July 11, 1872 ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



37 



altogether), and the seedlings only made one or two leaves. 

 They looked so exceedingly small that I thought it was all up 

 with them, and I said to myself, " Good-bye, Aquilegia glandu- 

 losa ;" for the frost coming and catching them in their most 

 sensitive state, I felt certain that I should never see them 

 again ; but, to my joy, in the spring of 1871 they came up 

 very strongly, considering their small state the year before. I 

 do not remember now what was the reason why I did not 

 move them out of their seed-bed. I know they remained 

 there all that year, but as soon as they made their appearance 

 this spring I shifted them in patches into the herbaceous 

 border (not many of these borders to be seen now-a-days, 

 more 's tli9 pity), and I have had some very beautiful blooms 

 — blooms which havo been the admiration of all who have 

 seen them. 



The plant, by reason of the inordinate mania for Geraniums 

 and oth<sr bedders, which has driven out so many valuable and 

 beautiful plants, was quite a stranger to many of my neigh- 



bour gardeners ; they thought it was some novelty I had picked- 

 up, and, of course, they asked that common question, " Will 

 it bed ? " Of course it will not bed ; I am quite as W6ll satis- 

 fied that it will not, but as it has stood here in the valley of 

 the Trent, east of Nottingham, the last two winters under the 

 conditions I have detailed, I think there must be something- 

 wrong if " A. R." cannot grow it in the south of England. 



Let me, before I close this note, beg you to accept my best 

 thanks for publishing, and Mr. Abbey for writing, that ad- 

 mirable paper on " The Best Gardeners' Union," which so 

 fittingly heads the Journal of June 27th ; it contains words of 

 wisdom which every workman, and specially every gardener, 

 ought to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. Thoughts 

 like those have long been simmering in my own mind, but 

 want of ability has prevented my giving expression to them. 

 I would that every gardener could be induced to act up to them 

 at once. I am proud that there are members of our profession 

 who think and speak such sound common sense. — P. H. N. 



SUMMER-HOUSE IN AVENUE DE GKAVELLE, BOIS DE VINCENNES. 



BH^sa^J^Ai^UAPj)-— 



(From 51. Alpbaud's " Frcrnenailes lie Palis. 7 ') 



GREENHOUSE PLANTS— No. 11. 



Tnop.'EOLrjHs. — A genus of very fine-flowering climbing plants, 

 which are very effective on trellises or pillars in the green- 

 house or conservatory. Those of which I shall treat are bulbous 

 and herbaceous plants, the stems dying off after flowering. 



The most suitable compost is a mixture of equal parts of 

 light turfy loam, leaf soil, and sandy peat, chopped up rather 

 finely but not sifted, and half that quantity of charcoal in 

 lumps from the size of a pea to that of a hazel nut, the same 

 of silver sand, and a like quantity of very rotten manure. 

 Good drainage to about one-fourth the depth of the pot is very 

 desirable, and on the drainage place about an inch of the most 

 fibrous parts of the peat, shaking the finer particles out, and 

 using the rough only. Fill to within an inch of the rim 

 of the pot, and in the centre place a bulb, which, to make a 

 good growth and to bloom well, ought not to be of less size than 

 1 inch in diameter, and for this an 8-inch pot is sufficient. I 

 have sometimes employed 9-inch pots for very strong roots, but 

 for the generality of flowering bulbs the less size will be found 

 more suitable. I have sometimes put three or five bulbs in a 

 9-inch pot, and when the roots are not large, and a tolerably 



large trellis has to be covered, this plan answers well. What- 

 ever the number of bulbs placed in a pot, or whatever the size 

 of pot employed, I consider that when set the bulbs should 

 have then- crowns just an inch below the rim of the pot, and 

 the soil, being just moist, should be pressed rather firmly but 

 not made hard ; an indentation large enough to receive the 

 bulb should be made, and the bulb placed with its growing 

 side upwards, resting on and surrounded with silver sand. 

 The pot should then be filled to the rim, the soil pressed gently 



' down, and the pots set in a light airy position in a cool house. 

 It is not unusual to set the pots in out-of-the-way places and 

 corners, in which they are allowed to remain until the shoots 



i are several inches long, so that these become weak and spindly. 

 Instead of that they should have abundance of light and air 

 from the commencement of growth, and cannot have too much 

 of either in any stage. 



The time for potting the bulbs is entirely dependant on the 

 growth. If left to mature the growth in the house, the bulbs 

 should be taken out of the soil when the stem is quite dead, 



! and placed on dry sand, in a box-, in a cool dry place. When 



