734 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
July 18, 1891. 
The Amateurs’ Garden. 
SEASONABLE WORK in the GARDEN. 
Tree Ferns.— Large specimens in pots will 
require a great amount of water during the summer 
months, as if allowed to become dry the crop of 
fronds will certainly perish to the disfigurement of 
the plants. It would prove a great saving of labour, 
besides rendering the plants less liable to accident, 
if the stems are covered with sphagnum to retain the 
moisture and supply it to the young roots which are 
generally freely produced. So long as the drainage 
of the pots is good, water may be given in unlimited 
quantity during the summer months. 
Achimenes. — A plentiful supply of water will be 
necessary to keep the plants in a vigorous state 
during the warmer part of summer. Weak liquid 
manure will also favour the production of large 
flowers and a greater continuance of them. 
Celosias. —Plants intended for autumn work 
might now be placed in a frame or cold pit close to 
the glass, where sun heat will be sufficient to 
bring them on slowly and keep them in a dwarf and 
Sturdy condition. 
Allamandas and Dipladenias.— Plants of this 
class are now in full bloom and if they are intended 
to keep up a display or supply cut flowers till the 
waning days of autumn, then they must receive 
liberal treatment in the matter of watering and 
frequent doses of weak liquid manure. All super¬ 
fluous shoots that cannot be properly accommodated 
without crowding the rest should be cut out and the 
rest laid in regularly. Allamanda Schotii, better 
known as A. Hendersoni, makes a remarkable amount 
of growth with an equivalent quantity of flowers 
during the course of the season, and it is nothing 
uncommon to find them an intricate labyrinth of 
shoots devoid of all neatness in the autumn. Now 
all this can be avoided by regulating the shoots from 
the outset. 
Zonal Pelargoniums. — The batch of plants 
intended for winter flowering should be overhauled 
in order to re-pot all that have become root-bound. 
The object should be to encourage growth in the 
early part of the season so that no late re-potting 
may be necessary. The soil in autumn should be 
well permeated with roots, and a better crop of bloom 
may be had. The object at-present should be to 
keep the plants dwarf and sturdy by giving them at 
all times an abundant ventilation and full exposure 
to sunshine. They may be kept in frames, but a 
better plan would be to half plunge them in the open 
air in a sheltered place but fully exposed to sunshine 
all day long. 
Tuberous Begonias. —Young plants raised from 
seed early in the year are now coming into bloom, 
and should be shifted on if it is desired that they 
should attain some size. Vigour of growth will 
be promoted thereby and the flowering season greatly 
prolonged. 
Heaths and Epacms. — Young plants of Heaths 
and Epacris that require a shift should now have 
the operation performed, and the new soil will be 
permeated with roots before the advent of autumn. 
They will flower all the better for it next winter and 
spring, and be less difficult to attend to in the matter 
of watering at that time. 
Cyclamens. —Old plants of the last or previous 
years, and which were retained for flowering again, 
will now be commencing to grow again. Whenever 
this happens the corms should be repotted in good 
fibrous loam. There would be a danger of the young 
roots getting injured if the operation is much delayed 
after they commence to move. 
Tree Carnations. — All plants intended for 
winter flowering should be kept clear of bloom 'at 
present, and pinched if necessary to prevent the 
plants from assuming a straggling habit. Stake the 
shoots neatly as this becomes necessary. 
Vines. —An abundance of ventilation should be 
given night and day in all houses from which the 
early crops have been cut, in order to ripen the 
shoots thoroughly. Pinch back all lateral shoots 
for which there is no room to fully expose their 
leaves to light. Water the borders thoroughly 
whenever they show signs of being dry, using clean 
water only. Syringing and damping down should 
also be attended to. The borders of houses in which 
the berries are colouring should also receive a good 
watering, so that no more will be necessary till after 
the grapes ajre ripe. Further damping down will 
also be unnecessary for some days. 
Peaches. — Should the weather continue unsettled 
with cold nights and heavy thunder showers, such 
as have prevailed for some time past, a little fire 
heat morning and evening wall prove beneficial and 
assist the fruit to make their final swelling. The 
watering of the borders will also have to be seen to 
whenever they get dry. The usual pinching and 
tying down must also be well kept in hand. 
Oranges. — A plentiful supply of moisture, both 
at the roots and in the atmosphere, will be necessary 
during the summer months, in order to counteract 
the influence of the high temperature kept up in order 
to hasten the ripening of the fruits before the foreign 
supply comes into the market. Fruit ripened on the 
trees is always superior to that which is imported, 
because the latter is gathered before being ripe in 
order to make it carry better. Look sharply after 
insect pests, especially mealy bug, which increases 
at a rapid pace in a warm atmosphere. 
Wall Fruit Trees. —The heavy thunder showers 
which prevailed last week will prove highly bene¬ 
ficial to all fruit trees, where the ground was in a 
suitable condition to take it in. Borders in front of 
fruit tree walls must have profited where they happen 
to be mulched. If they were hard and dry, and not 
protected by mulching, much of the rain must have 
run off into the nearest pathways and drains. To 
guard against this a mulching should be given, or in 
default of it, the borders should be roughly loosened 
up with the hoe, or even the fork in certain cases. 
Pinks. — The propagation of these by pipings 
should no longer be delayed, if good plants to flower 
well next year are expected. The finest blooms are 
always obtained from plants raised annually in this 
way. Old plants may be relegated to the borders in 
autumn to furnish cut blooms the following season. 
GLOXINIAS AT TOWER 
HOUSE, CHISWICK. 
By a process of judicious crossing and careful 
selection of certain varieties of Gloxinias of high 
quality, Mr. T. Bones, gardener to J. Donaldson, 
Esq., Tower House, Chiswick, has been able to get 
up a strain of great merit, which told greatly in his 
favour when exhibiting a group of these plants set 
up with Palms and Ferns at the exhibition of the 
Chiswick Horticultural Society on the 2nd inst. 
Soqie of the varieties raised at Tower House have at 
one time or other been awarded Certificates of 
Merit. 
A striking and highly meritorious variety, named 
Mrs. S. A. Lee, is at present one of the most notice¬ 
able in the collection. It is a seedling, and a great 
improvement upon an older sort named Sidonie. 
The'leaves are broad, oval, or elliptic, with silvery 
veins. The blooms are of great size, erect, funnel- 
shaped, and generally consist of six to seven seg¬ 
ments, so greatly overlapping that two of them 
touch or even overlap one another after crossing, a 
third lying between them. The shape of the seg¬ 
ments is very remarkable, and may be compared to 
that of an edging iron, such as is used by gardeners 
for cutting grass verges. The throat is white, spotted 
with purple, with a ring of. that colour at the base, 
and shaded with purple or crimson towards the top ; 
then the lamina is of a rich violet-purple with a 
velvety gloss, giving place to a broad blue margin. 
The combination of colours is both handsome and 
effective. 
The seedlings are mostly unnamed, with the 
exception of the first above mentioned. All have 
erect, funnel-shaped flowers. A pretty variety we 
noted was closely dotted with red on a white ground, 
and inscribed with deeper red markings across the 
segments, resembling Hebrew characters or other 
hieroglyphic writing. Another had bluish-purple 
flowers, fading to lavender at the margin, and dotted 
with purple in a pale throat. Even more beautiful 
and distinct was a seedling having a pure white tube, 
with a band of the same hue running down the seg¬ 
ments, w'hich were otherwise deep mauve with a 
lavender edge. The collection is grown in a small 
lean-to house close to the glass, and every plant is 
worthy of the space it occupies. 
Gardening Miscellany. 
Co 
A Double-flowered Lapageria. 
Have you ever seen a Lapageria bloom like the 
enclosed ? It has grown on the very point of a shoot 
of this year’s growth, and you will notice has a very 
long flower stalk. There are a few more blooms at 
the tips of shoots, with equally long stalks, but are 
not yet fully expanded. All the other expanded 
blooms on the plant are large and perfect.— M. T. IF., 
Forres, N.B. [The flower sent us was the most 
remarkable we have seen, and several have been sent 
us previously by different correspondents. In most 
cases they were merely semi-double, but that under 
notice had all the parts or organs of the flower 
metamorphosed, and the power of seed production 
destroyed. A little pollen might have been obtained 
from portions of some of the anthers to use on other 
flowers, but that was all. The most noticeable 
feature of the double flower was the great elongation 
of the axis. The peduncle carrying the flower was 
3m. long, and the receptacle, instead of simply being 
sufficiently long for the accommodation of the 15 
parts of the normal flower, was elonged to 1 Jins. 
One of the segments of the perianth was changed to 
a small leaf only, slightly stained with red, and stood 
lin. below the rest of the flower. The others were 
seated on different levels, and two of the lowest had 
become partly green. The stamens had, with one 
exception, become petaloid, and that they were 
really the stamens was shown by a half anther on one 
edge, while the other half was petaloid and spotted 
with white on a rosy-scarlet ground exactly as 
the segments. The ovary was completely destroyed, 
and the parts greatly multiplied by proliferation. 
The outer pieces w T ere partly coloured imitating the 
segments, while a few of the succeeding ones bore 
ovules quite exposed at their base, and some of them 
w^ere surmounted by stigmas. The innermost parts 
were reduced to the midribs of the carpels, ending in 
stigmas and bearing exposed ovules on their bases, 
a fact which would serve to show that the ovules 
are mere outgrowths from the carpellary leaves. 
The remarkably abnormal flower just described is 
another good example of the w-ell-known fact that 
the parts of the perianth, the stamens, and carpels 
are all modifications of the ordinary leaves of the 
plant. We can only account for it by an unusual 
luxuriance of the plant, and that the arrest of 
vegetative growth necessary for the production 
of a perfect flower was not complete. The only 
regret with cultivators is that the sport cannot 
be fixed by propagation, and may never even appear 
again on the same plant. We would suggest that 
pollen be taken from a double or semi-double 
flower and used upon a single one with the view of 
getting a double variety from seed.—E d.] 
Cabbage Lettuces. 
During the hot weather of a week or two ago, there 
was a great demand for salads everywhere. I do 
not find many Cabbage Lettuces to beat that good 
old sort, All the Year Round, which has done grandly 
here this season, and made no attempt at " bolting.” 
Sutton's White Cos is also very good. There is not 
much gained by growing many varieties for market 
purposes.— A. J. Broion, Clicrtsey. 
The Large-flowered Lathyrus. 
Of the many fine forms of Lathyrus grown in gardens 
L. grandiflorus has by far the largest flowers. The 
other favourite species have long racemes bearing 
numerous flowers, but that under notice has only two 
or three, generally two flowers on a peduncle. The 
standard is the most conspicuous feature of the 
flower and measures from ij in. to if in. across. It 
is of a beautiful rose colour, deepening to red at the 
base ; the wings on the contrary are crimson and the 
keel rose. The stems grow to a height of 3 ft. or 
4 ft. and require something to climb upon, as in the 
case of L. sylvestris and its more popular variety 
L. s. platyphyllus, best known under the name of 
L. latifolius and spoken of as the Everlasting Pea. 
The species under notice commences to flower in 
June and continues till August, whereas the Everlast¬ 
ing Pea is a month later and continues a month 
longer in bloom. L. grandiflorus is a long-lived 
perennial plant, and when once established will coni 
tip ue to flower every year for a lifetime or more. 
