50 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 



Henry Shilson, from his * grand collection in Tremough 

 Garden, Penryn, Cornwall. Some of them were trees 

 twenty feet high, with trunks nearly a foot in diameter. 

 They were lifted from the open border, the balls of roots 

 and soil were strongly boxed up, and they were brought by 

 rail to Kew, where they may now be seen, having scarcely 

 felt the change from their Cornish home to the Himalayan 

 section of the great Temperate House. It is important 

 that the roots should not be allowed to get dry during the 

 operation, and after transplanting it is always wise to give 

 the soil about them a good saturating with water. This 

 is all, and, provided the other conditions are suitable, no 

 Rhododendron will look behind it if this is done. 



Mr. R. Gill, who has had charge of Tremough Garden 

 for many years, and whose success in the cultivation of 

 Himalayan Rhododendrons is well known, writing in the 

 Gardeners' Chronicle a few years ago, stated with regard to 

 planting : " The mode of planting out which I have fol- 

 lowed for nearly thirty years is to set the plants in specially 

 prepared pits, and to surround the ball of roots with a lining 

 of peat and sand, to which I frequently add one-third 

 of decayed leaf-mould. A surface dressing is given as 

 occasion may require. A good mulch of dead leaves 

 Nature's own method of manuring is a wonderful help 

 in keeping the roots moist and cool, but in kept beds and 

 borders this cannot at all times be carried out, because of 

 the untidy appearance it gives. In such cases peat or fully 

 decayed leaves must be resorted to as a surface dressing. 

 In the application of top-dressing and in cleansing opera- 

 tions the hoe and spade must be used with extreme 

 caution. The best roots of the Rhododendron are near the 

 surface, and to injure these is to damage the plant." 



