220 
Greenhouse and Stove Plants. 
IXORA. 
pure sand ; they may be placed in bottom- 
heat if the temperature of the house is not 
kept sufficiently high at night, otherwise 
it is not necessary. Keep them moist and 
covered with a bell-glass, and they will 
strike in a few weeks ; then gradually 
inure them to the air. As soon as the 
little pots are fairly furnished with roots, 
shift them into others 4 inches larger, 
using the best fibrous peat, with a mode- 
rate quantity of sand added, but no leaf- 
mould or manure, which for these and the 
majority of other plants of a similar 
character is a mistake, as both decompose 
too rapidly, getting into a pasty condition. 
Manurial elements can always be supplied 
in a liquid state during the period of 
active growth when the pots have got full 
of roots, at which time they are most 
wanted. As soon as growth has fairly 
commenced pinch out the points to in- 
duce them to break back, and keep them 
near the light with little or no shade. 
The atmosphere should be kept moist, 
with never so much external air admitted 
as will make it too dry, not even in 
the hottest parts of the day; for this 
reason, it is well to keep these, along with 
a few of the most heat-requiring subjects, 
at the warmest end of the house, giving 
the greater portion of the air needed at the 
opposite end. The temperature from the 
beginning of May throughout the summer 
months should run from 70° to 75° at night, 
with 5° more by day in dull weather, and 
5° or 10° above this when it is sunny, will 
be rather an advantage than otherwise. 
For an hour or two after the house is shut 
up in the afternoons during bright weather 
the temperature may rise to 95°, or even a 
few degrees more will do no harm, pro- 
viding the plants are grown in a good hight 
house, and kept near the glass. After 
root-growth fairly commences they must 
always be well supplied with water ; never 
at any time, even during winter, should 
they be allowed to get so dry as some 
plants need to be. Continue to treat as 
just directed, with a liberal use of the 
syringe until the end of August. The 
treatment now must be based upon the 
temperature that can be maintained 
through the winter, where sufficient heat 
can be kept up the plants may be at once 
moved into pots 6 inches larger than those 
they occupy, tying out the shoots so as to 
give enough room to the young growths 
that in healthy, vigorous plants are always 
being produced near the base. Syringe 
now more slightly, and, at the same time, 
a little more air, with a somewhat drier 
atmosphere, will be requisite for the general 
stock in the house ; but the dry condition 
of the atmosphere that used to be at one 
time considered necessary through the 
autumn and winter for these and most 
other stove plants is simply wrong. As 
solar heat decreases reduce the tempera- 
ture, but it should be kept up as near to 
70° at night as possible, with a rise of 5° in 
the daytime. In this the plants will con- 
tinue growing slowly through the winter, 
and with the increased warmth of spring 
will commence to push away freely. Any 
shoots that appear to be taking an undue 
lead may be stopped back. By the end of 
March plants that were not potted in the 
autumn should receive a shift, more or less 
in accordance with the abundance or 
scarcity of the roots. By the beginning of 
May the autumn-moved plants will also 
need larger pots, and the soil used should 
now be in a rough, lumpy state and as full 
of fibre as it can be had, with a fair mix- 
ture of sand. 
Ixoras are naturally such free flowerers 
that they will bloom while small, in which 
state they are very useful for the decora- 
tion of the stove ; if they have been kept, 
as suggested, sufficiently warm through the 
winter, they will be in flower during the 
latter part of May and the beginning of 
June. As a matter of course, the tempera- 
ture will have been raised, as in the pre- 
ceding year, and other details of cultivation, 
as then recommended, carried out. There 
is no necessity to cease syringing while the 
flower-heads are advancing or when the 
plants are in bloom, provided the operation” 
is carried out early enough in the after- 
noon to allow the moisture to dry up 
before nightfall, otherwise it will some- 
times cause the unexpanded flowers to drop 
off. After flowering, the shoots may be 
shortened back more or less as may seem to 
be necessary in order to preserve the sym- 
metrical form of the plants, but if cut in 
considerably it will be late in the autumn 
before they flower again ; whereas, if the 
decayed trusses of bloom are only just 
pinched out, shoots will be emitted from 
the sources from which these spring that 
will make a short growth and then flower, 
after which any strong growths that re- 
quire it may be ‘shortened back. Winter 
the plants as before, and in the spring 
give additional ‘pot-room as needed. The 
treatment from this point will be of a 
routine character as hitherto recommended, 
When the plants have grown as large 
as is required, they need not be potted 
oftener than once in two years. In potting 
remove as much of the soil from the upper 
portion of the balls as can be got away 
without too much disturbance of the roots, 
returning them to the same pots or putting 
