PLANTS FOR HOME DECORATION OR EXHIBITION. 177 



and intimate acquaintance Avith the use of supports, and in 

 proportion as a man acquires this, he becomes careless as to 

 whether his plants are di-awn or not. He stops his plants 

 back that they may make more shoots than usual, or than is 

 graceful, because he wants all the branches he can to make a 

 surface of flowers, and as soon as the plant assumes anything 

 like a moderate size, twigs are placed to guide them outwards 

 or upwards, and at equal distances ; for all the harm it could 

 do, he might almost roll the plants about the floor, without 

 displacing a shoot or a leaf. As the plant advances beyond 

 the distance already provided for by the sticks or twigs that 

 support them, others must be placed there to answer for as 

 much more growth as they well may, or as the sjDecunen is 

 likely to attain. This applies to all kinds of plants shown 

 according to the present system of propping with wooden 

 supports ; roses in pots, fuchsias, geraniums, too many of the 

 hard-wooded plants, verbenas, petunias, and many others. 

 But there is yet a more idle and more obnoxious mode ot 

 growing plants for show. We have seen complete iron frame- 

 works or cages, and inside these, the plants, such as rondeletia, 

 hovea, eriostemon, chorozema, and many other plants of great 

 merit crowded, the stems distorted all manner of ways, totally 

 destroying the nature of the plant, concealing its habit, and 

 contriving to just bring the shoots tlirough upon the surface. 

 It is true that these cages are made of a cone form, or like a 

 pyramid, and with gardeners of taste, as near the natural 

 form of the shrub or plant as may be, and that some allow 

 the shoots to protrude as far as they safely can, to break some 

 of the stiffness which too many have not the ability to con- 

 ceal ; but constraint seems to be the prevailing appearance, 

 and some of the most graceful of our favourite plants are 

 thereby rendered artificial. The judges at shows ought, in 

 our opinion, -without any reference to the size of plants, always 

 to decide favourably for those which are the least constrained, 

 and therefore the most natural. 



The growing of plants for exhibition, is, under these circum- 

 stances, almost a science of itself, and the chief e^dl to avoid 

 is that of allowing the specimens to get ahead of the training, 

 whatever that may be. Strong supports for the centre 

 branch, and very little else will do, if they are all to remain 

 at home ; but for exhibition, the several branches must be 

 supported independently, with upright props of wood, untO 



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