CHAPTER IV 



CLIMBERS AND BASKET PLANTS 



THESE are useful in the greenhouse in many ways. 

 Climbers if well looked after afford an efficient shade 

 to the plants grown beneath them, and make an attrac- 

 tive feature in themselves, clothing, as they do, the 

 broad expanse of glass and woodwork with graceful 

 growth and, in many cases, charming flowers. Many 

 of them can only be grown well in fairly large houses, 

 for they grow too rampantly to be confined by narrow 

 limits. Among those named later will, however, be 

 found some suitable for houses of any size, and they 

 comprise the best that can be selected for the purpose. 

 Pillars and rafters may be clothed with the more moderate 

 growers among climbing plants, and for this purpose, 

 too, many plants not strictly belonging to the climbers 

 may be enlisted, as, for instance, some of the stronger 

 growing fuchsias which are delightful and easy to grow. 

 Speaking generally, the methods of treating flowering 

 climbers is to allow them a considerable amount of 

 latitude as to growth during the summer months, and 

 to cut them back fairly hard during winter, laying in 

 just a thin sprinkling of the long shoots made during the 

 previous summer, and cutting out all that can be spared 

 of the old wood. The majority of these plants should 

 be planted out in prepared stations in suitable positions 

 in the borders. They mostly do well in ordinary loamy 

 soil mixed with finely broken mortar rubbish or common 

 sand to keep the soil open, drainage being of course pro- 



C 33 



