84 
PRACTICAL HINTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF A 
atmosphere is requisite during the growing season, and in winter the temperature 
must never sink below 60 degrees ; and but very little moisture must be supplied. 
The soil in which this plant should be grown is composed of equal parts of heath 
mould and light rich loam, merely mixed and slightly broken together ; drain with 
crocks, bits of freestone, and a few pieces of charcoal. 
Propagation is effected by half-ripened cuttings, which should be planted in sand 
and plunged in heat in the propagating house, or other close atmosphere. 
PRACTICAL HINTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OP A FEW 
SELECT CLIMBING STOVE PLANTS. 
Although there are but few persons who are not enthusiastic admirers of the finer 
kinds of stove climbers, yet, strange as it may appear, it is only in the hands of, 
comparatively, a few cultivators, where we find them so managed as to secure a 
proper development of their varied floral charms in all their pristine loveliness and 
beauty. Take for illustration that most charming of all beautiful plants, Stephanotis 
floribunda, and examine the pot specimens of it in the collections of any twenty 
cultivators in any county in England, and for one plant which you will find bloomed so 
as to merit the specific distinction given to the plant, that of "abundant flowering," you 
will find ten plants scarcely blooming at all, or so meagrely as to render them almost 
unworthy of house-room. Look over the plants and you will find them clean and 
healthy, and for the most part in vigorous growth ; if you interrogate the gardener, 
he will probably tell you the plants are almost constantly growing very freely, and 
yet show little or no disposition to bloom. Look again over-head, at a plant 
growing in one corner of the bark-bed, with its branches trained to the rafters, or 
other parts of the roof, and you will see, streaming carelessly, or hanging in graceful 
festoons, branches smothered with flowers at almost every joint, and forming a 
spectacle which excites the admiration of almost every observer. Now, why this 
difference ? — and hereby hangs a tale. In the observation which practice has 
forced upon our attention we have almost invariably found that climbing plants 
flower more abundantly when left in a comparatively neglected or untrained state, 
than when very sedulously attended and carefully trained ; and the reason of this 
appears to be that these wildlings of the forest and the jungle do not like to be 
controlled too much by the hand of man; but, leave them to themselves, and allow 
them to grow almost unmolested, and they will flower as profusely as need be 
desired. 
From this it will be perceived that our remedy for the blooming climbing plants ' 
to allow them freedom of growth, to control them as little as possible, and thus b 
inducing natural vigour and habit, to promote the production of bloom. So far con 
vinced are we of the correctness of this view of the cause of shy blooming in man 
plants, that we will venture to assert that if any person takes two plants of Allamand 
