July 25, 1908. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
493 
Address : The Editor, The Gardening 
iVorld, 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 
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- 
STOVE AND GREENHOUSE. 
3042. Azalea Leaves Disfigured. 
Will you please say what is the matter 
with my Azaleas, as the leaves have a sickly 
appearance, especially beneath, where they 
are patchy. Some of the leaves have fallen 
oS. They flowered all right in spring and 
have been making fresh growth, but the new 
shoots are short. (A. Mitchell, Cheshire.) 
• Judging from your description the Azaleas 
have been damaged by thrips. This is due 
to keeping the atmosphere of the house too 
dry, which you may r.ot be able to help in 
a general greenhouse, but after Azaleas pass 
out of flower they should be stood by them¬ 
selves where you can give them different 
treatment to that you would give Pelar¬ 
goniums. When making their growth they 
require a moist atmosphere and to be fre¬ 
quently syringed. A little higher tempera¬ 
ture would also induce them to make good 
growth, but the length of the shoots need 
not matter very much as they would flower 
well if otherwise properly treated. In the 
meantime, we should advise you to dissolve 
some soft soap or Gishurst compound at the 
rate of 2 ozs. or 3 ozs. to the gallon of 
water and syringe the plants thoroughly 
with it. You can get a tub, lay a board 
across it and place your plants on their sides 
on the board, so as to get at the under-side 
of the leaves with the insecticide. On the 
morning after this washing with the insec¬ 
ticide you could give the plants a good 
syringing. Then stand your plants out of 
doors in some half-shady situation for a 
week or so, after which you can stand them 
in the full sun. Give them a good syring¬ 
ing twice a day with clean water when it 
is not actually raining. 
3043. Malmaison Carnations Unsatis¬ 
factory. 
I had a number of good plants of Mal¬ 
maison Carnations last year and grew some 
of them in pots in the greenhouse and 
planted the others outside. Those in the 
greenhouse produced a few blooms, but they 
were of no size. The plants are. now tall 
and straggling and all the bottom leaves 
have died away. The plants outside have 
not bloomed at all. 'Can you say why this 
is and what I should do? (R. M." F., Kent.) 
You cannot have been treating your plants 
properly or your conveniences may not be 
^together suitable. Probably you have kept 
them too far from the glass, or mixed up 
with or shaded by other plants. Another 
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 staled 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. 
supposition is that they did not get enough 
ventilation, especially when they began to 
grow. Malmaison Carnations do not flower 
well, if at all, outside. The greenhouse is 
the proper place to keep them during the 
winter and until they have finished flower¬ 
ing. What you had better do now is to plant 
out the Malmaisons on their sides so as to 
bring the shoots in contact with the ground. 
Make up some light soil consisting chiefly 
of leaf mould and sand with a little loam 
in it. Spread this on the ground where you 
intend layering the shoots and have them 
layered at once. As soon as they are well 
rooted sever them from the plants and pot 
them up singly in 3 in. pots. They may 
stand outside for a time if the weather is 
fairly fine, but it would not be well for 
them if much rain were to fall on the pots 
until the layers get well rooted. If the 
weather is unsettled at the time you could 
put the plants in a cold frame, so as to keep 
off the wet, at the same time give an abun¬ 
dance of ventilation. Take the pots into the 
greenhouse about the end of September. 
Place them as close to the glass as possible, 
keep the greenhouse dry and ventilate freely 
all the winter in mild weather. 
FLOWER GARDEN . 
3044. Double Canterbury Bells. 
Enclosed please find flower cut from Can- 
terbury Bell growing in my garden. The 
plant is one of half-a-dozen purchased in 
Sheffield Market. The other plants are quite 
the normal thing. I shall be glad if you 
can give me any information respecting the 
same. Will it seed, and is it likely to pro¬ 
duce similar plants? Every friend who has 
seen it exclaims that it is most wonderful. 
I am only an amateur and am very much in¬ 
terested in The Gardening World each 
week, having taken the same some four or 
five years. Perhaps ycur reply may be in¬ 
teresting to "other readers. (E. Whiteley, 
Yorks.) 
What you have got is the double purple 
Canterbury Bell. There is also a double 
white variety and double rose in various 
shades to blu=h. You can get all these three 
from the seedsman in mixture or separately. 
If you ask for seeds be sure to call them 
double Canterbury Bells, gjving also the 
colour, or sav mixed if you desire them in 
that form. Remember there is another strain 
known as the Cup and Saucer Canterbury 
Bells, in which the calyx forms a broad 
shallow basin with the cup-shaped corolla 
inside it. These should be sown during May 
or June, either in boxes in a cold frame or 
in the garden border, and as soon as they 
have made two or three leaves transplant 
them into another piece of ground,, giving 
them 4 in. to 6 in. trom plant to plant. It 
you cannot put them in their permanent po¬ 
sitions, then you can do so in October or 
November when the ground is clear. The 
plant you have should produce seeds and 
give rise to plants like the parent. You can 
hardly get the seeds ripe in time to bloom 
next year, as the plant is a biennial. 
3045. Propagating Romneya Coulteri. 
Is it possible to propagate Romneya Coul¬ 
teri by means of cuttings? I have made 
more than one attempt, but so far 1 have not 
succeeded. There is a fine bush in a sunny 
part of the garden with plenty of cuttings, 
but I Lave always lost them by damping 
when I have tried. Any information would 
much oblige. (A. C. Mills, Surrey.) 
It is just possible that the Romneya could 
be propagated by cutting? taken at some 
stage or other, and those from the base of 
the plant, if taken in spring and placed in 
a little bottom heat, would be more likely 
to root than those taken from the flowering 
stems. There is, however, an easier and 
more certain way of propagating this plant. 
Seeds are seldom produced, but you could 
in the springtime dig up some of the fleshy 
roots, cut them into pieces 15 in. to 2 in. in 
length and insert them in pans of very sandy 
soil. Give them the benefit of a little bot¬ 
tom heat. By the time the} 7 have thrown up 
leafy shoots they will have produced roots 
and may be potted off singly for a time to 
establish them before planting them out. 
LAWNS. 
3046. Plantains and Knapweed on 
Lawns. 
My lawn is very much infested with Plan¬ 
tains and what is known here as Knapweed. 
The grass is fairly thick, but short, and 
does not require a great deal of mowing. 
When I say it is thick;, I mean there are no 
holes in it, but in the springtime I give it 
the first cutting with the scythe, because the 
grasses are straggling or unequal in length 
and the machine would leave the long 
grasses uncut. (J. McC., Perthshire.) 
Choose a dry time and give the lawn a 
good sprinkling with lawn sand, and if this 
is effectively done it will destroy most of the 
Plantains, if not all of them, and encourage 
the growth of the grass. We think it likely 
that the lawn sand would also destroy the 
leaves of the Knapweed, but as it has a 
stout rootstock a safer plan would be to get 
an old knife and cut this as low down "in 
the soil as possible. Me are afraid that al¬ 
though the lawn sand would kill the foliage 
that the rootstock would be strong enough to 
commence growing again, and even if it 
did not make strong growth this year it 
would be able to do so next year. The re- 
mo\ al of the crowns should, however, pre¬ 
vent this. It would be a somewhat tedious 
operation to serve the Plantains in the same 
way, although a very effective one, especi¬ 
ally if you have got many small Plantains. 
As a rule, the Knapweed does not grow in 
numerous small pieces, but is thinly scat¬ 
tered over a piece of ground. A boy could 
clear a large lawn of them in a day. The 
presence of these weeds, but more especially 
the Knapweeds, indicates that the soil is 
poor. It would be worth your while, there¬ 
fore, to make up a good top dressing’of old 
potting soil, old, well-rotted manure that 
has been used in growing Cucumbers, Me¬ 
lons, or Potatos. Spread this over the soil 
giving it a good dressing, but not burvin^ 
the grasses. After a while you can rake 
this roughly over with a wooden rake and 
the material will all gradually disappear 
