568 
May 9th, 1885. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
THE GREENHOUSE. 
Watering and Ventilating. —No sooner is the risk 
of damping over, than atmospheric dryness has to be 
guarded against, as it tells seriously on plants and 
flowers, especially the latter, the aridity of the air 
causing them to set and fall off long before they other¬ 
wise would. This being so, the under parts of the 
stage, the walls or pathways, should be sprinkled with 
water once or twice during hot sunny days, which 
will cause a genial vapour to rise that will be very 
refreshing to the bloom and foliage, which instead of 
being distressed, will stand out bold to the last. To 
assist the plants in maintaining their beauty, not only 
must they have the house freely ventilated during the 
day, but a little air should also be left on at night and 
gradually increased as the morning wears on, according 
to the state of the weather. 
Shading. —If sunny, shading will be necessary, but 
the thing is to do with as little as possible, and only 
to have it on when the solar rays are strong, as light 
is life to plants, and the more they have of it the 
healthier and sturdier will they be. These remarks 
apply more particularly to all of a soft-wooded charac¬ 
ter, which need all the light they can have to keep 
them short-jointed and build them up with good solid 
stems that will send out plenty of bloom. 
Balsams. —These are amateurs’ plants par excellence , 
and almost indispensable for summer decoration, and 
if seed be sown now, the plants will soon be in flower 
and make a fine show. The best way to raise and 
grow them is to sow the seed in light rich soil in a pot 
or pan and stand it in a Melon or Cucumber frame, 
and as soon as the seedlings appear, the pots should 
be raised near the glass to keep the young plants from 
drawing. This they soon do if at all thick, and the 
thing is to pot them singly directly they are large 
enough to handle, at which time they should be dropped 
a little lower in the soil and gradually sunk at each 
shifting after, so as to bring the bottom branches well 
down aDd have the plants dwarf and well furnished 
below. To bring them and keep them in this eondi 
tion, they must have a light position and proper room 
around them, with a temperature not lower than 60 degs., 
and if they can be plunged in bottom-heat in a pit or 
frame, the place will just suit them. 
Impatlens Sultani.— This is a comparatively new 
kind of Balsam that every one should grow, as it 
flowers freely in the smallest of pots and is very bright 
and brilliant in colour. This Impatiens may be pro¬ 
pagated either by seeds or cuttings, and requires the 
same kind of treatment as the well-known Balsam, 
light and sun being essential to keep it short-jointed 
and cause it to produce flue heads of bloom. If struck 
from cuttings, they should not be kept close, but stood 
along the front of a warm frame where they can have 
shade, as being of a succulent nature, they will not 
flag, but root in a week or ten days, and should then 
be potted and stood up close to the glass. 
Celosias.— Next to Balsams, Celosias are perhaps 
the most useful, C. pyramidalis plumosa being the best, 
and if a good strain of this be obtained, the inflores¬ 
cence will be found to be very bright and beautiful 
and to make a grand show. The way to raise plants 
is to sow seed in light rich soil in gentle heat, after 
which the plants may be grown in any pit or frame 
where they can be shut up early in the afternoon, 
when they should have a syringing to keep them free 
from red-spider. 
Torenia Fournieri is another valuable plant for 
the decoration of the greenhouse, the flowers of which 
are a lovely blue with a yellow throat, and it is a most 
profuse bloomer, the habit of the plant being very 
dwarf and bushy, branching out freely from the base 
to the top. To get this Torenia up quickly, seed 
should be sown in a hotbed, and the young seedlings 
grown on under the same favourable conditions, or in 
a warm frame, till the blossoms appear, when the 
plants will stand in a low temperature and keep gay 
till the autumn. 
Schizanthus papilionaceus, S. retusus, and S. Gra- 
hami, are all remarkably showy annuals, the flowers of 
the first-named being like butterflies with outstretched 
wings, so curious is the form and so gay are the 
colours and markings. As these Schizanthuses are 
half-hardy, they may be stood outdoors, which is the 
best place to grow them, as they keep more dwarf, and 
may be brought into the house when they begin to 
show bloom. The habit of the plants being spare, it 
is a good plan to pot three in a 7-in. pot, as then 
they get together and form a fine mass. 
The Cardinal Flower, Lobelia cardinalis, also 
makes a capital pot plant, as it sends up bold spikes 
of rich scarlet blooms resembling those of the Salvia 
and the foliage looks very striking, as it is of a deep 
purple hue like that of the Beet. 
BEDS AND BORDERS. 
Roses. — The chief things requiring attention 
now will be the Roses, which are suffering from 
“ worm i’ the bud,” and not only is that vile insect, 
at work, but, as is only too common at this season of 
the year, green-fly is rife, and both must be put down 
if flowers are to escape uninjured, and open. The only 
way of dealing with the first-named is to give them a 
loving squeeze between the thumb and finger, which 
pressure will burst their distended sides without 
bruising the leaves, if the grip is not too great, while 
they are tender. As to the aphis, an effectual and 
safe destroyer is found in tobacco-water, the most 
economical plan of applying which is to dip the 
shoots in it, but as these are hardly long enough to 
bring down at present, they must be syringed with the 
liquor or dusted with tobacco-powder, which latter 
should be put on when the foliage is moist with dew, 
as then it adheres and kills the fly, after which it 
should be washed off at once by syringing heavily 
with clear water so as to make the foliage quite clean. 
In cases where there are many plants to go over, a 
good, cheap, and effectual insecticide may be made by 
boiling soft soap and quassia chips in water, in the 
proportion of 2 ozs. of soap and lr-lb. of quassia to 
the gallon, which infusion is safe and harmless to the 
young tender shoots, but fatal to the aphis it touches. 
[See another note on the same subject at p. 565.] 
Mulching.— The importance of mulching has been 
insisted on again and again, and it is unnecessary 
therefore to do more now than advise covering the 
ground at once ■with half-rotten dung, horse droppings, 
or other material, and as soon as that is done, then 
a good soaking of liquid manure should follow. This 
will enrich the soil, feed the roots, stimulate the 
plants, and enable them to send up very fine blooms. 
Gladiolus in Rose Beds. —Beds that have dwarf 
Roses in them, or standards with tall stems, may be 
made fine and gay during autumn by planting Gladiolus 
among the plants, as the Gladiolus push up their 
stately heads among the Roses and make a magnificent 
show. All that is necessary in planting is just to 
push aside the mulching and make holes large 
enough to pop in the corms, which should have a 
little sand dropped over them and then be covered 
with soil. 
Hyacinths, Tulips, Crocuses, and other Bulbous 
Plants.— It is a common practice with many to hurry 
the foliage of these off to make a clearance of the 
borders ready for the summer bedders, the doing of 
which sadly weakens the bulbs, as they all stand in 
need of their leaves till they die away naturally. 
Instead then of cutting or pulling them off, they 
should be tied up, if in the way, and left, and if this 
is done, instead of deteriorating, they will get stronger 
from year to year and increase at the root. 
THE FRUIT GARDEN. 
Fruit-trees and Insects. —As the trees are all so 
full of blossom and the weather is so favourable, a crop 
of all kinds of fruit seems an absolute certainty now, 
but Peach and Nectarine trees will need close watching 
to keep them free from aphis, which is always more 
or less troublesome at this time of year. Tobacco- 
dust, tobacco-water, or Nicotine Soap, are the great 
remedies, and either one or other of these should be 
applied as occasion requires, and the necessary dis¬ 
budding done, which is a simple operation that anyone 
can carry out, as all shoots may be rubbed out except 
the best placed one at the bottom and the other at the 
top, unless the branch they are on is long, when 
another may be left in the middle, or more if the wall 
has bare places that ought to be filled. Apricots that 
have set thickly will require thinning, and the young 
shoots should be stopped at once by pinching them 
back to three or four leaves and so keep their spurs 
short and close to the wall. 
Strawberries. —If not already done, as previously 
advised, these should be mulched down, the impor¬ 
tance of which, and of doing it early, cannot well be 
over-rated, especially where the plants are on light 
soil, as every rain, when the ground is so covered, tells 
by being kept in to nourish and feed the roots, under 
which favourable conditions fine fruit is produced. 
The Vinery. —With the lovely weather we are 
getting, young fresh planted Vines will be making 
rapid progress, and to have the canes stout and short- 
jointed, air should be put on in the morning as soon 
as the glass rises to 60 degs. and increased as soon as 
it reaches 75 degs., so as to keep the temperature at 
that point, or between it and 80 degs, till three o’clock 
in the afternoon, when the house may be closed, to 
shut in the solar heat and keep it warm for the night. 
As it is necessary to maintain a moist atmosphere 
at all times, the floors, pathways, and other available 
surface should be damped down several times during 
the day by sprinkling them with water, and when very 
sunny it is a good plan to syringe the Vines after 
shutting up, which will ward off red-spider and 
refreshen the foliage. 
Vines in Bearing will require precisely the same 
treatment as that touched on above, except the 
syringing, which is sure to disfigure the berries, as 
water, however clear it may be, always leaves some 
stain or deposit. As the young shoots break out 
easily at their present early stage, they should not be 
tied down till they become more hard and woody, 
when they may be bent and brought to the wires with 
safety. The distance at which they should be stopped 
depends on how far the Vines are apart, but, as a 
rule, one or two joints above the bunch may be 
stated as the right thing, and below, every lateral 
should be taken quite out, and the others stopped 
at the first leaf, and kept at that all through the 
season. 
THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. 
General Work. —Every advantage should now be 
taken of the weather to run the hoe through growing 
crops and between rows of seedlings, when it is dry, 
as though no weeds may be apparent, a gentle stirring 
of the surface does a vast amount of good by aerating 
the soil and rendering it s.veet and fit for the roots. 
With the ground stirred and clean, Potatos should be 
earthed-up by drawing the pulverized mould regularly 
along each side of the rows, but not in such a manner 
as to make too sharp a ridge at the top, as by doing 
that the rain would be thrown off away from the roots. 
Asparagus.— This is a vegetable that everyone likes, 
and yet few think of making a bed or planting it, owing 
to the erroneous notion most people have that it 
requires no end of preparation and takes a long time 
to come in, which are great mistakes, as with a well 
manured, deeply dug piece of land and a few good 
plants to plant it with, Asparagus may be cut at the 
end of two years. The best time to plant is as soon 
as the tops of the plants are well on the move, which 
is now, but as they are tender in this state, and will 
not bear carriage well, they must be obtained near 
home, and put out at once by cutting trenches 2 ft. 
apart, in which the roots can be spread, and then 
covered and watered to settle the soil well about 
them. 
Plantations may also be had from sowing seed and 
letting the plants stand after thinning them out to the 
proper distance, and as the ground between the rows 
may be used for growing other low crops, it is a 
good plan to start in that way, although it takes 
longer for the beds to come into bearing. 
-— -. o —- 
Violet Lady Hume Campbell. —As grown by Mr. 
J. Gough, at Harefield Grove, this Violet is not only 
distinct from Devoniensis in regard to the colour of 
the flowers, but is in every respect a much better 
grower. It came into the possession of Mr. G. J. 
Brush, of High Grove Gardens, having been sent from 
Italy ; and finding it to be quite distinct from Devoni¬ 
ensis, was named by him Lady Hume Campbell, and 
distributed by Mr. C. Turner. At Harefield Grove, 
The Gardeners' Chronicle says, the two are growing in 
the same frame, and the manifest difference both in the 
colour of the flowers and vigour of growth and habit 
can be at once seen. 
