193 
FLOWER GARDEN. 
and many spring bulbs, are ready to take up, 
and should be taken up before the end of the 
month. 
Herbaceous Plants, and perennials of all 
kinds, should be sown, or parted, if wanted for 
propagation, as soon as their blooms decay. 
All the perennial Lupins, especially Lupinus 
polyphyllus, the Penstenions, Antirrhinums, 
Phloxes, Salvias, Digitalis, Delphiniums, Cam- 
panulas, Columbines, and many others, come 
from seed as well as parting the roots. This is 
the month fur sowing all kinds, and for part- 
ing such as have gone out of bloom. The 
pieces ought not to be too small, though a 
good heart and a piece of root will not fail to 
make a good plant, if care be taken to give it 
a good situation and a good bed of stuff, with 
room to grow. They should be well watered 
in, and the best time to put them out is even- 
ing, after the sun is down, though with such 
as are not very delicate, very little care is 
required beyond giving plenty of water when 
they are first planted out. Another point to 
be taken notice of, is the necessity of parting 
and planting at the same time, or nearly so, 
that the plants may not suffer by drying and 
flagging before they are put in the ground. 
In sowing the seeds no great care is wanted ; 
they may be sown in patches or drills very 
thinly, because they will not only come up 
stronger, but there will be less trouble to thin 
them out, and it will be as well if they do not 
require it at all until planting-out time, which 
is when the plants are large enough to handle 
well, and have root enough to go down a little 
into the fresh earth provided for them. 
Sundries. — The gravel walks ought to be 
turned and rolled, the lawn and edges of grass 
should be mowed, all things put in order ; the 
borders and beds forked and raked even, any 
straggling branches of ornamental trees left 
in the way, ought to be taken off. Rhododen- 
drons and flowering shrubs should be well 
w r atered, if the weather prove at all dry or 
parching. Geometrical gardens, or as they 
are called, Dutch gardens, and flower-beds 
near the house, should be filled with some- 
thing immediately, if not done; and the flower 
garden throughout should be what is called 
properly furnished. "Weeding comes as a 
matter of course, as does watering in dry 
weather, tying up rose-trees to stakes, and 
placing sticks to climbing plants in the open 
borders ; examining all the plants that should 
have labels, to see that in dressing the ground, 
and forking and raking it, they have not been 
removed ; and if they have, to restore them 
again while you can see what the plants are. 
THE STOVE. 
Nearly all the growing specimens may 
now require to be shifted to pots a size 
larger, many of the Gesncras, Achimenes, 
Brugmansias, Euphorbias, and Cleroden- 
drons. Those which are showing bloom require 
frequent watering ; forced plants and flowers 
may now go into the conservatory, as soon as 
they show their bloom. Climbing plants want 
almost daily regulating, to prevent their shoots 
from growing astray. Plants that have been 
in store pots may be put out one in a pot. 
All the plants through the house must be care- 
fully examined, for the presence of meally bug 
and scale requires instant exertion. Soft soap 
and water, with the syringe, tobacco water, 
lime water, and plain soft water, are so many 
remedies for evils; but if the bug or scale once 
takes possession, it must be eradicated at 
every cost. If the plants be not too large, 
they maybe immersed, wrong side upwards, in 
tobacco water for a minute, and after an hour 
or two be syringed with plain water. If this 
does not get rid of them with one application, 
they must have two ; and we have seen it 
necessary to use a brush and a soft soap lather 
with many foul plants before the filth could be 
removed. The brush should be like an ordinary 
shaving brush, and the water rather warm. 
If any symptoms of this bug be discovered in 
a single plant, you must redouble your activity 
in examining all the other plants about it ; for 
the meally bug increases rapidly, and three or 
four days would, in a hot season, give it such 
an ascendency as to cost many days of hard 
work to get rid of the evil, and perhaps 
hardly have the house clear again. Keep the 
stove very clean ; remove all dead leaves and 
dirt ; stir the surface of the tan, and remove 
all fungi, which are very apt to come up 
between the pots when they are long un- 
disturbed ; keep up a moist atmosphere, by 
watering the floors and pipes of an evening 
before closing. 
THE 0RCHIDE0US HOUSE. 
Perhaps, with all the mystery that has been 
made of this department of Gardening, there 
is hardly a tribe of plants easier managed. 
The attention is not of the same kind as that 
to the kitchen garden, but infinitely more 
simple. Many are now coming into bloom, 
and if the house were permitted to be dry, it 
would be fatal, not only to the blooms, but to 
the growth of many plants. They derive their 
chief nourishment from the damp of the atmo- 
sphere, and if this be withdrawn, or not 
supplied, there must something go wrong. 
We have grown many orchideous plants in 
the ordinary stove ; but some stove plants 
suffer by the quantity of moisture which these 
epiphytes require. In consequence, we have a 
slight partition of glass at one end of the 
stove, and that we keep moist, while the other 
has no more than the ordinary stove plants 
