204 ON PLANTS ADAPTED TOP PLANTING IN MASSES. 



haveadrv soil. The plants will bloom still more freely the second 

 vearv If required, they may be parted at the loots, and an increase 

 of plants be easily obtained ; and by this means they may be 

 perpetuated from year to year. The time when I divide them is 

 about the first week in April. .Scarcely any plant produces a 

 greater degree of splendour than this : when the full sun is upon 

 it, it makes a complete blaze of colour. It is a most suitable 

 plant for producing a distant effect. When it is planted out in a 

 bed, it requires a considerable number of sticks for support, or the 

 weak branches will be liable to lie close to the ground, and then 

 the bloom is not so tine. If planted in single patches, they should 

 have several sticks placed round, and a string fastened, so as to 

 keep the flower-stalks tolerably erect : by this attention a neat and 

 handsome efleet will be given. I adopt the use of cross strings, 

 as well as a circular one, by which means I have the shoots regu- 

 larly disposed. 



Calandria grandijlora. — Grows two feet high ; blooms from 

 June to October. The seed should be sown in pots early in spring, 

 and placed in a hotbed. When the plants are large enough to 

 transplant, thev should be planted oil' into small-sized pots, which 

 shoidd be well drained with potsherds, as this plant is very 

 susceptible of injury from damp. The soil should be a rich loam, 

 with a portion of sand ; it should not be sifted fine, but be well 

 broken with the spade. The plants should be placed in a frame, 

 or other situation where they can be forwarded. About the first 

 week in May, a bed of rich soil, mixed with sand, should be pre- 

 pared. Care must be taken to have the bed elevated, so that the 

 surface be four or six inches above the level of the adjoining 

 ground ; and the surface should be slightly rounded, so as to allow 

 any excess of water, from heavy showers, to pass away. Unless 

 this precaution be attended to, the plants will most probably 

 perish, unless an awning of canvass covering be used to prevent it. 

 The plants should be turned out of the pots with balls entire, and 

 placed a foot or more apart. If it be wished that their flower- 

 stems should rise to their highest extent, (viz. two feet,) they 

 may be placed a foot apart ; but when it is desired to keep them 

 lower, they should be planted more distant, in proportion to their 

 prostration. The plant is very well adapted for covering a bed 

 only a few inches high, the brauches naturally inclining to grow 



