340 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



July, 191 



chaser must use his own judgment in se- 

 lecting. 



The cineraria is a typical greenhouse 

 plant and good seeds are hard to procure 

 in the general market, since the best strains 

 are raised from selected plants under glass, 

 and comparatively few seed growers have 

 the necessary accommodation. One result 

 of this is that our supply of cineraria seed is 

 from unselected stock and is bound to repro- 

 duce results much inferior to what the plants 

 are capable of producing. Some seedsmen 

 specialize on the cineraria and seeds pro- 

 cured from such specialists can be depended 

 upon to bring forth the best results. 



For pot work the large flowering type 

 {Cineraria hybrida) is by far the best; for 

 cut flowers use the small flowering type 

 {Cineraria stellata) . 



Sow the seeds in pans about the latter 

 part of July or the first part of August. 

 Prepare the pans and sow the seed as 

 recommended for calceolaria. Water the 

 young seedlings very carefully until the 

 seedlings are well up, when they should be 

 potted up into thumb pots. When the 

 plants are well rooted in the thumb pots, 

 they must be transferred to larger pots. 

 Continue this repotting until the plants 

 are given their final shift which will be 

 into seven-inch pots. Care must be used 



in transplanting not to "over pot", and 

 do not let the plants become pot bound. 



The only proper way to tell when a plant 

 needs repotting is to knock the plant out 

 of the pot. This is done by holding the 

 plant between the first and second fingers 

 of the left hand and inverting the pot, 

 tapping the edge of the pot on the bench. 

 If the pot is found to be filled with roots, 

 it is safe to move the plant into a larger 

 pot but not otherwise. 



The cineraria likes a cool, dry atmosphere 

 and the best place to carry the plants along 

 during the summer is the north side of a 

 building or a partially shaded coldframe. 

 They do not like the full sun and too much 

 shade makes them soft, so a little judgment 

 must be used. A good plan is to set the 

 plants on inverted flower pots or place a 

 couple of inches of sifted cinders beneath 

 the pots to afford proper drainage. Care 

 must needs be used in watering and the 

 plants must be sprayed frequently. This 

 spraying, however, must be confined to a 

 very fine mist. 



About the first of October the plants 

 must be brought indoors and about this 

 time given their final shift into a seven-inch 

 pot, giving them a fairly rich yet porous 

 soil. A good mixture is about one third 

 sifted manure, one third good turfy loam, 



about one third sifted leafmold, one 

 shovelful of sand to twelve of this compost 

 and a shovelful of bone meal to every 

 twelve of compost. 



When potting always place some drain- 

 age in the bottom of the pot, with some 

 rough material, such as moss, over it to 

 prevent the soil from getting in and clog- 

 ging the drainage. Sifted cinders or broken 

 pots are ideal means of drainage. 



A night temperature of 45 degrees is 

 ideal for these plants, but with good care 

 they can be grown five degrees either side 

 of this mark. In fact, I have seen good 

 plants grown in a carnation house, but 

 there is danger of the plants getting too 

 soft when grown at a high temperature. 

 The plants should be sprayed lightly but 

 frequently to keep down green fly. 



The placing of tobacco stems between the 

 plants as a preventive is good, but if the aphis 

 once gets on the plants, spraying or fumi- 

 gating must be resorted to. Some stand- 

 ard insecticide is all right for the spraying; 

 for fumigating hydrocyanic acid gas is 

 best. Some of the tobacco fumigants are 

 fairly satisfactory. 



When the flowering spikes appear the 

 plants will stand frequent feedings of 

 liquid fertilizer, using liquid cow manure 

 or some standard fertilizer. 



The stellata form of cineraria is extremely decorative. The older type is dwarf and much stiffer 



