254 
CULTURE OF A FEW ORNAMENTAL PLANTS. 
greater elevation of the stems immediately above the roots. Protection must be 
afforded in the winter ; and it will be best to destroy all the stock but four or six 
specimens, which should be taken up, reduced, potted carefully, and preserved in a 
greenhouse or frame till spring, when they can be extensively propagated, and the 
newly-raised plants again taken to the open ground. 
L. erubescens , and all tender climbers that elevate their blossoms sufficiently to 
keep them above the soil, and to show them to advantage, might be treated in con- 
formity to the same system. Only it must be remarked, that such strong-growing 
kinds are less likely to be available for the object, on account of the extent of 
surface they would cover without bearing a proportionate quantity of bloom. 
Close and frequent pruning alone would suffice to retain them within due bounds. 
For novelty, and likewise to introduce a very pretty addition to the charms of 
a series of flower-plots, small trellises of wire or twine (the former being most ap- 
propriate, since it can easily be bent into a convex form) may be made over the 
more diminutive beds, and raised from three to six inches, with the view of 
preserving the plants from injury or disfigurement by having the dirt washed over 
’them with violent rains, and, further, of placing them in a more conspicuous 
position. On these slight frames might be trained plants of the various species of 
Tropceolum , Maurandya , and the slender sorts of climbers, preparing them pre- 
viously in pots on the identical trellises, or others of a like shape. Climbing plants 
so managed have the advantage, in addition to the freedom with which their roots 
can spread, of receiving the rays of the sun vertically. Both flowers and leaves are 
thus necessarily brought to the upper side, from which alone they are to be 
examined, so that the whole of their beauty is seen at a glance, and in one close 
mass, and is not scattered round a cylindrical or globular support, or placed on both 
or all sides of a flat or irregular trellis. The kinds of Thunbergia first mentioned 
can be managed in this way with the greatest success ; a trifling elevation saving 
them from the damage accruing from heavy falls of water, which always deface 
flowers that are too near the earth. 
The culturist may, with facility, work out the preceding hint in the treatment 
of low climbers of all descriptions that are grown in pots. By using a trellis whose 
outline is that of a greatly depressed semi-globe, with the convex side uppermost, 
and so tilted at the back as to bring the foremost edge below the rim of the pot, a 
method will be provided for concentrating the beauty of plants that do not bloom 
liberally, or for producing a superlatively fine show on those which are profuse 
flowerers, to which no other mode at present in vogue will bear any comparison. 
It is by no means necessary, however, that the trellis should be unequally poised ; 
and if situated in such a manner as to stand all round on a common level, it will 
even be more symmetrical. 
Considering the peculiar dwarfness of plants so trained, it will be perceived that 
their proximity to the glass, and freeness from anything that would interrupt their 
reception of light, are indispensable. It will, moreover be apparent that the plan 
