January 12, 1907. THE GARDENING WORLD. 
The Kitchen Garden. 
Here again digging is the main item, and 
every opportunity should be taken to get 
it completed. 
Artichokes. 
Artichokes in the ground should be lifted 
and sorted out. The planting sets should 
be of medium size. Replant at once on 
newly trenched land if possible. They are 
strong feeders. 
Beans and Peas. 
On light soils a sowing of Broad Beans 
and Early Peas may be made. I myself 
cannot get any great results from early 
sowings but light soils will generally do 
an early sowing. Early Mazagan is a nice 
little early Bean, and although tall, Dawn 
is a wonderful early Pea. 
Savoys, etc. 
Where small gardens exist it is a good 
plan to allow stumps of Savoys, etc., to 
remain. They will give some nice greens 
later on. 
Spring Cabbage beds should be hoed and 
any blanks showing fillejd up. 
i'idy up Asparagus beds if not already 
done,’ and keep a sharp eye on the late 
Celery or it may get frosted. 
Burn all rubbish without further delay 
and use the ashes when digging. HoRti. 
The Amateur’s Greenhouse, 
Poinsettias. 
These gorgeous winter flowering plants 
will now, or soon, be past their best, when 
they may at once be cleared away to make 
room for something else. If there is plenty 
of room in the house, the plants may be al¬ 
lowed to remain on the stages, but if room 
is precious, they may be stood closely to¬ 
gether, pot thick, as gardeners term it, at 
the back of the 9tage. In extreme cases they 
may even go under the greenhouse stage, 
laying them on their sides in the lightest, 
dryest place. In either case, no water need 
.be given to the soil until March or later, 
three months’ rest being none too much to 
allow the plants. In March or April they 
will fall to be propagated, but information* 
as to the manner of doing this may well 
wait awhile. The point I would now im¬ 
press upon amateurs and novices is the need 
of giving the plants a thorough rest. 
Pinching Cinerarias. 
If, for any reason, a batch of late Cine¬ 
rarias are wanted, plants can be easily re¬ 
tarded by pinching out the top of the stem 
which is now pushing up for flowering. 
Rather heterodox practice this, I will admit, 
but it is thoroughly sound, and I have prac¬ 
tised it with splendid results for some fifteen 
years. Not only does pinching delay flower¬ 
ing, but it causes shoots to issue from the 
sides of the plants, each of which will, in 
due course, carry a head of flowers. Of 
course, as this means a larger plant, larger 
pots must be given, and I find those Sin. 
in diameter capable of growing splendid speci¬ 
mens, provided feeding is liberal. Re¬ 
potting should be done immediately side 
shoots are seen to be forming, and a com¬ 
post of loam 2 parts, decayed and dried 
dung 1 part, with a handful of coarse sand, 
will be suitable. 
Pot Roses. 
A few pots of the Tea varieties may now 
be given more heat, as they stand a fair 
amount of forcing. I am referring to those 
pruned and attended to as advised in 
G. W.” for December 8, as these should 
now have made nice growth. If the pot 
Roses are not yet pruned, the pruning 
should be done as soon as possible, leaving 
flae young shoots of Teas carrying ten to 
twelve buds or eyes each, and the shoots of 
Hybrid Perpetuals with six or eight buds. 
If extra fine, and fewer, blooms are desired, 
half, or even one-third of this number of 
eyes or buds should be retained. A night 
temperature of 40 to 45 degrees will suit 
these late-pruned Roses; those pruned 
earlier may have a night temperature of 50 
degrees, rising to 60 by day. Syringing 
should not be overdone, or mildew will be 
engendered ; once a day in a cool house, 
and twice a day in a warm house is often 
enough. It should not be overlooked that 
Roses are extremely fond of food, and liquid 
manure should be given in abundance when 
the buds show. 1 have found bullocks’ 
blood to be the very finest of all foods for 
pot Roses. 
Temperatures. 
These invariably bother the novice a good 
deal, and perhaps unnecessarily. Mhere 
possible, and if I remember it, I always 
like to give the best temperature for a given 
plant or operation, but these figures should 
be merely taken as a guide. I* or instance, 
45 degrees is a good average night temper¬ 
ature for a greenhouse at this season, but 
it is much better to allow the thermometer 
to fall to 35 degrees than burst the boiler 
in keeping up the higher figure. A tempera¬ 
ture that occasionally falls to 35 degrees 
will do little harm to'the majority of green¬ 
house plants, and I have brought a large 
stove, filled with tropical plants, safely 
through a winter when the inside ther¬ 
mometer registered 40 degs. on upwards of 
a dozen occasions. If cold weather prevails 
•—and we are having some in deadly earnest 
as I write—do the best possible with the 
fire ; lay a. few mats or sacks along the 
eaves of the house at night, and tack some 
sacking, baize, or felt round the door. 
Above all, keep the syringe quiet, and the 
soil well upon the dry'side ; frost dees little 
harm to dry-plants in dry soil. 
Indian Azaleas. 
One or two of these may be moved to 
the warmest part of the house, and kept 
well syringed, as these are generally potted 
in peat, and potted 1 firmly they do not 
require very frequent watering. \\ hen 
giving water, however, see that the pots 
are filled to the brim, or dry roots at 
the bottom will be the order of the day, 
and bud and leaf dropping a consequence. 
;The beautiful double white Azalea called 
“Deutsche Perle ” ; s far the best for this 
early work, as it forces into flower by 
Christmas in skilled hands. It should give 
no trouble to the veriest novice now, and 
its fine flowers will be greatly appreciated 
for buttonholes at this season. 
Sweet Peas. 
So popular are these becoming, that I 
do not think anyone will begrudge trouble 
in obtaining early flowers. That Sweet 
Peas make splendid greenhouse pot plants 
is, however, very often overlooked, though 
this would not be the case had greenhouse 
owners seen the hundreds of thousands of 
these plants grown under glass in Guernsey 
that I have seen. There, the flowers are 
home in April and May, and though our 
climate is scarcely so genial, there is little 
difficulty in cutting flowers in May from a 
sowing made now. I like to sow one seed 
in a 3 in. pot for this culture,, shift on into 
a 5 in., and flower in an 8 in. pot ; of 
course, four seeds may be sown if desired, 
but I recommend one seed only. One good 
sprayey Hazel bough per pot is sufficient 
staking, training the growths out fan-shaped, 
and keeping one side always to the light, 
.so that the flowers face all one way. 
Gladys Unwin is the finest variety for this 
culture, but Lady Grizel Hamilton, Dorothy 
Eckford, Mrs. Walter Wright, and the newer 
Queen Alexandra are excellent. 
Sunny side. 
55 
Orchids for Amateurs. 
Coelogyne ciistata. 
One of the easiest as well as one of the 
most extensively cultivated is C. cristata 
and its varieties. It does not require any 
special conditions for its cultivation, and can 
be found doing luxuriantly in an ordinary 
plant stove where there is no pretence to 
cultivate Orchids ; or in the ordinary vinery, 
where it is subjected to the same conditions 
as those afforded to the Vines. Orchid 
growers generally give it an intermediate 
temperature while others grow and flower 
it successfully among the cool house 
Orchids. It is no doubt most serviceable 
where it can be afforded a warm house 
treatment, for under such conditions it is 
induced to expand its flowers in the months 
of January and February, when practically 
all flowers are acceptable. There is one 
condition that is essential to the early 
flowering of this genus, viz : A pure atmos¬ 
phere. No plants are more susceptible to 
the efforts of town fogs than these. 1 have 
frequently received queries from fog-affected 
areas in. different parts of the country, 
correspondents often enclosing portions of 
decomposed flower scapes, that have 
advanced almost to the bud state and then 
suddenly turn moist, a black decay setting 
an, which in most cases causes the destruc¬ 
tion of the flower scape. There are other 
causes such as fumigation that will bring 
about practically the same effect, but from 
my own experience of London fogs, I can 
appreciate the disappointment caused to 
amateurs when they lose their flower scapes 
from this cause. It is better wffiere 
Coelogynes are grown in such distracts to 
use every effort to retard the flowering 
season, until such time as the outside 
conditions are favourable to their proper 
development. This is best done by growing 
the plants in a cool or cool-intermediate 
house, that is where the temperature can 
be maintained at from 50 to 55 degrees, 
with normal outside conditions. The plants 
under these circumstances will remain practi¬ 
cally in a dormant state, through the season 
when prevailing climatic conditions are 
detrimental to them, and they may be 
successfully flowered in the spring, \\here 
the atmospheric conditions are favourable 
and there is a demand for flowers in the 
early months of the year, there is little 
difficulty to be anticipated when grown, in 
a stove or warm house. As stated above, 
they resent fumigation of any description 
at certain stages of development and care 
should be taken to remove plants out of 
the reach of such fumes when circumstances 
render fumigation of the house necessary. 
There are several varieties of the typical 
forms of C. cristata; the Chatsworth and 
Trentham being tw r o of the finest. The 
lovely C.c. Lemoniana is one of the freest 
and ’most distinct of these. C. cristata 
alba is absolutely pure white, without even 
the yellow disc in the centre of the lip. It 
is always later flowering than the typical 
kinds, and can be kept in the warmer 
division throughout the year. It is w'orthy 
of every consideration, and as it can be 
now had in quantity, it is procurable for a 
modest outlay 7 . 
Repotting. 
Any repotting necessary 7 is best attended 
to w'hen new growths make their appear¬ 
ance in the spring. Where they 7 thrive w 7 ell 
they quickly make large specimens and the 
bulbs become so matted together that they 
have no room to grow 7 . Specimens of this 
kind should be. turned out of the pot and 
after the compost has been removed, all 
useless back bulbs should be cut away, 
leaving only two or three behind each 
leading bulb. The pots or pans selected 
for their reception should be well crocked, 
