December 1, 18G3. ] JOTIENAIj OF HORTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAKDENEE. 



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may suffice to keep them alive, to give them none at all will 

 most surely result in their death. 



Mr. Fish speaks of taking up Geraniums out of the borders, 

 picking-off the leaves, and packing them together in boxes, 

 pots, &c., or ia a cold pit, expecting to keeji them for use 

 another season ; but these will have such attention as is 

 necessary, and by planting-out time next year they will 

 doubtless be healthy plants. This, however, is recommended 

 as a resoiu'ce when the supply of plants from cuttings is too 

 limited. Those who have opportunities of taking sufficient 

 cuttings in July or August will have no occasion to preserve 

 the old plants, and though a pang of regret may be felt at 

 the idea of consigning a lot of plants to the rubbish-heap, 

 still it is in most instances merely doing now what will have 

 to be done in the course of the winter. 



I have kept large quantities of plants in various make- 

 shift ways, and with an amount of trouble and labour that 

 nothing but a decided interest in the matter could induce 

 one to undertake voluntarily. Sometimes my efforts have 

 been followed with the much-wished-for success, and not 

 unfi-equently with grievous disappointment after taking and 

 striking cuttings by the thousand in July and August, fill- 

 ing cold pits and frames with them in November, and then 

 having to throw great numbers of them away in March. I 

 have tried the practice of taking up Geraniums out of the 

 beds, and storing them away in a cellar ; but I cannot say 

 that the result has been at all satisfactory. Others, how- 

 ever, may have been more successful, and I by no means 

 dispute tie possibility of doing so successfully. 



Those who can winter their bedding stock in suitable 

 glass structui-es will have no difficulty to contend with 

 greater than the want of space. But where it has to be 

 done in unheated structures the difficulty, as is well known 

 to those who have made the attempt, will be very much 

 increased, not only on account of more time being required, 

 but because there will be two great enemies to contend with, 

 where, in a heated structure, there will be only one. Frost 

 must be kept out by shutting and covering up, but doing 

 so at the same time encourages damp and mildew, which 

 are only dissipated by opening and uncovering, so that two 

 forces are exerted in opposite directions. It will be seen, 

 then, what constant attention is necessaiy. I have come 

 to the conclusion that the best of all unheated structiu-es 

 for wintering plants are common wooden ft-ames, such as are 

 used round London. These are about 20 inches high at 

 back, 12 in fi-ont, 6 feet from back to front, and the lights 

 about 3 feet 6 inches wide. These frames ai-e made of one, 

 two, or three lights each, the lights being easily managed. 

 In these I would place 6 inches thick of sifted coal ashes, 

 this material, in my opinion, making the best flooring to 

 stand the pots upon ; and round the outside I would bank- 

 up at least a foot of rotten dung, earth of any sort that 

 will hold together, or any kind of stuff that will make a 

 good thick barrier to keep out frost. This, I consider, aftbrds 

 greater resistance to severe frosts than a nine-inch brick 

 wall; four-inch or four-and-a-half-inch walls will want in- 

 creasing in thickness in the same manner, and if built 

 shallow, probably answer as well as frames, only they have 

 not the portability of the latter. I have generally used 

 manure to bank round the frames, as it is a good plan of 

 helping to rot and air the manure for potting purposes, 

 while it is usefully applied. In frames prepared in this 

 manner bedding stock can be wintered mth as little trouble 

 as can be expected in unheated structures, and there is no 

 fear of excitmg the plants into growth before that may be 

 done with safety, which is seldom earlier than April. 



I have often found that where gardeners have practised 

 wintering their bedding stock in frames, they keep the 

 covering on the glass so long as fi'ost continues ; then when 

 the covering is removed the plants are found in a half- 

 rotting condition. Now, this practice is the most difficult 

 to understand, and yet it is the one most likely to concern 

 the safety of the plants. I have wintered Geraniums, Ver- 

 benas, and such bedding stock in wooden frames and bi'ick 

 pits without any auxiliary heat, and always made a practice 

 of pulling the litter off daily, even in the midst of frost and 

 snow, and found that the advantage of doing so more than 

 counterbalanced the danger of the plants being fr-osted : in 

 fact, it is well known that a few degrees of frost will not 

 hurt such plants if they are dry, when the same amount of 



frost will injure them considerably when they are damp. If 

 the fi'ost reaches the plants when they have been closely 

 covered for any length of time, the chances are that it will 

 make sad havoc amongst them. This, of course, then, is the 

 real gist of the matter. It is aU very well to tell any person 

 inexperienced in such matters that if he only possesses a 

 garden-fr.ime he can certainly winter a few plants in it ; but 

 this is only telling part of the story ; a constant and daily 

 attention is necessai-y, and more depends on the care and 

 tact of the manager than on the frames. 



If these notes are found viseful it will be chiefly among 

 the owners of small suburban gardens, to whom it yearly 

 becomes a serious consideration as to how they are to pre- 

 vent the apparent waste and loss of then- bedding plants. 

 I fancy it would amuse some of our gardening friends to 

 hear of some of the shifts which I have seen adopted in such 

 cases, and almost always with a like result — that is, the loss 

 of the plants some time or other during the winter, and this, 

 in neai-ly every case, because the jJans adopted were based 

 simply on the wishes or convenience of the owner without 

 regard to the nature or wants of the plants. 



The term " wintering plants " convej's something more 

 than merely keeping them beyond the reach of frost. What 

 I have said with regard to doing so in pits and fr'ames 

 applies to struck cuttings, to plants established in pots, and 

 to plants taken uji out of the ground and potted in Septem- 

 ber or early in October. But it will be seen that Mr. Fish 

 talks of taking up plants even as late as November, picking 

 off the leaves, and packing them together in pots or boxes, 

 or on the bottom of a cold pit ; but the experienced gardener, 

 whose daily and yearly practice it is to attend to such matters, 

 is in a very different position with regard to the treatment 

 of plants as compared with the amateur', who handles only 

 a few dozen plants in the coiu'se of the year, and those only 

 during an horn- of relaxation from more serious and im- 

 portant business. In the latter case the constant and daily 

 attention to frames and pits is scarcely desirable, to say 

 nothing of the work attached to them being none of the 

 cleanest. It follows, then, that a better and cleaner method 

 of wintering plants is greatly to be desired ; and happily it 

 is within the reach of everybody, and is pretty well known ; 

 it is to keep them in windows. I should be very sorry to 

 deceive people by simply repeating the various ways and 

 means of keeping plants that have found their way into 

 print, and which are eagerly caught at by small growers, 

 and pvit into practice as far as is possible with a certainty 

 of failiu-e. Common sense must tell any one that living 

 plants are not to be buried in the earth or hung up in the 

 air by their roots for seven months of the year, and then to 

 be put in the ground to grow and floiuish to the great 

 delight of the cultivator. There must be forethought and 

 a little work ; those, however, who really have a partiality 

 for flowers wOl accept these conditions as a matter of course ; 

 but then there are many who profess to have a partiality 

 for flowers whose true motive in having them is merely 

 because it is customary, who complain of the trouble they 

 give, and eagerly seize any makeshift plan of disposing of 

 them, which promises to preserve them and dispense with 

 the trouble of constant v.'atching, which the more rational 

 com-se entails. 



After all that has been said, those who do not possess a 

 greenhouse or other heated structure wOl find the best and 

 cleanest method of keeping a few plants is to keep them in 

 their windows. Follow the advice of Mr. D. Thomson : 

 Take some six or eight-inch pots, drain them, and fill with 

 good porous SOU ; take good strong cuttings in July, remove 

 the lower leaves, and insert as thickly as convenient round 

 the pot; place them in the full sun if Geraniums; if Verbenas, 

 Cupheas, Tropseolums, or other such bedding plants, place 

 in the shade, and cover with a hand or bell-glass ; if Calceo- 

 larias, wait tm Octobe*' and act in the same manner. Leave 

 aU out in the open air as late as can be done with safety ; 

 then remove them to the wiodow where they can be placed 

 on shelves, which can be supported by placing strong hooks 

 in the window-frame, and slinging the shelves on wire or 

 blind-cord. There the young plants should be watched, 

 and kept as nearly cb'y all the winter as can be done with- 

 out allowing them to slirivel up. Earlier in the season Mr. 

 Thomson gave some du-ections for striking cuttings which 

 it is scarcely necessary to repeat, but, as he truly says, six 



