80 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[May 8. 
your plant, will set it free. Even this, however, in very 
windy places, I found insufficient to prevent large mas¬ 
sive heads from being swayed and loosened at the roots; 
I resorted, therefore, to an additional means of security, 
which looked very neat. Opposite the four points of 
the two main rods of the frame, stakes were driven into 
the ground, the end merely being visible, and then a 
! wire connected the top of the stick, and the end of the 
rod of the frame ; and thus anchored, it required a hur¬ 
ricane to break them in the least from their moorings. 
' These four connecting wires, as well as the rods and 
I frame, were painted. Along these wires connecting the 
ground with the frame, strong shoots of Roses might be 
trained; and failing that, they look very interesting 
with small creepers, such as Maurandya, Tropoeolum, 
i and the smaller Lophospernum running along them. J 
j forget the exact price, but the rods and frames were 
i made very reasonably, to order, by Mr. England, of 
! Hertford. R. Eish. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
The Coral Plant (Erythrina crista-galli). —This, 
though once a universal favourite, is now comparatively 
seldom seen. We run so much after novelties, that, for 
the sake of giving them room, we discard first one and 
then another of our old-established favourites. When, 
now and then, a large plant, with luxuriant green foliage, 
and with from six to as many more of strong shoots, 
each terminated with spikes of large scarlet pea-blos¬ 
somed flowers, appears on the exhibition table of a 
floricultural society, every eye is arrested, and, among 
young amateurs, especially, it is no uncommon thing to 
hear enquiries, thick and thickening, as to how it is to be 
managed? Where it is to be had? Whether they can 
grow it without a plant stove? &c. There are few plants 
that are more accommodating, as it may be treated 
successfully as an early-flowering stove-plant, as a later- 
I flowering greenhouse plant, and as a plant for a con¬ 
servative wall, and a group in the fiower-garden, if 
managed with a little more care than is requisite for 
fuscbias. Few things could be more elegant, during the 
summer months, against the walls of our pretty 
cottages; and for this purpose it merely requires to be 
planted in sandy peat and fibry loam, with hard knots 
of dried cow-dung, and the situation well drained, to 
receive manure waterings several times in summer, be 
cut down like a fuschia at the approach of winter, and 
frost and wet excluded by mulching with dry litter, and 
covering with an excluder of wet; and then, at the 
| present season, after removing the litter, protecting the 
young shoots until June with an evergreen branch or 
two in the front of them. 
In the flower-garden the plants may be protected in a 
similar way; but a better plan is to take them up at the 
end of autumn, and either pottiug them, or packing 
them in boxes of earth under the stage in the. green¬ 
house, or any other safe, unconspicuous place, keeping 
them dry during the winter, watering and encouraging 
| growth in spring, and then turning them out, when all 
danger from frost is over. I have not had them in 
the flower-garden lately, but I hope to have a stock to 
try them another season, as beautiful, though they be in 
pots. A person who has never seen them against a 
wall, or in a favourable situation in a flower-garden, can 
form but little idea of the richness of the colour of the 
flower, the time it remains in bloom, and the luxuriance 
of the foliage. I may premise here, that for whatever 
purpose the plants be used, young plants can seldom 
be made to do anything like the work of those several 
years old. Tn purchasing, therefore, there is no com¬ 
parison between getting an old root and a young plant 
raised from a cutting of the current season. With the 
latter, you must be content with a single stem and a 
single spike for the present. With these general obser¬ 
vations, 1 shall now confine myself to a few remarks as 
to their treatment for the greenhouse, merely stating, in 
passing, that the mode of propagating, resting, or win¬ 
tering, is alike applicable to whatever use the plant may 
be applied. 
The family name is derived from erytliros, red, as most j 
of the species have scarlet flowers. A great portion of 
these I have not seen; but I believe the one placed at 
the bead of this article is about the most beautiful. In 
Brazil it grows into a low evergreen tree. Here we find 
it most economical to treat it as a sub-shrubby herba¬ 
ceous plant, with fleshy underground stems or roots. 
After keeping the plants in the greenhouse in winter, if 
placed in a hotbed in March, and gradually hardened 
off, the plants will bloom in May and June. If grown 
in the greenhouse, and kept pretty close when beginning 
to spring, they will bloom in June and July. By start¬ 
ing them just as you would a dahlia, in a plant-stove in 
winter, they will bloom early in spring. By allowing 
the shoots to ripen after they have done flowering, by 
withholding water to a certain extent, and giving full 
light and air, then cutting the plant down, resting it for 
a month or six weeks in a cool place, and starting again 
in heat, you may have a second flowering, from the 
same plant, in the autumn. This system is not, how¬ 
ever, to be encouraged, as, like taking two crops of 
grapes from the same vines in one season, it weakens 
the plants. Where successions are desirable, it is best 
to have different sets of plants for the purpose, setting 
them growing at different times. For this purpose, 
another species, or, as some think, merely a variety of cris¬ 
ta-galli, is very useful—I mean Currifolia. This, treated 
in the same way, has larger, more succulent stems, larger 
and deeper green foliage; if anything, larger flowers, 
but the colour is a much duller crimson. This curvi- 
folia, without very great attention, can hardly be suc¬ 
cessfully flowered until the early autumn months; and 
hence, when grown in pots, though not so brilliantly 
coloured, it comes in as a succession to crista-galli. 
General Management: Growing Period. — I have 
already stated that much cannot be done this season 
with a small young plant. It should be treated as a 
child of hope, and should never know what it is to be 
checked or stand still. As soon, therefore, as it requires 
potting a-fresh, give it such a shift as will serve it for 
the season, and never let it stand still for want of a 
supply from the manure-water pail. The stronger it 
grows, and the finer the foliage, other things being 
equal, the stronger will be the crown or underground 
stem, and, consequently, the more numerous and strong 
will be your shoots next season. But, supposing that 
you have a good old plant, which has been kept under 
the stage of the greenhouse during the winter, and 
somewhat dry, now it will be showing young shoots 
from its crown, on the base of the last year's shoots. 
When these are from one to two inches in length, it is a 
good time for taking the old plant to the potting bench, 
depriving it of the most of its old soil, but preserving 
any fresh good roots. As similar treatment is required 
each season, it is best to put the plant at once into 
the pot in which it is to flower, as thus all checks are 
avoided. Unless great care is exercised on the suc¬ 
cessive shift-system, you run a risk of getting small 
dumpy flower-spikes as the reward for the additional 
labour. To flower a good specimen, the pot should be 
from eight to sixteen inches in diameter. Drainage 
here, as well as in all general pot culture, must be well 
attended to. The soil I have found most suitable, is 
one and a half part fibry peat, one part fibry loam, one 
part of equal proportions of dried cow-dung and leaf- 
mould, and half a part of equal proportions of coarse 
