470 GARDEN MANAGEMENT. 



in beds or pots of light compost without the help of artificial heat, but root 

 more readily in bark or hotbed and frame. 



1430. Fuchsias, geraniums, achimenes, and salvias requiring larger pots, 

 should now be shifted, removing the entire ball, and placing in the centre 

 of the new pot, properly drained and half-filled with fresh compost, having 

 first trimmed the roots and removed the outside soil ; the pot is then filled 

 with compost, well watered, and put away in an airy but shaded situation, 

 to settle. All pots and tubs, especially orange and lemon plants, require 

 stirring on the surface of the soil, and top-dressed and watered when required. 

 Oranges, camellias, azaleas, and other hard-wooded plants, can now be budded 

 or grafted ; and in the beginning of the month, myrtles, oleanders, and 

 jasmines propagated by layers. 



1431. The stocks for budding orange-trees are raised from seeds sown in 

 March or April in pots of rich earth, and plunged into a hotbed. In five or 

 six weeks the plants will come up, when they are planted singly in thumb- 

 pots, and plunged into a fresh hotbed, raising the frame as the plants increase 

 in height, to encourage their growth. In August they will be eighteen or 

 twenty inches high, when they may be removed into the greenhouse, placing 

 them near the lights. In IMarch or April shift them into larger pots, and 

 plunge again into a hotbed, gradually exposing them to the air towards the 

 end of May, to harden them ; turning them out from June till August. In 

 the third summer they will be fit for budding, for which they are prepared by 

 removal into the greenhouse, giving them plenty of ah and light, but turning 

 the side on which they are to be budded from the sun, and shading the whole 

 plant from its fiercest heat. Three weeks before budding, the plant may be 

 plunged into a moderate hotbed of tanner's bark, where it can have free 

 ventilation. 



1432. Hard-wooded plants, including most of the genera from New Holland, 

 which bloom early in the spring, will about the middle of the month be so far 

 advanced in their new gi-owth that any requiring re-potting should at once 

 have a shift. After turning them out, loosen the outside roots before placing 

 them in their new pots, to enable them to take up the fresh soil more readily. 

 Keep them close for a few days, especially if the roots have been much 

 disturbed, and damp them once or twice daily overhead. Attention at this 

 season should be directed to the stock of plants intended to fm-nish the supply 

 of bloom through the winter, as it is requisite plants should complate their 

 growth early for this purpose. Among heaths, those which flower through the 

 winter should also be encouraged to complete their growth. Keep epacrises 

 under glass till their growth is complete ; but more air and light must be 

 allowed them, increasing as the wood gets fiimer. Towards the end of the 

 month they may be placed out of doors in an open situation, where they can 

 be protected from heavy rains. Young specimens should be carefully trained, 

 the shoots neatly tied down or pegged, to insure a close compact habit ; the 

 flowers of heaths and other plants done flowering removed ; and stop all 

 straggling branches. 



