162 
PROPAGATION OF FLOWER-GARDEN PLANTS. 
endure cold and other hostile influences, and are also certain to be more serviceable 
eventually. . 
All that is required to induce the whole of the hardy plants necessary to our 
flower-gardens — cuttings of them being chosen as before directed — to strike, is, to 
favour them with a cool, close, and moist atmosphere, such as a hand-glass under a 
North wall, or a common frame on an old spent dung-bed, when well shaded, would 
furnish, and even this is required but a very short period. The same may be said 
of such things as Pelargoniums, Verbenas, &c. : the latter we have propagated in a 
cold frame, stuck in a cutting-pot in the ordinary way, and occasionally shaded by a 
garden mat; and the former by thousands annually, when stuck all over the surface of 
an old cucumber or melon bed, without the least shelter from the blazing sun : under 
these circumstances, when well supplied with water, it is astonishing in how short a 
time, and what useful plants, can be raised. Of half-hardy plants there are many, 
of which the two mentioned are typical, that can be raised in an exactly similar 
manner ; but in this, as in every case, it is well to avoid a resort to extremes, by 
which we mean that while we would always raise Pelargoniums in the manner those 
just instanced were raised, and while many things, Verbenas, &c, could be raised 
similarly, we would yet give the latter a little warmth, because they would be so 
much benefited by it. To Heliotropes, Salvias, Senecios, &c, the same condition is 
quite requisite ; so also is it to such things similar in point of hardiness, but more 
delicate in other respects, to Nierembergias, Anagallises, Lobelias, &c. 
The degree of warmth required, is that only sufficiently strong and moist to 
support the cuttings till they begin to root. Where cuttings can be permanently 
potted off as soon as they are sufficiently rooted, they may be properly struck in as 
wholesale a way as possible. But where, from various causes, such a plan cannot 
be carried out, they may be struck in the pots, pans, or boxes they are intended to 
be preserved in, arranging the media for their roots accordingly, and putting in 
abundance of cuttings, to permit them to be well thinned out as their increase in 
size require it ; or strike them in the most convenient way, and afterwards prick 
them into the pots, &c, above mentioned. Generally, though, from necessity alone, 
the last method of keeping flower-garden plants is adopted. We have said nothing 
of the kind of soil or composition of material for placing the cuttings in, taking it 
for granted that it is sufficiently well known that the medium for the roots of 
cuttings as well as plants under such circumstances, cannot be of too sterile a nature, 
so that it is sufficiently good to effect the purpose desired to be attained. 
We cannot too much endeavour to fix attention upon this subject, for the 
practice of rearing flower-garden plants, either from cuttings or seeds in any manner, 
because they are so easily raised, and under the impression that it is of no conse- 
quence, is altogether indefensible. The custom of doing so causes, at least, a very 
unnecessary outlay of trouble and labour, to say nothing of the chances of loss from 
cuttings not striking, and the difficulty of preserving them as plants when they have 
been improperly struck. 
