WATERING IN THE OPEN AIK. 173 



shower fell, some Lobelias and Fuchsias were the only plants that 

 needed water. 



Watering is, however, sometimes- indispensable. When that is so, 

 various plans are adopted to increase its efficiency, and as a substitute 

 for overhead showers. Mr. S. Taylor, in the Gardener's Magazine 

 for 1840, recommends the use of bottles, with two small holes in the 

 sides, near the bottom. The bottles are buried to the neck near the 

 roots of the flower which requires watering; and after being filled and 

 corked, the water is allowed gradually to exude through the holes. This 

 is objectionable, because the roots of the plants are liable to be injured in 

 plunging the bottles, and it requires too many of them, where copious 

 watering is necessary. Mr. W. P. Ayres thinks — " A better plan is to 

 take moderate-sized flower-pots, and having placed an inch or two of 

 rough gravel in the bottom of each, to place them round the plant to be 

 watered, and fill them with water, which as it percolates gradually 

 through the gravel, will soak into the ground. For plants such as 

 Standard Koses, Rhododendrons, &e., closely turfed over on lawns, or 

 for anything in a sloping situation, this is a most excellent plan, as the 

 pots filled with water may be placed at night and removed the next 

 morning, so as not to become an eyesore. Watering plants in flower- 

 beds is at all times a difficult matter, because if the borders are sa&- 

 ciently full of soil to give them a convex form, which they always 

 ought to have, the water runs to the sides of the borders as fast as it is 

 poured on. In such cases it will be found advisable to perforate the 

 beds as thickly as possible, without injuring, the roots, to the depth of 

 six or eight inches, with a stick one inch in diameter, and by filling 

 these ten or a dozen times the groundwUl become thoroughly soaked. 

 With Annuals, Verbenas, and other grouping plants, I have found this 

 a most excellent method." 



The TIME OE DAT at which watering should be practised in the open 

 air has given rise to much difference of opinion. Some gardeners 

 insist upon the morning, others upon the evening. The first rest their 

 opinions upon such considerations as the following : " Two acknow- 

 ledged agents in vigorous growth are heat and jnoisture ; plants out of 

 doors must take the heat as they find it, and as we cannot increase, our 

 •object should be not to diminish it : moisture is under our control, but 

 if we exercise that control, and water our plants in the evening during 

 dry weather, we do so at the expense of a great portion of the heat we 

 desire to preserve. Two influences are at that time brought into 

 operation in cooling down the plants, and retarding their growth, which 

 we thus vainly endeavo\ir to urge forward by moisture : these are 

 evaporation and radiation. Evaporation is the more rapid in proportion 

 "to the dryness of the air ; and hence it is most energetic, when the 

 necessity for watering is most urgent: but evaporation cannot take 

 ]place without producing cold, and .that cold is proportionate to the 



