ON FORCING FLOWERS. 
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211 
FLORICULTURE. 
ARTICLE X.—ON FORCING FLOWERS. 
BY MR. F. F. ASHFORD, 
Gardener to P. L. Brooke, Esq. 
If the following few remarks on forcing American plants and other 
flowers, so as to cause them to flower in the winter and early spring 
months, be deemed worthy of the pages of the Horticultural Regis¬ 
ter, and the attention of its numerous readers, they are entirely at 
your service. 
In the course of the preceding summer, prepare a quantity ol 
sandy peat or bog earth for some plants, and rich mould for others; 
let the different sorts of soils be thrown up in different heaps for the 
action of the atmosphere to pulverise them. 
In the month of March, take up out of your shrubbery-ground or 
nursery, the various species of Azaleas, Kalmias, Ledums, Andro- 
nedas, &c. with good balls, and pot them in sandy peat or bog earth, 
and plunge them in a shady border, supplying them during summer 
with plentiful supplies of water. 
At the same time, a sufficient quantity of roses, honey-sucldes, 
paconys, &c. might be potted in rich loam, and plunged with the 
rest, and duly watered; care must be taken to prune the roses well, 
not allowing more than two eyes to a shoot, that they may produce 
stronger shoots for forcing. These should be mulched with rotted 
dung to keep them moist. 
In the month of September, pot off a sufficient number of seed¬ 
ling pinks or layers of the last year, and as the season is now decli¬ 
ning, these must be plunged where they can receive the rays of the 
vet remaining summer’s sun. They should be potted in rich mould 
with a little leaf-mould added, to make the soil rather light, that 
their tender fibres may run freely. 
About the middle of October, take up the various sorts of Rhodo¬ 
dendron with good balls, pot them in large pots with bog earth, and 
a little maiden-loam, and plunge them in a sunny border. The 
reason of taking up these so late is, that you might choose those 
which have the most blossom buds; for if taken up in spring, half 
may prove useless in respect to flowering. 
Great care must be taken not to injure any of the main roots of 
any of the kinds in removing them ; and in potting, the soil must be 
well got round the roots; for on these two points in connection with 
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