268 
Greenhouse and Stove Plants. 
PASSIFLORA, 
with less. Keep them well up to the glass 
where all the light possible will reach 
them, using a thin shade during the 
middle of the day, but not more than is 
found necessary to prevent the leaves 
scorching; give air daily more or less 
according to the state of the weather, 
syringe freely overhead at the time of 
closing the house, but not oftener even 
in the hottest weather, for when carried 
beyond this it is a practice which we may 
here allude to as highly injurious to all 
but a very few exceptionally moisture- 
requiring subjects; it excites undue growth 
at the expense of substance and solidity in 
both the leaves and shoots. The stopping 
of the single shoot, that each will so far be 
composed of, must needs be regulated by the 
purpose the plants are wanted for; if to cover 
an end wall or to occupy several rafters in 
the roof, it will be necessary to pinch out the 
point of the shoot once or more, so as to 
induce the production of several growths 
to fill the space required; but if to be 
grown, as these plants sometimes are, where 
space is limited, lengthways of the house, 
over a path where one or two branches are 
trained to wires as near the glass as the 
rafters will permit, they will only require 
stopping so far as to furnish the few growths 
needed. In this way they will flower 
freely, but have not so nice an appearance 
as when occupying a position where the 
blooming shoots can hang down in a looser 
manner. By the end of July another shift 
will be required ; 10-inch pots by this time 
will not be over large, and as soon as the 
shoots have attained sufficient length the 
plants may be put in the position they are 
intended permanently to occupy. 
If to be planted out, the border in which 
the roots are to be placed should not be too 
large, or it will be difficult to keep the 
plants within bounds. The bottom must 
be well drained, with the requisite egress 
below for the water to get away. This is a 
matter that frequently does not receive suffi- 
cient attention, from a supposition that the 
surplus water that soaks through the soil 
in the process of watering will find its way 
off ; yet such is by no means the case, as 
after a time the under surface gets almost 
impervious to water, and the roots, which, 
with free-growing plants like these Passi- 
floras, are produced in quantity, and lie 
thickly in the bottom of the pot, tub, or 
border in which they are grown, as a 
natural consequence, if stagnant water 
exists there, rot, causing the unhealthy 
condition the plants are often seen in. 
From 9 to 10 inches in depth of soil will be 
enough for the roots to ramble in; it 
should be moderately rich, and should 
contain enough sand to keep it quite 
porous. The shoots will require constant 
attention until they have filled the space 
they are destined to cover; keep them 
trained to the supporting wires, and take 
care that the lower portion is sufficiently 
clothed first, or it will be difficult to 
accomplish this afterwards without cut- 
ting the plants back, and beginning the 
work anew by inducing the production of 
a fresh lot of shoots to cover the space that, 
in the first instance, they should have been 
trained over. It should ever be borne 
in mind in the cultivation of these climb- 
ing plants, and of such as are of a twining 
habit, that they have the greatest disin- 
clination to extend downwards, except in 
the case of the flowering terminal shoots, 
which often are found in a hanging posi- 
tion, but the strong growths made early in 
the season require, at the least, to be kept 
in a horizontal position, and do still better 
where they can ascend. So apparent is 
this that it may be noticed where a strong 
shoot happens to lose its hold of the sup- 
port to which it was clinging, and thus 
hangs with its point downwards, that it 
makes little progress afterwards, generally 
breaking out another growth at the highest 
point where bent, leaving the pendant por- 
tion in a half starved, dwindling condition. 
Were more notice taken of the habit of 
climbing and twining plants, and their 
natural requirements in this respect kept 
before the eye of the cultivator, there 
would be much fewer failures with them. 
After the plants have filled the position 
allotted to them, little more training will 
be required than a regulation of the shoots, 
so as to prevent their getting entangled in 
masses, cutting in yearly after the season’s 
growth and flowering are completed. When 
there is an apparent exhaustion of the soil, 
it will be best to meet this in two ways— 
by removing a few inches of the surface in 
spring before growth commences, replac- 
ing it with good new material, and also by 
the use of manure-water, which the plants 
will take in a somewhat stronger state 
than weaker-growing subjects; by these 
means they will keep on in a healthy con- 
dition for many years. When the roots of 
Passifloras are confined to pots or tubs, it 
is necessary that these should be large, and 
that as much of the surface soil as can be 
annually removed should be replaced with 
new, well enriched with rotten manure ; 
this, with the help of manure-water given 
regularly through the growing season, will 
keep them in a thriving state for three or 
four years, when they may be headed 
back, and after they have broken into 
growth partially shaken out and the soil 
