MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES USED IN HORTICULTURE. 



163 



the tube, it is thus firmly fixed at any height required. It measures twelve 

 inches in diameter in the widest part, and is three inches and a half in 

 depth. 



450. Wicker-work hurdles are useful in gardens for sheltering low plants 

 from high winds, for placing horizontally over seedlings to protect them from 

 birds, and, in various positions, for shading plants. They are constructed 

 of upright stakes fixed in the ground, or in holes in a board, at regular dis- 

 tances of from four inches to eight inches, according to the size of the mate- 

 rials and the dimension of the hurdle, and these stakes are filled in or wattled 

 with small rods, wands, or spray. When kept dry, they will last three or 

 four years, if the stakes are made of willow, or of any of the soft woods ; and 

 from four to six or seven years, if they are made of hazel, oak, ash, or any of 

 the hard woods. 



451. Props for plants vary in form, dimension, and material, from the 

 small wires used for supporting hyacinths in water-glasses, and the sticks of 

 six inches in length, used for supporting plants in pots, to cast-iron rods of 

 six or eight feet in length, and pillars for roses and other climbers, formed 

 of the stems of young fir-trees, of from ten to twenty feet in length, as in 

 fig. 94. All the varieties of wooden props may be 



reduced to four kinds : 1. Straight rods with the 

 bark on, but with all the side branches cut off, 

 varying in size from the shoot of one year to the 

 stem of a fir of twenty years' growth. These 

 are used for every purpose, from the tying up of 

 plants in pots to the support of lofty climbers, in- 

 cluding between these extremes tying up dahlias 

 and standard roses. 2. Branches or stems, with 

 all the side branches and branchlets retained, used 

 for the support of climbing annual stems, such 

 as peas, kidney-beans, tropaeolums, &c., but only 

 suitable when these plants will grow in the open 

 ground ; when grown in pots, wire frames, or a 

 regular framework of laths, are more in accord- 

 ance with the artificial state in which the plants 

 are placed. 3. Wooden rods, formed out of laths 

 or deal by the gardener or carpenter, regularly 

 tapered and pointed, and in some cases painted. 



These are chiefly used for choice plants in pots, but partly also in the 

 open garden. 4. Iron rods, from short pieces of wire to rods of cast or 

 wrought iron, for supporting dahlias, standard roses, and other plants, and 

 with or without spreading heads for climbers. Fig. 95 shows a variety of 

 these rods, which may be had of the principal London ironmongers. All 

 iron work, before being used in the open air in gardens, would be rendered 

 more durable if thoroughly heated and painted over with oil, the effect of 

 which is, to prevent the action of the atmosphere on the surface of the iron, 

 by carbonising it. After this operation painting may be dispensed with, 

 excepting for ornament. It is in general, however, better to paint them, 

 and the colour should be black, blue -black, or some very dark shade of green. 

 A light green, and white, are of all colours the most to be avoided in an 

 artistical point of view ; because the first is too like nature, and the second 

 is too glaring and conspicuous. 





