S°4 
THE GARDENING WORLD, 
August i, 1908. 
advantage of rainy weather, or naturally 
moistened ground in a transplanted state, 
rather than leave them too long in the seed 
beds and drills. 
The Fruit Garden. 
Strawberry Runners. 
Fig. 2 shows a young plant sufficiently 
rooted in a pot to be severed from the parent 
plant. The runner is cut off as shown at A. 
The crown of the young plant B must be 
carefully preserved whether the rooted 
layers be for forcing or planting-out pur¬ 
poses. Directly the young plants are taken 
from the old ones, place them in a partially 
shaded position for a few days and syringe 
the foliage twice daily in the absence of 
rain. By this means the young plants will 
be strengthened and should be forthwith 
brought out and fully exposed to the sun¬ 
shine. 
Gathering Apples and Pears. 
Some of the earliest varieties will now 
be approaching ripeness, and must be 
gathered carefully. Too often careless 
handling is responsible for the fruits not 
keeping satisfactorily. To test the fruits 
raise a few to a horizontal position, and if 
they then part freely from the branch they 
may be gathered. Also, if the seeds be 
partly browned, the fruit is fit to gather. 
As gathered place them in shallow baskets 
on some soft material, and store them in a 
cool, but well ventilated room. 
Vines on Walls. 
Prevent overcrowding of wood by cutting 
out sub-lateral shoots, and expose the 
bunches to the sunshine. All main 
branches should be made secure to the wires, 
or the walls, as the case may be. 
The Kitchen Garden. 
Mushroom Beds. 
A start may now be made to grow Mush¬ 
rooms in beds in the open air. The beds 
may be made up in any position so long as 
it is not one beneath trees. The north side 
of a wall or fence is a good place for the 
bed. The latter may be formed against a 
wall, as shown in Fig. 3, or ridge-shaped 
by itself. The chief points to observe are, 
fresh, well sweetened littery manure, and 
sweet tree leaves if procurable, to form the 
bed A, maiden loam B, nearly 2 in. thick, to 
form the covering to the manure, new spawn 
inserted two inches below the surface of the 
manure D, and a substantial thatch of 
straw C. The spawn should be inserted 
when the temperature of the bed is about 80 
degs. on the decline—not when it is rising. 
Onions. 
Where Onions are being grown for keep¬ 
ing for late use, the bulbs must be 
thoroughly ripened ; so it will not be wise 
to remove them from the bed before they part 
readily from the soil ; and even then it will 
be necessary to thoroughly dry them either 
in the open air or in a shed, before you store 
them. 
Liquid Manure for Winter Greens. 
Now that the soil is well moistened to a 
considerable depth, such plants as those of 
Autumn Giant Cauliflowers, Self-Protecting 
Autumn Broccoli, Savoys, and Brussels 
Sprouts, which are making steady growth, 
some diluted liquid manure should be given 
freely. These plants are gross feeders, and 
where the soil is poor the manure water will 
prove very beneficial. 
Potatos. 
Lift Kidney varieties as soon as they are 
ripe and do not expose the tubers to rains. 
Foxglove. 
The Amateur’s Greenhouse. 
A Hint to Beginners. 
The real enthusiast and flower-lover com¬ 
mencing gardening in a humble way with 
hardy plants and bulbs, soon realises the 
necessity of a frame in which to propagate 
his favourite plants, or grow new varieties 
from seed. Then invariably, at a later 
stage, when his acquired knowledge teaches 
him the ' possibilities of floriculture, he 
yearns for a cool greenhouse, or one with a 
little heat available, in which he can winter 
his more tender subjects, or grow those num¬ 
berless and beautiful things, which, without 
such accommodation, are utterly impossible. 
If contemplating the purchase of such a 
structure, August is the best month in which 
to commence operations, for many things 
may now be increased, either by seeds, cut¬ 
tings, or other means, which will prove more 
difficult later on, when the duller days and 
colder nights are upon us. And, moreover, 
he will get a good start and some little ex¬ 
perience before it becomes necessary to com¬ 
mence firing. 
Early Schizanthus. 
In order to obtain an early supply of these 
striking little flowers, a batch of seed 
should be sown now, and few amateurs will 
begrudge the trouble who have seen a group 
of them in bloom in a cool greenhouse. Be 
sure to purchase a good strain of seed, and 
having well crocked the pots or pans in 
which it is to be sown, fill them nearly to 
the top with a compost consisting of finely- 
sifted loam, leaf-mould and silver sand. 
Scatter the seed thinly and cover lightly 
with soil or sand, after which moisten 
thoroughly with a finely-rosed can, or, bet¬ 
ter still, by immersing the pan up to its rim 
in another vessel containing water, till well 
soaked through. Shade will be necessary 
during the mid-day hours, and a piece of 
whitened glass placed over the pan will 
prove beneficial in preventing evaporation. 
Prick off the seedlings, in order to prevent 
them drawing up. 
Regal Pelargoniums. 
These, the aristocrats of the Geranium 
family, now finished flowering, should be 
standing outside to ripen and strengthen 
the wood. It is advisable to rest the pots 
upon a slate or layer of cinder ash to pre¬ 
vent the ingress of worms. In order to pre¬ 
serve the symmetrical shape of the old 
plants, they should be pruned back, leaving, 
say, two or three eyes on each shoot, whilst 
any overcrowding ones may be entirely re¬ 
moved. These extremities or cuttings, if in¬ 
serted singly in small pots of sandy soil 
and placed in the greenhouse, will readily 
strike, and by another year, if carefully at¬ 
tended to, will make most useful and satis¬ 
factory plants. 
Double Cinerarias. 
Double Cinerarias, or any single ones that 
it is desired to perpetuate, will (if the pots 
containing them have been well moulded up 
and carefully watered) be still yielding cut¬ 
tings, many of them already rooted. These 
latter may be potted off singly and treated 
in the same way as seedlings, but the others 
should be struck in the following manner :— 
Tiim off the bottom-most leaves and insert 
the cuttings, ten or twelve together, in a 
large pan or pot containing sandy compost. 
Cover with a bell-glass which should fit in¬ 
side the rim and be pressed down into the 
soil 
This should be removed occasionally and 
wiped dry, and when watering is necessary 
it may be done over the glass, running down 
the sides and so saturating the soil be¬ 
neath. When growth commences the young 
plants should be potted singly into “sixties” 
and grown on in the usual manner. 
Greenhouse Carnations. 
Malmaisons, and other greenhouse Carna¬ 
tions, should be layered without further de¬ 
lay, and there is no better place for them 
during the operation and the period of root¬ 
ing than a cold frame. The pots contain¬ 
ing them shduld be plunged to the rims in 
a compost of loam, leaf-mould, and sand in 
equal parts„ and the longest shoots having 
been bent over and cut (the method is too 
well known- to need description), should be 
pegged down, and the soil well firmed 
around them. Keep fairly close for about a 
fortnight, watering lightly night and morn¬ 
ing, and shading from the mid-day sun, 
after which more air may be given. The 
layers should be sufficiently rooted in about 
six or seven weeks, and may be severed from 
the parent plants and potted up singly, 
ready for removal to the greenhouse in the 
autumn. 
Sun for Foliage Plants. 
The vast number of ornamental foliage 
plants that we now possess play a most im¬ 
portant part in the decoration of both green¬ 
house and conservatory, and amongst the 
finest of them all are undoubtedly the Cro¬ 
tons. They delight, whilst in a growing 
state, in a moist, warm, and somewhat 
shaded situation, whilst their chief and most 
beautiful characteristic is the superb colour¬ 
ing of the leaves. To obtain this end the 
plants should now be placed near the glass, 
where they will get the full benefit of the 
sun’s rays, which alone will bring out the 
rich colours to perfection. Syringe them oc¬ 
casionally with soft soap and water to re 
move all dirt or dust, and should mealy bug 
or scale affect the plants sponge immediately 
with a solution of well-tried insecticide. 
G. A. F. 
Orchids for Amateurs. 
Cool-house Orchids. 
Od-ontoglossum cr.ispum will now have 
passed out of* flower, and as the new 
growths make their appearance every en¬ 
couragement must be -afforded to assist their 
development. Where Odontoglossums are 
grown in large quantities it will be found 
that some of the plants will differ very con¬ 
siderably in respect to their seasons of 
growth. Some of them will produce their 
flowers during the autumn and throughout 
the winter months, while the larger propor¬ 
tion will be found flowering in the spring 
and summer months. With such wide diver¬ 
sions as these to contend with it is only na¬ 
tural that the plants should necessitate treat¬ 
ment accordingly. So that it is impossible 
to lay down any hard and fast rule. I'.ach 
plant should be treated according to.its par¬ 
ticular requirements. This is by no means 
a difficult undertaking, where only a few 
plants are grown, and I would -advise my 
readers to treat -them -according to their re¬ 
quirements, irrespective of the season of the 
year. 
There is one rule I think which may be 
safely laid down, and that is in respect to 
attending to any repotting requirements. 
There are two distinct stages at which Odon¬ 
toglossum orispum produces new roots. In 
some cases the roots are produced from the 
base of the advancing growth, just at the 
period when the pseudo-bulb is about to bo 
formed or is forming in the new growth ; in 
other cases the plants do not commence root 
action until the pseudo-bulb is completed. 
In the first case there is little difficulty in 
following the general rule of attending to 
any repotting requirements at the time that 
new roots make their appearance, and this 
method -may be safely followed here, as by 
the time the pseudo-bulb has reached ma¬ 
turity the roots will have become established 
in the new compost and the plants thus be 
