104 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
October 17, 1896. 
HINTS FOR WMATEURS. 
Sunflowers.—It is really astonishing how popular 
these are amongst holders of small gardens—and 
curious that amateur gardeners should hit upon such 
a giant flower to plant in such close quarters. 
Certainly the sight of the great golden discs can 
scarcely fail to be an imposing one. Ancient 
mytholog} has it that the nymph Clytie, who must 
have been a very forward young person as judged by 
a nineteenth century standard, became deeply 
enamoured of the sun, and was changed for love of 
him into our friend the Sunflower. The spirit of the 
nymph still is unchanged in her affections and thus 
the golden discs are held on high, and follow the 
course of the sun all day in order to catch as many 
of the rays as possible. A very pretty piece of 
witchery and diablerie is this to have in a back yard 
or a front villa garden. 
The greater part of the glory will now have 
departed from the gorgeous heads, which if they are 
to be kept for the sake of the seed they contain must 
be cut off at once and taken indoors. Before stowing 
them away, they should be laid to dry in a shed or 
outhouse out of the way of the rats. These 
mischievous little pests are inordinately fond of 
Sunflower seeds, and there will not be many to store 
if they have a chance at them. 
Lifting vegetable roots.—The lifting and storing 
of these should be seen to at once as they will not 
grow any more now, and fine days are getting more 
valuable as time goes on. The greatest care is 
required in lifting Beetroot for even a small wound 
will cause a root to bleed when cooked ; and robbed 
of its colour, thus it will be insipid and worthless. 
The digging fork should be inserted at a safe distance 
from the crown, and worked as a lever with one hand 
the tuft of leaves being firmly grasped with the 
other. The root may then be easily and safely drawn 
out. Instead of using a knife, the leaves may be 
easily twisted off close to the crown by a twist of the 
hand. The roots will keep well if stored in a shed 
in a small heap or stack, in which a layer of dry soil 
or sand is placed between each layer of roots. 
Severe frost must of course be excluded. 
Carrots are perhaps even more popular than Beet¬ 
root, and are generally regarded as an indispensible 
ingredient for flavouring soups as well as an appro¬ 
priate accompanying vegetable for hot boiled beef. 
If beds of both the Intermediate and ttie Short Horn 
types are grown it would be advisable to stack the 
roots separately if room can be found. In lifting the 
roots it will be found easier to chop off the leaves 
about i in. away from the crown, then to twist them 
off in the same way as the Beetroot. Stacked with 
alternate layers of dry soil the roots will keep sweet 
and fresh until the early Short Horn Carrots are fit 
for pulling, after which they will not be in very great 
request. 
Parsnips. — These may be lifted if desired, but it 
is a generally accepted fact that Parsnips are much 
sweeter and fuller in flavour if left out in the open 
ground all the winter, and only dug up as they are 
wanted for use. The greatest drawback to this 
system is that during periods of hard and continuous 
frosts it is extremely difficult to get the roots out of 
the ground. This difficulty may be got over in two 
ways, either by lifting a few when severe frost 
threatens, and storing them in sand, or by covering 
a portion of the ground with a layer of manure, 
straw, or stable litter. The protection thus given 
will prevent the frost from making the ground so 
hard as to prevent the use of pick and spade. 
Mushrooms.—The present is a capital time for 
making up Mushroom beds, as the spawn runs very 
freely in the autumn months just before the cold 
weather sets in. The proper preparation of the 
material is half the battle, and more than one failure 
is undoubtedly brought about by laxity in this 
direction. If sufficient horse droppings can be 
obtained from an adjacent stable to make up the bed 
these should be thrown up in a heap to heat, and a 
good turning and shaking over given every alternate 
day until the whole mass is heated through equally, 
and the rankest gases got rid of. It often happens, 
however, that the material for the bed has to be 
obtained a little at a time, and in such a case there is 
even a greater probability that some of the material 
will be spoiled before it is used. The manure should 
be under cover somewhere, or it will have a good deal 
of its goodness washed out by rain. A corner in 
an old cowshed, or a place partly sheltered by trees, 
may thus be turned to good account. Every time 
that a fresh barrowload of manure is added to the 
heap a good turning should be given, and the new 
material thoroughly incorporated with the old. 
Lifting Richardias.—These have been rejoicing 
out in the open border all the summer, and although 
growth was very slow and rather weak during June, 
July, and the first half of August, since then they 
have more than made amends and are now strong 
healthy stuff. It will not do to drive off housing 
them any longer, as a few degrees of frost would 
result in crippling them for the season. We have 
been distinctly fortunate, indeed, in having been 
permitted to keep them out of doors so late as this, 
for in some seasons we get sharp frosts fully a month 
earlier. 
As the plants have taken deep root, some little care 
will be necessary in lifting them, for the fleshy roots 
are tender and very easily injured. A digging fork 
with long tines will be required, indeed, we might 
say two of them, for large plants will need to be 
loosened all round, and two persons will be needed 
to lift them out. The loose soil may be removed by 
hand, and the small suckers, of which there are sure 
to be a few round the base of the stronger plants, 
should also be taken away. 
The soil should consist in bulk of good fibrous 
loam, about a third of it being composed of leaf soil 
and dried horse droppings rubbed through a ^-in. 
mesh sieve. A sprinkling of coarse river sand may 
be added. The pots used will of course depend 
upon the size of the plants. For very large speci¬ 
mens a io-in. pot may be required, although an 8-in. 
one will accommodate any ordinary plant, whilst the 
smaller ones by dint of a little squeezing will do 
very well in a 6-in. All the pots must be clean, and 
the drainage should be as good as the room allows. 
The most important point in potting is to see that 
the soil is well settled about the roots. As the balls 
are somewhat irregular in shape this is rather a 
difficult matter to do well. A large wooden label or 
a piece of thin lath should be used for working the 
soil down round the sides of the pots, and an 
occasional sharp tap upon the bench is of great 
service. Bearing in mind what thirsty subjects 
Richardias are, the pots should not be filled too full 
of soil. About a £ in. of space is not a whit too 
much to allow. After potting, the plants will need 
especial care for a week or two until they recover 
themselves. Of course, lifting a plant now does not 
cause it to experience so severe a check as it does in 
the summer, when the atmosphere is so much drier 
and the sun such a deal brighter, but still it will be 
needful to shade the plants even from the October 
sun, which would cause them to flag. A pit or frame 
can easily be shaded and kept close, and the plants 
are not far from the glass, hence such a position is 
one of the best that can be given them. Do not 
commit the same mistake made by so very many 
people, some of whom ought to know better—viz., 
deluging the plants with water immediately after 
potting. If the soil at the time of potting was in a 
proper condition it will contain enough of water for 
the time being, and until this has gone, more need 
not be supplied from the watering-can. A light 
dewing over with the syringe will help to refresh the 
plants, and if given in the middle of a bright day 
will have all dried up before nightfall. 
Berried Solanums.—It can now be seen which 
plants are worth potting up. Those which have set 
only a few berries or none at all being worthless. 
The berried plants may be lifted and potted up at 
once. A 6 in. pot will be quite large enough, and if 
the plants can be got into a 5-in. size so much the 
better, as the value of the plant for decorative 
purposes increases, as the pot it occupies becomes 
smaller. A little more leaf soil should be mixed with 
the compost than was given to the Richardias, and 
firm potting is highly important. After potting, the 
plants may receive the same treatment as the 
Richardias, although if it is possible to give them 
the stimulus of a slightly higher temperature for a 
couple of weeks, they will pick up all the quicker. 
Heating Apparatus.—In greenhouses there is no 
artificial heat throughout the summer, but the 
need will be here ere long, for damp days and nights 
are almost as injurious as cold ones. The fire should 
be set going at once, in order to give the apparatus 
'a good testing, and in view of defective joints or 
splits showing themselves they must be made good. 
There are very few houses now in which the old- 
fashioned flues are to be seen. If any of our readers, 
however, should chance to be so situated it may be 
well to remind them that mortar is very liable to 
crack away from the joints at times, and if any of 
these crevices are present when the fire is lighted 
during some cold night the house will soon be filled 
with sulphurous fumes that will do almost as much 
harm to the plants as the frost.— Rex. 
-•§•- 
Correspondence. 
Questions asked by amateurs on any subject pertaining 
to gardens or gardening will be answered on this page. 
A nyone may give additional or more explanatory answers 
to questions that have already appeared. Those who desire 
their communications to appear on this page should write 
“Amateurs' Page " on the top of their letters. 
Clipping Yews. —It is not too late to clip your 
Yews .Amygdalus, although the sooner they are seen to 
the better, The trees look better when the trimming 
is done with a knife, although where appearance is 
not of such importance, the shears will be found to 
be more expeditious. 
Pot Roses —You may leave your pot Roses out of- 
doors until they are wanted for forcing without fear, 
F. IF. B. While frost will not do the plants any 
harm it will be very likely to split or chip the pots. 
Towards the end of the month, therefore, the plants 
may be plunged deeply in ashes—the rims of the 
pots may be at least an inch below the surface. 
The plants may then bejeasily lifted in as they are 
required. 
Suckers on a Filbert. —The suckers which you 
speak of as crowding the centre of the old Filbert 
tree, G. Eltham, are of no use for fruiting. They 
may be cut clean off close to the bottom, or broken 
out by a twist. Although they are of no value o n 
the tree they will be of service away from it, for this 
kind of material makes capital plant stakes. 
A good hedge Plant. —The Myrobella Pelum is one 
of the best hedge plants obtainable. You will be 
able to get it at a reasonable rate from any respect¬ 
able nurseryman, Arthur. 
Wallflowers may be planted in their flowering 
quarters as soon as you can get the chance now, T., 
Trentham— in fact, the sooner the better. 
Leaking Pipes.—Instead of having the split in the 
pipes bound round with an iron band and caulked 
with red lead and tow, it will be better to make a 
clean job of it, and have a new length of piping put 
in. This will not cost very much more than the first 
mentioned plan, Argus, and will admit of a far neater 
job being made of it. 
Fading tuberous Begonias. —Do not force 
the stems of your tuberous Begonias, IF., leave them 
to their own inclinations, or the tubers will suffer. 
The tubers keep well through the winter in the pots, 
but if you wish you maykaock them out, shake away 
the old soil, and store the tubers in sand. The latter 
method certainly has the advantage of economising 
space. 
Boarding Houses for Plants.— Reader has recently 
noticed a paragraph in a weekly contemporary to the 
effect that in certain parts upon the Continent there 
are established boarding houses for plants. Amateur 
gardeners who are called away from home for several 
days together, either on business or on holidays, can 
have their plants taken to these houses and cared for 
in their absence by skilled gardeners, for a trifle. 
This is much better than standing the plants in 
water or leaving them to take care of themselves, 
the result of such treatment usually being that the 
poor plants, if not killed outright, are spoilt for the 
time being. Reader writes feelingly, for on returning 
from a recent holiday he found the majority of his pot 
plants dead, although he had arranged with a neigh¬ 
bour to come in occasionally and look after them. 
Here is a good line for local florists and nurserymen 
with glasshouses. 
Clerodendron fallax.— This pretty plant has been 
splendid in my conservatory for the last three weeks 
but now the greater part of the flowers has fallen, 
and the plant has lost the greater part of its leaves. 
Is it of any use for another year, or it is necessary 
to raise plants from seed each year ?—IF. B. Royston. 
