73 



AND GREENHOUSE. 



IVY AS A HOUSE PLANT, 



Whoever has visited Europe has beheld 

 with admiraion the Ivy at its home. 

 House-walls are clad in Ivy, and a cosy, 

 homey look it gives to many a building. The 

 church, the castle, and the cottage invite its 

 presence ; it revels on the crumbling ruin, 

 and no ruin appears an interesing ruin unless 

 draped with Ivy. It also spreads upon the 

 ground and forms a carpet to the shady wood, 

 lays hold upon the trees within its reach, 

 climbs high the trunks of Oak and Ash, and 

 clothes them every inch. But our American 

 climate denies it the unrestrained 

 luxuriance it enjoys in Europe. As 

 an out-door plant,we use it to cover 

 rocks and walls of masonry that are 

 sheltered from drying winds and 

 warm sunshine, and likewise as an 

 evergreen border in place of Peri- 

 winkle or sometimes Grass. In a 

 sunny exposure it is not apt to 

 thrive well because of the direct 

 sunshine and drouth, but in some- 

 what shaded situations it may live 

 unhurt for years. 



But it is as a house plant that 

 the Ivy is most esteemed with us, 

 and justly, too, as it is ever-green 

 and cheerful, thrives well in heat 

 or cold, in light or shade, in sit- 

 ting-room or cellar. Kept in a 

 shady corner of the room, we may 

 extend its friendly wreaths around 

 our picture-frames, or train them 

 where we will and they resent it not ; 

 dust does not affect them badly, 

 for we can wash them clean again ; 

 they heed the parching breath of 

 furnace or of stove less than do 

 most other plants except Cactuses ; 

 that is, if they are well watered at 

 the root, for an Ivy should never 

 be allowed to get dry. Although 

 under favorable conditions they 

 may bear with impunity some 30° 

 to 40 ° of cold, a sudden and con- 

 siderable fall in temperature may 

 affect them injm'iously. 



They are easily propagated from 

 cuttings at any time. They like 

 a rich, open soil, and rather than 

 shift them into larger pots each 

 succeeding year, you may pick out 

 a good deal of the old surface soil 

 and replace with fresh earth. In the summer 

 time, if you do not want to keep them 

 in-doors, you may set them outside on the 

 piazza, or plunge their pots in the earth 

 in a shady part of the garden, and see to 

 it that they get lots of water. Or if you 

 live in the city, where you have no outside 

 garden, you may set your Ivy in a window- 

 box and let it droop down over the wall like 

 a mantle, for in an upright or downward 

 position the Ivy seems to grow equally well. 

 If you winter it in the cellar, keep it in a 

 cool cellar if practicable, but cold or warm, 

 never let its roots get dry. . 



Ivy sometimes gets overrun with scale, 

 and the only remedy for this is assiduous and 

 repeated washings with soapy water and a 

 sponge. So long as any scales are left so 



long will they increase in numbers. Dust 

 and dirt of that sort may be washed off with 

 water applied forcibly by the hose or syringe, 

 especially if the leaves have been kept wet 

 for some hours before they are hosed ; but 

 no amount of hosing will remove the scale. 



If your Ivy is sick, cut it back considerably, 

 turn it out of its pot and remove most of the 

 old soil, then re-pot it into a smaller pot, well 

 drained, and in fresh soil. Applying arti- 

 ficial fertilizers to an unhealthy Ivy is merely 

 hastening its death. 



Cut-off sprays of Ivy are useful in floral 

 decorations, and last a long time in good con- 

 dition, and some pretty wreaths and other 

 ornaments are made from Ivy leaves. Shoots 

 of Ivy cut off and put into bottles of water, 

 as we often do with Wandering Jew, root in 

 the water, and live on and grow. 



THE NEW GERMAN IVY. 



There are many kinds of Ivy, but the Ivy 

 we cultivate in our houses is, as a rule, the 

 English Ivy (botanically known as Hedera 

 Helix) and its varieties. Of these varieties 

 there are broad and narrow-leafed forms and 

 kinds whose leaves are banded, spotted, and 

 blotched with silvery white and sometimes 

 tinted with rose. 



Besides the true Ivies, we cultivate several 

 other plants also known as Ivies ; for in- 

 stance, the Coliseum or Kenilworth Ivy, 

 a delicate little Toadflax, which should be 

 hardy in the Middle States, and of which 

 there is a beautiful variegated form ; the 

 Ground Ivy, a creeping herb nearly allied 

 to Catnip, and a good plant to grow as a 

 carpet among ferns in a shady rockwork ; 

 the German Ivy, so well known as a ramp- 



ant growing house-plant for winter, and as 

 a vine in vases in summer ; the Virginian 

 Ivy, or Virginia Creeper, so abundant in our 

 woods, and so favored in our gardens as a 

 fast-growing screen or drapery ; and the 

 Japanese Ivy, which clings to walls of wood, 

 or stone as closely and tenaciously as does 

 English Ivy, but it is deciduous. 



Wm. Falconer. 



CARNATION GROWING. 



Carnations are generally considered as 

 among our most profuse blooming house- 

 plants, but during the last winter profes- 

 sional florists as well as amateurs have had 

 just cause for disappointment in this respect. 



Mr. John Reid, an experienced Carnation 

 grower, ascribes the cause, in a paper read be- 

 fore the New York Horticultural So- 

 ciety, to general debility. He says : 

 "For many years the different 

 varieties of Carnations have con- 

 tinued to reproduce themselves, 

 and at the same time flowering 

 almost incessantly, and I ask is it 

 any wonder that the plant is weak 

 and exhausted? It gets no rest 

 summer or winter, and the heat 

 and drought of last summer 

 seemed especially designed to end 

 its existence ; but it still lives 

 although in a very weak and ex- 

 hausted condition. 



" In my opinion, what it needs 

 most to restore it to at least some 

 of its former health and vigor is 

 rest. To give it as much of this as 

 possible I would, about October 

 1st, lift from the open ground, and 

 plant in six-inch pots, as many 

 plants of each variety as would 

 lie necessary for stock purposes, 

 taking the precaution to remove 

 all flowering wood from them ; then 

 place in a cold house or pit, there 

 to remain until about February 

 1st when I would proceed to prop- 

 agate them in the usual way. 

 When rooted I woiild place them 

 in boxes in a moderately-heated 

 house until thoroughly established , 

 then remove them to the cold 

 house or pit, there to remain until 

 planting out time, which should be 

 as early in the spring as the ground 

 can be worked properly. 



' ' In the fall, at the proper season 

 for removing them to the houses, 

 they should be potted in soil com- 

 posed of three parts well rotted 

 sods and of one part decomposed cow 

 manure, thoroughly mixed together. Great 

 care should be taken in watering them, 

 as they will grow and flower better when the 

 soil is kept only moist than when it is soaked 

 with water ; and on bright days I would rec- 

 ommend a thorough syringing. Keep your 

 Carnation houses cool. The plants will pro- 

 duce more and better flowers at a tempera- 

 ture of 45° by night and 55° by day than if 

 | kept at a higher degree of heat. It is only 

 on extremely cold or stormy days that my 

 Carnations do not get air for at least three 

 or four hours. 



" There may be other methods to attain 

 the same result, but I feel certain that a. 

 few years of this treatment would produce 

 healthier and better plants." 



