THE GARDENING WORLD. 
117 
February 16, 1907. 
may call standard composts need be pre¬ 
pared. The first of these is the potting com¬ 
post, and should consist of loam, pulled to 
pieces but not sifted, 2 parts; leaf mould, 
sifted to remove 'sticks and glass, 1 part; 
and coarse, silver sand, washed if dirty, 
one-sixth part. Mix all these thoroughly 
together and leave in a heap; the slight 
alterations required for different plants can 
be made at potting time. The sowing com¬ 
post should be passed through a quarter inch 
square meshed sieve, reserving the coarser 
;parts for placing at the bottoms of pans and 
ooxes. A good standard sowing compost is 
made of loam, leaf mould, and coarse sand 
in equal parts, well mixed, and sterilised 
by pouring boiling water over it. Do this 
several days before it is wanted for use. 
Cannas. 
These noble bedding or pot plants will 
now be growing, and should be brought into 
the light and cleaned. If wanted for the 
joutdoor garden, the rcots may be simply 
started and left undivided; or split into 
pieces if increase iis desired. If, however, 
pot plants with really fine flowers are re¬ 
quired, the young shoots or eyes should be 
detached and placed singly in small pots of 
sandy soil. If kept close and syringed they 
soon root, and may then be repotted. 
Malmaison Carnations. 
If a few extra fine plants are required 
for blooming late in the summer, pick out 
a selection of the best plants, and place them 
in 8 in. pots. The ordinary stock may go 
into 6 in. pots for giving earlier flowers. 
Loam of the very best quality, sandy in tex- 
:ure, slhould form the bulk of the compost 
for these noble and fragrant flowers, and a 
little lime or powdered mortar is essential 
to the best results. If poor soil must be 
used, add a few small lumps of charcoal to 
keep it sweet, and enrich it with a liberal 
dose of Clay’s Fertiliser. Above all, see 
that the collar of the plant stands in the 
centre of a slight hillock when potting is 
finished, an<^ not in a depression. The 
collar is the part of the stem just above the 
Soil surface, whence the lowest leaves 
spring. 
Calceolarias. 
These should also be shortly placed in 
their flowering pots; 6 in. size will grow 
useful little plants, but 8 in. size is neces¬ 
sary to obtain really nice specimens. I al¬ 
ways like to use dried cow dung, instead of 
leaf mould, in the compost for these, es¬ 
pecially if the lcam is sandy. The leaves 
are very brittle, and rough handling will 
quickly snap off more than can be spared. 
These same leaves are rare harbours for 
green fly, which cluster on the under sides 
of the somewhat arched leaf blades. Have 
. them out before potting; there is nothing 
better than vapourising for this. Keep the 
plants cool and airy, and never allow the 
: soil to become really dry. 
Vines. 
Even in the ordinary greenhouse, Vine 
rods will shortly be breaking into new 
growth, and it is wise to look them 
over again before that happens, especially 
if mealy bug has been troublesome. As the 
rods will have been previously well cleaned, 
diluted methylated spirits may be used to 
dress them now. I keep an old salt jar for 
this purpose, and a halfworn paint brush. 
The jar is half filled with boiling water and 
then filled up with spirits. It should be 
used as hot as possible, and well scrubbed 
into every bit of the Vine, going carefully 
when near the buds. On no account miss 
these, as it is possible that a few early bugs 
are already at work on them. Look over the 
border, and give a good soaking of water if 
the soil is dry. 
Begonias and Gloxinias from Seeds. 
The amateur who has little heat will find 
that the present time is quite early enough 
to make a start in, sowing Begonia and 
Gloxinia seeds. The pans should be well 
drained, and contain fine soil on the surface. 
Mix the seeds with fine silver sand, scatter 
thinly, and water by partly immersing the 
pan in, tepid water. Cover with a pane of 
glass, and if possible place in a propagating 
case. If stood in the open greenhouse, a 
covering of damp mess will be found useful 
in conserving moisture and shading the 
seeds. 
“ SUNNYSIDE.” 
Orchids for Amateurs. 
Cool House Orchids. 
There are many species of different 
genera that can be successfully cultivated in 
the cool Orchid house. Some few years 
ago writers advocated that the temperature 
of the cool house during the winter season 
should be about 40 to 45 degrees normally. 
During later periods and up to the present 
time the temperatures for the ccol division 
have been raised to from 50 to 55 degrees 
with normal conditions prevailing outside, 
but it should be distinctly understood that 
with unfavourable conditions outside no 
harm will be done if the temperature drops 
five or even ten degrees, providing the mois¬ 
ture in the atmosphere be reduced corres¬ 
pondingly. If the plants are in a reason¬ 
ably dry state they are not nearly so liable 
to injury by low readings of the tempera¬ 
ture as would be the case in obtaining nor¬ 
mal temperature under such conditions ; 
this would necessitate an excessive use of 
artificial heat, and in my opinion there is 
nothing more detrimental to the well-being 
of the plants than excessive fire heat. In 
the cool Orchid house it is well to have 
ample piping, so that there is no necessity 
to have the pipes more than warm to retain 
what is required during the season of the 
year when artificial heat is needed. Orchids 
are far more extensively grown now than 
they ever were. What is more, they are 
better, grown to-day than at any former 
period. I think this sufficiently proves that 
their requirements are better understood than 
was previously the case. We may con¬ 
fidently look forward to still greater pro¬ 
gress and development in their culture. 
Amateur gardeners may do a great deal to¬ 
wards their general cultivation if they will 
treat Orchids as plants, to be grown under 
similar conditions and at no greater expense 
than is incurred in the cultivation of a 
general collection of greenhouse plants. 
Their Treatment. 
Now to get back to the reasonableness of 
cool house Orchids requiring a growing 
temperature during the winter. Take, for 
example, Odontoglossum crispum. The bulk 
of this species is in the greatest activity of 
growth during the months between Septem¬ 
ber and May inclusive. Now, if we are to 
give them a low temperature during the 
actual period in which they are making 
their growth and developing their pseudo¬ 
bulb, as well as flowering, we can only ex¬ 
pect what we get under the same conditions 
in nature—a restricted growth. This is just 
what we obtain. With the higher tempera¬ 
ture we can treat the plants more liberally, 
with the result that we are able to produce 
growths on the plants generally such as are 
rarely seen in imported plants, or, in other 
words, artificial conditions are better for the 
plants than those provided by Nature. This 
will be apparent in the more robust and 
vigorous condition which the plants them¬ 
selves will present. I may be told it is not 
so much the temperature as the methods of 
treatment in other respects. True these have 
changed also in the more liberal use of pot- 
ing compost and the inclusion of moisture- 
retaining substances in the composts, but 
unless we had a rise in temperature I do 
not see how it would have been possible to 
give extra bulk of compost at the roots; it 
would scarcely have been safe to experiment 
in this direction. Ventilation, too, is an¬ 
other item in the culture of ccol Orchids 
that must have every attention ; free circu¬ 
lation at all times is desirable, but not such 
as will clear the moisture from the atmos¬ 
phere when its retention is the absolute life 
of the plants. Treat Orchids in the same 
way that would prove successful with the 
cultivation of other plants, and their suc¬ 
cessful cultivation is assured also. 
H. J. Chapman. 
-f+4- 
Nerines. 
There are no doubt many readers of 
The Gardening World anxiously await¬ 
ing the advent of a first class autumn 
flowering plant, a plant to take the place 
of the Chrysanthemum, something more 
easily grown, and which would not take 
up so much valuable space in the green¬ 
house. Many of your readers are, I am 
sure, wearied of the Chrysanthemum ; it 
does not signify where he may be, or what 
he may be doing, ’Mums stare him in the 
face, and before the season is over he is 
heartily tired of them. 
In recommending Nerines and their 
hybrids as a substitute, I have no hesita¬ 
tion in saying, they are the most beautiful 
class of autumn flowering plants in culti¬ 
vation ; for brilliancy of colour and variety 
of tints these plants run the Orchid very 
close. 
A large grower of Orchids, on seeing 
the collection of Nerines here in full 
bloom, exclaimed, “ they are more bril¬ 
liant than a house of Orchid blooms. '’ 
The Nerine is a South African bulb of 
very easy culture, the only secret being 
a thorough roasting in the full sun during 
the resting period, that is from May until 
the flower spikes appear, which would be 
about the end of September. 
We have here about three thousand 
bulbs, and the mode of culture practised 
is as follows :—During August they are 
overlooked, and those that are over¬ 
crowded transferred to larger pots, and 
others, in which the soil has become sour, 
are shaken out and repotted, using a 
compost of fibrous loam, sand and leaf- 
mould, making it very firm about the 
roots, as Nerines revel in hard potting. 
They are then placed back into the 
cold frame, where they remain until the 
flowering season. When the flower spike 
is first visible, they are placed in pans 
of water for a good soaking, this being 
the only way to water them effectually 
after such a long period of rest. After 
soaking transfer them to the greenhouse, 
where they would flower, and grow 
through the winter months in a temper¬ 
ature of 50 to 55 degrees F. During very 
cold nights the thermometer may be 
allowed to drop as low as 40 degrees. 
We give an occasional dose of soot water 
as a preventive from mite. The foregoing 
cultural notes if closely followed, would 
not fail to give rC wealth of bloom, and 
more than repay the little trouble and 
care bestowed upon them, as compared 
to the Chrvsanthemum. 
W. H. W. 
