442 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ Jane IB, 1868 



over the bed or row. Never let Salvia patens come up with a 

 centre stuui ; pinch this olT close to the bottom, and half a dozen 

 Ehoots will spring np instead of one. This is better than thick 

 planting. Some people treat Hollyhocks in the same way, and 

 by that means obtain preat masses of late-flowering shoots. 

 Chrysanthemums which have been planted out and are now 

 growing tall may have their branches regularly pegged-out, so 

 as to have the tips turned up preparatory to their being layered 

 towards the eud of next month. Continue to prick out seedling 

 Auriculas in pans or bo-^es, shading them from the sun. Poly- 

 anthuses may be parted now iu showery weather, renewiug 

 the bed with decayed cow manure and leaf soil. The general 

 coUeotion of Tulips may now be taken up, provided the foliage 

 has assumed a yellow hue ; shako the soil from the roots, but 

 do not yet remove the fibres or cuter skin from the bulbs. 

 Place them in their respective compartments in boxes, and 

 wrap them in very thin paper. The late dron;:ht has been 

 seriously against the Ranunculuses ; any of which the foliage 

 has begun to decay must bo immediately taken up, or rainy 

 weather will cause them to start again to their almost certain 

 destrnction. In sunny weather dust any of the flowers 

 which it may be desired to seed with the pollen of the best- 

 formed semi-double flowers that can be obtained. Follow the 

 directions given last week as to Carnations, pinching off the 

 laterals, disbudding, tying, keeping free from aphis if possible, 

 &e. Put in pipings, marking each lot of cuttings, so that 

 when the layers from which they are taken bloom, if they 

 should chance to be " run," or full of colour, the pipings from 

 such foul flowers may be destroyed. 



GEEENHOnSE AND COXSEr.VATORT. 



Common Pelargoniums are now being struck from cntlings 

 in the open ground round London, in multitudes. The old 

 plants might also bo shaken out of their pots ; and planted iu 

 the open ground, to be taken up early in the autumn, so as to 

 have them well established in the pots before winter, they 

 would make excellent plants for forcing next spring. The mid- 

 summer cuttings will make strong plants by next October, and 

 if they are well encouraged early in the spring, they will make 

 beautiful flowering plants by this time next year. All the best 

 varieties of the Chinese Primrose should now be divided and 

 planted out in a shady situation, in very rotten leaf mould, to 

 be taken up next September for winter flowering. Seedlings 

 of them should also be planted out now in spare pits, well 

 shaded, there to remain till they all flower, when the inferior 

 sorts may be thrown away. All the best specimen plants are 

 still to be kept in-doors in the greenhouse, but the paths are 

 flooded over every evening to keep the plants in a moist at- 

 mosphere, and when a portion of the hardier stove plants are 

 introduced among them, the doors and ventilators had better 

 be shut up late in the evening. All the coarser plants being 

 now removed out of doors, more attention must be paid to the 

 watering of the more delicate plants which are kept in-doors 

 throughout the season ; train out and stake them till you have 

 them handsome in shape. 



STOVE. 



This is about the best time to perform any necessary repairs, 

 painting, &a., as the greater portion of the plants may be safely 

 removed into other houses; indeed, all plant houses ought to 

 have a slight coat of paint annually. Any moveable sashes 

 may be done from the ontside, by turning them on purpose. 

 The lights of pits or frames at work may he painted at any 

 time in dry weather, by turning them in the same way. Many 

 of the Boftwooded stove plants flower best while they are young, 

 and about the end of June is a good time to propagate these 

 for flowering next season. Plants iu this house have their 

 young wood so well hardened that they may have air largely 

 every day. There is hardly a week till the beginning of August 

 in which some plants will not want a shift into a larger pot. 

 riTS. 



Prepare to malie in these useful structures, a large planta- 

 tion of choice and dwarf young plants turned out of their 

 pots for two or three month's, in suitable composts. One who 

 has not seen the good effects of this plan can hardly conceive 

 the improvement it makes in the plants, particularly on 

 Heaths, Epacrises, and other delicate plants which are diflicult 

 to manage in dry, hot seasons under the ordinary pot culture. 

 It is advisable to syringe all plants here in the afternoon, and 

 to leave the lights off at night where the hardier plants are, 

 and only put them on about breakfast time. Most pot plants 

 lequire to be somewhat screened from the sun out of doors for 

 a few weeks, till the nights become a little longer, when the 

 dewB will, in a great measure, counteract the effects of strong 



sun. For growing a stock of young plants in summer no struc- 

 tures are so good or economical as pits properly constructed. 

 Place the pots on a bed of sifted coal ashes, and if clean moss 

 free from slugs can be procured, it is an excellent plan to place 

 a thin layer of it between the pots. After it is well damped 

 you have a source of constant moisture, which, passing ap 

 among the foliage, is very beneficial to all plants in Bummer, 

 and they require less shading when they are thus managed. — 

 W. Keane. 



DOINGS OF THE LAST WEEK. 



riTCUEN CABIIEN. 



Fkoh want of rain, I'cas and some other crops are suffering, 

 but less than might be expected in the scorching heat. With 

 Peas and young Cauliflower plants our chief means of counter- 

 acting drought was niiilc'iiini with grass and dry litter. In 

 some cases, as with young Turnips, we shook dry litter thinly 

 over the foliage to arrest the evaporation, and yet allow enough 

 of light to pass to keep all healthy. A heavy shower would 

 place the most of this sprinkling away out of sight close to the 

 ground. Our strong Celery would have been planted out long 

 ago but for the drought and the scarcity of water, as it is 

 easier to water it when it stands thickly than when planted 

 out in beds or rows. Lettuces wa have sprinkled overhead 

 thinly with clean litter to keep the moisture of the earth from 

 so freely escaping, and gave a little water when it could not be 

 avoided. In sowing Turnips, Lettuces, Radishes, itc, we have 

 watered the rows after the drills were drawn, sown the seeds, 

 covered them with the drier earth, and then covered all over 

 with litter or mats until the seedlings appear. This plan is in 

 many respects better than watering the ground on the surface, 

 saves much watering, and secures moisture for the roots for a 

 considerable time, even if the surface soil should become dry. 

 If that surface be kept loose this watering the drills before 

 sowing often saves all watering afterwards. Peas are generally 

 treated in this way, and when well drenched they do all the 

 better in such scorching weather if the surface soil is compose<J 

 of dry earth rather flue and loose, which acts like a mat or other 

 covering in preventing the moisture from so freely escaping. 

 We never had first and second crops of Cauliflowers better. 

 but they were mulched well with short dung, and then with 

 dry litter wrought up as far as possible among their stems and 

 on the grouud immediately contiguous, so that the moisture 

 that was evaporated was chiefly that which transpired from 

 their large leaves. Potatoes are doing well. 



Ti'ofcr and ]','atrriini. — Such seasons as this show clearly the 

 impropriety of having large gardens in positions where little 

 or no water can be depended on, except that which falls directly 

 from the clouds, and must be secured in ponds and tanks. 

 In all such cases, to keep plants at all near the mark, extra 

 cure and watchfulness and much extra labour are demanded. 

 With all our care to lessen the necessity of watering, the 

 indispensable watering is a heavy item of labour, as all the 

 water must be wheeled in water barrels, and often brought 

 from a distance in a horse-and-cart large barrel. In the latter 

 case, to make the most of the horse, much labour must be 

 employed to empty the barrel quickly, and in such a case water 

 must often be applied at anything but the best time for water- 

 ing, as the nearer the evening it is now applied the greater will 

 be the effect of the watering, whether under glass or in the open 

 air. We have watered in the open air during a scorching snn, 

 merely to keep plants from suffering; but if even dry earth 

 was placed over the moist, the water too quickly found its way 

 into the atmosphere without the plants deriving the benefit 

 which they would have done if they could have absorbed it 

 quickly after the snn was getting low. 



By means of piping in connection with a pump and pond 

 we hope to lessen Ihe labour of carrying and wheeling, but 

 even then we shfili be far behind those places where the water- 

 ing chiefly consist.-, in fixing a hose to a tap and so taking the 

 water to' where it is wanted. This, without great espense, 

 cannot be done on the highest ground in the neighbourhood 

 unless there is a stream in the valley, from which water may 

 be sent by means of a water ram constantly at work. Id all 

 new gardens of any extent the water supply should form a 

 subject of primary consideration. In these days of economy 

 people are apt to compare the expense of one garden with that 

 of another something similar in size, but they are rery apt 

 to overlook the great difference in labour when few and many 

 crops are grown in winter, or when a house is appropriated to 

 one purpose or to many pnrpoBeg, there being in the latttceftse 



