206 ON PHLOX DRUMMONDII, AS A GREENHOUSE PLANT. 



ARTICLE VII. 



ON PHLOX DRUMMONDII, AS A GREENHOUSE PLANT. 



We have so often alluded to this beautiful "plant, that we fear our 

 readers will think we are giving it more importance than it can truly 

 claim, as an object of ornament for the garden. To this opinion, 

 however, we cannot give our consent. It may be said that we are 

 prejudiced in its favour. If admiration of its exquisite flowers may 

 be called prejudice, we are decidedly so ; for we never look upon it, 

 or cut one of its clusters of flowers, but we are involuntarily led into 

 exclamations of its great elegance — the crimson, rose, pink, blush, 

 red, scarlet, flesh colour, and others, with their deeper coloured cen- 

 tres, being alike beautiful. As a summer ornament of the border, and 

 as a winter inmate of the greenhouse, it is equally to be admired. 

 Now that the season is at hand when it is to be seen in its full splen- 

 dour, and when its seeds should be planted to produce plants for 

 blooming in the greenhouse in the spring months, we are induced to 

 make a few observations upon its cultivation in the latter place. The 

 seeds, to produce good plants, should be sown the latter part of Au- 

 gust, or, -at the latest, by the middle of Septemher. Collect them from 

 the plants now growing, if such can be. had, or procure them from 

 the seedsman. Select a shady situation in the garden, where the sun 

 only shines in the morning or afternoon, and plant the seeds, after 

 having well pulverised and prepared the soil. In the course of a 

 week or two they will be up. Keep the young plants free from 

 weeds, and in the latter part of Septemher, if the seeds were sown in 

 August, or in Octoher, if they were sown in September, take up the 

 young plants into pots, placing one on each in a No. 1. Any common 

 soil of the garden will answer for potting them. The pots should 

 then be removed to a frame, where they may remain until November 

 or December, giving occasional waterings, though they will need but 

 a very small quantity at this season of the year. At the end of this 

 time the plants may be removed to the greenhouse, placing them on 

 an airy shelf, as near the glass as is convenient, watering them very 

 sparingly. About the 1st of February the strongest of the plants may 

 be removed into No. 2 pots, using about half loam and leaf mould, or 

 peat and a small quantity of sand, giving at the same time a good 

 drainage to the pots. The weaker plants need not be repotted until 



