THE CONSERVATORY. 



721 



thes, and Mesembryanthemum ; the most curi- 

 ous as to their flowers, although for the most 

 part possessing tbe disagreeable odour of carrion, 

 are Stapelia and its allied genera ; the most sin- 

 gular as to general character are Echinocactus, 

 Mammillaria, Cereus, Cactus, Opuntia, Aloe, 

 and its associates, Apicra, Gasteria, &c. 



§ 9. — THE CONSERVATORY. 



The conservatory and greenhouse, although 

 too often regarded as the same, are by no means 

 synonymous. In vol. i. we have given thirteen 

 illustrations of the former, and also stated so 

 fully our views concerning them that little more 

 requires to be said beyond treating on their cul- 

 ture, arrangement, and management. As the 

 conservatory is, or rather ought to be, the most 

 elegant and perfect of all horticultural structures, 

 it follows that large, elegant, and well -grown 

 plants only ought to occupy it. It ought not 

 to be converted into a mere growing -house, or 

 fitted up with stages covered with a heterogene- 

 ous collection of all sorts and sizes, and in all 

 possible states of growth. Every plant admitted 

 should be grown elsewhere, say in the green- 

 house or otherwise, and only admitted when 

 coming into flower, excepting in the case of a 

 few rare or very finely grown specimens, which 

 may have outgrown the accommodation they 

 have hitherto occupied ; and these should be of 

 evergreen character, or remarkable for their 

 foliage, or some other equally interesting pro- 

 perty. Some of our dictionary compilers have 

 fallen into a very general error when they say 

 of the conservatory, "a large greenhouse for 

 exotics, in which the plants are planted in beds 

 and borders, and not in tubs and pots, as in the 

 common greenhouse." This meaning of the 

 word is as contrary to the original as it is to the 

 opinions of most of the best cultural authorities 

 of the present day. The earliest conservatories, 

 either in this country or elsewhere, were for the 

 preservation of plants in a portable state, placed 

 out of doors during summer, and only put under 

 cover during winter. The planting- out system 

 is a modern innovation. The conservatory, 

 more especially when in connection with the 

 mansion, should be, if we may be allowed to 

 borrow a popular phrase, " the show-room " of 

 the garden. It should be kept throughout the 

 whole year as it were in a blaze of flowers ; as 

 some begin to fade, others should be brought in 

 to replace them, and neither paucity of bloom 

 nor a sickly or deformed plant should be allowed 

 to appear in it. To this end, however, it is 

 necessary that other houses and pits be at hand 

 to keep up this supply, and without such all 

 attempts to maintain a conservatory as it ought 

 to be will be in vain. 



If these are the requirements, therefore, ex- 

 pected in a first-rate conservatory, surely we are 

 justified in saying they never can be realised if 

 the plants are permanently planted out in beds 

 or borders. Every plant has its season of 

 flowering, of growth, and of repose; it is only 

 during the former of these that it is a fit inmate 

 of the conservatory. These seasons do not take 



place in all plants at the same time ; and as we 

 know quite well that their treatment during 

 each of these periods is widely different, their 

 being associates in the same structure can never 

 be made reconcilable with good culture. Some 

 of the advocates for planting out have attempted 

 to give a natural, nay, even a picturesque cha- 

 racter to their arrangement ; but all attempts at 

 producing such effects under glass roofs of the 

 present extent have hitherto proved decided 

 failures, as both the materials we have to deal 

 with — that is, the structure, and the plants 

 as now grown — are so truly artificial in them- 

 selves, that it must require the utmost stretch 

 of even the enthusiast's imagination to allow 

 himself to believe that he has produced anything 

 like a natural effect, let him arrange his plants 

 how he will. Let us, therefore, be content to 

 abide by art while contemplating the arrange- 

 ment of the conservatory, and study how far we 

 can please the eye of taste by the production of 

 a perpetual summer, through the medium of 

 agreeable forms and colours harmoniously com- 

 bined. The conservatory, more especially when 

 in connection with the mansion, as we have 

 already stated, should be at all seasons, particu- 

 lary when the flower-garden is denuded of its 

 attractions, kept gay with flowering plants. Now, 

 this cannot be effected if the plants are perma- 

 nently planted in beds or borders, be they ever 

 so carefully prepared, or the plants ever so 

 judiciously selected. Nor is there any positive 

 reason why they should be so. A few very fine 

 specimens of evergreens, such as camellias, 

 oranges, &c, may be kept in to give a fulness 

 of effect; but assuredly the great majority 

 should be grown in a supplementary house, and 

 brought in only when about coming into bloom, 

 and again removed when the season of their 

 flowering is past. These remarks, it must be 

 understood, apply to conservatories of the usual 

 dimensions, and. placed, as it were, as an appen- 

 dage to the mansion. When built, however, 

 upon a scale of much greater magnitude, as 

 they assuredly will yet be, and hence coming 

 under the denomination of "jardins d'hiver," 

 or winter-gardens, then their arrangement may 

 be different, and in such many of the plants will 

 undoubtedly be planted out ; but, nevertheless, 

 even in them, plants in a portable state will be 

 required to maintain a sufficiently agreeable 

 display of bloom at all seasons. In a conserva- 

 tory covering an acre or two of surface, the 

 plants might be arranged somewhat in the natu- 

 ral manner, and this would to some extent be 

 consistent with their natures and habits, par- 

 ticularly in connection with the effects of light 

 upon them. No plant can long exist without 

 light; there are some, however, that require 

 less of it than others. One plant is organised 

 to suit the atmosphere of a dense wood, and 

 therefore a diffused light is sufficient to it; 

 others are planted by nature in situations upon 

 which the rays of a shadeless sun are daily 

 shining, — hence the light necessary to the one 

 would be fatal to the other. The organic differ- 

 ence in such cases as these is believed to consist 

 in the epidermis, a part of the structure of 



