1881 . ] 
MOSS-MULCHING POT PLANTS. 
37 
border could be desired. The contrast between 
the autumnal tints of this species and those of 
the North-American A. rubrum is very marked, 
A. rubrum displaying but little deep colour, 
only a leaf or two here and there changing 
to crimson, the prevailing tint being a bright 
clear golden-yellow. 
Another variety, named Semenowii , the Acer 
Semenowii of Regel and Herder, a native of the 
vallevs of Alatau in Russian Turkestan, is a 
slender, graceful bush, with reddish twigs and 
petioles, and leaves, somewhat like those of 
A. Ginnctla , but smaller, glabrous, and of a 
shining green colour.—T. Moore. 
MOSS-MULCHING POT PLANTS. 
OR want of a better name, we have 
given this to a practice that we have 
recently introduced into our greenhouse 
department. Some time about January 1st 
of this year (1880), one of our young men 
suggested mulching with moss ('Sphagnum) a 
lot of Roses grown in seven-inch pots that had 
become somewhat exhausted by being forced 
for flowers for the holidays. Believing the 
idea to be a good one, I at once had a lot of 
nearly three thousand plants so mulched, 
mixing, however, with the moss a good portion 
of bone-dust—perhaps one part weight of bone- 
dust to thirty parts of moss. In two weeks 
the effect began to be easily perceived on all 
the Roses that had been so mulched, and 
without shifting they were carried through 
until May, with the most satisfactory results, 
many of the plants having by that time 
attained a height of four or five feet; 
and though they had bloomed profusely 
during a period of nearly six months, were in 
the most perfect health and vigour. 
Believing that if this system proved so satis¬ 
factory in a plant requiring such careful 
handling as the Rose, it would doubtless do 
equally well with many other plants, we at once, 
almost without exception, adopted the moss 
and bone mulch on nearly every plant culti¬ 
vated, whether planted out in borders or grown 
in pots, and the result, without a single 
exception, has been in the highest degree 
satisfactory. Among the plants so treated are 
Azaleas, Begonias, Oaladiums, Carnations, 
Crotons, Dracaenas, Eucliaris, Gloxinias, Palms, 
Pandanus, Poinsettias, Primulas, Roses, hot¬ 
house Grape Vines, and hundreds of other kinds. 
All plants are mulched as soon as we can reach 
them, from three-inch pots upwards. In strong¬ 
growing plants the roots can be seen striking 
upwards into the mulch in four or five days 
after it is put on, and in nearly all cases within 
two weeks. 
One great advantage is that by this system 
plants can be grown as large and fine in a 
four-inch pot as in a six-inch pot without the 
mulch, for the reason that the plant is now 
fed by the moss and bone from the surface of 
the earth—the best feeding point, as most 
cultivators of experience now believe. Another 
advantage of the mulching system is its great 
saving of labour; for it takes about one-fourth 
of the time to mulch the surface of a pot as it 
does to shift it. Another, its saving of watering 
—the moss acts as a sponge, retaining and 
giving out tlie moisture to the plant just as it 
is wanted. Another, that it crowds down all 
weeds, and does away with the necessity of 
stirring the soil in the pots or borders. Another 
and most important advantage to us who are 
packers is, that it lightens the weight of our 
goods by one-lialf—that is, we get as large a 
plant with half the weight of soil. 
In my practice of thirty years I have never 
seen a method of culture that I believe to be 
of such importance ; hundreds who have visited 
us this season have been equally impressed 
with its value ; for the “proof of the pudding” 
is most apparent in its results. We have used 
already over twenty team-loads of moss and 
about one ton of bone-dust, but never before 
have we made an investment that has been so 
satisfactory.— Peter Henderson, in American 
Gardeners Monthly. 
