330 
July 28. 
THE COTTAvGE GARDENER. 
as late as the second week of September. The cheapest structure for - 
preserving plants in through the winter is a pit with sides made of turf. 
Gooseberry (S. S.).—The derivation of this name is very uncertain. 
In Dutch it is Kruisbes, or Gruisbes, derived, perhaps, from Kruis, the 
Cross, and Bes, a berry, because the fruit is ready for use just after the 
Festival of the Invention of the Cross ; just as, in the same language, 
Kruis-haring is a herring caught after the same festival. Gooseberry 
seems an easy corruption of Gruisbes. Some writers, however, consider 
that Gooseberry is merely a corruption of Gorse-berry ; but this requires 
that we should assume that gorse, means any kind of prickly bush, 
whereas it seems to be confined to the furze. 
Cold Frame (Cymro).— All the plants you name may be wintered in 
1 a cold frame, if you keep it elevated, and keep frost and damp out of it. 
The position of such a frame had better be south, if fixed ; if moveable, 
east and west will do in spring and autumn, and to give shade you might 
turn its high side to the south in summer. The window in the hall, with 
a south aspect, will winter any of them well, if you can give air, and keen, 
out frost. The Fuchsias, Cupheas, and Calceolarias had better rema m 
in the cold frame; and, if you can secure these conditions to your 
window, you might keep the Cinerarias and Verbenas there. After tl ius, 
by window and frame, securing nice plants, we would not advise yo’ a to 
trust them at all to the heat of a badly-managed greenhouse, with w hich 
you cannot interfere, but we would keep them in windows, &c., ao you 
would see, from some papers on a neglected greenhouse, lately, tl rat in 
the case of most of the things you name, air and coolness are essen tial to 
their health and freedom from insects, as they come into and approach 
the blooming state. 
Wireworm IN a Vine Border (A Subscriber).—We have never 
found anything so effectual as trapping them. Cut several turmps into 
slices, insert them all over the border, and go round and examine all the 
baits every morning. If so numerous as you say, we expect you will 
find a number in each bait trap. Are you sure that withering mad dying 
at the points of the shoots is not as much owing to sun and deficient air 
as to the wireworm ? 
Standard Geraniums ( Chas . F., Litchfield). i -Mr. Fish, will, pro¬ 
bably, have something to say on this soon—meanwhile, the strong¬ 
growing scarlets will be easiest managed. After fairly come into shape, 
they need not have green leaves kept on them in winter. If you tried 
any Florists’ Pelargoniums, they must be kept growing slowly during 
winter. Your room, that you can command a temperature of from 70° 
to 80° from March to October, will be a useful one; but you must try 
and give these stahdards some 10° less, at the most. 
Fuchsias Preserved in Cold Rooms {Ibid). —You may either cut 
them down or not. You need not even prune them until they begin to 
break in spring ; all they require is to be kept from frost, Tather dry than 
otherwise. Your idea of plunging the pots or roots in a box is a capital 
one. If the material is damp, you will want little water.' in winter. A 
blanket to envelop the tops in frosty weather is another good idea. Cer¬ 
tainly, we should not cut down such plants as you name. Glory, &c., 
being rather scarce, we would try and keep every twig from trost in 
winter, in the way you propose, and then, in spring, you can easily get a 
number of cuttings, without injuring your plants ; and won’t your neigh¬ 
bours be after them ! Very likely, the large plants you saw in green¬ 
houses were not cut down, but the shoots merely pruned back in 
spring ; but it is hard to say, without seeing, whether the wood was old 
or young, as gardeners, from a cutting in August, will have giants in full 
bloom in July. See what is said of those at Northampton. In the room 
you speak of, and the light it enjoys, you might do the same, if leas 
plants would not suit you better. 
Rivalling Harry More’s Geraniums (Ibid)..—The soil should be 
light, and when coming into bloom top-dress with a little decayed 
dung. This treatment will keep them good for a number of years. 
Similar treatment would answer your favourite Uni que in summer, but it 
must be kept green and growing in winter; if in a temperature little 
below 45°, all the better. We have just now some nice plants of this 
beautiful thing, some four feet in height, and rang ing from two to three 
feet in diameter, a mass of bloom ; and they have not been shifted for 
several years, but top-dressed every season, and ofte n more than once. 
Cinerarias in a Cold Room (Ibid).— You can keep them there just 
1 as you would do in a cold pit, but much frost must not come near them, 
I and you must keep them green, or nearly so. The keeping them dry, 
I and without light in a box, like scarlet Geraniums, will not do ; but if 
you can place them in small pots, and then plunge them in a box, you 
will keep them more easily during the winter, as the roots will be more 
equal as respects moisture and heat. 
Window Gardening (A Cuttager).— You can grow all the plants 
j you mention in the large window, with a west aspect, but you must give 
I air in hot afternoons, and when very bright, interpijse a muslin curtain 
between the plants and the glass when the sun is brightest. In winter, 
as you have a fire frequently, you would also require to light one on pur¬ 
pose in very severe weather. In slight frosts it would be sufficient to 
remove the plants from the window, as so often recommended by Mr. 
Fish. A little fire we consider better than no fire ; but if you should 
happen to have a strong one, see that the plants stand in the coolest 
place, and moisten their foliage with a sponge often. 
Aunt Harriet’s Geraniums (Ibid). —We are glad you have studied 
that paper—one of Mr. Beaton’s best hits. We reply to your questions 
in turning out after flowering. Keep them in the sun ; in heavy rains, lay 
them on their broadsides, and never give them more water than will 
just keep them from drooping before pruning them. The kitchen win¬ 
dow, without sun, will not do so well for keeping plants as the one 
referred to. The plants will do very well at a bed-room window in sum¬ 
mer, and in mild weather in winter, and in a moderate frost, with the 
precaution of shutters and cloth covering, without firi;; but with your 
first named window, three yards wide, you will be able to keep all you 
require best and easiest. 
Fuchsia for Windows (Ibid).— Mr. Fish has given full directions, 
and lately. Something in answer to the previous correspondent will suit 
you; but the subject will obtain more attention, ere long, as such earnest 
people we always feel a pleasure in obliging. 
A very poor Garden (M. E. v. D.).—‘ The oddest thing we ever 
(heard of is your garden, which you say is “so poor and gravelly, that 
nothing will grow in it but Roses ! ” Our own garden is made out of the 
lleast promising materials on the face of this earth. A stone mason’s 
•yard, a pond for eels, a wild bank for snails and slugs, a swamp, which 
■produced nothing for years but mare’s tails, and the old mare still 
persists in throwing them up (Hippuris vulgaris), have been improved in 
one year to grow any thing right well, except Roses, and it will be a 
year or two before we can get it rich enough to grow them 1 As for 
slugs and snails, we are very near rid of them, after killing some thou¬ 
sands, going about after rain, and always in the evening, when they are 
on the move. The kind of gravelly soils which grow Roses only want 
to be trenched thirty inches, and the largest stones picked off, then old 
cow-dung, or at least very rotten dung of some sort, to be liberally 
worked in, and in hot weather to put some mulch on the surface, to 
grow any plant worth growing; but slugs, green-fly, and blights, will i 
destroy things in the best garden, unless they are prevented by a constant j 
warfare. 
Stiftia chrysantha (A Devonian). —Very likely this may be pur- 
chased, as you say, and some more of the Brazilian selection have found j 
their way here, and more especially to Ghent. M. Van Hout was once a 
collector of plants out there, and he has kept up his correspondence ever 
since with those ports. We hold it to be of very rare occurrence 
to find such authentic accounts of a tithe of the new plants that 
are offered every season, as those from Mr. Gardiner’s journals. Messrs. 
Henderson and Son, of the Wellington Road Nursery, sent us their very 
rich catalogue but the other day, the only catalogue of 1853 which we 
have yet received. In it we see the Velozia Candida and Meternichia 
principes, but not the Stiftia Chrysantha. No doubt, some more of the 
Brazilian plants in our lists are on sale, and our list will be a sure guide 
to purchasers ; and the trade can always sell anything we recommend, 
either here or in America; and they are never slow to acknowledge to us, 
and to their customers, that The Cottage Gardener is the surest 
authority about new things, and the most independent of the garden 
periodicals. To help to keep down frauds, we gave the authorities for 
the most of the names, so that no other Stiftia but that by Mikan can be 
a true one. 
Chinese Azaleas (Indicus). — The Society never published Mr. 
Green’s way of putting new Azalea heads upon old shoulders; perhaps 
he forgot to keep the promise. Mr. Pitt, of Little London, in the parish 
of Ledbury, Herefordshire, was in the habit of doing with Apple-trees in 
that, and the surrounding parishes, for more than thirty years, and 
probably to this day, the same as was done with the Azaleas in question. 
Mr. Pitt, instead of cutting off the head from an old Apple-tree, and 
putting on it two or three grafts of one-year-old wood, and hardly that, 
sometimes went over the whole head and cut back all the leaders, and 
grafted them with two or three years old wood, with flower buds on; and 
for the following three or four years would prune away so much of the 
old head that none was left by that time. 
Thr Rose Blairii (A Kentishman). —This very beautiful summer 
Rose, like a great many others of the same breed of Hybrid Chinas, is too 
strong a grower to do well as a standard for the first few years, and more 
especially if it is pruned as standards usually are. It will not bear the 
knife at all at first, nor until its natural vigour is curbed in some other 
way. The best way we know of to deal with this strong class at first, is to 
nip off the point of every shoot that is made all through the season, the 
moment it is six inches long; to cut out entirely all new shoots that 
come after the end of August; then to let them alone till after the 
flowering was past the following summer, and then to prune them, and 
only then ; this pruning to be merely the cutting out of such wood as 
is too crowded, or too old to produce good flowering shoots; but 
after all, the finger and thumb through the growing season, and to get 
rid of the unripened, late wood, before the frost catches it, is the grand 
secret. You shall hear more about Bluirii very soon. 
Trimming Sweet Briar Hedges (Goddess).— The best time of the 
year to trim Sweet Briar hedges, and all other hedges made of deciduous 
plants, in our climate, is the last half of September, but they will do 
pretty well at any time, from September till the sap or bleeding makes 
them dangerous to cut in the spring; and all these hedges, after they 
attain full size, ought to have another “trimming” in June, for ap. I 
pearance sake. 
Common China Rose Cuttings (Ibid). —For cuttings in the open 
air, the end of July, and the middle of October, are the best periods; 
the former for little side-shoots taken off with a heel, and ninety-nine 
out of a hundred of such ought to root the same autumn. October is 
the best time to put in “ all sorts of wood” cuttings of the China Rose; 
that is, all pieces of the young wood that is ripe enough not to damp off. 
Eight-petalled Pelargonium (G. A.). —There will be little pro¬ 
bability of its seed producing eight-petalled plants. 
Cankered Apple Trees (Suburban). —The idea of curing canker by 
merely cutting out the diseased part, and putting on a plaister, is very 
erroneous. The origin of the evil should be removed, which is probably 
an ungenial subsoil. Take up the young trees in October, and plant 
them on stations, as recommended by Mr. Errington. 
Cabbages (Ibid). —Hand-picking is the only means of removing cater¬ 
pillars from the firm-hearted Cabbages. 
Latticed Floor for Poultry House (A Subscriber). —Arrange 
the bars parallel to each other, certainly not in squares ; the bars 1^-inch 
square, and the same distance apart; the edges need not be rounded. 
