56 THE GARDENING WORLD. J anuar y 2 5 , 1908. 
stems. Pot firmly, and if the soil is moist 
no water need he given tor two or three days. 
Campanulas do live and thrive sometimes 
fairly well in shady situations, but those 
small growing ones enjoy a little sunshine, 
so that if you have a sunny window you 
could give it that in preference to the one 
that is shady. If it gets plenty of .light and 
some sunshine during the day, then you 
ought to succeed with it, as no plant is. more 
suited for window culture than this par¬ 
ticular Campanula. 
FLOWER GARDEN. 
2539. Adlumia cirrhosa Dying. 
I have some plants of Adlumia cirrhosa 
that flowered well last year, but they seem 
to have died away in the autumn. Do you 
think they will come up again in spring ? 
The soil is rather light and well drained, 
and I cannot account for it. (R. C. W., 
Lancs.) 
The plant you mention' is a biennial and 
dies during the second year—that ds, after 
having reached the flowering stage and 
ripened seeds. To preserve it you should 
have saved seeds, if any ripened on the 
plant, or you can eet more from the seeds¬ 
men. If planted out in good soil the first 
year from seed it makes fine masses of 
beautiful, finely divided foliage, and in the 
second year produces a climbing stem, which 
should have stakes for support. 
2540. A Succession of Gladioli. 
What is the best time to plant out Gladi¬ 
olus brenchleyensis and The Brid<^ so as to 
get them into flower as early as possible? 
Seme of them I wish to hold back as late 
as possible. How am I to treat them to get 
as long a succession as possible? (R. Wing¬ 
field, Hants.) 
The Bride is one of the early flowering 
Gladioli, and if you wish it to bloom out¬ 
side you should plant it in February and 
mulch the ground with horse manure to keep 
out frost and to enrich the soil for the 
bulbs. You can get early flowers by grow¬ 
ing some of them in pots, as the early 
flowering race readily submits to treatment 
in this way. They should not be forced in 
the proper sense of the term, but allowed to 
corre on gradually in a greenhouse. If they 
had been potted in October they would have 
been ready to flower even earlier by giving 
them a longer period in which to make their 
growth. Gladiolus brenchleyensis is a scar¬ 
let variety of the Gandavensis type with 
large flowers. Your best way to deal with 
this is to bloom it in the open air. Tut some 
of the corms into boxes, or you can pot them 
up separately, and stand them in a green¬ 
house where there is just sufficient heat to 
urge them into fresh growth. This should 
be well exposed to light, and as the weather 
gets warmer they should be put into a cold 
frame to harden them off before planting 
them out about the beginning of May. Some 
of the corms could be planted in the open 
ground early in March, A late batch could 
be planted about the beginning of April, and 
these will give you the last flowers to bloom 
for the season. In the meantime prepare the 
ground for the receotion of the corms o’ - 
plants bv ^eep digging or trenching and 
manuring, "out any manure used should be 
well decayed. That from an old hotbed would 
be much better than manure recently ob¬ 
tained from stables. It should be put well 
down, so as not to come in contact with the 
roots. 
2 5 41. Culture of Begronias. 
I should like to know the best way to plant 
and stow Begonias successfully without a 
greenhouse or frame. Would a room do that 
has a fire all day and is warm at night 7 
When am T to transplant them out of doors? 
I wanted them for bedding in the summer. 
Please name some good and not too expensive 
sorts suitable for my purpose, and mention 
colours and height. (Eva Hewitt, Sanmore, 
Hants.) 
We do not think you would be able to raise 
seedling Begonias under the conditions you 
name. You can, however, get tubers from 
the Begonia growers. We should not advise 
you to get named sorts for bedding purposes, 
as they would certainly be expensive, because 
they have to be raised from seeds, selected 
and propagated by means of cuttings. Your 
best plan is to go to some Begonia grower 
of repute and to ask for so many tubers of 
certain colours for bedding purposes. You 
will then be supplied with tubers in a great 
variety of separate colours, which you have 
merely to name to get them. Usually there 
are two or three grades of tubers which are 
selected when in bloom, according to the 
perfection of their flowers or otherwise, so 
that in that case, if you want particularly 
high quality, you would have to pay the 
higher price, but that would not be so ex¬ 
pensive as getting named varieties propa¬ 
gated from cuttings. They vary from 6 in. 
to 12 in. in height, according to the age and 
vigour of the plants or the soil in which 
they are grown, but you can put them down 
at an average of 9 in. During winter you 
can keep these tubers in coccanut fibre in a 
room or cellar from which frost is just kept 
out. Keep them dry and cool. You can 
prepare them for planting out by potting 
them up some time in April and standing 
them close to the glass in a well-lighted 
window. At the beginning of June you can 
stand them at the foot of a wall outside for 
a week to harden them, but if the weather is 
rough you should protect them by some sort 
of cover at night. About the second week 
in June would be a good time to plant them 
in the open ground, but if the weather is 
unsettled you will lose nothing by delaying 
another week. Another way would be to keep 
the tubers in cocoanut fibre till towards the 
end of April and then plant them out about 
2 in. deep straight away in the open ground. 
By the time they come through the soil the 
weather will be getting sufficiently warm for 
them. They would be a few days later in 
coming into bloom probably than by start¬ 
ing them earlier in pots, but in all proba¬ 
bility the plants will be better. In the mean¬ 
time you should prepare the soil by thor¬ 
oughly digging it and putting in plenty of 
well-decayed cow manure and leaf mould 
or old hotbed manure. Indeed, the digging 
and manuring may be done in the autumn 
and another shallow digging given just when 
about to plant them in June. The top of the 
tubers may be planted 2 in. below the surface 
of the soil. 
TREES AMD SHRUBS. 
2542. Hardiness of Fuchsia Riccartoni. 
In November last I planted some bushes of 
Fuchsia Riccartoni, but since then we have 
had severe frost. Do you think this will 
hurt them? Where I have seen it growing 
the climate, I believe, is much milder in 
winter. If protection is needed, what is the 
best method of doing it? (J. C. S., Worces¬ 
tershire.) 
Fuchsia Riccartoni is fairly hardy, but 
does sometimes get killed outright during se¬ 
vere winters in the far north. If recently 
transplanted, your bushes will be more liable 
to injury than if they had been established. 
A good plan, therefore, during periods of 
frost would be to put a covering of loose 
litter or drv bracken round the base of the 
plants. Still other methods would be to pile 
some loose earth or coal ashes round the 
crown of the plant, burving from 6 in. to 
12 in. of the base of the stems. Any of 
these forms of protection should, however, 
be removed after the frost comes out of the 
ground. Their chief advantage is to be there 
during the process of thawing, because the 
damage is chiefly done by quick thawing. 
With any of theh.bove methods of protection 
the base of the plants should be alive and 
sprout up freely in spring, even if the top 
gets killed. 
2543. Raising Shrubs from Seed. 
Last summer I gathered some seeds of 
shrubs, such as Spartium, Genista andreana. 
Lilac and Clematis montana. What is the 
best way to rear them? Do they require more 
heat than they can get in a greenhouse? 
(A. J. Westman, Warwick.) 
Some of these seeds take some little time 
to germinate, and we should have sown them 
in autumn in boxes and stood the latter in a 
cold frame. Only the natural heat is neces¬ 
sary, but, as they require some little time, a 
cold frame would be the best place for them. 
The seeds of many shrubs and trees may fail 
altogether to germinate it they are allowed 
to get dry before being committed to the soil. 
Yonr best plan now would be to sow them in 
pots or boxes of sandy loam and place them 
in a greenhouse or cold frame. Even if you 
find a greenhouse the most accommodating 
place for them at present, it would be a good 
plan to put them into cold frames some time 
in Lpril. After the seedlings have made 
a few rough leaves they may be potted off 
singly in small pots and grown on in a cold 
frame. They will not attain a very large 
size the first year, and for that reason the 
best plan would be to keep them in pots in a 
cold frame until the following spring, when 
they could be planted out in nursery lines 
and have a season to get established before 
the advent of winter. If potting them up 
singly is inconvenient, they could, of course, 
be transplanted into boxes instead of potting 
them up. These boxes should be sheltered in 
a cold frame until the following spring just 
as in the case of pots. 
2544. Ivy Killing a Plane. 
A Plane tree here covered with Ivy seems 
to be losing some of its branches, and I think 
the Ivy is killing it. Some people say that 
Ivy does not kill trees, but the Plane tree 
was at one time very healthy. I should like 
your opinion of it, and to say what I should 
•do. (Plane, Perthshire.) 
The Plane tree you mean is, no doubt, the 
Sycamore (Acer Pseudoplatanus), which is 
usually named the Plane in your part of the 
country. It may be said that Ivy kills trees 
or does not, just according to circumstances. 
The Ivy has, no doubt, been allowed to grow 
over the branches in the top of the tree, and 
if so, you must remember that the leaves of 
Ivy are evergreen and never give those of the 
tree a chance. You can still grow Ivy upon 
trees if you take the trouble to cut it just 
where it commences to run amongst the 
branches. It will, of course, repeatedly 
commence to climb up amongst the branches 
more or less every year, but you can always 
enjoy Ivy upon trees by taking this pre¬ 
caution every year. Some time in March 
should be set apart for pruning all the Ivy 
about a place, including that upon trees. If 
all the branches that hang from the Ivy, as 
well as the leaves, are pruned off in April 
and the tops cut where they enter the 
branches, you will then have a smooth leafy 
covering of great beauty upon the trunks of 
the trees so treated. 
VEGETAPLC**. 
2545. Origin of the Shallot. 
Can you say what is the native country of 
the Shallot and by whom it was introduced 
to cultivation? We have -been arguing about 
it here, but have not come to any agreement 
about it. (E. Mowatt, 'Cheshire.) 
You may find that some books mention 
Palestine as the native country of the Shal¬ 
lot, but this is merely following Linnaeus, 
who named the Shallot and put'it on record 
after it was found in Palestine by the 
