OPERATIONS FOR AUGUST. 
167 
lovely softness in the blending of the colours of its flowers that cannot fail to attract notice. The 
principal hue is a soft blush, deepening towards the extremities of the flower into a rich purple. 
The base of the lip wraps round the column, and the expanded portion is much curled and undu- 
lated, and has a considerably broader space of purple colouring than the sepals and petals. The 
flowers issue from slender naked stems rising about six inches, two or three blossoms springing 
from each of the uppermost nodular rings. 
Epide'ndrum ca.loche'ilum. a plant from the Kew Botanic Gardens was exhibited, in 
Regent Street, in the beginning of last month. There is a great similarity in the most obtrusive 
characters to E. altissimum. The inflorescence consists of large loose panicles of dingy bronze 
flowers, with narrow sepals and petals, and a frilled lip, having a bright yellow margin, and 
covered with rough irregular raised plates of violet purple. 
RADiA^TUM. An intermediate species between E. fragrans and E. cochleatum, 
having the size and streaked lip of the former, and the rounded petals of the latter. The colour 
is also intermediate. The leaves are rather longer and narrower than those of E. fragrans, and 
the pseudo-bulbs smaller. It is blooming in Messrs. Loddiges' collection. 
OPERATIONS FOR AUGUST. 
Notwithstanding the unfavourable and almost unprecedented long continuance of drought 
throughout the months of April, May, and June, when under more propitious auspices the most 
luxuriant growths are usually made, the majority of greenhouse and half-hardy border plants 
which have been turned out to contribute towards the autumnal decoration of the flower-garden, 
have now covered the ground, en masse, with shoots, and foliage, and flowers. This is in fact 
the season when there is the least difficulty in rendering the pleasure-ground showy with gay and 
beautiful colours, Ere long, however, all these will feel the untoward effects of pinching frostj 
and be deflowered of all that now renders them so fascinating. 
The certainty of the speedy termination of present and still increasing beauty, ought, then, to 
be a spur to the industry, ingenuity, and vigilant care of the cultivator to remove everything 
offensive, and make it all the eye can desire, whilst it yet remains. Every new shoot should be 
carefully tended, and guided into the most advantageous position ; every shoot that interferes 
with the proper display of its neighbour should be removed, as well as all those that extend 
beyond their prescribed limits, or betray a flowerless luxuriance, and rob the more mode- 
rate and fruitful of their wonted share of support. But pruning and training must never 
be so far extended, or so untastefully executed, as to induce a stiff and formal habit. Ease 
and elegance is ever looked for amongst plants grown expressly for decorative purposes, 
and, indeed, constitutes the principal attraction of many species ; and though a fantastica^l 
form, or a whimsical design, may look curious, they soon cease to interest, and the eye 
reverts with increased pleasure to those permitted to retain sufficient of their natural 
habit to avoid the harshness of formality. With border-plants, where the object is solely 
to cover the ground and form a gaily-chequered carpet, the shoots should still be pegged 
down when they rise too high, and the form and outline of the bed should be preserved in as 
well-defined a condition as possible, by spreading the shoots equally over all the surface, 
thinning out where too rank, and cutting back when they extend beyond the marked outline. 
The latter, moreover, must not be executed in the untasteful hedge-like manner sometimes seen, 
of clipping every shoot, when it reaches the edge of the border, with a pair of garden-shears ; 
but each straggler shortened separately, so as to leave the extremities of other shoots beyond the 
wound to conceal it, and destroy all obtrusive evidence of the means employed. By removing 
all flowers and flower-stalks stript of their beauty, the colour of those that have succeeded will 
show to greater advantage, the plants will look more neat and clean, and it will, further, be 
decidedly beneficial to the health, and promote the continuance of the flowering, of the plant. 
The advantage of removing decaying flowers is especially exhibited in the Rose, the petals of 
which, when the flowers are not gathered before they fall, strew the ground around, effecting a 
most unsightly and slovenly appearance ; and they are then much more difficult to remove than 
if the precaution recommended had been employed. Consequently, economy of lahoury as well as 
increased neatness, is best studied by a timely resort to this practice. 
