330 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



WINTERING HALF-HARDY PLANTS. 



|ANY persons fill up the spaces in gardens or shrubberies 

 left purposely blank, or become so by the failure of 

 seeds, witb geraniums, calceolarias, pelargoniums, ver- 

 benas, and other plants which thrive well in the open air 

 in all parts of tbe kingdom during summer, but will not 

 survive the winter except in the West of England. Many otbers 

 would adopt the same course, were it not that these plants, even 

 when of inferior quality, are dear to purchase, the good sorts being 

 far too expensive. 



Most of the plants available for this purpose are easy of propa- 

 gation by cuttings of offsets, but the difficulty is to preserve them 

 over the winter, when no greenhouse or conservatory exists ; for 

 keeping plants of any sort in rooms is unhealthy, besides that they 

 harbour dirt, and the practice is attended with inconvenience in 

 other respects. 



Eor small gardens the pot culture insures a succession of plants 

 in flower through spring, summer, and autumn ; those that become 

 exhausted being successively removed to make place for others. 

 But, as small gardens are generally attached to small houses, which 

 have no conservatories with stove-heat, the inconvenience of winter 

 keeping the plants deters numbers from adopting this course. 



We are indebted to our very excellent contemporary, The Gar- 

 deners' Chronicle, for the following instructions for winter storing 

 plants, which completely obviates the difficulty so generally com- 

 plained of on this point. By the exercise of a little ingenuity, 

 under the advice here given, sufficient stock may be preserved to 

 insure a succession of those beautiful flowers denominated half- 

 hardy. We are the more induced to borrow our contemporary's 

 remarks because we have received several inquiries on this head, 

 and that instructions derived from such authority will command 

 more respect than any that we have the ability to produce : — 



" Two principal conditions are required in the construction of a 

 winter house — first, dryness ; and second, exclusion of frost. If these 

 are fulfilled, other circumstances are comparatively unimportant ; 

 if they are neglected, plans the best constructed otherwise are 

 entirely valueless. 



" The most perfect of all structures is a glazed brick pit, with 

 the walls built hollow, and the sashes protected by a movable 

 covering of thatch, or asphalte, or matting. The two former are 

 the best, because they are the driest ; the first is the best of all, 

 because it is the warmest. But such a structure will be worse than 

 the rudest substitute if it is not so completely elevated from the 

 surrounding ground as to be free from the damp that during winter 

 will necessarily rise upwards into it. The bottom in the inside 

 should be at least a foot or eighteen inches above the ground level, 

 or, if circumstances should render this impossible, a well-drained 

 dry-ditch cut round it will answer the same purpose. It ought, 





