Round the Year in the Garden 



weather, they will thrive without it. At a meeting of 

 the Royal Horticultural Society some excellent plants 

 were shown which were said to have passed the previous 

 winter in a cold frame. Nerines grow during winter, 

 and thus need especial care at that season. They should 

 be placed in the sunniest part of the greenhouse, and 

 watered sufficiently often to keep the soil moist. In 

 spring, as the leaves fade, less water is given, and when 

 they are at rest, the soil is allowed to become dry. 

 During summer it is necessary to place the pots of bulbs 

 in a dry, sunny place, to ensure their being "ripened," 

 for upon this consummation their successful flowering 

 depends. Late in summer the flower spikes appear, 

 and watering is resumed, though comparatively little 

 moisture is needed until leaf growth begins. Few plants 

 are more easily grown than Nerines ; they seldom need 

 repotting, and will thrive in the same flower-pot for 

 several years. They are admirable for the cool or cold 

 greenhouse. 



Sowing Persian Cyclamen. There are few more valu- 

 able flowers for the greenhouse in early spring than the 

 Persian Cyclamen; the plants need little artificial heat, 

 they bloom freely when well grown, and the flowers last 

 in beauty a long time. Perhaps their chief recommend- 

 ation to the amateur gardener lies in the fact that they 

 are such true and long-lived perennials. One has only to 

 glance through a list of greenhouse flowers to ascertain 

 that many of them need to be renewed every year, either 

 by sowing seed or by taking cuttings ; this is a disadvan- 

 tage, especially to those whose time and opportunity for 

 gardening are limited. The Cyclamen rises superior 

 to these failings. The curious rounded root which is 

 technically termed " corm " may be grown on from year 

 to year, and needs only to be repotted each summer, 

 when signs of fresh growth are apparent. I do not know 

 the greatest recorded age of a greenhouse Cyclamen (I 

 have grown the same root for six years), but I have heard 



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