40 



GARDENING 



Oct. IS, 



other end. All manner ot plants are 

 grown in this greenhouse. But just now 

 I am in a (luandarj' about whether or no 



I should light a fire in the house or not. 

 Please tell me what to do?" 



It isn't a question of fiie or no fire so 

 much as of general attention to other 

 details. Rememberfrost au^t be kept out 

 at anv price, and if you must have a fire 

 to do'this, light it. ' In moderateh' mild 

 weather if you economize the sun heat in 

 the day time you won't need fire heat at 

 night. To begin with let the greenhouse 

 be perfectly tight, every pane of glass 

 whole, the ventilatorsand doorsshutting 

 close, and no open crevices anywhere. In 

 the morning let the sun warm up the 

 house a little, say to 60° before you give 

 any ventilation, and even then open the 

 ventilators only an inch or two at first, 

 and in half an hour or an hour a little 

 more, never ventilate full wide all at once. 

 Water your plants in the morning or fore- 

 noon, giving them plenty; and damp 

 down the house if the day is bright, 

 syringing any plants that need it, but 

 this should be done before 10 o'clock or 



II at latest. Early in the afternoon, sav 

 at 2 o'clock, partly shut down the venti- 

 lators, and by 3 o'clock shut them down 

 tight, the object being to catch and 

 retain considerable sun heat. No matter 

 if the house is a little warm, with no fire 

 heat, it will soon get cool enough, and 

 the sun heat is genial and healthful to the 

 plants. In the afternoon while vou should 

 water everv plant that is dry, be careful 

 not to spill a drop of wateron the plants, 

 benches or floor, let your aim be to keep 

 the atmosphere sweet and dry. So 

 treated, no fireheat will be needed in such 

 a greenhouse so long as the temperature 

 does not fall below 40° for most ordinary 

 jlants or 38° for many. If the ventila- 

 tors have been left open so late in the 

 afternoon that the inside temperature is 

 only 3° or 5° higher than that outside, 

 and the inside atmosphere is raw and 

 damp or the plants at all wet overhead, 

 then a little fire heac should do good. 

 But the heat from a coal stove is pretty 

 parching in a greenhouse; don't use any- 

 more of it than you can help and have the 

 house damped down well so that the 

 moisture from the damping may counter- 

 act the parching from the stove. 



from the Cape of Good Hope, and if 

 treated like freesias they can be grown 

 very nicely 



Lachenalia is a genus of bulbous 

 plants we don't do enough with. They 

 may be grown in pots or in suspended 

 wire baskets as we do achimenes. Get a 

 small wire basket— a small sized ox 

 muzzle — and line it with moss, fill in with 

 light rich soil and plant ten or a dozen 

 bulbs in it and so that they will not only 

 grow up from the top but also through 

 the sides of the basket. After potting 

 keep them in a cool, somewhat shady 

 place, but away from draughts, and 

 bring them indoors before sharp frost 

 comes. Nelsoni and Quadricolor are two 

 fine varieties. 



BULBS FOR WINTER FLOWERS. 



FKKESIAS. 



There arc two kinds, namely, /•'. re- 

 fructa alba, white, and F. Lekhtlini, yel- 

 lowish with orange blotch in throat. 

 The white one is the favorite, but both 

 are fine and there are selections of each. 

 Get them at once and pot them, the ma- 

 jority now, and some a month from now 

 for succession. Five or si.x-inch pots are 

 a good size for them. Use the same kind 

 of soil as for hyacinths; fill the pot a little 

 over half full o'f soil, then plant the bulbs, 

 7 to 9, or one or two more according to 

 size of bulb or pot in each, and fill up with 

 soil to within barely an inch of the brim. 

 Set the n out of doors on a bed of ashes 

 and where they will be safe from warm 

 sunshine. In a cold frame and shaded 

 with tilted-up shutters is a good place, 

 but the moment they begin to appear 

 above the ground the shutter must be 

 removed. We mustn't bury them over- 

 head with loam or ashes, for they soon 

 begin to grow and the burying would 

 spindle and weaken them at the neck, 

 our object must be to get them as stocky 

 as possible at the beginning. They are 

 hardier than paper white narcissus. 



IxiAS, SPARAXIS A.ND TRiTONiAS arc real 

 pretty and interesting bulbous jjlants 



Doubi.e-I'LOweredNastiktium -Please 

 let me send you a rooted cutting of the 

 only thing in my collection that I never 

 saw mentioned in Gardening — a double- 

 flowered nasturtium. I had three of 

 them. One I planted out in the ground 

 and let it run as it would, and one I 

 trained to a string, and neither blossomed. 

 The third one I put in a basket and let it 

 hang down, and it was full of blossoms 

 all summer. .■ tt o 



Woburn, Mass. 



'..H. 



Orchids. 



grown in the shade of other plants, as in 

 that case thev produce watery, immature 

 growths which are liable to damp ofl. 



The following orchids are in bloom at 

 present (Sept. 30) on this place: Cat- 

 tleya Howringeana, C. labiata, Dendro- 

 bium Phalwnopsis Schroderianum, D. 

 tormosum giganteum, Litlia Perrinii and 

 Phahenopsis Esmeralda. 



Wm. FlTZWILUAM. 



Baronald, Orange, N. J. 



The Fruit Garden. 



ORCflID NOTES. 



The work in the orchid house for the 

 next few months will consist chiefly in 

 attention to careful watering, sponging 

 the foliage and repotting or rebasketing 

 any plants that may need it; any that do 

 not need it should be gone over carefully 

 and as much of the old potting material 

 removed as possible without injuring the 

 roots, and replaced with clean peat fibre. 

 The best time lor repotting orchids is a 

 few weeks before their growing season 

 commences, but it can be safely done any- 

 time while they are dormant. In repot- 

 ting break the old pot so as to save all 

 the live roots possible. Cut away all 

 dead roots and remove all decayed pot- 

 ting material, and repot into as small 

 pots as you can conveniently do so. 

 Over-potting is one of the errors of 

 beginners, and it is a fatal one for this 

 reason: A large mass of potting material 

 will not dry out quicTily enough to keep 

 in a sweet condition, and consequently 

 the roots will decay. For m st species 

 the pots should be filled two-thirds with 

 broken pot sherds, and the crown of the 

 plant elevated an inch above the rim of 

 the pot. If baskets are used let them be 

 shallow, two inches deep is sufficient for 

 most species— certainly for cattleyas and 

 la;lias — they may be deeper for ierides 

 and vandas; but shallow baskets dry out 

 {|uicker than deep ones, and this is a 

 aesideratum. The potting material used 

 by orchid growers around here consists 

 of three-fourths clean peat-fibre, with the 

 earthy matter thoroughh' shaken out, 

 and one-fourth clean live sphagnum moss 

 mixed in. For vandas, aerides, phal<e- 

 nopsis, etc., no peat is used, simply live 

 sphagnum, broken bricks and nodules of 

 charcoal. 



Dendrobiums, cymbidiums, cypripe- 

 diums, and phaius require no shade till 

 about March 1; but direct sunrays must 

 be tempered for such plants as cattlcj'as, 

 laelias phala;nopsis and odontoglossums. 

 Where practicable a portable shading is 

 best. Orchids must have plenty of in- 

 direct light, and occasional sunbeams 

 will not iiurt anv. Thev must never be 



T«E FRUIT GARDEN. 



It is about time now that all the apples 

 and pears are picked; in fact we have got 

 to pick them to save them from falling. 

 See that the picked apples are in barrels 

 well ventilated at the sides, and kept dry 

 and cool, and that the barrels don't rest 

 on the bare ground. Before storingthem 

 by for the winter overhaul them again 

 and remove every bruised or broken fruit 

 or any showing a speck of decay. Get 

 them into the barn or cellar before a sharp 

 frost touches them. 



Wc have got to gather all our pears 

 now. Look over those gathered a week 

 or two ago and remove every fruit show- 

 ing a speck of decay or a bruise. If you 

 have some fine Anjou and other late pears 

 it will pay you to get a lot ol soft paper 

 and wrap up each perfect fruit by itself, 

 as we find oranges wrapped up, and store 

 these in shallow packing boxes or in 

 drawers in a cool cellar where the atmos- 

 phere isn't either musty or very draughty. 

 Peais now in use as Seckel, Sheldon, Belle 

 Lucrative, Bosc and the like require more 

 frequent overhau'ing than do later sorts. 

 As soon as you have cut the grapes 

 from your vines prune the canes all ready 

 for next year's bearing. If you leave 

 them exposed over winter there may be 

 no need of untying and taking them down 

 from their stakes or trellises; but if you 

 intend burying the canes over winter, 

 better unfasten them altogether at prun- 

 ing time. In pr-uning keep in the short 

 jointed stout canes that come from near 

 the base or main trunk of the vine, and 

 shorten them back to as many eyes as 

 are necessary to fill the space allotted to 

 them in summer. Endeavor to retain 

 healthy young canes with plump eyes 

 near their base, and avoid long slender 

 vines, for thfv soon go blind at base. 

 And replace the old wood with new as 

 much as practicable. Buryins; the vines 

 over winter, although not necessary in 

 the middle states, is a great safeguard, 

 especially in the case of Rogers's hybrids 

 and others having lender blood in them. 

 But November is soon enough to do it in. 

 Most of the tender hybrids have been 

 much troubled with mildew this year, but 

 those of the Concord type have been un- 

 usually fine. Niagara, while not the 

 sweetest of white grapes, has been the 

 most reliable; in health, crop, bunch and 

 berry it has been fine, and we are going 

 to plant more of it. If you have any 

 sorts that are of no use to you root them 

 out and replace them with sorts that 

 thrive andbeargood fruit in your garden. 

 Have all the sorts securely named so that 

 when you wish to layer a lot of them at 

 pruning time no mistake can be made. 

 We raise our young plants from layers, 

 and in this way get a big well rooted vine 

 in a year; simply take a stout cane and 

 elbow it into the ground, burying the 

 elbow three or four inches deep, and 

 enough to cover one or two joints; shorten 



