HOW TO POPULARISE ORCHID-GROWING. 



Ill 



green and flourishing. Just as when one translates a book into 

 a foreign tongue the idea must remain the same, while the 

 words themselves are changed, so must our Orchids have the 

 same conditions, while their surroundings may be utterly- 

 changed. 



I must not forget to add that if any Orchids show bloom 

 while in the frame I take them out when ready to expand and 

 place them in the shadiest part of the plant-house, so that the 

 petals shall not get spotted by damp or dashed by heavy rains. 

 In many instances I find they last longest in a sitting-room 

 where no gas is burned at night, and I do not find the plants 

 injured seriously when grown in this hardy fashion. 



An Orchid I should specially like to recommend to amateurs 

 as suitable for an ordinary cold plant-house in winter is Disa 

 grandiflora. This is an Orchid that is considered difficult to 

 grow near London, and it is, no doubt, so sensitive to smoke or 

 any impurity in the air that only those who live in the country 

 should attempt it. For those, however, whose gardens are in pure 

 air, and who have plenty of soft or rain water for their plants, it 

 is a plant that everyone who is a gardener should grow. Pot it 

 in Fern-root and clinkers, putting each tuber against either 

 clinkers or freestone lumps ; surface with sphagnum moss or not, 

 as you please, it is sure to do well in a cool and damp house near 

 the glass in winter ; in the spring place it in a more shady 

 corner, with a saucer of water beneath the inverted pot it should 

 stand upon, and keep it syringed, well watered, and free from fly 

 or any pest till it has flowered, which should be in July or early 

 August. Then plunge it outside under the shade of a hedge, and 

 leave it, after once watering, to the dew and the rain. In 

 October take up the pots, pull the young growths asunder, and 

 start afresh for another year's round. 



To those who have a vinery and a tolerably warm house 

 in which to winter their Orchids and other plants, I know of 

 no more beautiful, lasting, and delightful Orchid to grow than 

 Vanda ccErulea. This, too, is an Orchid that has a reputation 

 of being difficult to grow well and keep in health. I think, 

 therefore, that if I state briefly the conditions under which it 

 grows when at home, gardeners will see why they have failed 

 so frequently. I have already mentioned how Odontoglossums 

 grow under the Equator, and have spoken of the close, damp 



