THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
June IT. 
lend us astray. Instances have been known to us, of 
well-read proprietors interfering with their gardener’s 
mode of heating their plant-houses, clinching all with 
authorities as to the degree of cold endured by plants 
at New Holland, and the Cape of Good Hope. The 
result was a sickly, diseased, and decaying vegetation. 
Our climate is different almost from every other. Our 
moist atmosphere, which clothes our hill - sides and 
plains with almost unequalled verdure, keeps our 
New Holland plants growing, when the growth should 
be becoming consolidated and matured. It is no 
uncommon thing in those countries for the thermo¬ 
meter to rise above 00° in the shade; and yet, with a 
bright sun, owing to the dryness of the atmosphere, the 
heat is felt to bo less oppressive than 75° or 80° would 
be with us, owing to tho moisture in our atmosphero. 
Think of a Boronia, or any other plant, exposed for 
weeks and months to such a temperature, and such an 
atmosphere, and contrast its position, even in our best 
summers, in which lately we seem to have as much of 
the cloud and the haze as the sunshine—contrast tho 
firm, hard, sound, matured wood, in the one case, with 
that which must be comparatively soft and unripened in 
tho other. We must approach the high temperature 
and dry atmosphere of such countries in our summer, 
before we can trust their plants with such a cold as they 
will stand at home in our winters. With comparatively 
free-growing things we manage these matters rather 
economically by curtailing growth, by the confining of 
the roots, and the lessening the supply of moisture. 
But with such delicate things as the beautiful and de¬ 
lightfully-scented Boronia, we must be limited in oui 
experiments in this direction. Knowing that its average 
winter temperature at home is not less than 50°, we shall 
act safest, in our dull-summer country, not to give it a 
too low teinperaturo in winter. The horticulturist gave 
the correspondent who led to this article sound advice, 
when he advised removing it from a cold to a warm 
greenhouse. Tho sickly appearance must be owing to 
other causes than its comfortable quarters in winter. 
Placing it in your airiest and coldest house, even now, 
will hardly improve it, unless the treatment is altered. 
Is the soil free and open ? Is the drainage all right ? 
With these preliminaries we proceed more in detail as 
respects—• 
lstly, Its propagation. —The time for doing this may 
rauge from February to July, but the sooner the better, 
as the plants will be better established before winter. 
The obtaining tho cuttings must so far regulate the 
time. From old plants, nice little bits, neither bard nor 
| soft, may be obtained early, and which would not have 
! been likely to bloom. Failing this, nice cuttings may be 
[ obtained from an early blooming plant, when, after 
! blooming, it has been pruned back, and the young shoots 
are somewhat hard at their base, and may be slipped oft' 
at their base, close to the old stem, with what is techni¬ 
cally termed a heel. Previously to this, pots should have 
been prepared as carefully as recommended for heaths; 
if a small pot inside a larger one, so much tho better, 
filled three-parts with drainage, and the remaining fourth 
with equal portions of rough peat, fine peat, and sand— 
the sand uppermost, of course. A four-inch pot to hold 
the cuttings, inside a six-inch one, will answer admir¬ 
ably ; and the tapering bell-glass could be fixed in the 
space between the two pots. As to position in spring, a 
place commanding a temperature of from 50° to 55° will 
be best. In summer, a cold frame or pit will answer. The 
cuttings must be shaded from bright sun there until 
rooting has commenced; but if during the summer the 
pots stand eighteen inches from the glass, and fifteen 
inches in spring, little shading will be required. As 
soon as the base of the cuttings begin to swell—techni¬ 
cally, to callus —a little air should be given, by tilting 
the bell-glass in the evening, and replacing it before 
177 
the sun strikes powerfully on the cuttings in tho morn¬ 
ing. Full exposure should be given them before pot- 
ting-off. 
2ndly. Potting. —Whenever potted, the pots should 
not be larger than three or four inches in diameter. If 
the season is advanced, three or four plants may stan 
in tho latter sized pot all the first winter, and be repotted 
early in spring. The pots should be thoroughly clean, 
and if new ones, well dried, after being previously well 
soaked in water. The using new-burnt pots for parti¬ 
cular plants, without previously soaking them, is just as 
workmanlike as a bricklayer cementing a wall of bricks 
without undergoing a similar soaking. Drainage is 
the next thing, and, perhaps, of all others, the most im¬ 
portant for this plant; a want of water, and stagnant 
water, injure it almost irredeemably. From a fifth to a 
fourth of the pot must consist solely of drainage, with a 
layer of half-decayed moss, to prevent the possibility of 
the drainage being choked. Nor is this all. The soil 
used must be in a condition to continue the drainage; its 
general character should be roughness and openness, but 
yet in so small pieces as to pack firmly together. A thin 
covering on the surface should be fine to prevent the air 
entering too freely. According to the size of the plant 
and shift, the pieces of the compost may range from the 
size of the common pea to that of the Mazagan beau. 
The chief constituent should be well aired sandy peat, 
and half its quantity may consist of broken charcoal 
and broken pots, from which the dusty matter has been 
excluded. In spi-ing, we have found the plants benefited 
by a slight dressing on the surface of three-year-old cow- 
dung, rubbed through a sieve, or a solution of two-year- 
old dung, in a weak state, used as watering—the plants 
bloomed finor in consequence; any other artificial stimu¬ 
lant used seemed to be too hot for the plants, and did 
more harm than good. Finally, on this point, the 
plants should always be rather underpotted, and for two 
reasons : first, to guard against stagnation of moisture; 
consolidate the wood before the dark days of autumn 
and, secondly, to enable the sunlight in our climate to 
and winter. 
3rdly. Training and Growth. —As this species produces 
its charming bloom on the points of the shoots, a low 
compact bush is the best form in which it can be grown, 
and, in its young state, frequent stoppings will be neces¬ 
sary, and when in an old healthy plant, thinning at 
times will be necessary, so as to leavo a requisite num¬ 
ber of shoots, as much alike in strength as possible. 
4thly. Position and Temperature. —Whenever young 
plants are potted they must be kept close for a time, 
and somewhat shaded, until fresh growth has taken 
place; at every potting this will have to be attended to, 
and, to a certain extent, it will always be desirable after 
pruning, when flowering is terminated; but this close¬ 
ness and shading must not be carried to excess, par¬ 
ticularly then, or the plant will become weakened, and 
stored with crude juices. The same rule applies to esta¬ 
blished plants. When done blooming, the first thing to 
be thought of is fresh growth, and, as soon as that has 
freely commenced, our next care is to get the growth 
healthy and ripen. In summer, therefore, the more sun¬ 
light the plants receive the better, and the more heat and 
air they endure then, the lower will be the temperature 
they will endure uninjured in winter. After growth is 
going on, a shady place for them in summer is the worst of 
all places. I have, however, never trusted them entirely 
out-of-doors, though, if the pots were secured from the 
sun’s rays, the plants sufficiently watered, and no more, 
and at the same time defended from storms and heavy 
rains, the brightest sun in the end of summer and the 
beginning of autumn, would just be the thing for them. 
Failing that attention, we must keep them in a cold-pit, 
or in a very lightsome greenhouse, so as to secure all 
the sunlight possible, plenty of air, and if exposed, as in 
