242 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
August 
months yet left to us of the floral year. Grass 
lawns: the late rains that have fallen have bene¬ 
fited the lawns greatly. They will require now fre¬ 
quently rolling, sweeping, and mowing. The grass 
plots, indeed, put on their most pleasing appear¬ 
ance, if properly managed, during the early and 
later periods of the year. Let all perennials, bien¬ 
nials, and annuals, yet to flower, be carefully tied 
up, and kept in a neat trim state. 
Shrubberies. —Prune in all straggling shoots, and 
such as are not likely to attain a state of ripeness, 
especially the shoots of evergreens, such as laurels, 
bays, and arbutus. Green unripened shoots are 
sure to bo destroyed by frosts, aud therefore had 
better be cut off at once, that the sap may be con¬ 
centrated upon the better ripened shoots. 
FLORISTS’ FLOWERS. 
Pansies. —Cuttings may yet be put in of scarce 
varieties: place them in a sandy soil, under hand¬ 
glasses. Such as have been put in some time, and 
are now rooted, should be taken up, and either 
planted in a nursery bed, or potted to be protected 
in frames through the winter. 
Verbenas.' —The same directions apply to these 
plants. Cuttings put in now make excellent plants 
early in the spring, but require protection from 
frost during the winter. Verbenas in beds require 
attention: remove decaying heads of bloom, and peg 
down those shoots that may be inclined to grow 
upright or wild. They ought to be now in then' 
greatest beauty. 
Weeds. —All we need say about them is, let not 
one be seen living beyond the time of producing 
its seed leaves. Moist weather will bring them 
up ; and a week’s neglect will cover your beds with 
them to a surprising extent. 
Auriculas and Polyanthuses. —Too much wet 
will injure these lovely spring flowers almost to 
death. Let them be protected from heavy rains 
whenever they fall. T. Appleby. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Amaryllids. —The cold and wet weather at the 
end of last spring has prolonged the growth of the 
Belladonnas, Brunsvigias, &c., in the open borders full 
a month beyond then usual time of going to rest, 
and I fear this will prevent them from throwing up 
their flowering scapes next September time enough 
to be of much interest this season. If so, we shall 
have them rising next spring as mere abortions, but 
all that can now be done to assist them is to keep 
the bulbs as dry and hot as possible for the next 
month or five weeks, and this is not very easily done 
when they are in borders where summer plants are 
growing, as is often the case. Those under my care 
are in such a borderland as soon as the rain came on 
after St. Switliin’s ctTiy I loosened the surface soil 
away from the tops of Josephuue, and placed small 
glasses over them : this wards off the rain, and the 
heat of the sun accumulates under the glass, so that 
a little extra heat is afforded them. Their roots 
being in moist earth is rather favourable to them 
than otherwise. Where they are grown in frames 
by themselves, with no other plants to interfere with 
their proper culture, no doubt they have gone to rest 
at the usual time, early in June; or, if they have 
not, it would stimulate them now to have the soil 
drawn aside to expose the surface of the bulbs to 
the sun, and by having the glass kept on constantly. 
They cannot be too hot and dry on the surface witli 
only the assistance of a glass covering. 
1 am anxious to try a cross this autumn between 
the Belladonna and Brunsvigia Josephines ; and in 
case my own bulbs of the latter, under the above 
disadvantages, should not flower, I shoidd feel very 
much obliged to any kind reader, who may be more 
fortunate, if he would send me some pollen of Jose¬ 
phine©. The way to do this is to cut off some of the 
anthers with short pieces of the stamens attached, 
as soon as the flowers open. It is not necessary 
that the anthers should be open, or, in other words, 
that the pollen should be ripe, because it will ripen 
after the anthers are cut off, and I forget how soon 
the anthers of the Josepliinae open after the expan¬ 
sion of the flower. The anthers, if folded in tissue 
or other soft paper, will travel by post safe enough. 
I advise all who possess these beautiful bulbs to 
try and cross them both ways this autumn. They 
are very easily crossed. The stamens are long, and 
may be taken one after another, and by them draw 
the opened anther across the lobes of the stigma. 
The tlnee lobes curve backwards, and then is the time 
to apply the pollen. When the flower begins to 
fade, see that it does not injure the style by col¬ 
lapsing round it, as it is sure to do if the decaying 
flower is not cut off in time. Until very recently 
writers used to recommend a camel-hair brush to 
dust the pollen on flowers, or rather on their stig¬ 
mas. For setting grapes, pears, or, indeed, any fruit, 
the operation being only intended to encourage the 
fruit to swell properly, a brush is as convenient as 
any thing else; but, when we want to obtain a cross 
between two plants, this camel-hair brush is a 
treacherous instrument, because, after one kind of 
pollen is used by it, how are you to proceed with the 
next flower if it happens to belong to the same 
family as the first? It is perfectly impossible to 
divest it of all the former pollen without steeping it 
in boiling water. In short, we may as well dust a 
dress-coat with a powdered wig as think to effect 
pure crosses by means of a camel-hair or any other 
brush whatever. 
Hydrangeas. —About the second or third week in 
August is a good time to make cuttings of hydrangeas, 
to flower next summer in very small pots. They 
would turn out much finer if the cuttings were taken 
from strong healthy plants growing for some years in 
the open ground. The tops of the strongest shoots 
that are not likely to flower this season would make 
the best cuttings, as, if rooted quickly under a hand¬ 
glass, and the top buds well preserved from damp or 
accidents dining the following winter, they form im¬ 
mense large heads of flower next summer, and prove 
exceptions to the general saying about the difficulty 
of placing old heads on young shoulders. A pot not 
more than five inches over will thus produce one head of 
hydrangea-bloom larger than any that can be got from 
old plants, though these be as large as currant-bushes. 
Another plan for getting large heads from single plants 
in very small pots is to make cuttings early in the 
spring from plants then taken under glass for forc¬ 
ing, and as soon as they are rooted they are potted 
in three-inch pots, and kept in a hot-bed through the 
spring. About the end of May, or between that and 
midsummer, they are shifted into their flowering-pots, 
say five-inch ones; and by the time they are ripe 
enough to be inured to the open air, where they are 
generally kept in a warm sheltered place all through 
the autumn as long as it is safe to trust them out, 
they are then wintered almost dry in cold pits, and 
