February 2 , 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
337 
upon it; but here it is. Tho plant was five years old, and 
if it had been three times older it would be still finer, 
for I believe any age under twenty years is young 
enough for this plant if it is managed properly. First 
of all, it comes from cuttings as freely as a Geranium, 
and March is the best time to make them. It cannot 
endure in-door culture in the height of summer, owing 
to its liability to the attacks of tho red spidor; therefore, 
a cutting struck in the spring, and kept in a damp, hot 
frame till the middle of May, is then turned into a close, 
cold pit, where it stands till the beginning of July, and 
where it is kept very damp all the time to keep the 
spider at bay. It is then planted out in a very warm, 
sheltered corner, but not against a south wall. The soil 
here cannot bo made too rich for it, and it must be a 
j light compost; to encourage the roots to the surface, 
aud to create a damp atmosphere round it, a thick layer 
of fresh moss is placed over tho surface as a mulching ; 
and to the end of August, or at all times while the 
j weather is hot, this moss is syringed over, whether the 
I roots need water or not, all this damp being absolutely 
necessary to save it from the red spider. As soon as 
the plant begius a fresh growth after being turned out, 
it is stopped, to cause it to become bushy; ten inches 
or a foot is long enough before stopping, as the plant 
is naturally inclined to grow tall in the free soil. A 
; little frost will not hurt it here, but it ought to be 
taken up early in October, potted, and put in the shade 
under a mat, for three weeks; by that time it has taken 
to the pot, and may be set in the greenhouse, or cold 
pit, till about Christmas, when, if it is intended for a 
very fine specimen, it ought to he put into a cool stove, 
say in a heat of from 50° to 00° ; here it will ripen the 
wood made last autumn, and also produce many flowers; 
and in March it is allowed to get so dry, by degrees, 
that the leaves droop and fall oft', and by the end of the 
month, or early in April, it is pruned very close, every 
side-shoot down to the last eye, and a few of the strongest 
to six or nine inches. It soon pushes again, is then 
shaken out of the soil, the roots much cut back, is put 
into the smallest pot that will hold the roots, kept close 
for a little while, and out again to the close pit, as last 
season, planted out, taken up, stoved in winter, dried, 
cut, and potted, as before. The third winter it is fit to 
be seen, and would take no hurt in the drawing-room 
for two months, or in a cooler place, if needs be ; win¬ 
tering in the stove is not absolutely necessary; but I 
cannot see how a really superb specimen could be made 
without it in less than five or six years. Yet it is a 
hardy greenhouse plant, and it has stood out against a 
wall in South Devon this hard winter with only a slight 
protection. 
There was a singularly pretty plant from tho Society's 
garden, called Thyrsacanthus rutilans, one of the soft- 
wooded Acauthads, coming near to the Justicia in 
growth; it might be nearly a yard high; a single stem, 
as like the old Justicia coccinea as anything could be in 
look and growth; from the top of this, spread out and 
hung down half-way to the pot, slender fiower-spikes, or 
thyrses, just like long whips of Russellia juncea, and 
these were loaded with the brightest crimson tubular 
llowers, about twice the size of those of the Russellia, 
aud hanging down the same way. At a venture, I 
should say, that the best way to get this ready for 
Christmas Shows would be by taking an early spring 
cutting from a top branch, striking each in a separate 
pot; good, strong hotbed culture, as long as there was 
head-room for it; not to be too hasty in shifting, but 
1 liquid-manure to make up for pot room, as tho plant 
ought to flower in a number 24-pot as the largest size; 
to keep tho plant very near the glass in strong, moist 
heat till the end of August; after that, drier and drier 
! by degrees, till a dead stop was put to farther growth ; 
j and as soon as tho tops of the flower-strings, so to call 
them, appeared, heat and moisture to be resumed; at 
any rate, it is a nice thing, and certainly requires some 
care in the management to bring it out as perfect as 
it is capable of being done. 
Selayo distans is another plant which the Society 
exhibits every winter, and a better plant of it than the 
one sent to-day was never seen; not a leaf on it could 
be seen; it was one mass of pure white spikes, like 
white Mignonette, if there was such a thing, full four 
feet across, and not two feet high. I shall not attempt 
to say how this has been done, for, to tell the truth, I 
do not know how; but I know that these simple and 
soft-wooded plants require more daily attention during 
every stage of growth than the rarest Heaths, and that 
it is only after many year’s close attention to their re¬ 
quirements that any one can excel in their flowering. 
There is a great deal more care necessary to make a fine 
pot specimen of a common Petunia, or a common Ver¬ 
bena, than there is for getting a Queen Pine-Apple up to 
six or seven pounds; but, of course, no one but a gardener 
is aware of this, and any one but an old gardener, who 
ventured to say as much, would be hooted out of coun¬ 
tenance : it is a fact, for all that. There is nothing like 
driving at facts, bo they ever so common or so unplea¬ 
sant at the time. I have been hammering for years at 
the execrable, puny, half-starved, and shameful plants 
they grow about London, of that most beautiful of all 
beautiful-leaved plants, when done well, the Qesnera 
zebrina. Some people in the country think that I 
durst not show my face to London gardeners for my 
hard sayings; quite the reverse ; they are all glad to see 
me. They know much better than I can tell them when 
they are behind; but the best of us cannot always be 
up to the mark in every thing, and it often happens 
that a soft-headed fellow in tho country hits upon a 
thing by mere chance which puzzles the best brains to 
find out by the closest experiments and daily toil; and 
yet there are gardeners, and masters too, who think that 
it is only necessary to be a gardener for knowing every¬ 
thing that way all at once. 
A really well grown specimen of the Oesnera zebrina 
has been cultivated and exhibited from near London at 
last; we had it here to-day from the Society’s garden, 
four plants in a No. 10 pot, all of the same size and 
tints in the leaves, about a yard high, and the leaves 
hanging over tho pot, the flower-spikes strong and in 
full bloom. Tho great art in growing this plant is to 
keep all the leaves in full beauty to the very last, 
whether the plant is tall or dwarf, and as the leaves are 
so handsome, the tailor the plant the more leaves, and 
consequently the more beauty. A single plant of it, 
though grown ever so well, does not look nearly so 
liaudsome as three, four, or five. I like five best in one 
pot, tho middle one to be a little taller than the rest; 
but a No. 12-pot would be necessary for such a speci¬ 
men. The way to make it sure and easiest would be to 
grow each plant in a separate pot till the flower-bud 
appeared, then to put the five in one large pot at once, 
either keeping the tallest for the middle, or planting the 
other four a little deeper. Another advantage of grow¬ 
ing them in single pots to this stage is, that if they are 
a little too long in the legs you can plant them so deep 
in the big pots as to bring down the leaves to tlm very 
edge of the pot at once; but in that case the big pot 
should not be filled up with the compost at once, only a 
little now and then, just as the new roots from below, 
or from the naked stems, filled the last earthing up ; the 
way they often do with forced Kidney Beans. 
The finest sight I ever saw of these Zebrinas was 
last year with Mr. Barley, the gardener at Newnham 
Courtney, near Oxford ; he had a whole house full of 
them just set for bloom, and in their large pots, as here 
described, aud there was not a single bad leaf in the 
house; the darker-leaved variety, and the one called 
