330 
TIIE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, February 28, 1860. 
enable them to gain firmness ancl strength sufficient to 
hold up against light and air. 
For cuttings in a Waltonian Case, the sand at the 
bottom should never become dry; but for seed-pots it 
is more safe to have the sand not quite so wet. After 
the cuttings are done with, the Case is the best place 
I know to manage seed-pots in with very little bottom 
heat in May, and none after that period. 
The 1st of May is quite early enough to sow Humea 
seeds for next year, as, by having them earlier, amateurs 
are apt to have them with bare stems next the ground. 
All the seeds of spring flowers, such as those of the 
Primrose and Auricula kinds, the Mimuluses, and all 
such as come up best, and do better to be sown the 
moment they are ripe, in a cold, close Waltonian. In 
July, no place is better for Cineraria seeds ; in August, 
for Calceolaria; in September, for the whole race of 
Gladioluses, and all without bottom heat; but in such 
hot weather to have a good thick layer of damp sand 
under the pots. In July, if a little soil or leaf mould is 
added to the sand, to the depth of one inch or a little 
more, Pose cuttings, and choice Pelargoniums, and fancy 
kinds from cuttings, will root better, without pots, in a 
Waltonian Case, than by any other plan I ever saw 
adopted, the whole bottom of the Case being, as it were, 
one great pot, without the risk and inconvenience of 
large balls under unrooted stuff. All that I have seen 
done, and done well, in these Cases, and without bottom 
heat; so that between one thing and another, as I have 
just said, these Cases may be kept at full work nine 
months in the year, and a change every month or six 
weeks ; but in the dead of winter, unless one is up to the 
mark, there is certainly some risk, if bottom heat is to be 
kept on all the while ; but, in-doors and near a window, 
all the very small hardy Fei'ns may be kept in them the 
whole winter, and look just as gay as the Ancectochiluses 
do in similar minimum conservatories in the hottest 
stoves. D. Beaton. 
CONSERVATORY CLIMBERS PLANTED IN 
RAISED BORDERS. 
In reading over your account of Lapageria rosea culture, in 
the last October number of Tun Cottage Gardener, you say, 
“ What an odd idea that climbers cannot be planted out in con¬ 
servatories that have no borders, but are paved all over! Why, 
that is just the best kind of house in winch to plant out all 
climbers and trainers.” Please to tell me how you would plant 
them out. I have a large and lofty conservatory, have tried 
climbers in many ways, boxes, pots, and put out in the outside 
border and brought in, but in no way have I succeeded in ob¬ 
taining any amount of ilowers or foliage up the rafters. Neither 
boxes nor pots appear to give sufficient root room.— Manchestee. 
[One of the best-furnished conservatories with climbers which 
we have seen was just such another house as yours at the time 
Her Majesty succeeded to the British crown. The foundation was 
on a deep bed of the London clay, and there were no means for 
draining borders much lower than the paths in the house. All 
ideas of borders were, therefore, given up when the house was 
erected, and the whole of the inside was paved with slate an inch 
thick, having four gratings near the four corners to take off the 
water from pots, boxes, and when the floor was cleaned. The 
drains were only three inches below the slate for want of a fall. 
The very same contrivances for growing climbers which you 
have tried were resorted to, and with precisely the same results. 
The old mismanagers at the Chiswick'garden got into the same 
fix some years later with the present large conservatory. No side- 
borders there, and no climber worthy of the name from that 
day to this, or until Mr. McEwen turned it into a vinery. 
One of our contributors succeeded to the management of the 
slate-floored conservatory, and in two years had it furnished with 
the best climbers of that day. In that house the magnificent 
Beaumontia grandijlora flowered for the first time in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of London, and there also it flowered for the last time 
in these parts. The back wall was ten feet high in brickwork, 
then a wide span-roof; every brick of the face of that back wall 
was covered in one week with the choicest Camellias, large plants 
from nine to twelve feet high, cut close on one side, the shoots of 
the other side being trained to the wall, the plants costing from 
fivuffo ten guineas each; and they suffered no check or harm from 
the cutting, or the change from large pots to open borders. A 
large folding-door opened from the drawing-room into this con¬ 
servatory, and on one side of the door the whole end was covered 
by a Plumbago Capensis trained like a Peach tree. The other 
side of the door was covered with an Oleander trained the same 
way. 
Now, all these did well for many years, and all of them were 
in borders made on the top of the slate-flooring all round the 
house; therefore, we were justified in saying that a paved con¬ 
servatory was, of all other modes, the best for the finest climbers, 
and so it most certainly is ; and very many expensive houses of 
this kind cannot boast of climbers, just because the borders are 
below the level of the paths, and for no other reason whatever. 
The borders in the conservatory above mentioned were twenty 
inches deep, and thirty inches wide throughout, crocked or 
drained at the bottom, and between the bottom of the soil and 
the top of the pavement, just like draining a large pot or box 
with bits of broken bricks and bones broken to the size of 
Windsor Beans; then a very thin turf from a sandy common 
over that, much like the way Vine-borders are made. Long 
slabs of half-inch slate were fixed to hold up the front of that 
border, the side-walls keeping up the back of the border. The 
lower edges of the slabs were toothed an inch deep, and three or 
four inches apart, to let off the drainage—that is, an inch and a 
half wide, and one inch deep, were sawed out of the bottom of 
the slabs at short intervals; they were fastened to the pavement 
by small bolts to slide up and down, and at the top with pieces 
of flat iron half an inch wide, and a quarter of an inch thick, one 
end sharpened to drive into the wall, the other end hooked to 
“ clip” the top edge of the slate, which top was one inch above 
the top of the soil of the border. These borders were from forty 
to fifty feet long at the back and front, and no plant-borders were 
ever yet made which paid better. As the house was more than 
the usual width, side-stages for pot plants were made to hide 
every inch of the borders ; two runs of stage against the face of 
the slate sides, and one run on the top over the border. When 
all the pots and plants were on no one could tell whether the 
borders were above or below the path ; and, lastly, any length of 
slab could be removed to examine the border.] 
HOTBEDS FOR SEEDLINGS. 
“ It has been requested by the writers for The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener, that if any previous information on any subject were not 
sufficiently explanatory, to refer them to the year, volume, and 
page, in which that information was given. The year is 185fi, 
\ ol. XVI., page 95, in which a letter was answered respecting 
the making of hotbeds. ‘ If our correspondent had told us what 
material she used, &c.” Stable manure is the material, but she 
had tried, and it has never succeeded to give satisfaction. The 
heat is sometimes ranging at 90° or 100°, and down again at 50°, 
and then the heat does not last long. - 
“ ‘ M. L. E.’ has sent for a Waltonian Case, but when the seed¬ 
lings come up she will require a hotbed to place them in, also for 
forwarding other things in the spring. Would it be better to 
promote regular heat, to dig out the earth one or two feet, and then 
put in the manure ? It would be a great satisfaction to make a 
hotbed to answer. Would The Cottage Gardener take the 
trouble to give a little more assistance to lady amateurs upon 
this subject, naming the best time to commence one, when to 
have it ready for use, &c. ? She lias found sawdust an excellent 
thing to plunge her Verbenas and Roses up to the pot-rims in a 
frame without manure under, for winter preservation; and she 
has tried sawdust on the top of the manure instead of bark, to 
plunge the pots in for seeds and cuttings, but that has not 
answered, and she read in The Cottage Gardener that saw¬ 
dust was a non-conductor of heat. In one respect it did answer, 
not having insects to contend with, as in bark. Would sand 
be better than bark, and be equally hot, and better than saw¬ 
dust ?” 
I have^ glanced at "V ol. XVI., page 95, referred to rightly by 
“M. L. E.,” and though I should be glad to oblige’ her, I 
almost fear that an attempt to give more assistance, or, in other 
words, make the matter more plain, will be little better than a 
break down. However, I will try, merely [premising that from 
