72 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 



[ July 25, 1872. 



many years at Clumber under the name of Blanche. I should 

 think the trees there are twenty to thirty years old, perhaps 

 more, and were considered the best sort they grew in Mr. 

 Moffat's time. Many kinds are hardly sufficiently proved yet, 

 but if your correspondent obtain these two varieties, with 

 Brown Turkey, Brunswick, White Marseilles, and White Ischia, 

 he will have sorts that are sure to succeed. Let him try these 

 £rst.— J. E. Peakson, Chilwell." 



WINTER-FLOWERING PLANTS.— No. 1. 



APHELANDRA AUHANTIACA EOEZLII. 



Whebe dwarf growth, ample foliage, and fine heads of 

 bloom are in request, this plant needs only to be seen to be 

 appreciated. It has fine large leaves 9 inches or more long, 

 by from 4 to 6 inches wide ; they are bright deep green, with 

 a silvery metallic hue, especially the midribs and veins. It is 

 ornamental even when without flowers, the leaves hanging 

 down so as to cover the stem and pot. The flowers are of a 

 iright orange scarlet, and produced in fine terminal heads at 

 the dullest period of the year — namely, from December to 

 February. 'When we take into consideration that a 4-inch 

 pot will grow it well, the plant and flower-spike not exceeding 

 a foot in height, I think it will be at once apparent that it is 

 one of a class of plants that ought to be grown in quantity for 

 decorative purposes. 



It is a stove plant, and of easy culture, its treatment not 

 being different from that, of other subjects, only the plants 

 must have a position near the glass if they are expected to be 

 dwarf — a shelf 15 to 18 inches from the glass answers well — 

 and to secure good foliage the atmosphere must be moist. A 

 good brisk heat should be maintained in order to insure 

 free growth, but slight shade ought to be afforded in very 

 bright weather, yet this must not be .continued after, say, two 

 •or three pairs of leaves are well developed. Afterwards,- the 

 plants cannot have too much light so as to thoroughly ripen the 

 shoots, from the apex of which the spike of flowers is pro- 

 duced ; therefore the points of the shoots must be carefully 

 preserved, and no stopping ought to take place after mid- 

 summer. 



The plants, which flower in winter, should for some time 

 ■afterwards be kept rather dry, breaking off the old spikes of 

 bloom just below its setting-on with the shoot. In March the 

 plants may be repotted in the same size of pot, and placed in 

 a brisk heat and moist atmosphere, but not watered much until 

 the roots are working freely in the fresh soil. The plants will 

 break all the more freely if the pots are plunged in a bottom 

 heat of, say, 80° to 85°. This, however, is not imperative, un- 

 less stock is wanted, and then the bottom heat will cause freer 

 rooting, and shoots for cuttings will be formed sooner than 

 would otherwise be the case. When the shoots are 3 or 

 4 inches long, if a stock is wanted take them off close to the 

 stem, or below the first leaves, pare the base smooth, remove 

 the lowest pair of leaves, and insert the cuttings singly in 

 small pots filled with a compost of turfy loam, sandy peat, 

 leaf soil, and one part of silver sand. Place them in a bottom 

 heat of 80° to 85°, cover them with a hand or bell-glass, and 

 keep them close and shaded. When the cuttings are rooted, 

 -which will be known by then- growing, tilt the glass, and by 

 degrees remove it, hardening off the plants so as to endure the 

 air of the stove. Pot them in 4-inch pots, and place them on 

 shelves near the glass. These plants will each produce from 

 one to three spikes of bloom, and the leaves will clothe the 

 stem, and partly, if not completely, cover the pot. 



. The old plants, if not wanted for stock, should, before pot- 

 ting, be cut down to three joints of last year's wood, and when 

 they have made fresh shoots an inch or two long, should be 

 shifted into smaller pots, giving them their final shift in July. 

 'These will be the first to flower, followed by the cuttings. 



The old plants treated for stock should be continued in the 

 bottom heat, cutting them down as low as desired, only it is 

 well to leave one or two joints of last year's wood, and when 

 they have made fresh shoots an inch long they should be 

 gradually withdrawn from the hotbed, and be potted in August. 

 These will succeed the cuttings in flowering. 



There is yet one other sort of plants to which I must refer 

 — namely, seedlings. These have the finest leaves, are the 

 stoutest, and give the largest spikes of bloom. To produce 

 seed the plants should be kept dry overhead , and when the 

 seed is ripe, as will be known by the head opening, sow at 

 once in pans well drained and filled to the rim with the com- 

 post named for the cuttings, making the surface very fine. 



Just cover the seeds with fine soil, water gently, and put 

 under a hand-glass in the stove. When the seedlings appear 

 admit air freely, and when they have a pair of leaves besides 

 the seed leaves, pot off singly in 3-inch pots. In potting it is 

 well not to pot deeper than with the seed leaves half an inch 

 out of the soil. The plants may now be encouraged with 

 plenty of heat and moisture, and they will soon make some 

 fine leaves ; they should be shifted into 4 or 5-inch pots, when 

 they have filled the 3-inch pots with roots. In this size of 

 pot they may be allowed to bloom. I do not take the trouble 

 to sow the seed, but allow it to drop, and as a consequence the 

 plants come up in the tan, amongst sea gravel — in fact wher- 

 ever the seeds fall and find sufficient moisture for germination . 

 All that is required is to take them up and pot them when they 

 show the first pair of rough leaves, which in a young state have 

 a silvery metallic hue. 



The young plants, as well as the old, require to be encouraged 

 with an abundant supply of water, and a thoroughly moist at- 

 mosphere until the buds are formed, and then a drier atmo- 

 sphere is preferable. 



The seedling plants will flower when from 5 to 8 inches 

 high, and generally in the winter of the second year. 



A compost of equal parts of sandy peat, fibrous light loam 

 torn or chopped up roughly, and leaf soil, and half a part each 

 of charcoal in pieces between the size of peas and hazel nuts, 

 and silver sand, will grow these plants well. Good drainage, it 

 is hardly necessary to say, is essential. 



The plants will flower in a winter temperature of 55° at 

 night, and may be placed when in flower in a conservatory at 

 45° to 50°. They will withstand the atmosphere of rooms 

 well, in fact I consider this Aphelandra one of the most useful 

 plants we have. — G. Abbey. 



VENTILATION IN HOT WEATHER. 



I heae some horrid accounts of scorching. A little air given 

 early at the highest point of the roof would have prevented it 

 all. In such hot weather as we now have early air-giving 

 is the chief point to be attended to. The quantity is not 

 the question. Air-giving early and slightly damping the floors 

 are of more importance and utility than admitting in great 

 quantities whole blasts of heated tropical air. Provide for 

 safety by early air-giving, for a comparatively moist atmo- 

 sphere by sprinkling beds and floors, and the gradual rising of 

 the temperature even to a considerable height will do less 

 harm than a free current of air heated as it has been of late. 

 For instance, having plants in vineries, I have rarely in these 

 hot days given front air. For instance, also, in our Cucumber 

 pit, which has been only worked too hard, in these warmest 

 days it never had more than from 1 to 1J inch of air at the 

 apex. That, and damping the floor and wall, were of more 

 benefit, with a little whitening shading, than drawing down the 

 sashes partly in such weather. It was better that there should 

 be a moist heat, with air at 90°, than a greater amount of air. 



The scorchings I hear of are chiefly attributable to the want 

 of giving air early, and then giving too much of it for tenderly- 

 reared plants to bear. I believe that, if for nothing else, I 

 may take the credit of first advocating early air-giving, and 

 then to be the less concerned about the quantity, so long as 

 sun heat alone raised the thermometer. It is a different affair 

 when sun heat and fire heat meet, which they ought never to 

 do in such weather as we have had lately. An old worthy 

 writes, " My man, thinking the day was to be dull, put on a 

 brisk fire in my Cucumber house, and the sun coming out 

 bright by 9 a.m., he was forced to give an abundance of air on 

 the 5th, and the leaves have all been scorched on their edges, 

 and look as if they would die." What should have been done, 

 what can he do, to remedy the disaster? First, when he saw 

 the sun coming out, he ought to have pulled his fire out, then 

 slightly shaded the house, been satisfied with 2 or 3 inches of 

 air, but sprinkled the beds and watered the paths all the way 

 along. If the Cucumbers are strong the same treatment will 

 restore them, but if "too far injured it is better to plant afresh. 

 It is difficult to instil the simple principle, that strong fire 

 heat and fierce sun heat ought never to occur together under 

 a glass roof. 



Though it may make me appear almost patriarchal to state 

 that about the time Donald Beaton was in his glory I gave 

 utterance to similar ideas in Loudon's " Gardener's Magazine," 

 yet I have felt confirmed in them ever since. That might be 

 partly owing to having lived so long with a worthy veteran 

 who had passed through the Peninsular war, and was also at 



