HARD-WOODED PLANTS 29 



good leaf mould, with some sand. It requires a con- 

 siderable quantity of water during the spring and 

 summer months. Its three antipathies are shade, 

 artificial heat, and a close muggy atmosphere. A 

 very few days in the latter will cause the plants to 

 lose their leaves. After flowering they should be 

 hardened for a week or two by exposure and a lessened 

 water supply, they may then be hard pruned into shape, 

 allowed to break into growth under glass, then turned 

 out and repotted, reducing the balls of soil slightly, so 

 that they will not need over large pots. From the time 

 that the roots have resumed action until quite late in the 

 autumn the plants should be grown entirely in the open 

 air. The Genista does not care much for manure of any 

 kind, but an occasional watering with clear water taken 

 from a barrel in which a coarse bag of soot has been 

 immersed will be very beneficial and give the plants a 

 healthy appearance, and a dark green colour. 



Daphne indica. The exquisite perfume of this, like 

 that of the Boronia, is perhaps its greatest charm, 

 though a well grown plant is, when in flower, an object 

 of great beauty. Unfortunately, well grown plants are 

 rare and the Daphne is considered, with good reason, 

 to be among the difficult plants to manage well. The 

 best plants I have grown were potted in fibrous loam 

 mixed very freely with sea-sand. A rather close corner 

 of the greenhouse should be allotted to it, for it does 

 not like draught neither does it do well if exposed to 

 a great amount of sunlight, and it should never be put 

 outside to ripen its wood. It dislikes the knife and, 

 beyond being pinched once or twice while young to 

 develop a bushy habit, it should never be pruned, for 

 pruning cuts away the strongest growth buds, and those 

 which develop from back breaks are mostly weak and 

 remain so. Once a plant falls into bad health it seldom 

 recovers. A healthy plant may remain in the same pot 



