AND CONSERYATOUT. 121 



very early in spring, and the blooms will show immediately. 

 Provide some neat green stakes, slender but strong, eighteen 

 inches in length, and tie every shoot, as soon as the bloom is 

 visible, loosely to a stake, as, when the flowers are fully ex- 

 panded, their weight when wet with a shower will sometimes 

 cause them to fall over and break the stems. All they need 

 after this is abundance of loater. They can scarcely have too 

 much at the root, or be too often sprinkled overhead. When 

 the roots begin to run upon the surfiice, assist them with 

 liquid manure, rather strong, once a week, and by this time 

 the blossoms will be expanding and colouring, and, after 

 acquiring their proper character, will continue in perfection 

 a longer period than those of any other plant in our gardens. 



These plants are not to be shifted again till the next spring ; 

 then they are to be cut back to about eight buds from the 

 base, and shifted into 10-inch pots, and they will make 

 enormous specimens. The next year they may be shifted to 

 15-inch pots, and after that it is not advisable to increase their 

 bulk any further. A few cuttings to furnish small useful 

 plants should be put in every year in April or May ; or if there 

 is no convenience to strike by bottom-heat, they may be rooted 

 under bell-glasses without heat in June, but it is best to strike 

 them not later than the first week in May to insure the forma- 

 tion of ripe wood for blooming the next year. For ordinary 

 purposes the most useful are yearling plants, which, when they 

 have bloomed once, are to be destroyed. To force them is a 

 mere matter of temperature, and they take a moist heat from 

 Christmas onwards as kindly as any greenhouse plants in the 

 catalogue. 



Lantana. — The Lantana is comparatively useless as a 

 greenhouse plant, but we must not pass it by. The stove is 

 its proper house as a pot plant, but the experienced cultivator 

 will turn it to good account, if so minded, without the aid of a 

 stove. In a general way the same cultivation as the verbena 

 requires will suit them, and it is worthy of note that they 

 flower more freely the second year than the first. In any case 

 they like warmth and a humid atmosphere. Well-grown 

 specimens covered with flowers are worthy of a place in any 

 group of ornamental plants, but the odour of the flowers is so 

 unpleasant that they are comparatively useless for making a 

 bouqutt. 



