50 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 
Henry Shilson^ from his grand collection in Tremough 
Garden, Penryn, Cornwall. Some of them were trees 
twenty feet high, with trunks nearly a foot in diameter. 
They were lifted from the open border, the balls of roots 
and soil were strongly boxed up, and they were brought by 
rail to Kew, where they may now be seen, having scarcely 
felt the change from their Cornish home to the Himalayan 
section of the great Temperate House. It is important 
that the roots should not be allowed to get dry during the 
operation, and after transplanting it is always wise to give 
the soil about them a good saturating with water. This 
is all, and, provided the other conditions are suitable, no 
Rhododendron will look behind it if this is done. 
Mr. R. Gill, who has had charge of Tremough Garden 
for many years, and whose success in the cultivation of 
Himalayan Rhododendrons is well known, writing in the 
Gardeners* Chronicle a few years ago, stated with regard to 
planting : The mode of planting out which I have fol- 
lowed for nearly thirty years is to set the plants in specially 
prepared pits, and to surround the ball of roots with a lining 
of peat and sand, to which I frequently add one-third 
of decayed leaf-mould. A surface dressing is given as 
occasion may require. A good mulch of dead leaves — 
Nature’s own method of manuring — is a wonderful help 
in keeping the roots moist and cool, but in kept beds and 
borders this cannot at all times be carried out, because of 
the untidy appearance it gives. In such cases peat or fully 
decayed leaves must be resorted to as a surface dressing. 
In the application of top-dressing and in cleansing opera- 
tions the hoe and spade must be used with extreme 
caution. The best roots of the Rhododendron are near the 
surface, and to injure these is to damage the plant.” 
