bars under the benches, 

 and every 3 to 4- feet apart, and let the 

 boards be plank thickness," four inches 

 higher than the side ones. Instead of get- 

 ting the sashbars cut out at the planing 

 mill besides you, send to some one of the 

 firms who make a specialty of cypress 

 sash bars etc. for greenhouses— several of 

 them advertise in Gardening — for what 

 you want. Give them the correct width, 

 height, and size of the house you intend 

 to build, and they can ship you the lum- 

 ber for it all cut and moulded to fit pre- 

 cisely. You can put it together yourself. 

 ."Vbout heating: A small hot water heater 

 is the best and safest. Oil stoves are onh' 

 provisional; the coal stove and string of 

 sheet iron pipes are dangerous because of 

 gas, and for roses an uncongenial dry 

 heat. Or you could build a flue of glazed 

 pipe to run up one side and down the 

 other inside the greenhouse. Have a look 

 through some commercial florist's place 

 in your neighborhood, an object lesson 

 will serve you better than many words. 

 Then look into Gardening, page 273, 

 May 1, 1894; the illustrated article there 

 styled "A Little Greenhouse" was drawn 

 and written by one of our foremost horti- 

 cultural engineers, it will help you. If 

 you want a cheap house make it plain 

 but substantial, ramshackle, poorly built 

 greenhouses are generally the most expen- 

 sive within a few years. 



BEGONIAS. 



adornment begonias arc admirably 

 adapted There are between 300 and 

 400 species of the genus, and a large num- 

 ber of them are in cultivation in our gar- 

 dens. In their wild state they abound 

 throughout the moist warm regions ot 



Central and South America, and the West 

 Indies, and several deciduous tuberous 

 rooted species extend pretty well up the 

 Andes, they also are plentiful in the East 

 Indies, the Indian Archipelago, and north- 

 ward into China and Japan. No species 

 is reliably hardj- with us, but B. Evansi- 

 ana, from China and Japan, often lives 

 out of doors in our gardens over winter, 

 especially in a warm sheltered spot and 

 under a mulching. 



The begonias in common cultivation in 

 our gardens may be divided into four 

 groups, namely the showy leaved ones 

 such as Rex, the bushy, fine flowered ones 

 as "rubra," and insignis; the tuberous 

 rooted ones, of which innumerable single 

 and double flowered forms are now ob- 

 tained from seed, and the non-tuberous 

 summer bedding sorts of which semper- 

 fJorens and its darker form Vernon are 

 good examples. The accompanying illus- 

 tration (from the Botanical Guide to the 

 Phipps Conservatories in this Park) is 

 engraved from a photograph of a group 

 of mixed begonias on a bench in one of 

 the greenhouses The plants are all young, 

 a year old or less. The broad solid leaves 

 belong to the Rex group, which is prized 

 for its fine, fleshy, handsomely colored, 

 glistening foliage more than for its blos- 

 soms. Some of the large incised leaves as 

 shown at the right hand end of the pict- 

 ure are of the new race of Rex begonias. 

 Among those we esteem most are Flora 

 Hill, Comtesse Louise Erdody. Baron 

 Rothschild, Indiana, Louis Closson, 

 Louise Chretien, and Madame Treyve. 



Among the bestof the shrubby begonias 

 are rubra, red; nitida, rose; odorata, 

 white, insignis, pink; Paul Bruant, pink; 

 fucbsioides, scarlet, etc. Some begonias 

 are valued both for their flowers and hand- 

 some foliage, for instance the indispensa- 

 ble B. wanicata and its variegated leaved 

 sort aurea. In midwinterit never fails to 

 blossom. 



The tuberous rooted begonias are a 

 much abused race. As pot plants in sum- 

 mer and early fall they are fine, but as 

 bedding plants, except where special 

 treatment has been provided for them 

 they have proven a total failure with us. 

 On the other hand the begonia known as 

 Vernon is excellent for outdoor bedding. 

 It is easily raised from seed or cuttings, 

 and from the moment the plants are .-m 

 inch or two high, as long as they live 

 they are in bloom continuously. But I 

 mustn't forget to mention B. scnipcr- 



tlorens v;ir. gigantea rosea, a bold plant, 

 and excellent for all purposes. 



All begonias like a free, porous soil, 

 firstrate drainage, plenty moisture at the 

 root and in the air when in active growth, 

 but very little hosing overhead, and most 

 all of them like shade from warm sun- 

 shine. A. W. Bennett. 

 Supt. of Parks. 



Pittsburg, Pa., May 20, 1895. 



THE OREENtiOUSE. 



Have everything as neat and clean as 

 possible— the benches cleaned, the walls 

 washed clean and the flower pots 

 scrubbed. Then re-arrange the plants so 

 as to give them plenty room to grow 

 sturdily and show themselves ofi"to good 

 advantage. Many plants, as azaleas, 

 camellias, acacias, genistas, streptosolen, 

 eupatorium and the like are much' better 

 outside during summer than kept in the 

 greenhouse, and removing them gives a 

 good deal of extra room; spread out the 

 palms, ferns, screw pines, marantas, dra- 

 Cccnas and other plants kept indoors so 

 as to get the benefit of this room. 



Very few plants will stand the full glare 

 of the sun in the greenhouse in summer; a 

 thin shading should be applied to the 

 glass. Kerosene with a little white lead 

 in it makes a good shade; applj' it with a 

 whitewash brush. 



Be very particular about watering the 

 plants, look over them twice a day, in 

 the morning and afternoon. Don't let 

 them get so dry as to wilt before giving 

 them water, and give enough at a time 

 to completely moisten the earth. Giving 

 only enough to wet the ball half through 

 is poor work. In watering fill the pot 

 full to the brim, and if the plant is a 

 wilted one as'soon as the water sinks in 

 fill up the pot again. But don't water 

 wet plants. If the water stays in the pot 

 without sinking in readily turn the plant 

 out of the pot and see that the hole in 

 the bottom is free and the drainage good. 

 If you notice a lot of worm-casts on the 

 top of the soil better turn the plant out 

 of its pot and pick out the worms, for 

 they clog up the drainage and -sour the 

 soil. In fine weather the plants should 

 be hosed or syringed every day, say in 

 the morning and afternoon. In hosing 

 direct the water so as to spray the plants 

 on the under side of the leaves as well as 

 overhead, this keeps them clean from 

 insects. But 4iose them early enough so 

 thai they may get dry before nightfall. 



