THE GARDENING WORLD 
April 18, igo8. 
270 
Address: The Editor, The Gardening 
World, 37 and 38, Shoe Lane, London, E.C. 
The Editor invites enquiries, which may 
cover any branch of gardening. Questions 
should be as brief as -possible and written on 
one side of the paper only ; a separate sheet 
of paper should be used for each question. 
Replies cannot be sent by post. 
Garden Plans .—Gardeners who would make 
the best use of this column are invited to 
prepare and forward to us a rough outline 
drawing or plan of their gardens, indicating 
the position of beds and lawns, the charac¬ 
ter and height of the fence or wall; posi¬ 
tion of vegetable garden, orchard, etc. The 
north side of the garden and any over¬ 
shadowing buildings should be denoted. It 
should also be stated whether the garden is 
plat or on a declivity, and all large trees 
should be marked. Particulars of the na¬ 
ture of the soil will also help us to give 
satisfactory replies. When such plans are 
received they will be carefully filed, with 
the name and address of the sender, and 
will be consulted by the Editor whenever an 
enquiry is sent. 
'rrrrmrrrrrriirrt 
STOVE AND GREENHOUSE. 
2773. Perpetual Carnations Breaking 
Weakly. 
Will you kindly advise me on the follow¬ 
ing subject? I have some perpetual Carna¬ 
tions, and some of them are breaking weak, 
although they carried good flower stems 
and seemed otherwise to be in good health 
(it is their first time of flowering). What is 
the cause, and can I do anything to induce 
stronger growth ? It seems obvious that this 
cannot 'be obtained by pinching. Would it 
be advisable to give a few plants that are 
in small pots a shift on? There are still a 
few flower buds on them. (Lynix, Devon.) 
Your plants may be weak owing to the bad 
light or low temperature of your greenhouse 
during winter, and the continued cold 
weather has not been very favourable to 
them, except where artificial help has been 
given. If the shoots are weak, pinching can¬ 
not do them any good. So long as they are 
bushy there is no necessity for pinching. 
Your object should be to encourage growth, 
and the shoots that are now coming should 
flower when they get strong enough. We 
think the best plan with them would be to 
re-pot all of them at the present time. It 
is .nott a very common custom to grow on 
perpetual flowering 'Carnations a second 
time. The best results are obtained from 
cuttings struck during January, 'February 
and March, and the earlier flowering of the 
plants from these batches come into bloom 
some time in autumn. They vary according 
to the treatment and the variety. The old 
plants, however, if you desire it, may be 
grown on a second time by partly reducing 
the ball of soil and re-potting them in a 
good compost consisting of loam and peat 
in equal proportions, with sufficient sand ■ to 
make it porous. Some use leaf-mould in- 
.stead of peat. Some well-decayed cow 
manure rubbed through a sieve will assist 
good growth, but it should not be used in 
very great quantity. . A safer plan is to 
supply liquid feeding in some form or other 
after the plants have filled the pots with 
roots and are pushing on towards the flower¬ 
ing stage. Feeding, of course, has to be 
done during summer and autumn. Unless 
you maintain a night temperature of 50 degs. 
in winter it will be safer to leave off feeding 
then. We do not know the conditions under 
which you have grown them, but suspect that 
it is through some cultural error that they 
are weak, or low temperature and bad light, 
as we stated. 
2774. Malmaisons Rusted. 
I have also a batch of Malmaisons, and 
for some time past they have been literally 
smothered with rust, the conditions of the 
house and locality ’being favourable to that 
disease. They have also that mottled ap¬ 
pearance which, I .am told, is the leaf spot 
disease. I have endeavoured to keep them 
as dry as possible, and now the rust shows 
signs of abating, but I am afraid to spray 
them for :the spot disease, for fear of again 
starting the rust. Please advise me. Also 
mention the best remedies. (Lynix, Devon.) 
You should not hesitate to syringe with 
a fungicide when it is necessary, but to do 
it early in the day and let the foliage get 
dry before night. A good plan also would 
be to take the plants out of doors, lay a 
board across a tub, place your plants one by 
one on that, and give them a good syring¬ 
ing, so as to wet all the leaves without 
saturating the soil in the pots. Then let 
the foliage dry and return the plants to 
thei.r places. There are special preparations 
for'Carnation disease, known as “Carvita” 
or “ Veltha ” emulsion, which have been 
found good remedies. Cut off the worst of 
the leaves and burn them at once. Do not 
spray them on the benches, as many fungi¬ 
cides turn woodwork brown. If your plants 
are placed under good corditions during the 
summer we think they will largely grow out 
of the disease. You can then layer the 
healthy young shoots after they have finished 
flowering and grow them on as young plants. 
The old ones may then be thrown away. We 
should prefer not to grow old plants' a 
second year that were badly infested with 
rust. .Sometimes the disease can quite be 
got rid of by the above plan. 
2775. Pruning Orchids. 
Will you kindly tell me when and to what 
extent Orchids, such as Cattleyas, Dendro- 
biums and the like, should be pruned. 
Should the old stalks be cut down when they 
throw up the new ones from the base? I 
have several plants of Coelogyne, the pseudo- 
bulbs of which were very much shrivelled 
before I got them; I fancy through being 
kept too dry. Do you think they will re¬ 
cover or flower? -Most of the bulbs have a 
leaf each. \our early reply will be greatly 
esteemed. (LyNIxJ Devon.) 
We do not think it would be a very good 
plan to cut a-way the pseudo-bulbs of Cattle¬ 
yas while they are still quite fresh, more 
especially while they still carry a leaf or 
two. Dendrobiums are more easily dealt 
with, and some good cultivators succeed well 
.by cutting away all, the pseudo-bulbs from 
which they do not expect to get any more 
flowers. Under certain conditions of culti¬ 
vation Dendrobium nobile and its allies 
often flower a second time on the same stems. 
The first time they bloom on the lower part 
and during the second season from the upper 
part of the same ipseudo-bulb. You could 
therefore, cut away stems that are old and 
getting yellow. It would not be a good policy 
to cut away pseudo-bulbs where young stems 
are just being thrown up, as they serve to 
support or strengthen the young ones. 
Coelogynes must not be kept too dry, but 
if you water them judiciously and also 
syringe them on the mornings of fire days, 
they should plump up again. You should 
soon be able to see whether they are going to 
flower, and if so, water them regularly when 
they require it till they have finished flower¬ 
ing and the young shoots, commence to push 
up. They should then have rather a higher 
temperature and a gradually increasing 
amount of moisture as the leaves are being 
developed. When making their growth, they 
would enjoy a night temperature of 60 degs. 
rising to 70 degs. by day, with sunshine. 
Towards autumn the amount of water should 
be gradually withheld, and just sufficient 
given in the winter to prevent the bulbs from 
shrivelling. 
2 7 76. Growing; Sturt’s Desert Pea. 
Accept my 'best thanks for your instruc¬ 
tions re Boronia. Will you kindly tell me 
ho-w to grow Sturt’s Desert Pea ('Plianthus 
Dampieri) ? It grows on a sandy desert in 
West Australia, and I want to know how to 
regulate the watering, as, of course, it gets 
little water. (Waratah, Devon.) 
The plant you mention is- usually known 
as the Glory Pea. The most common plan 
with tii is plant is to sow seeds in pots of 
turfy loam mixed with a little leaf-soil, bits 
of charcoal about the size of marbles, and 
sufficient sand to make it porous. A good 
time is to sow the seeds in July or August 
amd grow the plants all the winter in a 
greenhouse close to the glass. One seed is 
put in each 5 in. pot, to avoid disturbing the 
roots at the next shift. In April of the fol¬ 
lowing year you should prepare to put it in 
an 8 in. pot without disturbing the ball of 
soil. You should water the plant about three 
hours previous to potting, so that the soil 
will readily come out of the pot without 
breaking the roots,. Keep it ini a greenhouse, 
lett'ng it have plenty of ventilation. The 
soil must not be allowed to get dry, although 
it can be successfully grown if the soil is 
kept just moist. Another jolan by which 
some people succeed well is to rear the plant 
as we have stated and then about May or 
June, when the weather is getting genial, 
it is planted out in a bed or border in the 
garden, giving it some fresh material similar 
to that in which it was potted. If the 
weather is rough at the time it is put out, 
you could cover it with a hand-light for a 
week or two Under this plan the plant has 
been flowered handsomely in the open gar 
den. Another plan, which has been dis¬ 
covered more recently, is to graft young 
seedlings of C. Dampieri on seedlings of C. 
puniceuS), which is much more robust and 
easy to grow in a greenhouse. ■ It is rather a 
delicate operation to graft the slender seed¬ 
ling of the one on to the other, but it has 
the advantage of making C. Dampieri much 
more easy to manage and bloom. When 
grafted in this way it may be grown in 
Dots or baskets and suspended in the green¬ 
house. 
2777. Heliotropes in Pots. 
I have some Heliotropes in pots that are 
rather scraggy, with few leaves upon them. 
