May 2nd, 1885. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
SINGLE DAHLIAS. 
Nest week will be a busy one with the wholesale 
growers of Dahlias, for it is during the first and 
second weeks in May that the young plants are sent 
out by thousands all over the country, some to fail, 
and some to succeed in affording pleasure to their 
recipients, according as the plants are treated from 
the time they are received. Those, therefore, who have 
not made up their minds what of the new or of the 
old sorts they should obtain, must quickly decide the 
question if they desire to participate in the first pick, 
for in most nurseries the old rule of “ first come, 
best served ” still holds good. 
Having obtained the plants, the nest thing to 
consider is whether they are all wanted to flower 
early or late, or whether it is desirable to extend the 
season as long as possible. With most flower lovers 
the latter is the desideratum aimed at, but some want 
to exhibit at the local shows, and with them the sine 
qud non is a good head of bloom to select from at the 
date of exhibition. If flowers are wanted early, the 
young plants, as soon as received from the nursery in 
thumb pots, should be shifted into 48’s, using a good, 
fairly light compost, and be grown on in a frame for 
two or three weeks, during which time they will attain 
some size, and if carefully planted will suffer no check 
from the operation. 
Those which are planted out during the next week 
or two without a shift into larger pots, though pro¬ 
tected at night by having a flower-pot placed over 
them until all danger of frost is passed, are checked 
a little in their growth at starting, and these will 
give the late blooms. Given a well-enriched deep soil, a 
good mulching of short manure, and plenty of water 
in dry weather, and few plants will make such a 
display in the autumn as single Dahlias. 
Since the single Dahlia became such a popular 
favourite again, immense strides have been made in its 
improvement, and so fine are the best named sorts 
that have already been obtained, that a new one must 
be good indeed now to pass muster. Mr. T. S. Ware, 
of Tottenham, who grows these plants in immense 
numbers, planted out 30,000 seedlings last year, and 
only obtained, about a dozen sorts sufficiently distinct 
and good to warrant their being named and sent out. 
The ordeal through which seedling flowers have to pass 
at Tottenham is no doubt a severe one, but quality will 
tell in the long run, even with those who are satisfied 
with unnamed seedlings to start with. 
Of the Hale Farm seedlings raised last year, and to 
be sent out this season, the following may be noted as 
unusually fine Dorothy Fell, pure white, edged with 
deep pink; Kate Vaughan, pale pinkish-mauve; 
Formosa, rich dazzling crimson with a golden disc; 
Marion Terry, salmon, shaded with rosy-scarlet; 
Alfred Smith, crimson lake, shaded with maroon; 
Laura Linden, deep mahogany; The Mahdi, deep 
lake, edged with magenta; Marion Hook, white shad¬ 
ing to rose-pink; and Lizzie Webster, brilliant scarlet, 
with a yellow centre. 
Of the older sorts, the best white, all things con¬ 
sidered, is White Queen, though as regards the quality 
of the flower Duchess of Westminster carries the palm 
Lutea grandiflora is still the best of the yellows; 
Beacon the finest of the dark reds; and Scarlet 
Defiance the best of the scarlets. 
— » -~Tc —.- 
BOUVARDIAS. 
No plants that we grow are so much admired by 
visitors as the Bouvardias. The dull time of the 
year during which they flower, and the paucity of 
growers in this part, may in some measure account 
for this. As there are numerous readers of The 
Gardening Would in this district, a few notes from 
one on the spot may prove acceptable, and be the 
means of inducing others to commence their cultiva¬ 
tion. To me '.their culture is as easy as that of the 
Fuchsia, and the treatment which they receive differs 
but little from what is usually accorded to that com¬ 
mon greenhouse plant. Excepting from November to 
February, when they have a temperature of 50 degs. 
at night, they are either in the open air, in a frame, 
or a cool greenhouse. 
After the last of the flowers have been cut off each 
plant, it is moved into the greenhouse and watered 
sparingly, as heavy watering in a low temperature 
would prove disastrous. When the last plant has 
been so treated for two or three weeks, the whole are 
pruned back from one to four joints, whichever may 
be thought the best considering the strength of the 
shoots and the necessity of preserving the plants 
in good form. We then introduce them into a 
greenhouse along with some Fuchsias, where they 
are kept rather close and syringed every afternoon. 
Under this treatment they break freely, producing as 
many as a score of shoots on plants in 5-in. pots. 
After all the plants have become well on the move 
they are turned out of the pots, and all the soil that 
will readily shake away is removed, and some of the 
longest roots shortened. Many of the plants are 
placed in the same sized pots again, and others in 
smaller ones, according to their vigour. 
If the condition of the soil will admit it, they may 
be watered immediately after being potted, so as to 
settle it round the roots. If, however, the soil is 
moderately moist, it will lay close enough, and the 
plants will be all the better without water for three 
or four days. They should be sprinkled over head 
every afternoon, either with a fine rose on the can, 
or with the syringe. We prefer the latter, as they are 
apt to get overdone by the other method. Some of 
the plants are moved into larger pots as they require 
it and plunged in frames, and others are planted out 
on a gentle hotbed and protected by a frame, which 
is raised up as the plants require more head room. 
If we subjected the largest plants to this treatment, 
they would grow too large for the house we have to 
devote to them during the time they are in flower, 
and they make such a quantity of roots that we are 
compelled to give them larger pots than we care for, 
or run the risk of losing many of the leaves through 
unduly reducing the roots. 
Planting out should not be attempted by small 
growers or those who may not have a suitable 
structure to place them in after they are lifted and 
potted. Ordinary greenhouses, vineries, or peach- 
houses, are worthless for the purpose, and to introduce 
them into these would end in the plants dying if 
left in them long enough. Unheated pits will not 
answer the purpose in all seasons, for before the 
plants are established the nights get cold, and as 
the plants have to be shaded from the sun, there is 
not sufficient warmth to stimulate them into active 
growth quickly, and the moist atmosphere by which 
they must necessarily be surrounded will cause many 
of the leaves to decay, if not some of the tender 
growths as well. 
The pit which we devote to this purpose has flow 
and return hot-water pipes, which can be regulated by 
valves. The interior is sunk below the ground level, 
and on this cool bottom the plants stand, and it 
seems to suit them admirably, for scarcely a shoot 
droops. Those who have not got similar accommo¬ 
dation should confine themselves to pot culture, 
which will give little trouble beyond ordinary 
attention to watering, and as plants with three to 
four dozen heads of flowers can be grownUn a 6-in. 
pot, there is little necessity for having recourse to 
planting out. We have grown two or three plants 
in 8-in. pots, and as they were too large for the 
frame we plunged them in a partially spent hotbed 
of leaves, fully exposed from July to September. 
Those in frames seldom have the lights placed on 
them for three months in the summer, but we find 
the frames a great protection from wind, and should 
it blow with great force the lights are placed over the 
plants as well as during very wet weather. 
Some of the plants have the shoots pinched, and 
others are allowed to grow on so as to give a 
succession of good heads of flowers, the finest being 
of course produced by the sucker-like shoots which 
come from the base and are left unpinched. In most 
instances the plants will have rooted through into 
the plunging material, and if so, the pots must be 
lifted up and placed back, the frame kept moderately 
close and shaded, so as to allow the plants to recover 
before being taken into the greenhouse. 
The readiest mode of propagating Bouvardias, is 
to shake all the soil from a plant and select pieces 
about 2 ins. loDg from the thickest roots and insert 
them in pots containing a mixture of leaf-mould, 
loam, and sand. In order that the top of the cutting 
may be slightly covered with soil, the depth of 
the pot should not be under 3 ins. Extra strong 
pieces of roots if placed three in a pot and moved 
undisturbed to larger ones as required will make nice 
551 
specimens before the end of the season, providing 
there is convenience for propagating and pushing 
them on after. The following year each plant may 
be potted singly after being rested and pruned as 
already directed. My experience of the different 
varieties is limited, and I have only grown B. jasmin- 
oides, B. elegans, B. Humboldtii corymbiflora, B. 
Vreelandii, and the double-flowered Alfred Neuner, 
which I do not like so well as either of the others.— 
IF. P. E., Preston. 
— g——n — 
THE CANARY BELL-FLOWER. 
I have looked in vain in Mr. B. S. Williams’s 
“Flowering Stove and Greenhouse Plants ” for this 
plant. I have looked through some leading plant 
catalogues and found it not. Has it nearly or quite 
gone out of cultivation? There has been so much 
searching after novelty of late years, that not a few 
things that we should rave about, were they intro¬ 
duced for the first time, have unfortunately fallen 
away into neglect. Undoubtedly, one of these is the 
Canary Bell Wort, or Bell Flower—Canarina cam¬ 
panula—for it was introduced from the Canaries many 
years ago. It is one of the oldest and best of the 
exotic Bell Worts, being a very showy, deciduous, 
herbaceous plant, doing well iD an ordinary green¬ 
house. 
It will attain the height of 5 ft.; the root is thick 
and fleshy, and it has an erect, branching, succulent 
stem, with a flower at the top of every branchlet. 
The flowers are pendulous, an inch in diameter, and 
of a bright reddish-brown, streaked in the inside with 
purple. I am sure, if a well-grown and flowered plant 
of this interesting object could be brought to one of 
the meetings of the Royal Horticultural Society, it 
would awaken a great amount of interest. I once 
knew a gardener, living in a small place in an obscure 
village—in such a place as one sometimes sees some¬ 
thing exceptionally well done—who, in an unpre¬ 
tentious way, cultivated this plant with great success, 
and when his specimen was in full bloom it was a 
sight to be remembered. 
He gave it ordinary greenhouse treatment, growing 
it in good mellow loam, peat, and leaf-mould, draining 
the pot well, and allowing it plenty of head room. In 
order to have it in .perfection, it would perhaps be a 
good plan to get it into flower in a warm house, and 
then gradually harden it off, placing the plant in a 
cooler atmosphere, when it will remain in beauty for 
a considerable time. In watering when the plant is in 
a young state, care is necessary not to give it too 
much, the plant being of a somewhat tender, suc¬ 
culent nature, and so liable to damp off. When at 
rest it may be kept pretty dry. The gardener to whom 
I have referred used to propagate it by means of cut¬ 
tings, just as one would Dahlias.— R. D. 
■ — r ~ ' —p —■ 
NOTES FROM GARDENS. 
■Woodville, Lytham.—In the gardens of J. 
Turner, Esq., Woodville, Lytham, I noticed a 
few days ago a fine plant of Rhododendron fra- 
grantissimum, trained on a balloon-shaped trellis 
4 ft. in diameter. The plant was in a thoroughly 
healthy condition, the whole of the trellis being 
covered with growth, and the flowers opening fast 
Many trusses were already expanded, but a large 
number had yet to open; many of the blooms 
measured 4| ins. across. As its name implies, 
this is deliciously fragrant, and even if it were 
not, its immense pure white flowers would cause it 
to be a most desirable acquisition for conservatory 
decoration. 
In the conservatory where this plant was standing 
were also some three dozen plants of Vesuvius Pelar¬ 
goniums in 8-in. pots. These Mr. Cross informed me 
had been taken in when the Chrysanthemums were 
over, and have been a mass of bright scarlet ever 
since. It need hardly be said that such a quantity of 
flowers of so bright a colour associated with other 
spring-flowering plants gave this house in the early 
spring a rather novel and yet an attractive appear¬ 
ance. Here also we noticed some large Tea Roses on 
trellises doing well, among the sorts thus managed 
being Adam, Madame Falcot, Madame Charles, 
Perles des Jardins, Aline Sisley, and Comtessa Riza 
de Pas.—T7. Swan, Falloirfield. 
