PLANTS FOR HOME DECORATION OR EXHIBITION. 



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want a protection, or rather, not be weak enongh to require a 

 prop. It should, at the end of the season, be allowed to rest ; 

 as soon as it indicates new growth, it should be repotted, not 

 in too rich a compost, and be pruned with short branches at 

 the bottom, shorter as we go upwards, till they are mere spurs 

 when we get half way up, and tolerably close at the top. , By 

 growing the plant gently in the greenhouse and without any. 

 heat, the branches of the season will be multiplied •greatly, 

 and with a very little checking, form a very beautiful close 

 pyramid, full of foliage and bloom, and the colours in perfect, 

 tion. Besides this, the plant will bear carriage without 

 propping, and whatever support it wants for travelling, if 

 any, may be all taken away at its destinatk«ic- -(!r^py^'J^][iaa, 

 however, will bear growing as a bush or as a^-^^paW&t^ 

 plant. In the former we have to stop a cutting before it is 

 two inches high, and to continue stopping all growth that is 

 too vigorous, and all early growth, directly two eyes can be 

 left, so that by inducing lateral shoots, we secure a bush in 

 miniature at an early stage, and need only shorten such 

 branches as are getting on too fast for the remainder. All 

 very weakly shoots should be cut away close home, for they 

 only weaken the rest and confuse the order; branches should 

 not cross each other, nor should the plant get confused by 

 reason of the number of branches allowed to remain. The 

 habit of the variety under cultivation should be studied a 

 little, but there are too many grown that deserve only throw- 

 ing away, and a bad habit is rarely compensated for by a good 

 flower, because the fuchsia depends for its value a good deal 

 on the habit. Formosa elegans and Eiccartoni are of fine 

 habit ; few can equal them in tliis respect, while both may 

 claim some credit for their early approach to the requisites 

 for a good flower. Set both of them in pots, in modairate 

 soil (not rich), and after this, give them only water when they 

 want it, and all the air you can. They will scarcely require a 

 shoot to be lopped ; so fine is their general pyramidal habit, 

 that unless accident blighted their leader, they would be com- 

 pact, and at their season full of bloom. At the end of the 

 year, when they had done their work, as it were, they would 

 lose their leaves, and would only require to be kept from the 

 frost : they would want larger pots at the beginning of the 

 year, all their side branches shortened, and, if the leaders 

 chance to be injured, they should be shortened to a strong 



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