22 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
September 12, 1891. 
The Amateur’s Garden. 
Hints for Beginners iri Plant Culture. 
A few days since I received a communication Irom 
a lady amateur who is a reader of The Gardening 
World, in which she states, " I wish to try to cultivate 
a few Pelargoniums, Fuchsias, Cinerarias, Begonias, 
and Ferns, all of which I have seen at flower shows 
this season and greatly admired : will you be good 
enough to give me a few hints in The Gardening 
World for the management of the same.” How 
could I refuse such a request, and so for the benefit 
of my correspondent, and I trust others, I herewith 
venture to jot down a few simple directions applic¬ 
able at this season of the year. 
Now we will presume the enquirer has a green¬ 
house, but we fear she may find it a little difficult to 
grow the more delicate Ferns with the other things 
she names, as they want more warmth in winter and 
early spring than a greenhouse affords. Indeed 
many of them do best in a warm rather than in a 
cool temperature; and that most popular of Ferns, 
the common Maiden Hair, Adiantium cuneatum, 
thrives as well in a tropical fernery as in a green¬ 
house temperature, and perhaps better. Not know¬ 
ing what house convenience our correspondent has, 
I think she would do wisely to consult some 
gardener in her own neighbourhood as to the suit¬ 
ability of what glass accommodation she has, and 
the kinds of Ferns most likely to live in it. The large 
ornamental-leaved Begonias will do well with Ferns, 
and if they and the Maiden Hair Fern can be planted 
together against a wall, in a bed of Moss or Cocoa 
fibre and loam, supported by means of wire work, a 
very pleasing effect will be produced ; and Begonias 
of this type do as well, if not better, in such a position 
as in any other. 
It is likely that the tuberous-rooted Begonia is the 
type our correspondent wishes to grow. It is not 
too late to purchase a few small plants in pots at a 
nursery, and they will flower nicely in a cold house, 
and in making the purchase, plants that have just 
come into bloom should be selected. The foliage 
dies down in the autumn, then water should be with¬ 
held, and when the foliage has withered away the 
roots or tubers should be taken from the soil and 
kept through the winter in a box, with a little Cocoa 
fibre. Some artificial warmth is needed in spring to 
start the tubers into growth. The best plan is to stand 
them on a bed of Cocoa fibre, with hot water pipes 
under it, or near at hand, and keep the bulbs 
sprinkled; they will soon begin to grow from the 
centre, and then they can be potted, grown on in 
warmth to get them into size, and hardened off to 
flower in a cold house. A slightly moist rather than 
a hot dry atmosphere suits it best. Our correspon¬ 
dent may not be aware that tuberous-rooted Begonias 
are now much employed for bedding purposes ; and 
nothing has stood the wet, cold, dull weather so well 
this summer as beds of Begonias. The most stormy 
weather scarcely dims their lustre. 
Cuttings of show and bedding Pelargoniums can 
be put in at once, in pots or boxes of light sandy soil. 
If there are no plants to take cuttings from, and our 
correspondent has convenience to strike them, she 
can purchase them at a nursery, or wait until 
October and purchase plants of each. They will 
winter well, requiring simply a greenhouse from 
which frost can be excluded, and a little fire heat 
given in cold, dull, wet weather ; or purchases may 
be deferred until the spring, when vigorous, well- 
established plants can be had at a nursery. If cut¬ 
tings are struck this autumn they should, as soon 
as well rooted, be potted off singly into small pots, 
and wintered on a light airy shelf in a greenhouse. 
The cuttings will require but very little water until 
they are rooted. The pots of cuttings can be kept 
through the winter and not potted off until the spring, 
and when potted and they begin to grow, the leading 
shoots should be pinched out, so that the plants can 
be induced to break into several shoots and become 
bushy. But a great deal is gained if the young 
plants can be potted off in the autumn singly into 
small pots. 
Fuchsias can be raised from cuttings in the same 
way as the Pelargoniums. The Fuchsia is a little 
tenderer than the Pelargonium, and, like the latter, 
piust be kept from frost. But the plants lose nearly 
pr quite all their leaves (3tiring- the winter, and there 
IS, therefore, not so much dgpggr of losing the 1'olinge 
by damp as in the case of the Pelargoniums. The 
young plants, when placed in the heat in spring, 
soon break into growth, and when potted on as 
required soon make fine young blooming plants with 
proper management. It is not too late to purchase 
young plants from a nursery, and a half-dozen good 
varieties could be had at a moderate cost. 
Cinerarias are best raised from seeds, and it is 
now almost too late to sow with a promise of having 
good plants by November. But our correspondent 
can purchase seedlings which she will find advertised 
in The Gardening World, or from a local nursery¬ 
man. As soon as they can be procured, they should 
be potted, one each in small pots, and, if possible, 
placed in a cold frame and kept near the glass, 
giving them plenty of air. The plants do best in a 
frame all the winter. Damp and mildew are the 
great evils that beset them, and therefore it is a good 
plan to stand the pots on inverted flower-pots, so 
that the air can circulate underneath. Mildew attacks 
the undersides of the leaves, and the best cure is a 
little flour of sulphur dusted over the affected parts. 
The greatest care should be taken when giving water 
in winter not to wet the foliage. The frame in 
which the plants are placed should be well covered 
up during frosty weather; but perhaps, as a matter 
of precaution, it will be best to place the plants on a 
shelf of the greenhouse during winter. 
It will be necessary for our correspondent to pro¬ 
vide herself with some potting soil, good yellow loam, 
well decomposed manure, leaf soil, silver sand, 
some stakes for her plants, raffia or some other 
tying material. In the spring it will probably be 
necessary to fumigate the plants occasionally with 
smoke from tobacco paper. Should greenfly put in 
an appearance, let her also consult the pages of The 
Gardening World weekly, and never hesitate to 
ask for special information through its columns when 
necessary, as there are many writers who will be 
pleased to impart suitable advice.— R. D. 
Mildew on Onions. 
Mildew has been most troublesome on our Onions 
this season, and has affected the crop to .such an 
extent that the bulbs are not more than half the size 
they ought to be considering how highly the ground 
was cultivated for them. Our method of preparing 
the ground is to trench dig it two spits deep, working 
in plenty of good farm-yard manure in the bottom 
spit. This is done before Christmas, and in spring, 
at the end of February, the quarter is forked over 
after a dressing of poultry manure and soot. On a 
fine dry day about the middle of March the ground 
is levelled and trodden over, and on the seeds, sown 
in drills, we sprinkle some ashes from the burnt heap 
of garden refuse, fill up the drills, and tread the 
ground over again. The seeds come up grandly, and 
the plants grow away vigorously and are of a dark- 
green colour. We generally thin them out at twice, 
and when the plants have attained a good size, we 
dust them with soot as an antidote to the Onion 
Maggot. The crop is not over thinned, as bulbs of 
a medium size are the most useful, and keep the best. 
It is just as they begin to form their bulbs that the 
mildew attacks them. In the course of a few days it 
seems to arrest their growth, and the leaves quickly 
turn yellow. This season we have tried a dusting of 
sulphur when they were damp, but it had no effect 
in stopping the spread of the mildew. I observe 
that some sorts are attacked sooner than others, and 
Danver’s Yellow is the first to succumb. Our gar¬ 
den is in a low situation, and close to water. Can 
any reader suggest a remedial measure ?— Con. 
Early Runner Beans. 
The cold spring and summer has had a very retard¬ 
ing influence upon Scarlet Runners, or, as they are 
often termed, Runner Beans. The complaint is 
common everywhere, and as the conditions have 
been pretty much the same, the defect must -be pretty 
general. There is a large collection now on trial at 
Chiswick in the gardens of the Royal Horticultural 
Society ; but when we examined them on the 22nd 
ult. very few of them were in bearing. The under¬ 
mentioned kinds were well fruited and must therefore 
be considered early. A number of varieties had just 
commenced to bear on the lower portion of the stems, 
but a large proportion bad scarcely a fryit upon them 
of a usable size. 
The Sped lid Cutter is a Runner of the Butter 
Bean type, with pods about 3 in. or 4 in. long, rather 
broad, but narrowed towards either end and creamy- 
yellow, much speckled and splashed with bright red 
where exposed to the light. They are tender and 
described as skinless, but probably stringless would 
be more nearly the correct expression to convey. In 
this respect the variety would resemble the dwarf 
Butter Beans, and if the quality is as good the 
variety may be looked upon as both ornamental and 
useful. The stems at present are only about 3 ft. 
high, and are bearing abundantly from the ground 
upwards. The pods might, however, be improved 
both as to size and shape. 
Somewhat similar is Runner Mont d'Or, with 
stems about 3 ft. or 4 ft. high, and light green foliage. 
The pods are 3 in. to 5 in. long, narrow, inflated, often 
curved, and creamy-yellow. They were very 
abundant by the above date, and evidently equally 
early as the Speckled Cutter. A much stronger 
grower is that named Flageolet Wax, for the stems 
were 6 ft. to 8 ft. high, or even more, and in this 
respect resembling the more common types. The 
foliage also is of a light green, or even tinted with 
yellow, and in this respect shows_ a co-relation with 
the pods, which are also of a light yellow like Mont 
d’Or. The pods are 3 in. to 6 in. long, and curved, 
but otherwise of good shape. The crop was abun¬ 
dant from the ground upwards. They would no doubt 
be better appreciated by the public if the pods had 
been green instead of yellow. Provided the quality 
is good, that ought to be no bar to their use. 
Runner No 8 (Sutton) is a light green podded 
variety, already bearing abundantly by the above 
date. The stems were dwarf, being only 2 ft. to 3 ft. 
high, with light green foliage. The pods were 6 in. to 
9 in. long, narrow, smooth and even. The Jubilee 
Runner Bean cannot be classed amongst the above 
as to earliness, but the huge pods are now being 
produced near the ground, and a crop may be 
expected presently. It is evidently a very vigorous 
kind, as the stems were 8 ft. high by the third week 
in August. Some other kinds were in a similarly 
advanced state to the last named ; but in a season 
like the present the early varieties, even if not so fine 
in appearance, should be looked upon with some 
degree of favour. 
Broad Bean Bunyard’s Exhibition. 
This is a grand cropping variety, and some of the 
pods around the lowest tiers of clusters on the 
stems are quite a foot long. Extra long podded 
beans art not always preferable on account of the 
length of pith each bean is found to be embedded 
in when opened, but in Bunyard's Exhibition they 
are moderately close and shell out well. The 
flavour is good, and not particularly strong. I 
consider it an improvement upon the Giant Seville 
long pod.— B. L. 
_ . •» _ 
t 
TUBEROUS BEGONIAS 
OUT OF DOORS. 
No one need be reminded of the long spell of 
wretched wet and cold weather we have been having, 
and it could scarcely be expected that, excepting in 
most favourable situations, Begonias could be seen 
on the last day of August blooming profusely and 
seemingly uninjured, in a large bed in Messrs. Hewitt 
& Co.’s nurseries, at Solihull, close to Birmingham. 
The nursery is close by the side of the railway 
station, on low ground, and with weeks of showery 
weather, very little sunshine, a fearful hurricane and 
downpour a few days before, and wet weather during 
my hurried look in at the nurseries, I was agreeably 
surprised to find a glorious bed of good-sized plants of 
Begonias in full bloom, and buds of Pelargoniums close 
by, dull and washed out. Such a severe test as this 
season has been most certainly lifts the tuberous 
Begonia to the front rank of out-door decorative 
plants, and grand objects they are when ordinary 
care is taken in preparing the beds for them, and 
giving drainage in low-lying situations. In another 
part of the nursery were a few thousand plants of 
this year’s seedlings. The seed having been saved in 
various colours, and planted out in rows of each 
colour, they were doing well and flowering freely, 
and coming pretty true in colour to the parent 
plants. I should not at all have been surprised to 
find a failure here in the outdoor culture of the 
Begonia, knowing what a season we have had, and 
th r aj tjie nursery is on a lower level than the railway 
p.nij Solihull town, but they were a? gqod as t hay 9 
