152 
THE FLORIST. 
as I can, and to fill up the time between as well as my means permit, 
and I may say I am perfectly satisfied with my display even in August 
and September as compared with my Verbena and Scarlet Geranium 
friends, while for the spring, from March to June,. there is no 
comparison between us. I have neither the expense of frames nor the 
trouble of striking cuttings—with few exceptions—and for variety, 
sweetness, and adaptability for cutting and placing in rooms, they are 
beat hollow ; in fact, I can always make up my glasses with a great 
variety of colour and shape, which are both as desirable for filling glasses 
with as they are to look at when growing. 
My practice is to take up all my plants annually—generally in 
February—and trench over the ground 18 inches deep, removing any 
exhausted soil and replacing it with fresh. I add at this time a 
dressing of well rotted manure, which is well incorporated with the 
soil. The height and colour of each particular plant is shortly described 
on each label, as also the season of flowering, so that I may distribute 
them regularly through my beds and borders, which, I need not say, 
are rich and deep, so as to allow full scope for the strong rooted kinds. 
The plants are then replanted, dividing them when too large, and 
making them firm in the soil. I even go to the extent of placing a 
little very rotten manure underneath some of the kinds, which much 
improves the vigour and size of their blooms at this season. When the 
kinds I wish to operate on are all above ground, I divide them into 
three batches, one of which is to bloom at their natural season ; one I 
cut down to six inches of the ground the first or second week in May; 
the third and last about the same time in June. If too many stems 
are thrown up by this cutting back, I thin them out according to the 
kind and strength of the plant, and when they commence growing I 
well supply them with water. By these means all the ordinary kinds 
of herbaceous plants grow and bloom profusely, of a size not frequently 
seen, and those last cut down keep on blooming till November. 
I will send you a list of kinds in my next, J. S. M, 
CEREUS TRIANGULARIS. 
This noble plant is the rarest bloomer of its tribe, and at the same 
time the most magnificent when it does bloom. A fine plant of it 
flowered some time ago in the conservatory of Mr. Toulmein Smith, of 
Highgate. This plant is twelve years old, and has bloomed four times. 
The buds are developed with extraordinary rapidity, the flower being 
fully opened in three weeks’ time from the bud being first distinguish¬ 
able. Yet the dimensions of the bud and flower are somewhat 
marvellous, and appear all the more striking from the character of the 
stem from which they grow. The bud on the day preceding the 
bursting exceeded twelve inches in length, the fully expanded flower 
was twelve inches across, and the cup formed of the broad white petals 
nine inches across. 
