CHAP. XIII 



VILLA GARDENING 213 



must also be free from all impurities, and, if needful, they should 

 also be washed. If there is any earthy or deleterious matter 

 among the sand, washing will remove it. These are little things, 

 but they have an important bearing upon successful work. The 

 general potting of stove plants will take place in the spring, usually 

 in February or March, as this is the time when most things begin 

 to waken into new hfe. Young growing specimens will of course 

 need shifting on during summer, but for the most part the repot- 

 ting of large plants will take place in spring. Very many of the 

 bright-flowered soft plants, such as the Justicias, Poiusettias, 

 Bouvardias, etc., may be rooted from cuttings in spring and grown 

 to a flowering size in one season ; but the cream of stove-flowering 

 plants— the Allamandas, the Dipladeuias, the Ixoras, Bougainvilleas, 

 Clerodendrons, Francisceas, Gardenias, and Imantophyllums— are 

 things of slower growth, which, when they attain specimen size, 

 are valuable ; therefore every pains should be taken to keep 

 them in health, because, when once a large specimen of either of 

 the plants named above gets out of health, recovery is diflicult. 

 A common practice is to give these plants root warmth by 

 plunging them in the tan bed. It is true that root warmth 

 corresponding to the temperatiu-e applied to the branches is a 

 necessity, but a plant standing on a stage in a heated house is 

 relatively in a right condition for making healthy growth. I grant 

 that bottom-heat gives a fillip to growth, in the same way as a 

 stimulant in the morning may produce for a short time some extra 

 rapidity in the movements of a man ; but it results in no permanent 

 good. The best-flowered Allamandas, Dipladenias, and Cleroden- 

 drons I ever saw were standing on a broad shelf over, but not 

 touching, the hot-water pipes, the branches being trained to the 

 wires mider the roof To this class of plant light is more essential 

 than bottom-heat. In the potting, as far as possible, all exhausted 

 soil should be removed ; the drainage should be ample, to carry off 

 surplus water ; and the soil, which must be rough and fibrous, 

 should be rammed in firmly. Any little pruning that may be 

 necessary, such as cutting back unripe shoots, or thinning weakly 

 ones to concentrate the strength upon fewer outlets, should now 

 be done. The Bougainvillea should be spiu-red hard back ; few 

 people prune these enough, and tliat is the reason why the flowers 

 are so thin. I have an old plant of B. glabra growing in a pit, 

 and every spring, about February, after it has done blooming, I 

 cut it back to the old thick branches, just as one would spur in a 

 Vine. Immediately it bursts forth in the wildest luxm-iance. 

 Shoots 5 feet or 6 feet long are developed in a very short time ; from 

 these laterals spring, and both main shoots and laterals are in the 



