566 
DATURA ARBOREA; ITS CULTURE. 
but if you neglect these two points the plant 
will become drawn and awkward and not sup- 
port its heads of bloom well: the flower will 
soon show, and the watering must be attended 
to very regularly all the time the heads are 
swelling and the flowers developing themselves. 
If the green-house light is only in front, the 
plant should be turned every two or three 
days all the time it is growing, otherwise it 
would get one-sided and ungainly. The flowers 
of the hydrangea are £rowina the whole time 
they are on the plant and in colour, but when 
that begins to fade into a green like the leaves 
of the plant, they grow no more. On this 
plant you may have as many heads as you 
please, but you can never form the heads so 
large as when you grow only one upon a single 
stem. As a garden ornament the hydrangea 
is very noble, and there are few subjects 
prettier than these plants in a border. They 
may be turned out of pots as early as May, 
and will grow far better than even in pots if 
the stuff they grow in is good. Cuttings may 
be taken in the autumn, and being cut up to a 
joint may be struck in a cold frame ; when 
potted out singly into pots of the size forty-eight, 
they may be allowed to grow with a single 
shoot, and the other buds should be rubbed off 
before they can grow to weaken the plant. As 
soon as the pot is filled with roots change it 
for a size thirty-two, and after that to a twenty- 
four, in which a single head will perfect itself 
well. "With regard to the stuff in which they 
are to be grown, it is usual among those that 
fancy them much, to have them in different 
composts, some grown in loam and dung half 
and half, others with loam-peat and dung in 
equal portions, a third peat and dung only. 
The flowers will be differently shaded in these 
three composts, and some will be weaker than 
others, but the different style of growth is 
pleasing where people want a variety. With 
respect also to the colouring of the blooms, 
we have seen the same pot of cuttings produce, 
in turn, blue and bright pink, without being 
able to fix upon the agent which caused the 
change, but we have suspected it to be in the 
peat earth, because those planted in the com- 
mon borders grew well and bloomed with pink 
flowers, and those which were in the peat 
bed among Americans had blue, and very 
strong blue ; it was natural therefore to infer 
that there was something in the peat that had 
the effect of changing the flowers to a blue. 
Many recipes have been given by various 
gardeners for turning the flowers blue, but up 
to the last we have seen every one fail, and 
also seen the plant give blue flowers with the 
recipes applied, but that there is some com- 
bination, at present unknown, is quite certain ; 
and we know from repeated trials by ourselves 
and others, that all the known means applied 
one year when the flowers have come blue, 
have been applied the very next year and 
failed, so that there is no certainty at present, 
although experiment will some day reduce the 
matter to a certainty. When these plants get 
large all the branches must be pruned back, 
that it may throw out young shoots all over, 
and be a well-furnished plant every year. If 
planted in the garden in the middle of a clump, 
Or on the lawn, a regular frame-work of good 
strong willow sticks should be placed over it, 
that it might be matted through the hard 
weather : it will save a good deal of the wood 
that might otherwise be cut down in a severe 
frost, and when the plant is springing, pruned 
afterwards, in a way to form a good bold 
bushy plant, the large size it acquires in two 
or three seasons is astonishing, for when it 
once lays hold and establishes itself in ground 
that agrees with it, the plants soon become 
enormous bushes : all that need be done is to 
cut in all the branches, to clear half or a third 
of the quantity of eyes, that they may all be 
induced to shoot. There is scarcely any thing 
looks more showy than a very noble bush of 
it in good flower, and we have seen them our- 
selves with three hundred heads of bloom, the 
bush being six feet through, all bushy alike to 
the ground, and a head of bloom at the end of 
every shoot both principal and lateral. It is 
worth mentioning one more circumstance in 
connexion with the colour of the bloom; a 
plant was put out on the lawn, a hole being 
made by taking out nearly a barrow full of loam, 
half of this was mixed with as much peat 
earth, and the plant placed in it ; for two 
seasons it bloomed blue, the third season it 
had become very large and all the blooms were 
pink: our conclusion was that the peat made 
it blue, and that it had now got through that 
into the plain loam, and thus resumed its pink. 
There is no doubt something in peat which 
causes the change, but then all peat is not 
alike. 
DATURA ARBOREA ; ITS CULTURE. 
The old Datura arborea, now often erro- 
neously called Brugmansia, is one of the most 
showy plants in cultivation ; and with its 
white funnel-shaped flowers, borne in pro- 
fusion, and hanging pendently from all the 
branches, forms one of the most pleasing ob- 
jects in the conservatory or on the lawn. The 
pendent disposition of the blooms renders it 
best as a standard, and the same may be said 
of the other kinds,* D. sanguinea and D. 
lutca, though their flowers are not half so 
interesting ; there is, however, a double white 
called, Knight ii, that is very curious and _ in- 
teresting, and should be grown in a collection. 
These Daturas are rapid growers, succulent, 
