THE GARDENING WORLD 
June 15, 1895. 
666 
large soft red leaves blotched with white. La Lorraine 
shows a peculiar shade of red which, for want of a 
better descriptive epithet, we shall describe as carmine. 
The above does not comprehend a tithe of the varieties 
cultivated. 
--**-- 
SEVERE HAILSTORMS IN AMERICA. 
From all accounts it is evident that the storms of 
wind and hail, which raged over a wide area of the 
central and northern regions of the United States, 
between the 3rd and nth of May last, must have 
been terribly destructive, not only to glass houses 
but plants of various kinds in the open. Reports of 
the destruction of glass come from many of the 
states including Kansas, Montana, Illinois, Nebraska, 
Wisconsin and others. The following communication 
from a correspondent to The American Florist gives 
an idea of the effect of the storm at Rochester, New 
York, besides giving the details of another form of 
trouble which we should imagine is not of frequent 
occurrence in the whole range of gardening :— 
“ The warm weather has brought out Carnations 
and Roses in plenty around here, also the Dandelions 
in lawns. The superintendent in one of our large 
cemeteries noticing this gave orders to have the 
lawns cleared of the yellow pests. The foreman in 
turn told one of his men to begin with the job 
around the large fountain near the office building and 
left it to the workman’s own judgment as to how to 
exterminate the weed in the quickest manner. The 
man concluded that a lawn mower would do the 
work in short order and went to work mowing down 
everything, including about 15,000 Parrot Tulips, 
which had been planted in this part of the lawn last 
fall, and were just showing the yellow colour of the 
Dandelion. The labour of planting these bulbs in 
the sod had taken a man's time over a month, and the 
superintendent was delighted to see them coming on 
so well, promising to make a grand show for Decora¬ 
tion Day. After the man had cut down all in that 
part he thought of making a clean job of it, and 
therefore would have to go over a second time with 
the mower, but the Tulip leaves and grass combined 
obstructed the machine, and in going for a rake to 
gather them into heaps he went to the office, where 
the superintendent found out what was going on, 
and naturally got mad, discharging the poor fellow 
right on the spot and telling him not to show his 
face again for seven years if he wanted to preserve 
his life. Now there are a great many journeyman 
gardeners out of employment who would never make 
such blundering mistakes ; why do not cemetery 
superintendents employ better help at a very 
moderate advance in wages ? It would surely save 
them such annoyance. 
Still he has one consolation at least, and that is 
the Parrot Tulips would have been spoiled anyway, 
for on May nth, we had such a fearful hail and 
wind storm that not a Tulip would have been left 
undamaged. I stood by the window overlooking 
one range of greenhouses and saw small hailstones 
coming down ; in a few seconds they increased in 
size and one light of glass after another was 
shattered, and a few minutes after we had witnessed 
the most destructive hailstorm which has occurred 
in this section for twenty-eight years ; nearly all our 
greenhouse establishments have suffered severely, 
the south part of the city getting the worst of it, and 
the damage done cannot be estimated, for the glass 
and labour of putting it in is in reality only the 
smallest loss. The broken glass falling on large- 
leaved Palms, Begonias and other foliage plants does 
the most damage. The hailstones chopped off the 
soft and brittle stems of Lilium candidum in the 
open ground, young Carnations just planted out are 
cut clean to the ground, and many herbaceous 
plants in different collections are ruined but we 
hope they will break out again. A large 
bed of Indian Azaleas was badly damaged, branches 
being knocked clean off. Even under a shade house 
of lath Hydrangeas in bud or bloom got enough of it 
to spoil their sale. Araucarias under the same 
structure had branches and leaders cut off, frames of 
Verbenas and Petunias are mown off; in fact, the 
loss under glass is as heavy as outdoors. The 
weather then turned to almost freezing, and although 
fires were kept up there was so much ventilation on 
the houses caused by the thousands of broken lights 
that fire heat will not do much good. In some places 
they began to glaze on Sunday ; others, among them 
ourselves, have covered the houses temporarily with 
oiled building paper, tacked on here and there with 
strips of wood and narrow boards to ward off the 
cold, but still Coleus, Heliotrope, Begonias and other 
soft stuff could not stand it, and may be an entire 
loss. There is no use in going into particulars 
stating the losses of different firms; those in the 
north part of the city escaped comparatively easy, 
Vick & Hill’s and Wilson’s having no loss at all. 
Salter Bros.' loss is comparatively small, but in 1888, 
when the last hailstorm visited us, their greenhouses 
suffered considerably more than any others, so it is 
only fair that they escaped lightly this time. The 
storm extended over a larger greenhouse territory, 
but the proverbial hen’s eggs, duck and goose eggs 
were smaller in some sections. Ellwanger & Barry 
escaped lightly, while in the immediate vicinity 
Schlegel’s, Keller’s and Will King’s were damaged 
more then any others, but then the houses at 
Ellwanger & Barry’s are mostly old structures, well 
built of course, but some of them being glazed with 
7x9 and even 6x8 glass supported by heavy bars and 
substantial woodwork, the hailstones would strike 
the bars oftener than the small glass, and this is the 
way I account for their escape. Builders should 
therefore consider this advantage of small sized glass 
(I think it is the only one there is) if they want to 
build safely against hailstorms. 
The glass broken at Ellwanger & Barry's is less 
than 2,000 lights, at Salter’s Soo, Crosman’s 1,000, 
White Bros.' 2,500, Kruger’s 1,200, DeFries lost 
one-half, while our Billy King lost nearly three- 
fourths of all his glass, and Schlegel’s between 3,000 
and 4,000 lights. One of their houses had all the 
glass knocked out on the west side and a good one- 
third on the east half. They had nearly all their 
hotbed sashes stacked up and covered with shutters, 
or else their loss in glass would have been con¬ 
siderably more, while at Keller’s the sashes were on 
frames, and there is more shattered glass to be found 
here than in any other place ; it will probably figure 
up to 6,000 or 7,000 panes. One Orchid house, a 
lean-to, facing west, has hardly a whole light to 
show. To-day it has been raining and cold; re¬ 
glazing on the houses was abandoned, but they are 
all busy mending hotbed sashes in the sheds. At 
Dittle’s nurseries, a few miles outside the city limits, 
the new greenhouses are reported to be in a very 
bad state, perhaps as bad as at Keller's. Other 
places have suffered, but the amount of glass broken 
is smaller. 
-- 
STREPTOSOLEN JAMESONII. 
That Streptosolen, or, as it used to be called, 
Browallia Jamesonii, is a splendidly handsome 
greenhouse flowering plant, and as such well worthy 
a place in any representative collection, no one who 
who had seen it in anything like condition would 
deny, more especially those who saw the fine batch 
of it sent to the Westminster Drill Hill, on April 
9th, by J. Bennett-Poe, Esq., and which likewise 
made such a brave display at the late Temple Show. 
Mr. Bennett-Poe's plants it will be remembered were 
of large size, a fact that is all the more noticeable 
when we take into consideration that one twelve- 
month alone had sufficed for the production of 
those fine plants. Sooth to say, the Streptosolen is, 
generally speaking, but an indifferent doer, although 
any extra trouble it may give in being looked after 
is amply repaid by the results. It may be propa¬ 
gated by cuttings taken about March, which should 
be inserted in a compost consisting largely of sand, 
and kept close under a bell-glass until rooted. The 
plants may then be potted up singly in equal parts 
of loam and leaf soil, still keeping a large propor¬ 
tion of sand in the compost. Pinching must be 
resorted to pretty frequently, in order to favour 
bushy growth. They may be potted on as required, 
until they reach 7-in. or 8-in. pots, which will be 
quite large enough to flower them in. They must 
be kept growing on right through the autumn and 
winter in an intermediate temperature, for at this 
season of the year they will not stand ordinary 
greenhouse treatment. Indeed, it is to the practice 
of exposing them to the too low temperatures 
during the winter months that a large proportion of 
the failures or comparative failures of many cultiva¬ 
tors to grow good plants must be ascribed. A night 
temperature during the winter months of between 
50° and 558 Fahr. should therefore be given until 
the plants commence to flower, which, if the fore¬ 
going system of culture has been adopted, should be 
about the beginning of April, when they may be 
removed to the cool conservatory, where they will 
remain in fine condition for some time. 
-• ! - 
THE FILLING OF 
WINDOW BOXES. 
Now that the season has advanced so far, and that 
summer has evidently come to stay for a while, it is 
quite natural that the thought of how best to make 
the windows of the villa or cottage look gay and 
bright on the outside should suggest itself to those 
householders who are lovers of plants and who are 
eager to impress into their service the highly decora¬ 
tive qualities of such subjects to the manifest 
ornamentation and enlivenment of their dwellings. 
Of late years the builder has apparently grasped the 
fact that a large proportion of the British public are 
able to appreciate flowers, and no matter where they 
are, or how adverse the environments may be, make 
strenuous efforts to gather around them a few of the 
gayer members of the vegetable kingdom. Accord¬ 
ingly he has been kind enough to assist in some 
measure by building houses having broad substantial 
window-ledges which afford accommodation for a 
fair number of plants during the summer months. 
But although the practice of filling these outside 
ledges with plants in pots finds favour amongst a 
goodly number of people it is by no means the best 
plan to adopt, the great drawback being the increased 
amount of labour in watering that is inevitably the 
result; for as will be readily seen it stands to reason 
that plants in such an exposed position will dry up 
very quickly, open as they are to the full blaze of the 
sun with the drying winds having free access all 
round them. It is by far the better method to have 
suitable boxes fitted to the windows properly drained 
and filled with good soil in which the plants can 
scarcely fail to flourish. 
The first question is, therefore, of what shall the 
boxes be made. One of two ways of procuring them 
may be adopted, according to which finds the greater 
favour. The first is to have them specially con¬ 
structed of wood according to the required size or 
sizes. This is an exceedingly easy task, and any 
ordinary carpenter will make them for a very low 
figure. The length and breadth of the boxes will, of 
course, depend entirely upon the size of the window 
and of the sill upon which they are to stand. In 
depth they should be from 8 to 10 in., the most 
important point being to see that holes of sufficient 
size are bored in the bottom to admit of the ready 
escape of the water. To the side which is to face 
outward should be nailed pieces of virgin cork 
sufficiently close together to hide the underlying 
wood, and thus impart a delightfully rustic appear¬ 
ance to the box. The second method of obtaining 
suitable boxes is to order them from a dealer in 
horticultural sundries ; for special attention is paid 
nowadays to the making of all kinds of rustic plant 
receptacles in clay. Thesealthough very pretty are, 
we think, not so good as the wooden ones, inasmuch 
as they are heavier and, of course, very liable to get 
broken by rough or careless handling. 
In filling all such boxes with soil in readiness to 
receive the plants with which it is intended to 
furnish them care should be taken that the drainage 
is ample. A layer of crocks must therefore be 
placed in the bottom with the concave side down¬ 
wards, taking care to cover the holes which have 
been bored to let out superfluous water. Next to 
this a layer of well-decayed manure, and then the 
compost itself, which should consist of two parts of 
loam to one of leaf soil. Having got both boxes and 
soil in readiness the next consideration will be the 
plants themselves, and amongst these there is a 
wealth of subjects that will give all possible satisfac¬ 
tion. Indeed, by employing one or two kinds of 
plants in a tasteful manner, either in agreeable 
contrasts or in suitable blends, some very pretty and 
effective combinations can be made. For the front 
row it is necessary to select dwarf or pendant 
subjects, which hanging over the sides of the box 
here and there will look both elegant and effective. 
Ivy-leaved Pelargoniums of various sorts may well 
be utilised here. Blue and white Lobelia, Mimulus 
Harrisoni, the well-known Creeping Jenny (Lysi- 
machia Nummularia), and some of the finer kinds of 
variegated Ivies will afford a w ealth of subjects from 
which to choose. 
