January 26, 1907. 77 /£ GARDENING WORLD. 
Address: The Editor, The Gardening 
/orld, 37 and 38, Shoe Lane, London, E.C. 
The Editor invites enquiries, which may 
iver any branch of gardening. Questions 
\wald be as brief as -possible and written on 
ne side of the paper only; a separate sheet 
t paper should be used for each question. 
Replies cannot be sent by post. 
Garden Plans. —Gardeners who would make 
le best use of this column are invited to 
repare and forward to us a rough outline 
-awing or plan of their gardens , indicating 
e position of beds and lawns, the charac- 
STOVE AND GREENHOUSE. 
155. Carnations and Heliotropes. 
I should be glad if you will answer the 
illowing questions :—(i) Is it possible at 
is time of year to take Carnation cuttings? 
) I have several plants of Heliotrope 
rown from seed last year. They were 
rong healthy plants till about a month or 
> ago when they seemed to come to a stand- 
ill and their leaves turned brown and 
ropped off. Also, instead of being nice 
id bushy they make one straggling, long 
em with a tuft of leaves at the top. They 
re in about 3 in. pots in an unheated con- 
•rvatory. What should be done with them? 
.Iystery, Somerset). 
(1) You do not tell us what class of Car- 
itions you mean to deal with. If they are 
irder Carnations they should be layered 
the beginning of August, otherwise you 
ill fail in getting plants to blcom at "the 
■oper time. If they are tree Carnations or 
merican Carnations you can commence pro- 
igating them now, but you will require a 
>ttom heat of 60 degs. by night, otherwise 
ie cuttings will take a long time to root 
id are liable to damp off at" this period of 
ie year. You could, of course, secure the 
ecessary heat by making a hotbed of fer- 
enting manure covered with a frame. (2) 
our Heliotropes should be cut down to 
'thin 5 in. of the pots about the beginning 
March, and when they commence grow- 
>g repot them into pots of larger size. You 
ill then get a number of shoots from the 
ise. It is just possible that you kept them 
I o far away from the light, too much 
laded, too crowded or cramped for room 
1 too small pots to get sufficient vigour of 
rowth. Very possibly the temperature of 
our house was also rather low in spring, 
he plants should become bushy under the 
! k 0 re treatment if you keep the pots close 
> the glass. \ our plants are simply resting 
: present and you cannot expect them to 
row with 9uch a low temperature until heat 
ises in spring. 
156. Repotting Plants. 
Is it a suitable time for repotting the fol- 
> wring which appear to be somewhat 
owded with roots :—Greenhouse Ferns in 
in. pots, Arum Lilies, Heliotrope out down 
vo weeks ago, Zonal Pelargoniums (have 
owered), show Pelargoniums (not vet 
rwered). (H., Yorks.) 
\ ou will be in good enough time to repot 
eenhouae Ferns, Heliotrope and Zonal 
elargoniums about the middle of March, 
your show Pelargoniums are growing at 
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 
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. 
present they may be potted about the middle 
of February to flower early in summer. 
Arum Lilies should be potted some time 
after the leaves have died down in summer 
or just when about to commence growing 
.again. Most of these things should be rest¬ 
ing at present in a cool greenhouse. The 
show Pelargoniums should be growing slowly 
and the Arum Lilies should be flowering, if 
they have not finished, or in a cool house 
they may flower in spring. 
1457. Salvia splcndens Dropping Its Leaves. 
Will you kindly inform me of the pro¬ 
bable cause of Salvia splemdens losing its 
flowers under the following conditions :— 
I grew five plants till they were on the point 
of opening in a small greenhouse. The 
weather being colder I put a small lamp in 
to heat it. This did not prevent the tem¬ 
perature going down tq freezing. Do you 
think it was the lamp or the cold that spoiled 
the plants? I may mention that I gave 
away one of the plants two davs before and 
it was put in a very warm, moist house and 
was a great success, so I know the plants 
were all right. (Ivanda, Staffordshire). 
The dropping of the flowers of this Salvia 
was entirely due to the low temperature. 
Several other Salvias and various plants 
behave in the same way. You should try to 
get your plants well advanced early in’the 
season so that they will flower during Sep¬ 
tember, October or November in a green¬ 
house. To ensure them flowering in winter 
you should maintain a night temperature of 
50 degs. with a few degrees rise b}' day. 
1458. Orchids with Yellow Leaves. 
T have just bought three Orchids, one 
Odontoglossum grande with five bulbs, one 
O. crispum with four bulbs and one Cypri- 
pedium insigne. Two bulbs of the O. grande 
have yellow leaves, dead, T think. The other 
three bulbs have green, healthy leaves. The 
O. crispum has two bulbs with green leaves 
and two bulbs with yellow leaves. The C. 
insigne has four very yellow leaves and 
about twenty-five healthy ones. Should I 
rut off these dead leaves and is it natural 
for the leaves of the others to turn yellow 
(the oldest 'bulb leaves I mean, of course), 
or are my plants unhealthy? I bought 
them from a good firm. About what month 
should the new stems cr leaves of O. cris¬ 
pum and Lycaste Skinmeri plump up into 
pseudo-bulbs? (Subscriber. Leeds). 
!he leaves that are entirely yellow may 
be cut off as they cannot be of any further 
use to the plants. Remove them as close to 
the base as possible, to avoid harbouring 
6x 
insects amongst dead matter. All Orchids 
must, of course, lose their leaves some time, 
and this may take place in winter or in 
summer when they get very old. There is 
no reason, therefore, why your plants should 
not be perfectly healthy. It depends upon 
the temperature of the house into which you 
put them as to when they will make fresh 
growth. O. crispum is a cool house Orchid 
and requires a moist atmosphere, though 
rather drier in winter. O. grande requires 
somewhat different treatment and to be kept 
resting during winter, by withholding 
water, with a temperature of 52 degs. to 
degs. by night during December, January 
and February, with a rise to 60 degs. by 
day. During the rest of the year the night 
temperature should be kept at 60 degs. to 
65 degs. with a considerable rise by day 
and water to encourage growth. This spe¬ 
cies usually flowers some time between Oc¬ 
tober and March, that is, during the resting 
season. Tour best plan, unless you have a 
good command of heat, is to encourage the 
growth of all of these during summer by a 
fairly warm, moist atmosphere. Your chief 
difficulty with O. crispum, however, will 
be to keep it ccol enough during the heat 
of summer, but you may have a house facing 
the north or a span-roofed house having its 
ends running north and south to be shaded 
during the heat of the day. The Cypri- 
pedium having made its growth in summer 
will flower some time between October and 
Christmas, according to treatment. 
ROOM PLANTS. 
1459. Agapanthus Not Flowering. 
Miss Wilson (Surrey) would feel obliged 
if you could tell her why water drops from 
the points and sometimes too from the leaves 
of the Agapanthus (African Lily). Each 
winter this has occurred. Is it natural? 
Does it show the plant is healthy or other¬ 
wise? It is indoors, where it gets the sun 
from the window, but no fire. It has not 
bloomed for two summers, though it has 
grown well. Why is that? It is watered 
once a week now. 
It is quite natural for jniur Agapanthus to 
give off water at the tips and edges of the 
leaves when making their growth. It is 
quite wrong, however, to give treatment 
causing it to make its growth in winter. It 
is so nearly hardy that the temperature of 
a house, even without fire, causes the leaves 
to grow in winter. To avoid this as much 
as possible you should keep the plant as 
cool as convenient even if you put it in a 
cold frame, but do not water it in winter 
unless the conditions are causing it to get 
very dry. The best plan would be to en¬ 
courage fresh growth not earlier than April 
and at the end of May to stand the plant in 
the open air, at first in a sheltered place 
till the leaves get hardened and then in the 
full sun. \our plant should flower about 
July and August standing in the open air. 
Like most other African plants it delights 
in sunshine. \our plan, therefore, is to 
keep it cool and dry till April and then en¬ 
courage growth. 
WINDOW BOXES. 
1460. Stocks on Window Sill. 
I should be obliged if you wquld kindly 
answer the following Yould f with any 
hope of success grow Ten-Week Stock Giant 
Perfection in pots on a window sill facing 
almost due south, and which gets all the 
sun for most of the day? If so, please in¬ 
form me (1) size of pots required, (2) suit¬ 
able compost^ (3) how manv plants should 
be grown in a pot. * If Ten-Week Stock is 
not suitable, kindly name some sweet-scented 
annual that would do instead. (Perfec¬ 
tion, Middlesex). 
There is no reason, why j*ou should not 
succeed perfectly in growing Ten-Week 
