ON florists' flowers. 



91 



The Hollyhock fancier removes the lateral growths, so that the 

 centre spike may be of splendid quality. These lateral growths 

 are furnished both with eyes containing leaf buds, and with 

 flower-buds. The leaf-buds, if cut out and inserted in small 

 pots in sandy soil, will produce nice young plants. They 

 should be treated much as vine eyes are. The small pots 

 should be plunged -in a spent hot-bed, when the bud will, in a 

 week or ten days, appear out of the soil. Great care must be 

 taken in watering them at this stage, as they have considerable 

 tendency to rot off ; but as the plants advance in growth and 

 form roots, they should be potted on into large "sixties," and in 

 these they will pass the winter, but must be potted on in the 

 early spring months. 



Hollyhocks are also propagated in the spring by root-grafting, 

 and by cuttings from growths obtained from the old stools. To 

 obtain these the old plants should be lifted out of the ground 

 in October, and planted in flower-pots from 6in. to Sin. in 

 diameter ; there is no need to over-pot them. The plants may 

 either be wintered in a garden-frame or in a cool greenhouse, 

 and in February or March the cuttings will be ready. Each 

 one should be taken with a sharp knife close to the main stem 

 of the plant, and potted in " thumbs " in sandy soil. If the 

 soil is moist, and the cuttings are placed in the propagating-frame 

 of a forcing-house, they will require little or no water until roots 

 are formed, and an over-supply of water might cause most of 

 them to rot off at the base. They will soon start into growth if 

 they do well, and must, of course, be inured to a more airy 

 place as soon as possible. 



Root-grafting is merely the process of tying the shoot to a bit 

 of Hollyhock root, after cutting the growth and the root much 

 in the same way as ordinary whip-grafting of fruit-trees. Growths 

 should be planted in small flower-pots, deep enough to leave the 

 point of union just above the surface. These spring-propagated 

 plants will flower rather later than those struck from eyes or in 

 any other way in the autumn. 



Propagation from seed is much the easiest way to raise a stock 

 of plants, and, of course, it is always best to save the seed from 

 the very best varieties. Such plants should also be cross- 

 fertilised, for if this is not done the seedlings produce flowers 

 differing very little from the parent plant, most of them inferior 

 in quality, but some equally good, and very few of them better. 

 If the seed is sown soon after it is gathered and dried, and the 



