April 25, 1908. 
THE GARDENING WORLD, 
Address : The Editor, The Gardening 
CVorld, 37 and 38, Shoe Lane, London, E.C. 
The Editor invites enquiries, which may 
’.over any branch of gardening. Questions 
should be as brief as -possible and written on 
me side of the paper only; a separate sheet 
?/ paper should be used for each'question. 
Replies cannot be sent by post. 
Garden Plans .—Gardeners who would make 
'he best use of this column are invited to 
brepare and forward to us a rough outline 
irawing or plan of their gardens, indicating 
'he 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. 1* 
should also be stated whether the garden is 
-flat 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. 
STOVE AND GREENHOUSE. 
2792. Starting Tuberous Begonias. 
May I ask your valuable assistance on 
:he following questions ? I am going to 
buy some Begonia bulbs, and I am not quite 
certain as to starting them and subsequent 
treatment. I have a cold greenhouse to 
raise them in. (Leta, Surrey.). 
You should have no difficulty in starting 
tuberous Begonias in a cold greenhouse. It 
can be managed successfully even in a cold 
frame. If you had started earlier, say 
about the end of March or the beginning of 
April, the plants would have made some 
progress before the time foT planting them 
out about the beginning of June. You can 
start at once, however, and pot them up in 
thumb pots or small sixties according to the 
size of the tubers. The compost for this pot¬ 
ting should be open and consist of fibrous 
loam, leaf soil and sand in about equal pro¬ 
portions for the first two and half a part 
for the latter. Stand them in the greenhouse 
in the warmest place you can command and 
water the pots, using a pot with a rose to 
settle the soil. No more water need be given 
until the soil begins to get brown and there¬ 
fore dry. Then water only those pots which 
are dry, not the whole lot. This will be all 
the attention they require until they have 
developed some leaves and the roots are 
getting round the sides of the pots. If you 
intend growing them in the greenhouse, they 
should then get a shift into 5 in. pots, using 
this time a compost consisting of three parts 
Icam, two parts leaf soil and one peart well- 
iecayed manure with sufficient sand to make 
't porous. Do not sift anphhing at either 
f the'{jottings'.' The fibrous loam should be 
Jroken up into nodules about the size of a 
■valnut. Sticks should, of course, be taken 
' >ut of the leaf mould if any are present, 
ind the manure should be rubbed through a 
J - i n - sieve to get it well pulverised, so that 
t will mix readily and equally with the 
ompost. At the second potting, you should 
fairl 7 firmly to induce a steady, 
hort-jointed growth with staving ptower. 
f loosely potted they make rapid growth for 
while, but become coarse and do not flower 
1 0 fr«ely as when potted with reasonable 
rmness. If the tubers are of good size 
rey may want another shift to carry them 
the season. As in the case of many 
ther plants, they give most satisTaction 
"hen put into small pots to begin with and 
lifted on into a. size larger as the roots 
igm to run round the sides of the pots 
-eely. This keeps them growing, so that 
you .require plants of large size the secret 
is to keep them moving until you get the 
required size of pot, when the compost used 
should be pressed down firmly. After the 
soil gets permeated with roots in the flower¬ 
ing pots you can then assist them with 
weak liquid manure about twice a week. It 
you intend to grow them as bedding plants 
the pjets you put them in at first will be 
large enough at this late period of the year. 
About a week before you plant them out 
you should harden them off by putting them 
in a cold frame and pulling off the lights 
entirely during the daytime and some days 
before you plant them out. Select a time 
when the weather is fairly well settled. 
2793. Preparing: a Cucumber Pit. 
I have a brick frame built into the ground 
about 5 ft. deep and having three lights. 
I wish to put Cucumber plants in it, and 
would be glad if you would please advise 
me as to what is the proper composition of 
the hotbed on which they should be planted. 
The plants are now growing in 4 in. pots 
in my greenhouse and have just made their 
second pair of leaves. How soon should 
they be put into the frame? Can they go 
direct into the frame or is any special har¬ 
dening process necessary? As they are now 
in the warmest section of my greenhouse 
they could, if required, be moved to the 
outer one before moving into the frame. 
(A. B. C., Hereford.) 
Keep your plants growing steadily in the 
greenhouse until the pit is ready for them. 
No hardening'off should be necessary as the 
pit should have a temperature sufficiently 
high for them. You will have to get some 
loads of manure and dry leaves if possible. 
These two ingredients may be in equal pro¬ 
portions, or if you have a difficulty in get¬ 
ting leaves' any smaller quantity may serve. 
The object of using leaves is to steady the 
heat and make it more lasting than if 
manure alone were used. When you have 
got the materials shake them up in a loose 
conical heat in alternate layers. Allow this 
to lie for two or three days, and then shake 
up the heap afresh, putting all the ranker 
and drier material inside the heap as the 
work proceeds. It may or may not require 
another turning, but at the end of a week 
it should be ready for putting in the pit. 
Shake it all in equally and tread it now 
and again as the work proceeds to make it 
of uniform firmness throughout. This tread- 
ing prevents violent heating and causes it 
to develop slowly for a longer period of 
time. You should have a thermometer close 
to the bed or even plunged in it, and when 
the temperature sinks to 85 degs. you can 
2S9. 
then place a barrow load of compost in the 
centre of each light. This may consist of 
good fibrous loam with about a third part 
of well-decayed cow manure mixed with it. 
After a day or two this soil will be heated 
up to the same temperature as the pit, and 
the Cucumbers can be planted dn it straight¬ 
away. To maintain the heat, cover up the 
lights with mats at night. For the first 
tew days, however, it would be safe to leave 
just a little chink of air on at the top end 
of each light. This allows rank steam 
from the manure to'escape, thereby avoiding 
the scalding of the leaves of the Cucumbers 
if thie manure should be heating rather 
strongly. 
2 7 94. Rearrangement of Conservatory. 
Having taken The Gardening World for 
some time now, I have noted your willing¬ 
ness to heilp amateurs over their difficulties 
and should be greatly obliged if you would 
■help me in the management of a small con¬ 
servatory, of which I send a photo. You 
will notice it is a recess in the construction 
of the house covered in with glass, and 
although it looks rather low in the photo, 
it is really rather high, being 10 ft. high 
on the back wall from the floor and 7 ft. in 
front. It is 8 ft. wide and the floor is 
tiled, with a drain at the far or western 
end to carry away superfluous moisture. It 
faces due south, so that we igef the sun 
nearly all day in the hottest of the weather. 
The only ventilation is the small one you 
will see open at the back and to the left of 
the picture. Although the door seems to 
lead directly into it, it does net, but only 
into a passage to the inneT house door with 
glass and a door on the left leading into 
the conservatory. I have sun blinds under 
the roof glass and we leave the outer door, 
as well as the door leading into the con¬ 
servatory, open during the summer time. 
There is a bench about .3 ft. high running 
round three sides of it. Along the two 
wall® I have boxes about 1 ft. wide and 1 ft. 
deep, and have tried several climbers in 
them to cover the walls, but up to now with¬ 
out success. The climbers I have tried were 
Ivy-leaved Pelargoniums, Clematis Duchess 
of Edinburgh, Passion Flower and Rose I^a 
France. The berudhesi are .cowered with 
slates scattered with limestone drippings, 
and it is a cold house without any artificial 
heat whatever. Will you kindly give me 
some suggestions as to what climbers would 
be likely .to do well in the 'boxes or other¬ 
wise, and what plants you would suggest 
for pot culture. Any other suggestions as 
to re-arrangement, treatment of glass ven¬ 
tilation, drainage or anything else that you 
think would help me would be greatly ap¬ 
preciated. (Anxious Enquirer, Lancs.) 
We are aware that some people like the 
blinds to be inside the house. It is some, 
times convenient, but we should prefer 
having the shading put on a roller outside, 
so thlat it could be rolled up or let down 
when required. We are most dissatisfied 
with the almost complete lack of ventilation. 
A greenhouse or conservatory with proper 
ventilation and shading should be cooler in¬ 
side than outside on a warm summer’s day. 
If would make all the difference to the 
health of your plants, and we think your 
chief cause of failure to grow those climbers 
was on account of the stuffy, • sterwihg 
atmosphere which must have prevailed dur¬ 
ing every warm day. The whole of that 
top row of panes, or at least every alternate 
one, should have been made to open, and if 
all of them were fixed to a rod with gear 
and a lever you could raise the whole of 
them with one movement of the lever and 
to any extent which you might require. At 
least you should have had two openings for 
small sliding ventilators at the base, along 
the front of the conservatory, so that the 
air could have come in beneath the front 
bench. By this means you could make the 
