ON TYPICAL COLD GREENHOUSES 13 



corners j and how important it is to keep clear of the unavoid- 

 able mustiness which comes of more or less perpetual damp. 

 For this reason it is strongly to be recommended that a con- 

 servatory be used strictly for pot plants, that there should be 

 no heavy fixed stages and no inside border for permanent 

 planting of shrubs or climbers, in order that, at short intervals, 

 the house may be emptied and thoroughly cleaned and 

 rearranged. Stands or stages should be used mainly as aids in 

 the grouping of plants, and the lighter and more unobtrusive 

 and easily movable they are the better. These points are 

 touched upon lightly here, for they must be reverted to later, 

 and will very likely be regarded as fads; but experience 

 teaches. Cleanliness and good order, with fresh, healthy 

 plants, well grouped and not always in the same stereotyped 

 position, go far to make even a small conservatory not only 

 the joy and pride of its owner but a pleasure to all who see it. 

 A conservatory of this kind, however, necessitates some sort 

 of separate and extra resource to act as feeder to it, and this 

 may be found in cold frames or pits, or in a working green- 

 house, from whence plants may be brought, and to which 

 they can be returned when their flowering is over. 



THE WORKING GREENHOUSE 



The ordinary span or lean-to greenhouse usually finds its 

 place in some corner of the garden, and generally is and 

 ought to be furnished with a front bench and some sort of 

 stage. Dampness and a certain amount of " undress " here is 

 not out of place. One's plants are in their nursery, or, it may 

 be, recruiting ; pans of seedlings may stand about ; Ferns may 

 be tucked away under the stage ; a Mardchal Niel, with its 

 roots in an inside border, or any other climbers one may 

 desire, can be trained up the rafters or on the back- wall ; and 

 pruned back-plants, however shabby-looking, need not hide 



