102 



THE GARDENER. 



[mar. 



The temperature of the greenhouse should be much 

 lower, though not below 40° during any part of the 

 month, and fires will be unnecessary as the month ad- 

 vances. The flowering plants should not be crowded 

 or left unventilated, but the more or less frequent ad- 

 mission of fresh air will depend very much on the size 

 of the house and the number of plants ; in a small and 

 full house the necessity for admitting fresh air will be 

 more urgent than under opposite cii'cumstances. Plants 

 that have ceased flowering should be removed from the 

 greenhouse to the conservatory or garden frames, to 

 make way for others about to blow. 



Mr. Barnes, gardener to Lady RoUe, in Devonshire, 

 has been in the habit of using fragments of charcoal of 

 difierent sizes with unsifted fibry soil and pebbles, 

 in pot culture of every description for upwards of 

 twenty years, and with the most beneficial effects. lie 

 was led to use it from seeing the luxuriance of grass 

 and weeds in a wood where the charcoal dust had got 

 among them. He tried it first with cucumbers, and 

 then with other soft growing plants, and most kitchen 

 garden plants in drills.* Whether the mould should 

 be unsifted and therefore rough, or fine, should de- 

 pend, however, on the nature of the plants for which 

 it is intended. The editor of the Gardeners' Chronicle 

 lays down as a rule, that soft-wooded plants, such as 

 Fuchsias and some of the Clerodendrons, should 

 be quite fine, (he assumes that they are to be first 

 put into small pots and to be shifted into larger,) 

 in order to let the roots occupy every particle of it in 



and such like, sandy peat alone ; and for Chinese Azaleas, a large 

 proportion of leaf mould. 



The writer of this Guide has used with success for Tulips and 

 Ranunculuses, three parts of fresh turf mould, one of leaf mould, 

 and one of cow dung ; and for Anemones, a greater proportion 

 of leaf mould, and less of earth. 



* See Gardener's Mag., Nov. 1842. 



