BUDS, BLOOM, AND EARLY BIRD 



red-barred Rubro-Vittatum. Wittei is pure white. The Feb. 

 amateur may wish to grow the Lihes for his conserva- ^~H 

 tory, and if so he had better put them low down in 

 7-inch or 8-inch pots, and barely cover them with soil 

 until they are growing freely and pushing stem roots, 

 when he can fill up the pots nearly to the top. It is 

 a very good plan with these, as with nearly all bulbs, to 

 keep them under cocoa-nut fibre for six weeks after 

 potting, in order to give the roots a chance of spreading 

 before the stem growth makes great demands upon 

 them. A soil made up of three parts loam, one part 

 decayed manure, one part peat, and a liberal mixture of 

 coarse sand suits the Japanese Lily. One finds that such 

 an addition to garden soil, if the latter is stiff, helps the 

 plants immensely when they are grown out of doors ; at 

 the least some sand should be put in the hole. 



T/ie Fern-like Grevtllea. — One is often asked " the 

 name of this fern " by amateurs who show a tallish, 

 graceful plant, with much cut (laciniated) leaves, which 

 they are growing in the greenhouse or conservatory. It 

 is not a fern, but an Australian evergreen shrub named 

 Grevillea Robusta, after one Greville. It bears orange - 

 coloured flowers in early summer, but nobody grows it 

 for the sake of the blossoms. Gardeners like to arrange 

 it with flowering plants in conservatories. It is very 

 handsome, and gives little trouble, requiring no care 

 beyond watering and ventilating. Most seedsmen supply 

 the Grevillea, and early February is a good time to sow. 

 It likes a warm, moist house from the first. Dryness, 

 either at the root or in the atmosphere, is distasteful 

 to it. 



Streptocarpuses. — The up-to-date amateur has already 

 learned that the Streptocarpus is one of the modern pets 

 of professional florists, who have given it larger flowers 

 73 



