Fl/CHSIA. 



112 



FUCHSIA. 



easiest ligneous plants to protect are 

 those which throw up suckers ; and 

 the most difficult, those which shoot 

 with difficulty from the root or stool, 

 such as the pine and fir tribe. The 

 easiest plants to protect are those 

 which are planted against walls ; be- 

 cause the branches can be saved from 

 the perpendicular cold by a projecting 

 coping, and the roots by litter, leaves, 

 rotten tan, &c. What are called 

 Alpine plants, which in their native 

 country are covered during winter 

 with snow, arc best protected by being 

 kept in pots, and placed in what is 

 called a cold frame ; that is, a box 

 covered with glass, placed on the com- 

 mon soil of the garden, and conse- 

 quently without bottom heat, but 

 covered, in severe weather with mats, 

 thatch, or boards. Planting herba- 

 ceous plants and low shrubs in raised 

 masses of soil covered with stone, 

 technically called rock-work, is also 

 a good means of preserving plants 

 which are not quite hardy ; because 

 the mass of soil containing the roots 

 is thus always more or less dry. 

 One of the greatest enjoyments in 

 gardening consists in growing the 

 plants of warmer climates than our 

 own in the open air ; this, in the 

 climate of Britain, is not so much to 

 be effected by communicating artifi- 

 cial heat in the winter season, as by 

 protecting them from frost and mois- 

 ture. If all gardening were reduced 

 to the mere growth of plants which 

 were quite hardy, the art would lose 

 half its interest. The nice point in 

 this, as in many other cases, consists 

 in overcoming difficulties ; and the 

 pleasure will be great, in proportion 

 as these difficulties appear at first 

 sight to be insurmountable. 



Fu v chsia. — Onagrarice. — The 

 Fuchsias being all natives of South 

 America, have till lately been gene- 

 rally treated as green-house plants, 

 but the greater number are now con- 



sidered to be among the more orna- 

 mental of our hardy exotics. They 

 grow freely in the open air, and en- 

 liven our flower-gardens during the 

 whole of the summer with their 

 beautiful crimson flowers; and though 

 they die down to the ground in win- 

 ter they spring up from the root the 

 following May, and during summer 

 flower profusely. They grow freely in 

 a mixture of vegetable earth, or peat, 

 sandy loam, and a little well-rotted 

 dung, which must be kept moist, but 

 by no means sodden. All the species 

 strike freely from cuttings of the 

 young wood, without bottom heat or 

 bell-glass; but they will do better 

 with these assistants ; and if planted 

 round the edges of pots, in a rather 

 more sandy soil than the mother- 

 plants have been grown in, and plunged 

 into a slight hotbed, and shaded, 

 they will be fit to pot off in about a 

 month or six weeks. Seeds are fre- 

 quently ripened, and many very beau- 

 tiful varieties and hybrids have been 

 raised in this country. One of the 

 finest of these hybrids is F. Stand- 

 ishii, raised between F. globbsa and 

 F. fulgetis, and figured in the Bo- 

 tanical Register for 1840. Seeds ve- 

 getate freely if sown as soon as they 

 are ripened in a rather sandy soil, on 

 a little heat ; and unlike most other 

 perennial plants, they will, if grown 

 strongly, flower the fii'st year. F. 

 Groomii is a splendid kind, and was 

 raised by Mr. Groom, of Walworth, 

 from seed of F. globosa. The fol- 

 lowing kinds are the best for growing 

 in the open air, F. globosa, F. c&- 

 nica, F. virgata, F. microphylla 

 with small flowers, and F. gracilis ; 

 which last, though naturally a hand- 

 some shrub, about four feet high, may 

 be trained to a single stem so as to 

 form a small tree, in the following 

 manner. The first point is to select 

 a healthy young plant that has a 

 strong leader, and talcing it into a 



