AZALEA, 
ginning of March they will require potting ; 
give them a shift, say into about 7-inch 
pots; use nothing but good fibrous peat, 
broken into pieces about the size of acorns, 
and sufficientsilver sand to ensure porosity. 
After potting keep the house a little close. 
Through April and May give them a night 
temperature of 55° to 60°, day 70° to 75°, 
and syringe regularly overhead every after- 
noon. Do not stop any shoot, as is often 
done, unless it is one that is much stronger 
than the rest; if they run a foot long 
during the season so much the better, the 
object being to get a good open framework 
as a foundation for the future plant, which 
can be sufficiently filled up afterwards. 
Through June, July, and August, keep the 
temperature up to 60° or 65° by night, and 
75° to 80° by day, with sun-heat. If they 
set blooms in the course of the summer nip 
them out, and they will push a second 
growth. Discontinue syringing about the 
end of September, give more air, and re- 
duce the heat both day and night. Keep 
them on until the end of February at a 
temperature similar to the preceding year ; 
in the beginning of March give them more 
heat, and syringe overhead every afternoon 
as recommended last spring, and as soon as 
the roots are moving repot into 10 or 
11 inch pots, using similar soil and potting 
hard as before. Let their general treat- 
ment all through the summer be the same 
as the last. Most of the plants will set 
bloom by midsummer—remove all such 
and they will push a second growth and 
set a full crop of buds by the end of Sep- 
tember, or middle of October—a month 
previous to which leave off syringing, give 
more air and keep the temperature pretty 
well up, with a drier atmosphere to ripen 
their buds. 
It will now be time to determine what 
shape the plants are ultimately to be 
trained to, as there should be a few more 
sticks used, and they should be trained 
into something like the shape intended. 
Any shoots that have a tendency to grow 
much stronger than others should be tied 
down so as to bring their points near the 
base of the plant, which will have the 
effect of equalising their growth. On no 
account train them close in specimen 
fashion, but simply arrange the shoots so 
as to lay the foundation for the future 
specimen. Let the winter treatment be 
considerably cooler than before, 40° or a 
little under will answer. The plants wil! 
bloom nicely, but must not be placed when 
in flower in a draughty conservatory with 
a dry atmosphere, for at the time of flower- 
ing they will be full of young growth, 
which would be so hardened by such treat- 
Greenhouse and Stove Plants. 
59 
ment that it would be difficult to get it to 
move freely afterwards ; and by pushing 
them forward in asimilar temperature, and 
at the same time, as in the previous season, 
they will make two growths again during 
the summer. Pot them this season, as soon 
as they have flowered, into 13 or 14 inch 
pots, and let their general treatment be the 
same as hitherto prescribed. 
After this period it will be neither neces- 
sary nor advisable to induce them to make 
more than one growth in a season ; con- 
sequently they will require to be again 
wintered cool. A night temperature of 
36° to 40° will answer, and the heat must 
be correspondingly lower in the day. Many 
growers turn their plants out-of-doors in 
summer, and this treatment is admissable 
with such as are forced early, and make 
their growth correspondingly early in the 
season, but those that bloom later without 
forcing are better kept indoors altogether ; 
so managed, they produce flowers larger and 
finer in colour. Get them tied as early as 
convenient in the autumn, if possible before 
their growth has got hard and the bloom- 
buds ripened, as by so doing the points of 
the shoots will turn upwards and assume 
their natural position, which will make 
them look much better than if they are 
allowed to harden their shoots before tying, 
as in that case the wood will be too stiff to 
right itself in this way. Use no more sticks 
than are absolutely necessary. Do not tie 
them in nearly so close as full-grown speci- 
mens would require to be ; the object for 
some time yet is to increase their size. 
Much has been said and written about 
the training of Azaleas. We see some col- 
lections that are trained on pyramidal 
circular wire trellises, with every shoot tied 
and twisted down until the whole surface 
of the plant is as even as if it were clipped 
with a pair of shears. Nothing in existence 
can look more unnatural. In a house full 
of specimen Azaleas all the plants should 
be somewhat different in shape, which can 
easily be done by making some a little 
wider than others, some higher, others 
lower over the pots, and others again not 
so pointed at the top ; and all more or less 
slightly irregular in their outline, by draw- 
ing upa branch here and there, and depress- 
ing others, so as toformslight protuberances 
in one place and small hollows in others, yet 
still the whole surface covered with flowers. 
This can easily be done by an expert 
trainer, especially if, as before suggested, 
the plants are tied while the shoots are soft 
and yet growing, and these little inequalities 
will look as if produced naturally. In fact, 
the principal art in plant-tying is to conceal 
the art, and to give as much natural ap- 
