JANUARY 173 



and all kinds of useful shapes) , are still to be got at 

 Green & Nephews, Queen Victoria street, London, E.G. 



The variegated gold -coloured Tradescantia and T. 

 discolor are useful and pretty, and should never be 

 allowed to die out or get shabby. They grow so easily 

 at every joint that they are to greenhouses what certain 

 weeds are to gardens. 



Mr. Smee, in his 'My Garden,' recommends Forenia 

 asiatica as a good stove -plant. I have not yet got it, 

 but mean to do so. 



January 13th. A tall greenhouse grass called Cype- 

 rus laxus I find easy to grow. It is very pretty picked 

 in winter and stuck into a bottle behind some short 

 pieces of bright -coloured flowers. It looks refined, and 

 if against or near white paint or a white wall its shad- 

 ows are pretty, thrown by the lamp through the long 

 evenings. A greenhouse evergreen called Rhododendron 

 jasminiflorum is worth all trouble. It is in bloom now, 

 sweet and graceful, and not at all common. All these 

 half-hardy hard -wooded plants I find rather difficult to 

 keep in health, but I am going to pay much more atten- 

 tion to their summer treatment. They want to go out 

 for a month or two ; but, to prevent their getting dry, 

 they must be either sunk in cocoanut fibre, or sur- 

 rounded by moss, or covered with straw. If sunk in the 

 earth, worms are apt to get in. I think they are best 

 replaced towards the middle of August into the cool 

 house, where they can be watched. Sinking the small 

 pot into a larger with some moss between is the best 

 help of all. There is no fun in growing only the things 

 everyone can grow, and nothing vexes me like seeing a 

 plant which came quite healthy from a nurseryman, and 

 in a year not only has not grown, but looks less well 

 than when it first came. 



The Choisya ternata cut back in May is flowering 



