March 9, 1967. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
171 
decayed leaves; these will be seized on by 
the roots and go to build up a good, strong 
plant. After potting, shade the plants 
, from all sunshine for a fortnight, stand 
them thickly together, and syringe twice or 
thrice daily. Cuttings wintered in pots 
I ma y be pinched to make bushy plants. 
If stock is short, sometimes sufficient growth 
may be pinched off to make a cutting. Ger- 
1 aniums struck now will make good bedding 
plants by the .end of May. 
Alternanthcras. 
These beautiful bedding plants are not 
largely grown 'by amateurs, owing to the 
difficulty in wintering them. Where any 
have been wintered, they may flow be pulled 
to pieces, and the divisions placed singly 
in small pots, or in rows in boxes. They 
should have the hottest part of the house, 
and be shaded and syringed for a week or 
so. 
Vines. 
In the ordinary warm greenhouse the 
Vines will now be pushing their buds. If 
the rods have been bent down to assist the 
back growths to push, they should be tied 
in their proper positions before the growths 
are an inch long, or there will be a danger 
of knocking many off. I never like to tie 
Vines up tightly and properly at first, es- 
pecially when the Vines are close to the 
roof glass. I make a long Icop of tarred 
twine, say, 6 in. or 9 in. long, and in this 
loosely suspend the rods; this prevents the 
new shoots—laterals, as gardeners call them 
—from touching the glass so quickly, and 
getting their tips ruined by frosts. A moist 
atmosphere will help to start the Vines into 
growth, and also be helpful to the general 
occupants of the house. 
Primulas and Cinerarias. 
These now flag badly in strong sunlight, 
especially if the manure given them has 
been a bit strong. The Primulas can often 
be stood in the shadow of taller plants, but 
the Cinerarias must be shaded at the 
brightest part of the day-. Greenfly in¬ 
creases on them at an alarming rate now, 
but must be kept down or the plants will 
collapse. It is a good plan to stand well- 
rooted plants in deep earthenware saucers 
of water now and later on. 
Mollis Azaleas. 
As these finish flowermg, pinch off all 
seed-pods, and top-dress with a little new 
soil if necessary. The plants must now be 
kept well supplied with water, and in a warm, 
moist atmosphere. See that cold draughts 
do not reach the tender young foliage, as on 
the perfecting of this another year’s flower 
supply depends. If any ungainly growths 
' offend, cut them back as desired, and keep 
the plants well syringed to induce new 
shoots to form. Any repotting should be 
done at once, but imported plants potted in 
autumn will not require this. 
Marguerite Carnations. 
Seed sown now should give splendid 
plants for beds, borders, or pots. Even for 
pot culture, I prefer to plant the young¬ 
sters out of doors, and pot them up when 
nicely in bud. A well-erccked part should 
be used for the seeds, which should be sown 
thinly, and covered with a pane of glass. 
The seedlings resemble weeds a good deal, 
; so nothing should be pulled up and thrown 
away until its true nature is known. The 
I young seedlings should be pricked off. 2 in. 
apart, in boxes of light compost, such as 
; ^ ea f mould, loam, and coarse sand in equal 
parts, shaded and syringed, and eventually 
ootted off singly. They may be hardened 
^2d planted out about the middle of May. 
“ SlINNYSIDE.” 
Orchids for Amateurs. 
Shading. 
The sun’s rays are now becoming so power¬ 
ful that there is some danger of the foliage 
becoming scorched. The roof blinds should 
therefore be put in order so that they may be 
used on all necessary occasions. 1 am ad¬ 
verse to permanent roof shading during the 
early spring and late autumn months, be¬ 
cause there are so many hours during the 
mornings and afternoons at these seasons 
when the sunlight is of absolute benefit to 
the plants. There are also frequent spells 
of dull or overcast outside conditions pre¬ 
vailing, therefore permanent shading can 
only have the effect of obstructing light, 
which can only result in soft and undesirable 
growth. At the present season it is only a 
few hours during the middle of the day that 
shading is necessary, because if the blinds 
are put in readiness they can be used at any 
moment. 
Methods of Shading. 
There are several different methods of 
shading, and material can also be varied for 
the different purposes for which it may be 
required. In respect to canvas blinds we 
find No. 5 Orchid house shading most ser¬ 
viceable for general purposes, but for pur¬ 
poses where only the scorching rays of the 
sun need to be broken, such as would be 
necessary for the Mexican Laelias and Den- 
drebiums, No. 4 will be found quite suffi¬ 
cient for this purpose. These blinds can be 
procured ready made for fixing from most 
horticultural sundriesmen by sending di¬ 
mensions of length and depth of the roof 
for which the blinds are required. In 
measuring it is well not to overlook that 
about 6 inches should be allowed to lap 
around the roller; also, as the blinds usually 
sag at the ends, enough length should be 
allowed to counteract this. 
Lath roller blinds are very serviceable; 
perhaps they are even more desirable as pro¬ 
tection in winter than for shading in 
summer. I am not altogether wrapped up 
in these blinds for shading. They are very 
well for small houses^ such as where plants 
can be grown within reasonable distance of 
the roof glass; but for lofty structures there 
is a very serious tendency to cause what is 
known as drawn growth, which means that 
a good deal of the constitutional vigour of 
the plants is lost through being induced, 
from want of light, to become elongated and 
weakly. 
There is another item in their use on hot¬ 
houses where there is daily acquired a great 
amount of sun heat. I have frequently 
found the temperatures in these houses drop 
very suddenly immediately the blinds are 
drawn, so much so that for fear of checks 
from the sudden falls in temperature we 
have to close the ventilators; but for these 
two items, there can be no doubt they are 
very desirable, and their use in winter is a 
great acquisition. On cold, stormy nights, 
they serve to dispense with a considerable 
amount of fire heat. For small houses these 
blinds are made in short lengths, and if 
fixed in a vertical position they can be easily 
applied when required. 
In fixing horizontal blinds, whether they 
be lath blinds or the usual canvas, I con¬ 
sider they should be raised sufficiently to 
clear them from the roof glass. This will 
permit a circulation of air to pass between 
the blinds and the glass, which has a very 
cooling effect on the latter, and prevents the 
roof glass becoming so scorching hot that it 
quickly dries the moisture from the atmo¬ 
sphere and causes undesirable conditions 
for the cultivation of plant life. 
Permanent shading should now be put on 
the sides of the houses. A very little white 
lead and turpentine makes a good shading 
that is not easily affected by the spring 
frosts and will last the season. Whitening 
mixed with milk, in which should be in¬ 
cluded a little salt, makes a cheap and dur¬ 
able permanent shading. These may be 
stippled on with a whitewash brush. 
Ii. J. Chapman. 
Roses. 
WORK FOR MARCH 
I turn from you, and listen to the wind, 
Which long- has raved unnoticed. 
What a scream 
Of agony by torture lengthened out 
That lute sent forth ! 
Mad Lutanist! who in this month of 
showers, 
Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping 
flowers, 
Mak'st Devils yule, with worse than 
wintry song, 
The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves 
among. 
S. T. COLERIDGE (Dejection). 
! - Sun enters the sign Aries. Spring 
commences.” Such is the entry that 1 find 
in my “Whitaker” for the 21st dav of 
this month. It might, indeed, have been 
printed in big type just for the purpose of 
reminding rosarians of that oid saw 
which says, “ Never come March, never 
come winter.” Notwithstanding this re¬ 
minder, I have already commenced to re¬ 
move the-bracken and other protecting 
materials from among the hardiest of my 
plants, and, at the same time, am making 
that annual inspection, and calling over 
the roll, in order to ascertain the mor¬ 
tality among my battalions. On the 
whole, the winter in these parts has been 
dry and rather severe, but only on one 
occasion did the thermometer fall low- 
enough to cause me a little anxiety; that 
being when 25 degrees Fahr. of frost 
were registered. But the damage done 
to my plants is apparently nil, and unless 
some extraordinarily mild weather sets 
in before these lines are in print, they 
will not be too forward at pruning time, 
as has been the case lately- for several suc¬ 
cessive seasons. Though it is unwise.to 
entirely remove the bracken, from Tea 
Roses until this month be out, I find it a 
good plan in mild, open weather to lift 
part of it from among them, just to give 
them an airing, and prevent the buds 
from pushing prematurely. For this very 
reason I prefer the use of bracken to 
earthing-up, because with the former one 
can do as I have just suggested, that is, 
partly lift it from the plants and replace 
if necessary, with very little trouble, 
whereas with the earthing-up method, it 
is quite the best plan not to interfere with 
the plants until one comes to prune them, 
for fear that hard weather may- set in 
after the soil has been drawn from around 
them. 
Climbing Roses upon walls should be 
looked over and pruned w-ithout delay; 
they- are in a more backv-ard condition 
than usual, but this is a good augury- for 
the future. As a^rule wall Roses are the 
most difficult of all to manage and keep 
in proper health, so I propose to say a 
little on the subject. Naturally- the pre¬ 
paration of the station is of the utmost 
importance; the soil at the foot of ^MIs 
is proverbially- bad — sour, dry- 
