2i6 FLORA AND SYLVA 
spike, are sacrificed. It helps the plants 
to remove the blossoms as they fade, and 
so prevent their strength running to seed . 
It often happens in a fine autumn that 
many buds remain at lifting time, and 
to preserve these the plants may be lifted 
and laid in thickly under glass with a 
little heat. They will then often go on 
bloomingforquitea while, givingcolour 
at a dull time, while the one care needed 
is to avoid over-watering. 
Few plants are more easily 
grown than the Canna, and 
with care it may be had in beauty at 
almost any season, its culture varying 
with the season at which it is desired 
to flower. For the open air the rhi- 
zomes should be potted as they start 
into growth, grownfairlycool,and hard- 
ened off for planting when fear of frost 
is gone. Good light soil should bedeeply 
dug and dressed as for Dahlias, and be- 
yond a mulch of leaf- mould or light litter 
and watering in dry seasons, little else 
is necessary. Put out 3 feet apart, the 
plants begin to bloom from midsummer 
and continue until frost. Seeing that 
such plants are often at their best in 
autumn, some prefer to grow them in 
sunk pots which can be lifted without 
check when frost threatens and secures 
a continuous bloom under glass into the 
dark days. Others, who make a point 
of winter-flowering Cannas, prefer to 
strike healthy suckers in August and 
grow them on in small pots and with 
a single stem, to flower in a warm house 
during winter, when their brightness 
is welcome and the flowers last longer 
than in summer. Some kinds lend them- 
selves to this treatmentbetterthanothers. 
and a list of these will be found under 
Kmds. For blooming in spring, stout 
suckers must be taken from roots started 
early in February and treated in the 
same way, using a compost of sandy 
loam and rotten manure, with a little 
sand and bone-meal, and manure- water 
when the pots are full of roots. In pot- 
ting, the growing point of the rhizome 
should bejust covered and space allowed 
for a later top-dressing, for the first and 
best roots start from this point, and it 
is these that need feeding. The condi- 
tions of success in pot culture are, to 
alternate the times of growth and rest, 
never to overpot, and not to over- water 
newly potted plants. Copious watering 
is good except in winter and with newly 
started plants ; these need care, and sy- 
ringing early in the day is better than 
too much water until the roots have a 
firm hold of the soil. Then they may 
be richly fed, whether in pots or in the 
open air , and being gross feeders frequent 
doses of liquid manure and soot- water 
are necessary to their finest develop- 
ment. In the south of Europe the very 
strongest manures seem to do no harm, 
and are used mixedwith sulphate of iron 
to prevent unpleasantness. 
With the early Cannas there 
Wintering. , , 
was little dimculty as to 
wintering. They were kinds of great 
vigour and some so nearly hardy that 
in southern gardens of light soil they 
would often pass the winter beneath a 
thick layer of litter or coal-ashes. Such 
kinds as C. Khermanni and the forms 
of C. Annei will stand the winters of 
Devon and Cornwall in the open air. 
But in the present large-flowered strain 
