HOUSE, AREA, AND WINDOW GARDENING. 



167 



more or less referred to under the A-arious heads. 

 Only a point or two can be noticed here. Pots> 

 baskets, crocks, soils, and the place of potting 

 should all partake of the temperature of the house ; 

 neither should tropical plants nor Orchids have to go 

 through the open air on their way to or from the 

 potting-shed ; nor should the process be hurried. 

 The writer was astonished once to see an expert in 

 Orchids take nearly an hour to shift a huge Caitkya 

 Mossice into a larger pot ; but neither Orchids nor 

 other plants can be unduly hurried with impunity. 



A good deal of time is needed to consolidate new 

 soil aroimd the roots and old ball, and much com- 

 pressing with bare fingers and potting - sticks is 

 required to give homogeneity of hardness to the new 

 with the old soil. 



After Potting. — An abnormally moist atmos- 

 phere and a higher temperature are useful for a few 

 weeks after potting, the object being to stimulate the 

 roots into taking full possession of the fresh earth. 

 This is hastened, according to some, by prompt water- 

 ings so soon as potted. Others contend that by 

 using soil and pots all of the same temperature as the 

 house the plant.s were grown in, and tolei-ably moist, 

 the roots will strike all the sooner into it if un- 

 watered ; either way a moist atmosphere and a rise 

 of five or more degrees in temperature will for a 

 fortnight after potting prove useful. 



Difference between Potting Orchids and 

 other Plants. — The hints here given relating to 

 the daily routine management of conservatories and 

 plant-stoves, and the fuller article on plant-potting 

 (Vol. I., p. 112), will give a tolerably clear notion of 

 this important practice. The cultural notes on 

 Orchids will also prove a guide to the shifting and 

 basketing of these magnificent plants. Still, to pre- 

 vent the amateur treating both sets of plants alike, 

 it may be well to remind him of the broad distinc- 

 tion between them. Orchids are potted on, rather 

 than in, the soil, in a compost often consisting of half 

 drainage, and more living sphagnum than dead peat or 

 other matter. The drainage also very often nearly 

 fills the pot, the roots and compost being heaped up 

 above its surface. The roots themselves are seldom 

 buried in any large proportion, but rather scamper 

 wildly over the surface of the compost, and droop 

 freely down into the air. (See cultural notes on 

 stove-plants and Orchids.) It is to be hoped that 

 these general hints ^-ill prove useful reminders of, 

 and safe guides to, the routine w^ork that must be 

 done in plant-stoves and Orchid-houses, day by day, 

 throughout the year, if success is to be reached, and 

 a full harvest of beaut)' and pleasure is to be reaped 

 and thoroughly enjoyed. 



HOUSE, AREA, AND WINDOW 

 GARDENING. 



By William Thomson. 



PmPAGATlOTir. 

 rpHERE are many ways in which plants may be^ 

 JL increased ; of some of them, such as twisting^ 

 tonguing, ringing, budding, grafting, it is scarcely 

 necessary to say much, since they are not likely to 

 be put into practice by the in-door gardener. 



Twisting, tonguing, and ringing are three dif- 

 ferent ways of checking the flow of sap, and in- 

 ducing the branch thus treated to throw out roots 

 at the part injured. When the branch is bent 

 down and pegged under the ground, it is called 

 layering. If the branch is too far from the ground 

 to be bent down, a flower-pot may be cut in halves,, 

 tied round the branch, and then filled with soil — 

 this plan has been called " circumposition." In alL 

 these cases, when a sufficient number of roots have 

 been formed, the branch is cut away from the parent 

 plant below where the roots have come out. 



Budding consists in inserting into a slit in the 

 bark of some common plant a bud from the shoot of 

 a scarce variety of the same kind of plant. There, 

 are many ways in which this operation is performed. 

 Roses are principally propagated by budding. 



Grafting is used maioly for fruit-trees, and 

 consists in making a shoot from one tree grow upon 

 another tree by fitting the parts neatly together, 

 and sm-rounding them with clay or grafting -wax 

 until the surfaces have united. (See articles on 

 Propagation' in general, and the propagation of 

 such genera as the Rose.) 



The methods of propagation which most concern 

 the house gardener are sowing seeds, dividing roots, 

 and striking cuttiags. 



Sowing Seeds. — However much we may admire 

 and care for a plant which has been given to us, we 

 naturally think more of those which we have our- 

 selves raised, whether it be from seed or from a 

 cutting. 



In sowing seeds, the most usual mistake is in 

 putting them too deep in the earth. Seeds only 

 require to be deep enough to secure an even quantity 

 of moisture during their germination : this can be 

 secured in a pot, not quite full of earth, by laying a 

 sheet of glass across the top of it, under which con- 

 ditions most small seeds will sprout as well on the 

 surface of the earth as under it. The earth should 

 be neither wet nor dry, but damp ; if it be necessary 

 to give any water to the earth, it is better to do it 

 before than after sowing ; the moistened soil should 

 then be well turned over and worked together so as 



