THE CULTURE OF THE VERBENA. 



45 



ing plenty of light and air, careful pruning, and means to destroy aphis and 

 keep off mildew. One of the prettiest modes of growing this plant for 

 show in the greenhouse and exhibition, is to pot three or five young cut- 

 tings in a large round seed pan ; pinch in the leading shoots to cause the 

 side buds to break, and train all lateral branches towards the outer rim of 

 the pan, tying them to slender twigs ; do not allow any shoot to be more 

 than six or eight inches in height, nor permit your plants to bloom till they 

 are a mass of foliage ; they will, when in bloom, be fine specimens, and 

 very ornamental. This is probably the best way to grow new varieties for 

 exhibition, as they show to the best advantage, and the habit of the plant is 

 more easily determined. 



One great fault in growing verbenas is the practice of watering too co- 

 piously; the plant, as originally found, grows on dry hills, and damp not 

 only produces mildew, but rots the roots, and thus destroys or produces 

 disease in the plant. 



The proper soil for verbenas is two parts of loam, two of leaf mould, with 

 an admixture of sand, and in this we have found them grow and bl ;om lux- 

 uriantly. But it may be said the verbena is naturally a trailing or running 

 plant ! Why not allow it, in the greenhouse, to ramble as in the garden ? 

 Could we have a bed of them in the house, this might perhaps be a fine 

 way to show them to advantage, provided, always, the bed could be near 

 the glass, and sufficient air be afforded, but very few can devote so much 

 space to one flower. The object in a greenhouse is to have as large a 

 variety of choice plants as can be grown in so small a compass, and to 

 ensure beauty, both in plant and flower, should also be the aim of the 

 gardener ; but how often is this done ? In almost every greenhouse we see 

 the plants crowded together, bare stemmed, tall, awkward specimens, or 

 trailing over the pots with long leafless branches ; they may be in bloom, 

 but the flowers are produced on the ends or tops of the tall, ill-pruned 

 branches, and are never seen to advantage. It is to remedy and avoid this 

 evil that we recommend growing specimen plants, even if to do so, we have 

 to discard many varieties or species. A couple of hundred well-grown 

 specimens are far more beautiful than as many thousand stalky, straggling, 

 tall-drawn plants. The rule should be applied to all plants, though many 

 smile at adapting it to verbenas, heliotropes, and other plants which will 

 bloom with little care. The whole resolves itself into the old school-boy 

 maxim, '' What is worth doing at all, is worth doing well." 



Now, we are not sanguine enough to hope to work an immediate change 

 in our gardeners' mode of growing plants, but may we not expect a gradual 

 one ? Let us look, for instance, at many of the pot plants exhibited at the 

 weekly and annual shows of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society dur- 

 ing the past year, though the improvement has been very marked over 

 former years, and we trust may be lasting and will continue. Some were 

 unfit to cumber the back-shelf of the poorest greenhouse ; others would 

 require a ladder to be seen to advantage ; while many were well-grown, 

 beautiful, symmetrical specimens, which delighted all who beheld them. 

 We see from this that there are many among us who not only know what a 



