July 21, 1863. ] 



JOUENAL OF HOETICULTUHE AND COTTAGE GAKDENEE. 



il 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



JULY 21— 27, 1863. 



Sun's declin. 20° 32' u. 



Carrot fluwer>. 



Corn Parfley flowers. 



Virgin's Bower flowers. 



St. jAMts. De. CaMB. bom, 1797. 



8 SUKDAT AFTER TkIMTT. 



Water Dropwcrt flowers. 



Average Temperature 

 near London. 



Rain in 

 iast 



36 years. 



Day. 

 73.2 

 73.5 

 74.2 

 72.5 

 73.7 

 73.1 

 74.5 



Night. 



61.0 

 51.6 

 53.0 

 53.2 

 50.0 

 51.1 

 52.2 



Mean. 

 62.1 



62.7 

 63.6 

 62.3 

 61 .B 

 62.1 

 63.3 



Days. 

 16 

 20 

 18 

 13 

 10 

 18 

 17 



Sun 

 Rises. 



m. b. 

 9 4 



Sun 

 Sets. 



m. h. 

 3af8 



2 8 

 1 8 



Til. 



58 7 

 67 7 

 55 7 



Moon 

 Rises. 



m. h. 

 16al0 



26 11 



36 



49 1 



3 3 



IS 4 



17 5 



Moon 

 Sets. 



m. b. 

 41 af 9 

 10 

 27 10 

 57 10 

 37 11 

 morn. 

 2.5 



A8«^- Sun. ^^'"■■ 



6 

 7 

 ? 

 9 

 10 

 11 

 12 



203 

 204 

 205 



2oe, 



207 

 208 



From observations taken near London during the last Ihiny-six years, the average day temperature of the week is 73.5°, and its Light 

 temperature 51.6°. The greatest heat was 92», on the 25'.h, 1S44 ; and the lowest cold, 34°, on the 25th, 1860. The greatest fail of ram 

 was 1.37 inch. 



CENTAHREA EAGFSUSTA AND ITS 

 PEOPAGATION. 



EVERAL years ago I 

 ventured to bring this 

 loTely plant under the 

 special notice of all who 

 were interested in flow- 

 er-gardening, as a sub- 

 ject which was every 

 way likely to be of 

 great value in combi- 

 nation with the far-too- 

 limited collection of 

 plants which are gene- 

 rally considered avail- 

 able under the present 

 fashionable style of 

 flower-gardening. 

 The high opinion which I formed of this Centaurea 

 whenever I saw a well-grown plant of it has not been in 

 the least altered, but, on the contrary, has been more 

 than warranted by the beantifiil effects which have been 

 produced by its extensive cultivation in several flower 

 gardens, as well as by its general cultivation in pots for 

 all the various methods of decoration which are popular 

 at the present time ; but it unfortunately happens to be 

 a plant with which the trade has not been very successful 

 in getting up a stock equal to the demand which has 

 arisen for it. 



I think it was Mr. Eobson who recently refei-red to it 

 as a plant which was likely to be much more thought of 

 and extensively used as soon as its adaptability became 

 better known ; and the wonder is that it has not before 

 now been brought more prominently before the public, 

 and popularised bj' the great schools in such matters 

 around London, where I was surprised to meet with so 

 little of it last summer. It is considered, and has been 

 found even by some of the shai'pest of the trade in such 

 matters, a difficult subject to increase rapidly ; and in 

 instances which have come under my own ken some 

 nursery propagators have failed with great batches of 

 cuttings ; and partly on this account I have heard it 

 several times remarked, that any one who could have 

 offered a large stock might have made "a good thing" 

 of it. I have never found any difficulty in striking this 

 plant under ordinary circumstances ; and I will briefly 

 detail the mode adopted, and refer to the way in which 

 it has been used in the flower garden here. Let it be 

 supposed that a few plants in pots are all the stock in 

 possession at this time. If strong stubby plants in six- 

 inch pots, they are. shifted and placed in the open air in 

 the fuU sun. By the time when plants are generally 

 housed in autumn they will have formed fine, large, bushy 

 plants ; and although this Centaurea is almost if not 

 quite hardy, it should not be left out beyond the 1st of 

 October, because, if subjected to drenching rains, its soft 

 wooUy foliage is apt to damp-off at the centres of the 

 plants. To keep it in the best possible condition to 

 No. 121.— Vol. V., New Series. 



afford fine fresh cuttings in spring, it requires to be kept 

 OH a dry airy shelf, and to be very sparingly supplied 

 with water — just sufficient to keep it from drooping is 

 quite enough, for it is a plant very apt to damp-off 

 in winter if kept damp and crowded among other plants. 

 In spring they are found with a quantity of cuttings 

 studded all round the bottom part of the plants ; and if 

 these cuttings are short and without a bit of clear stem 

 about a couple of inches in length, the plants are put 

 into heat, and there the cuttings soon elongate, and are 

 cut off with a sharp knife almost close to the main stem 

 of the plant. They are prepared in the usual manner 

 and dibbed into eight -inch pots, which are very carefully 

 di-ained and filled with silver sand. The pots are plunged 

 to the rim in a pit where Verbenas and other bedding 

 plants are struck. They are watered just sufficiently 

 often to keep them from drooping, and the foliage kept 

 as dry as possible. They root in about twenty days ; 

 and as soon as they fonn roots about an inch in length 

 they are potted-off into three-inch pots. 



1 have always observed that they never thrive well if 

 left any length of time in a strong beat and in pure sand 

 before being potted-off. They are by no means particular 

 as to soil : half loam half leaf mould does very well. As 

 soon as they make roots to the bottom of the three-inch 

 pots they are transferred into six-inch ones and placed 

 in a cool frame or house, and by the end of April they 

 are fine strong plants ready for planting out. The fii*t 

 week in March is quite early enough to take the first 

 batch of cuttings ; and soon after the first lot are taken 

 from round the lower part of the parent plants, the second 

 lot will be ready for striking. Those cuttings with the 

 longest and most firm stems invariably strike the soonest, 

 and a far less per-centage of them damp off in the cut- 

 ting-frame than in the case of those that are short and 

 softer in the stem. 



It is a very rapid-growing plant, and cuttings may be 

 struck as late as the end of April for the purpose of being 

 planted in the open ground. Later-struck cuttings form 

 beautiful little plants in six-inch pots for dinner-table 

 decoration, as weU as for vases and general decoration. 



There is another method which I have adopted with 

 less success — namely, to put in cuttings in autumn, and 

 place them in pans and boxes in a dry, cool, airy house : 

 in this way a gi-eat many wUl callus through the winter, 

 and with a gentle bottom heat in spring will root freely, 

 This is just as is often practised with late-put-in cuttings 

 of Scarlet Geraniums, and meets with very nearly the 

 same success. I prefer spring propagation, it being more 

 certain, and the trouble and care entailed are less than 

 by adopting the other mode. I have never found autumn 

 cuttings put into bottom heat immediately do much good, 

 but on the cool system the majority of the cuttings do 

 very well. 



To keep up a stock I think it much the best way to 

 keep a few plants aU the summer in pots— they come in 

 usefijl for many other purposes, and to take cuttings from 

 the planted-out plants sadly mars their appearance, while, 

 on the other hand, to lift the old plants is a laborious 

 No. 773.— Vol. XXX., Old Seeies. 



