THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, February 21, 1860. 
315 
masses of splendid flowers from tliis really very beautiful Ipomoea. 
If the seeds were sown in a greenhouse heat in April, it would be 
far on in the autumn before the plants bloomed. Though with 
care this plant might be "kept over the winter, I would decidedly 
prefer treating it every season as' a tender annual, helping it in 
its first stages in a stove-house or Cucumber bed, and grow¬ 
ing and flowering it afterwards in the greenhouse, placing a 
few in any sheltered place out of doors. It would be well 
to be able to shade the flowers when in bloom, as each soon 
shrivels up and decays. In its young state grow it in fibry peat 
and sandy loam. As you shift it repeatedly, increase the loam 
until the last shift is nearly all fibry loam, and squeezed together as 
firmly as possible. Manure water may be given now and then when 
growing, but liberally when once the flower-buds begin to open. 
“7. Will you recommend some showy greenhouse annuals?”— 
Yes ; and more especially as it will meet the case of some other 
inquiries. All of them would be better if sown in sandy loam 
and peat in March, each sort in a four or six-inch pot, and 
covered with a square of glass, and then plunged in a gentle 
hotbed ; bottom heat from75 Q to 80°. If heat is not to be had, 
sow in April and May in the warmest end of the greenhouse. 
Cover with glass on the pots, and sow the seeds, so that when 
covered the covering will be an inch from the rim, and cover with 
a cloth or paper until the seedlings appear. The space of one inch 
-will allow the seedlings of the smaller things to be strong before 
removing the square of glass altogether. I will throw those most 
worthy of attention into two groups, the first being the hardiest. 
Eirst group:— 
Acroclinium roseum. Pretty Everlasting Rose flower. 
Balsams (mixed). Give plenty of air after first potting. 
B r achy come iberidifolia. Pretty lilac-blue Cineraria-like plant. 
Calceolaria (florists’herbaceous). Sow a few; but sow chiefly 
in August, to bloom in April and May. 
Cinerarias. Sow now and in May, to bloom in autumn and 
winter. 
Didiscus cocrulea. Small blue flower. 
Lucnida Bartonioides. Pretty low yellow plant. 
Dianthus CUnensis lleddewigii 1 p rett gweet WiUiams> 
- lacimatiis J J 
Penzlia dianthijiora. Compact rose colour. 
Euchsia (mixed). 
Gaillardia picta, Drummondi. 
Isotoma axillaris. Lilac-blue. 
Mimulus (mixed florists’). 
Mesembryanihemum tricolor, &c., does well in the sun. 
Nierembergia gracilis, filicaulis, &c. 
Petunias (florists’ mixed). 
Phlox Drummondi and varieties, will be fine in autumn. 
Portulaccas (mixed). Like Mesembryanthemums, they like 
sunshine. 
Primula Chinensis. Sow in April, for winter blooming. 
Rhodanthe Manglesii. Beautiful Rose Everlasting. 
Schizanthus retusa. Now a little; but sow chiefly in August 
and September. 
Verbenas (mixed). 
Tropceolum Lobbiahum. Varieties for autumn and winter 
blooming. 
Second group, that like a little extra heat even better than the 
last, until they are potted off and growing freely :— 
Ageratum Mexicanum. Blue. 
Brotvallia data. Blue, white, and other colours. 
Celosia cristata (Cockscomb). Like heat until well grown. 
Cleome arborea. Singular flowers. 
Clintonia pulchella. Beautiful low trailer. 
Commelina ccelestis. Already mentioned. 
Cuphcea eminens and miniata. Tubular, scarlet and yellow. 
Datura chlorantha flore pleno. Yellow, sweet. 
-- Wrightii. Double white. 
- Meteloides. 
Dolichos lignosus, Eine climber. 
Gomphrena globosa. Globe Amaranths, different colours. 
Heliotropium (mixed). 
Hibiscus angulosus. 
Ipomoea limbata elegantissima. 
Lobelia speciosa. Low, blue, and beautiful; many other 
colours. 
Lophospermum spectabile and Hendersonii. Climbers. 
Maurandya Barclayana and others. Climbers. 
Mattynia fragrans. Noble-looking plant. 
Spraguea umbellata. Pretty rose, low-growing plant. 
Thunbergia alata, Americana, aurantiaca, lophantlia, or alata 
alba. These require strong moist heat to raise the seeds; but 
after June the plants will flourish -well in a greenhouse, but must 
have plenty of the syringe. 
A very small packet of each of these would be quite enough to 
stock your greenhouse, and furnish you with extra plants to plant 
out of doors. If great variety were your object this would thus 
be cheaply secured. Were I in your case, however, with such a 
small house for the first season, I would confine myself chiefly 
to sowing, now or in March, Mignonette for early blooming ; 
Cinerarias and Primulas for winter ditto; sowing again in 
May and June Balsams, Cockscombs, Globe Amaranths, Brow- 
allias, Daturas, Petunias, Phloxes, and Mimulus for summer 
blooming, along with some Ipomoeas and Thunbergias if there is 
heat to raise them. In July sow Mignonette for autumn and 
winter; and in August sow again for spring. In the same month 
sow Schizanthus and Calceolaria for early spring blooming. 
Some hardy annuals, such as Collinsia bicolor, may be so used. 
If you look at some recent articles you will perceive what per¬ 
manent greenhouse plants you may easily raise from seeds ; but 
few of these will bloom until they are of some age. R. Eish. 
DIANTHUS HEDDEWIGII SEEDLINGS— 
MALADORE RANUNCULUSES — LOBELIA SPECIOSA CUTTINGS — 
SOAKING SEEDS IN HOT WATER. 
I have some Dianthus Heddetvigii seedlings, which were sown 
in September. They are at present small, delicate-looking affairs, 
about three inches high; I am anxious to know how I am to go on 
treating them. They are in a greenhouse, which will serve as 
a vinery when the plants go out of it in May. Should I pot the 
Dianthuses separately, or keep them as they are, four in a pot, till 
May, and then turn them into a bed in my grass garden ? If I 
were to shift them once or twice, and plunge them in the open 
border in an eight-inch pot, would they flower well, and answer 
for bringing into a drawing-room in July ? 
Is there a separate kind of Ranunculus called Matadore ? I 
have some very strong-growing Ranunculuses, with large, hand¬ 
some blossoms, both double and semi-double; and some people 
tell me they are Maladores. I never heard of such a kind, and 
see no mention of them in any trade list. They seem much more 
hardy, and increase much more rapidly than any other kind. 
I have several pots full of Lobelia speciosa cuttings very nearly 
rooted. I wish to know what treatment I should give them, 
before my Ranunculus-beds are ready to receive them in May, 
or the beginning of June. Should 1 prick them out into pans 
and nip them back, or let them grow a-heud 2 
I asked you some little time ago how I ought to manage my 
bedding plants, Verbenas, Calceolarias, &c., as the beds in which 
I wished to place them would not be ready till the Ranun¬ 
culuses were out of bloom. You told me to pot them all in large 
pots. I wish to know whether it will do equally well, if I make 
a bed of light, moory compost, put a Cucumber-framc over it, 
and plant the Verbenas, &c., in rows in it, and then transplant 
them from this, when the Ranunculus-beds are ready to receive 
them ? 
Should the seeds of Datura chlorantha be soaked in water 
before they are sown ? And when you talk of the water that 
seeds are soaked in being such and such a temperature, 120° for 
instance, or tepid, do you mean only that it should be that when 
the seeds are put into it, or that it should be kept at that all the 
time the seeds are soaking ?-—A Subscriber. 
[At the end of March plant out, separately, all your plants of 
Dianthus Heddeicigii which are now in pots in the greenhouse ; 
and as they have been long in comfortable quarters, hoop over 
them and throw mats over the hoops every cold night till 
the frost is over, and it is time for bedding out. In short, 
treat them as all bedding Calceolarias ought to be treated in the 
spring. In May, when your big pots and your little ones are 
released from all bedding stuff, you may take up half a dozen of 
these new and enormously large-flowered Pinks, pot them as you 
propose, keep them shaded till they take fresh hold, and then 
plunge the pots on a Vine, Peach, or any south-wall border, and 
see they do not want for water. When they bloom, you can re¬ 
move them ; but unless the drawing-room is open as a windmill, 
the plants will soon go weak and spindly. And being on the 
subject, after seeing and studying the whole process about this 
extraordinary new Pink, we may state fairly and practically, that 
there is not the smallest or the slightest difference in the whole 
