238 



SHRUBBERIES AND FLOWER-GARDENS. 



[ri-iAr. 



oilce ill ]May a:id June. Propagated by seed or by layers, but, as 

 it is tender, the sure way to make layers is to cover the stump 

 with earth, and then the shoots which come immediately from it 

 take root easily. It is a proper green-house plant. 



340. CAMELLIA. — Lat. C. Japonica. A veiy beautiful ever- 

 green green-house shrub, which blows in February and March, 

 flowers double, semi-double, and single ; and there are the red^ 

 red-and-white, pure white, and the blush, with various others that 

 have been procured by art. This plant, though strictly speaking 

 a green-house plant, may be brought to grow and blow in the 

 open ground, if planted under a southern wall, and sheltered in 

 the winter by mats or other covering. It likes a good rich soil, 

 though it is the practice of the great tlorists to grow it in a mix- 

 ture of peat and good garden mould, to ^'\ hich some add a small 

 proportion of sand. It is not difficult of propagation either by 

 cuttings, layers, or by grafting : if by cuttings, take off, in Au- 

 gust, ripened shoots of the preceding year's growth, to which you 

 will let there be three buds. Plant a dozen or so in a pot of six 

 or eight inches' diameter filled with sand or sandy loam. Keep 

 the pot under a frame or a hand-glass without bottom heat, and 

 shade it from a powerful sun. In the spring, you will find them 

 pushing forth ; at least, all such as have struck. Give them %\"ater 

 plentifully when they are in a growing state, and sprinkle their 

 leaves also ; and, in the fall, they will be fit to pot ofi", when you 

 should plant them singly in good-sized pots well drained by plac- 

 ing potsherds at the bottom. By layers, proceed as is recom- 

 mended in Chap. VI., and graft in the manner recommended in 

 that Chapter also, only it is usual to omit cutting a tongue in the 

 stock and the scion as there recommended, because it is supposed 

 to weaken both more than they can bear : but the greater atten- 

 tion is requisite in the tying, so that the barks of the stock and 

 the scion may not, in the operation of tying, be removed from the 

 point where you have placed them. I ^^ill oiilv repeat that, 

 when growing, and when in flower, this plant requires to be plen- 

 tifully watered; and that the broiling mid-day sun of summer it 

 never likes. 



341 . CATALPA. — Lat. Bignonia Catalpa. This is a shrub or 

 tree rising to the height of thirty or forty feet : and it is sufliciently 

 hardy for almost any part of the south of England. Its flowers, 

 ^^hich come like those of the horse chesnut, but not until August, 



