lO THE CULTURE OF POT-PLANTS 



stimulated by giving food and water when this process should 

 be going on, the ripening may be so delayed that it cannot 

 be completed. A fertiliser should therefore not be given 

 late in the season to any perennials. It may, however, be 

 given to annuals, with the object of keeping them growing 

 and flowering as long as possible, because for them there is 

 no ripening of the wood. At the end of their one season 

 they die. 



There are certain cases in which a fertiliser should not 

 be given early. Pot-plants may be divided into two classes — 

 those which are grown for their flowers, and those which are 

 grown for their foliage. Obviously, the more growth the 

 latter make, the better ; and as food is necessary for that 

 purpose, it should be given to them liberally, but not exces- 

 sively. Flowering plants, however, occupy a different position. 

 The flowering period and the growing period are not 

 simultaneous. There may be, and often is, some overlapping, 

 but the former naturally follows the latter. Where it seems 

 to precede the latter, as in the case of early bulbs, the flowers 

 are really formed in the previous summer or autumn, as may 

 be proved by dissecting a plump daffodil bulb in winter, and 

 examining it under the microscope, when the embryonic 

 flowers will be seen complete in all their parts. Their 

 development proceeds so far, and then is arrested by the 

 drought of summer, or in other cases by the falling tempera- 

 ture of autumn, only to be renewed when the conditions 

 become more favourable in spring. If the growing period is 

 protracted beyond the usual time by the stimulus of food 

 and water, the commencement of the succeeding flowering 

 period must be delayed. A weed, such as groundsel, in a 

 dry and infertile gravel path, flowers long before another 

 in the rich moist soil of the border alongside. Similarly 

 many plants — for instance, vallotas or Scarborough lilies — do 

 not flower until their roots have filled the soil and exhausted 

 much of the food in it ; and if, when this stage is reached, they 

 are transferred to larger pots, or given lavish supplies of food, 

 the flowering period may be further delayed. There may be 

 an additional reason why many pot-bound plants flower well. 



