FOURTH WEEK IN SEPTEMBER 



water pipes, unless a board covered with moist ashes is placed 

 on the stage to receive them. Many plants do much better 

 with some such arrangement than when subject to dry air 

 from below them (gloxinias, tydaeas, gesneras, heaths, ferns, 

 azaleas, and rhododendrons being amongst these), and it is a 

 simple precaution, which is easily adopted. As soon as the 

 blossoms begin to open, syringing must be discontinued, and 

 if green fly should appear on the buds it may be necessary to 

 vaporise the greenhouse with a lethorion cone or the XL- ALL 

 vaporiser. 



Montbretias are still brilliant in the garden and most use- 

 ful for cutting. M. Pottsi is one of the earliest to blossom, 

 but the finer flowers of M. Germanica (a valuable hybrid 

 variety) do not open until the end of August, when their 

 fiery red blooms on slender stalks are most brilliant. These 

 plants produce a mass of spreading roots around each corm, 

 and consequently soon become too crowded to do well ; they 

 should be raised, divided, and replanted in fresh soil in 

 March every alternate or (at the latest) every third year, as 

 otherwise they do not flower satisfactorily. The newer 

 Montbretias (of which M. Prometheus is one of the best) 

 have still larger flowers, and are very effective in the 

 autumnal garden. 



The glasshouses should now be thoroughly turned out, 

 and where, in an empty greenhouse, no climbers are grown 

 every insect can be annihilated by burning a little powdered 

 sulphur in the place ; but it must be remembered that all 

 foliage is destroyed by sulphur, and even vines in their 

 autumnal foliage should not be subject to it. A thorough 

 syringing with hot carbolic soft soap and water, to which an 

 ounce of paraffin for each gallon may be added, is a good 

 cleansing wash for the interior of a greenhouse ; but it 

 should be mixed with care, first beating up the paraffin in 

 twice its bulk of hot milk, then adding it to the soap, and 

 pouring a little boiling water at a time on the mixture until 

 all is dissolved. The temperature of the wash when used 

 should not exceed 130, and in the case of tender foliage, 

 ferns, etc., 120 will be safer, omitting the paraffin, which is 



343 



