410 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, September 29, 1857. 
other half, and the hint given by the Lancashire Goose¬ 
berry growers need not be disregarded in floriculture :—He 
would rarely succeed in getting a prize fruit who did not 
train his Gooseberry bush. I could enumerate hundreds of 
highly ornamental plants that cannot be grown in ordinary 
gardens for want of a trellis to support their vines. Here, 
then, is a cheap and ready way of training and keeping them 
trim by sticking them as they advance; and as for tall 
plants, they seem to be almost discarded from cultivation, 
for, unless they have a stem like a Hollyhock, they are re¬ 
jected on account of the trouble they would cause. It is 
quite disgraceful to see how few varieties of flowers flower¬ 
gardening people grow ; it is time to alter this, and to give 
those slender-stemmed and elegant plants a place whose 
vines are not furnished with tendrils to climb, and whose 
beautiful heads of flower it would ill become such to make 
the earth their pillow.— (Horticultural Society's Journal.) 
ANSWERS TO VARIOUS QUESTIONS. 
Thinning Camellia Buds.— “ I have a few plants of 
Camellias set with flowering buds, several of them 
double buds: should they be left on the plant? If not, 
when is a proper time to reduce them to one bud on 
each branch, or would the two come to perfection if 
left, and to be given once a week a little liquid manure.”— 
If there are only two buds on the point of a shoot it 
would be a pity to remove either of them, as they may 
bloom both at once, or in succession to each other, 
without at all injuring one another, unless very closely 
jammed together; for in that case, if both swelled at 
once, they would abut against each other, and very 
probably both or one would be pushed from its base and 
fall. Thinning is generally attended to when there is a 
cluster of buds formed, and so close together that there 
is not room for them to swell freely. When that is the 
case the sooner thinning is resorted to the better, pick¬ 
ing out the smallest buds with the point of a penknife, 
and leaving from two to four, or more, according as they 
can be allowed sufficient space between each other to 
swell freely. For want of this thinning, and thus giving 
room, many Camellia buds are pushed off by one another 
when they swell. Let the manure water be clear and 
weak, and see that the drainage is all right, and do not 
let the plants have any sudden check. 
Brugmansia Knightii. —“ I have a good plant of the 
double white Brugmansia. Will it live in the green¬ 
house in winter? Will the leaves fall off then like the 
old single kind?”—I consider that this large-flowering 
double white is quite as hardy, and even more free- 
flowering than the single white. The losing or not 
losing the leaves in winter depends on the temperature 
and light it receives then. I have had both blooming 
freely in late autumn and early spring. In the dead of the 
winter, unless the house is kept dry, the large flowers do 
not open freely, aud are apt to be injured by damp. In a 
medium house between a greenhouse and plant stove I 
have had this double variety flowering almost con¬ 
tinuously, every fresh inch of growth being attended 
with its fresh flower-buds; but when thus blooming con¬ 
tinuously they seldom present such a mass as when 
allowed a period of rest, and then encouraged to grow 
freely. Hence, to flower them well in summer and 
autumn, the shoots of this season should be well ripened 
and hardened, the plants kept dryish and coolish in 
winter—from 35° to 40°—when the leaves will all fall; 
and then, when the shoots are pruned back in spring, 
each bud left will produce a shoot that will bear abun¬ 
dance of flowers. When thus leafless I have kept these 
plants in winter in a close shed, covered over with hay 
in severe weather; but a cool greenhouse would be a 
better place, and, when thus rested, after ripening by 
plenty of light and little water, they will bloom more 
profusely than when allowed to grow freely all the 
winter. When grown in pots strong loam and rotten 
dung, or loam and frequent manure waterings when 
growing, answer best, as the loam helps to keep the 
shoots short-jointed. If our correspondent keeps his 
plant nicely over the winter I would advise him to 
harden it off in the month of April and the first part of 
May, and then either plant it out of doors or plunge 
the large pot to which it has been transferred, and mulch 
the top with rotten dung. Some time ago I recom¬ 
mended in certain cases the introduction of large plants 
in the centre of our grouped beds, as practised by my 
friend Mr. Gardiner, at Courteen Hall, as tending to 
relieve the level monotony. In the centre of a bed 
forming part of a group so managed, the bed being 
filled with Rollisson’s Crimson Unique Pelargonium, 
is a standard plant of this double Brugmansia, from 
five to six feet in height, and the head about three 
feet in diameter, that has been a splendid object since 
the second week in July. I have several times counted 
from fifty to sixty of its large drooping flowers fully 
expanded at one time. The bare stem is covered by 
strong plants of the Unique, the bed sloping from the 
centre to the two ends. The plant is, for its size, quite 
as prolific in flowers this year as last, though plunged 
in its pot; but last year it grew more vigorously, and 
made a much larger head, owing to its being planted 
out. Hundreds have stood round this plant to admire 
its gracefuluess and inhale its fragrance. Last year, as 
soon as the first frosts had injured the points of its 
shoots, it was taken up, repotted, watered, part of the 
head pruned away, shaded for a few days, and then 
exposed to as much sun as possible under glass, with no 
more water to speak of, so as to harden the shoots; and 
then, with Fuchsias, &c., it was merely kept from frost 
and dryish all the winter. Small side-shoots, three 
inches or so in length, with the larger leaves removed, 
strike freely in a little heat in spring, and, before plant¬ 
ing out a fine plant, it would be advisable to secure a 
stock. The lutea and atro-sanguinea may be treated 
much the same way, and, planted out, they make fine 
ornaments either out of doors oi*in a conservatory. 
Cassia corymbosa. —One correspondent says, “ I have 
noticed your recommendation of this plant for green¬ 
houses and out-of-door decoration in summer; but is 
there not some mistake about it, as you describe it as 
orange, whilst all the books speak of it as a yellow- 
flowered tender evergreen, from Buenos Ayres, requi¬ 
ring stove treatment?” Another asks, “ Would not the 
Cassia corymbosa make a good bedding plant foV a large 
bed?”—I do not think there can be any doubt at all as to 
the species, though the orange is deeper in the open air 
than when stowed up under glass and in a high tempe¬ 
rature. Many plants from the tropics would be quite 
at home in our climate from June to the middle of 
October, and thanks should be given to those who try 
and make experiments in this direction. I do not 
suppose that small, succulent, young plants, newly 
potted off, would do much good in a cool greenhouse in 
winter; but old, well-established plants would be quite 
safe there, though, as a matter of course, from want of 
heat, they would lose their evergreen character, and 
become deciduous. I have never used it for a bed as 
yet, though I have no doubt it would answer well, espe¬ 
cially if the bed was large, and rings of blue, red, and 
white surrounded it. For a smallish bed by itself it 
would require to be pegged down as you might do with 
a bed of Roses, the flowering shoots being produced 
this year from the buds of well-ripened shoots made 
last year. I saw a plant so layered or pegged down 
doing well on a mixed border at Stock wood the other 
day. When I get enough of it I shall be tempted 
to make it a component part of a ribbon border. I 
hardly know of anything richer for a high row. At 
present I. have used it chiefly as the centre of beds. 
