296 POTTING AND REPOTTING OR SHIFTING. 



carefully watered with a rose, and should be kept close and shaded for 

 a few days. 



In transplanting from the free soil into a pot or box, the plant, if in 

 leaf, is commonly taken up with a ball adjusted to the size of the pot ; 

 and to fit such plants for removal, their main roots are frequently cut 

 by the spade, a week or two before taking up, at a short distance from 

 the stem, so that the wounded parts may be within the limits of the 

 ball. This lessens the check to vegetation which would otherwise be 

 given by taking up the plant, and may be usefully applied in the case 

 of many plants which are removed from the open border to the green- 

 house late in autumn. 



Care of Plants Newly Potted from the Open Ground, As the absorp- 

 tion of moisture by the spongioles is necessarily checked by the disturb- 

 ance of the roots, occasioned by taking up the plants and replanting them, 

 so must also be the perspiration of the leaves by the diminished supply of 

 moisture. To lessen this perspiration, therefore, where there is danger 

 of its proving injurious, the plants must be placed in a still humid 

 atmosphere, by watering the surface on which the pots are set, and 

 then covering them with mats, or by placing them in a close frame, 

 and if necessary, shading them from the sun, and supplying extra heat. 

 The more delicate kinds may be placed for a short time on a hot-bed, 

 but the hardier plants will succeed very well if merely sheltered by 

 being hooped over and shaded by any slight covering for a day or two, 

 taking care to remove it at night, and during still, cloudy weather ; 

 while the hardiest merely require the shade of a hedge or a wall. The 

 most difficult plants to manage, after being potted, are large herbaceous 

 plants, or large-leaved free-growing greenhouse plants, which have 

 been grown during summer in the open garden, such as stocks, dahlias, 

 brugmansias, &c. These are very apt to lose their leaves after being 

 taken up and potted, whether kept in the open air or in a frame or 

 pit. The best mode of preventing this evil is to check their growth by 

 cutting their roots early in the autumn, as already described. 



Shifting or Repotting. In repotting in the same pot, the ball or 

 mass of soil and roots being turned cut of the pot, the soil is shaken 

 away from the roots either wholly or in part, without, however, 

 breaking or injuring the fibres and spongioles any more than can be 

 helped. In shifting from a small pot into a larger one, the larger pot 

 being drained and prepared, the ball is turned out of the smaller pot 

 by turning it upside down, and while holding it in that position, with 

 the ball resting on the palm of the left hand, with the stem of the 

 plant between two of the fingers, striking it gently against the edge of 

 the potting bench, so as to cause the ball to separate from the pot. The 

 ball being now in the left hand, and turned upside down, remove the 

 drainage from it with the right, then reverse it, and place it in the 

 larger pot, filling in the vacant space all round with fresh soil, gently 

 compressing it by working it in with the hands. In shifting from a large 

 pot to a smaller, the ball being taken out of the large pot must either 

 be reduced equally on every side and on the bottom, by picking off a 

 portion of the roots and soil, including of course almost all the spon- 



