PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



PART III. 



CHAP. VII. 

 General Culture and Management of the Ornamental or Botanic Hot-houses. 



6202. Tlie general culture offloricultural hot-houses respects soil, choice of plants, plant- 

 ing in pots or beds, and arranging : after offering some remarks on these heads, we shall 

 submit a few as to what is general in the management of the principal floricultural habit- 

 ations, as the frame, green-house, and stove. 



6203. Soil for beds or borders. The first operation of the gardener, after a conservatory or stove is 

 finished, is to fill up the beds and borders with prepared earth. These being narrow, should seldom be 

 less than three feet in depth, the bottom should generally be paved, and sloping to a drain or drains ; and 

 in cases of very dry soils, provision may be made for the roots extending themselves beyond the area of 

 the house. In general, however, this is not desirable in stoves, as the roots might be chilled during se- 

 vere frosts ; but provision may be made for their extension under the paths, and every other part of the 

 area of the house. When a variety of plants and trees are to be grown in such pits, no soil can be fixed 

 on that will suit them all ; but if the main body be a sandy loam, then, as each particular tree is planted, 

 a few cubic feet of this loam may be removed, and replaced by the soil best suited to the plant The plant 

 once established, be it what species it may, will not languish in a sandy loam, other circumstances being 

 favorable. 



6204. Choice of species and planting. The species of stove or green-house plants must depend on the 

 sort of house, and a variety of circumstances which need not be entered into. For common purposes 

 choose the showy-flowering, easily cultivated, and vigorous-growing genera, as geranium, camellia, fuch- 

 sia, jasminum, && ; or evergreens, as the myrta?, proteacea?, &c. choosing (from the tables in Chap. X.) 

 some plants of the principal colors to flower in every month. In planting broad central beds in a house, 

 glass on all sides, the highest-growing kinds will be placed along the middle of the bed ; but where there 

 is a wall to the north, the highest kinds will be placed next it. With respect to arrangement, the limited 

 space admits of very little ; in general, it will produce the most showy and immediate effect to adopt the 

 common mingled and shrubbery arrangement, which we have recommended (6139.) ; but as the spectator 

 lingers longer on the pavement of the conservatory or stove, than in the walk of the shrubbery, more 

 prolonged interest will be produced by assembling such plants as belong to one genus, or natural order, by 

 themselves ; because this will be to unite what used to be considered the desideratum of taste unity and 

 variety ; that is, a general harmony of character in the genus, tribe, or family, and yet, when examined 

 in detail, a distinctive character belonging to each of the individual species which compose it. It is a very 

 common practice to plant climbers in such beds and along narrow borders, close to the upright or front glass, 

 to be trained under the roof. We most decidedly disapprove of this plan, in almost every case, as tending 

 to defeat the whole object in erecting such houses. Very luxuriant climbers are thus produced, but it is 

 at the expense of light, not one ray of which, if possible, should be prevented from falling on the plants 

 in the body of the house. Climbers or creepers are highly ornamental, and may be planted in a variety 

 of situations without injuring the other plants : for example, in the bed, and trained on rods, or up such 

 props as may be necessary to support the roof; or, along the sides of a central walk in a house standing 

 north and south, and trained over the walk on an arcade of rods ; or, on a similar arcade over the back 

 path of a single-roofed house, or on the back wall It is a very common thing to see the coba^a in green- 

 houses, and the fruit-bearing passion-flowers in stoves, darkening the greater part of the roof, and the 

 plant.-, beneath growing or elongating fast enough, but weak and of an unhealthy languid green. It is, 

 only under the broad wooden rafters of old-fashioned hot-houses that any sort of creepers may be trained ' 

 up the roof without materially injuring the plants below ; and even in these cases the injury is consider- 

 able, unless they are kept within very narrow bounds. But if creepers are injurious in plant hot-houses, 

 the introduction of vines under the rafters is still worse ; for, besides darkening the plants below more 

 than the others with their broader leaves, the incongruity of effect produced by the attempt to unite two 

 opposite characters, is exceedingly disagreeable, and only to be tolerated in humble economical residences, 

 where a green-house, perhaps, is the only glass structure. 



6205. Arrangement of plants in pots. Where the house and the collection are small, 

 or the plants few and large, the same observations will apply which we have advanced on 

 the subject of planting tile beds of conservatories or stoves ; but when the houses and 

 collections are extensive, then some plan of arrangement ought to be adopted. Here, 

 as in shrubberies and flower-gardens, there are three modes, by mingling, by grouping, 

 and by method. For general effect the first is the best, but for prolonged enjoyment and 

 examination in detail, the two others are greatly preferable. An abstract view of the 

 modes by mingling and grouping might be represented by lines (Jigs. 585, 586.), in 



585 



which, by the mingled mode, the colors are as regularly arranged as chequer-work, while, 

 by the grouping mode (Jig. 586. ), they succeed each other in large irregular masses. 

 By the first mode, there is only one plant of a color by itself; by the second, from half 

 a dozen to three or four dozen, according tt> the size of the group and the plants. 



