314 
SPUR-PRUNING AZALEAS — HARDY CONIFEROUS PLANTS. 
natktipula is a graceful climbing plant, which 
we have seen cover the front of a house in fine 
bloom on Christmas eve, and dead on Christmas 
day. It will not stand a frost, which is to be 
regretted ; but as a conservatory plant it is 
second to none. The star-like flowers, com- 
prising rich colours, in which rose-pink predo- 
minates, come abundantly, and when festooned 
above the roof, shine among the gayest of 
the gay occupants of the highly favoured num- 
ber that occupy the best station of an esta- 
blishment. By putting out a well-rooted 
cutting on a wall of south aspect in May, a 
favourable season will bring it to perfection 
out-of-doors, and there is hardly anything 
that makes so gorgeous an appearance ; but it 
is not unusual to see it cut off just as it comes 
to perfection. It is a handsome plant exclu- 
sive of the flower, and a favourite if only for 
its foliage. It is best planted in a border for 
the conservatory, but it may be grown in a 
large sized pot, and exhibited like the Passi- 
floras, on trellises of some fancy design. It 
is necessary to grow it in moderately good 
soil, not too rich, as it would go off to foliage 
and not even indicate bloom ; turfy peat earth, 
with a very little good loam, will bring it 
into flower sooner than any other, and espe- 
cially sooner than richer soil. It should not 
be topped, but, as it grows, wound round a 
pillar formed of wires, beginning quite low 
near the bottom of the pot, and continued not 
more than an inch apart upwards ; it will 
flower by the time an ordinary sized trellis 
would be filled. It is propagated by the sim- 
plest means ; if it be laid along the surface of a 
declining hot-bed and pegged down at the 
joints, every one will strike root ; if it be cut 
into pieces with one joint underground and 
the other above, it is sure to strike under a 
bell-glass, and when the cuttings are rooted, 
they should be potted off into small pots, and 
be shifted only a little at a time, and that little 
not until the roots have begun to mat round 
the side. From the size of a forty-eight pot, it 
should be removed to the one it is to bloom in. 
The same treatment is applicable in the case 
of the more recently introduced Tacsonia 
mollissima. 
far as the frost had certainly reached, although 
in two cases it had perished the plants to the 
very root. One of the three specimens, not 
quite dead, was cut to within two or three 
inches of the main stem all the way up, and 
some part, nearly eighteen inches from the 
top, was also taken off dead. The plant was 
some time recovering or showing signs of life, 
when it broke all over, and we had to cut off 
more than half the shoots to make room for 
the others. The plant grew handsomely, set 
well for bloom, and the next season was as 
handsome a plant as was ever seen. This set 
us to cutting on all the other plants that had 
become gawky and at all thin of branches, and 
from ugly uncouth plants, with the stem to be 
seen in three-fourths of the plant, bought in 
fact in that state, they became all that could 
be wished. We have ever since these events 
used the knife freely with azaleas, cutting 
them in very much, keeping an eye to the 
form of the plant, and have always found the 
plants the better for it. The period for pruning 
in close is directly after the bloom has declined, 
and before they make any growth. Camellia 
jajionica should also be pruned after the 
bloom, so far as to cut in any lanky ill-grown 
branches, that the new growth may be hand- 
I some. When plants are cut back in this 
manner, they are frequently inclined to break 
in many more places than it would be conve- 
nient to have branches. All that are not 
wanted may therefore be rubbed off, and no 
more allowed to grow than are required to 
make a close, handsomely formed plant. 
SPUR-PRUNING AZALEAS. 
The first time we had any idea of close 
pruning for flowers, was given us by the sup- 
posed loss of a fine Azalea phoenicea, seven 
feet high, through the frost of the 1 1th of 
January 1858, when three of that height were 
exhibited at the Egyptian Hall in full bloom, 
and met with their supposed violent deaths ; 
they were certainly killed back all the last 
.season's wood, and the day after we cut in as 
HARDY CONIFEROUS PLANTS. 
THE GENUS THUJA. 
Thuja, Linneeus (the Arbor Vitas). — Coni- 
ferse § Cupressinaa. — Derivation uncertain, un- 
less it comes from thyon, sacrifice, the branches 
or resin being used as incense in the sacrifices 
of the East. 
1. Thuja occidentalis, Linnasus (western, 
or American ArborVitas). — Leaves very small, 
adpressed, four-rowed, scaly. Cones very 
small, loose, obovate, with yellowish oblong 
scales. 
In its native country, this tree is repre- 
sented as reaching the height of fifty feet, and 
having a stem ten feet in circumference. It is 
plentiful throughout a great part of North 
America, from Canada to Virginia and Caro- 
lina, occupying very important sites in the 
scenery of the country. It fringes the stu- 
pendous cataract of Niagara, and is found in 
great abundance by the Hudson, and the 
rapids of the Potomac, Such situations indi- 
