June 15, 1907. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
401 
dener will be taking steps to scare off birds. 
At the first show of colour in the fruit the 
(birds will be on the spot. 
Cut out superfluous growths of Figs grow¬ 
ing on walls. Give them plenty of liquid 
land do not forget they are greedy things. 
Keep wall trees syringed during warm 
weather. 
Apples and Pears have set heavy crops in 
most places. It will pay to thin some of the 
fruits out a bit. 
The Kitchen Garden. 
Haricot Beans and Tomatos. 
I have just been having a feast of Ameri¬ 
can baked Beans in Tomato sauce. We can¬ 
not grow the Lima Beans, but we can the 
Tomato. Delay no longer in putting out 
plants wherever there is space. Later on 
try Haricot Beans with cooked Tomatos. 
They are great. Speaking of Haricots, those 
who grow the white seeded Runner Bean 
should allow some pods to ripen. The dried 
beans are first-class. 
Greens. 
Winter greens, if crowded in the seed bed, 
should be set out temporarily to gain 
strength. A late batch of Savoys may be 
now sown. Vacant plots may be filled up. 
with any autumn or winter greens that are 
sizeable. See that each plant has a central 
growth, as blind plants are a nuisance. 
Turnips may be relied upon to get away 
quickly if sown now. A sowing of some 
first earl}’- Pea now will often produce a fine 
crop of late Peas. Sow thicker than usual, 
and keep the watercan going in dry weather, 
soot. 
Keep the hoe going among the Onion rows 
and apply a dressing of soot, salt and lime 
when the soil is moist. Two or three parts 
each of soot and lime to one of salt will do. 
Apply as soon as mixed, as the lime frees 
the ammonia in the soot. 
Attend to root~crops by hoeing among them 
and thinning where necessary. 
Stopping- Beans. 
• Broad Beans should be stopped, fly or no 
fly, as soon as the half-way flowers are open. 
Continue to set out Lettuce. Celery should 
be planted as soon as possible. Horti. 
The Amateur’s Greenhouse. 
Salvias. 
These are among the good old plants which 
seem to have fallen on evil days, and yet 
they include some of the sweetest scented 
and brightest blossomed plants it is possible 
to grow. Salvia patens will ere now have 
gone into the flower beds; S. splendens may 
well have gone too, for it is a gorgeous, 
though as yet little used, bedder. Probabty, 
however, it- and some of the later flowering 
Salvias will be still in pots. They should 
now go out of d<iors without delay, into the 
sunniest spot available, for they all revel in 
sunshine. If preferred, they can be planted 
out on a sunny border, and will then make 
giant specimens by lifting time in autumn. 
Most of them require moderate pinching 
during the growing season, but this should 
not be overdone, as if the plants are fairly 
tall they come in well to take the place of 
the earlier Chrysanthemums. 
Amaryllises or Hippeastrums. 
These are always worthy a place in even 
the smallest amateur’s greenhouse, not only 
by reason of their truly gorgeous winter 
blossoms, but because they can be stored 
under the greenhouse stage for several 
months, and so take up no valuable top room. 
Plants will now, in most cases, have finished 
growing, and should be allowed to take a 
thorough rest. They rest just as well out 
of doors as in the greenhouse, and are, in¬ 
deed, less subject to insect attack. Stand 
them in a sunny spot, and give water occa¬ 
sionally until the leaves die down. It is 
well to sprinkle the leaves occasionally with 
a rosed can, or thrips and red spider may 
be troublesome when the weather becomes hot. 
Re potting is done early in the year, and 
none is now required. 
Damping Down. 
Where Tomatos and plants in flower are 
growing among a miscellaneous collection of 
greenhouse stuff, damping down becomes 
somewhat of a fine art. A plan I have 
adopted with great success is to range the 
plants in bloom on the side of the house 
where the Tomatos are, and the growing and 
foliage plants on the other side. The latter 
can then be syringed at will and without 
danger, for neither Tomatos nor plants in 
flower should be syringed at any time. If 
the floor and walls are damped down in the 
morning and early evening, and the syringe 
is used upon the non-flowering plants, there 
will be plenty of moisture in the house for 
every purpose. A little weak soot water ap¬ 
plied through the syringe twice or thrice a 
week will do wonders in keeping down in¬ 
sect pests. See that it reaches the under¬ 
sides of the foliage. 
Star Cinerarias. 
The stellata forms of Cineraria are among 
the most useful introductions of the past 
decade, and the greenhouse which knows 
them not is distinctly the loser thereby. They 
are amenable to the same culture as the 
older type of Cineraria, but require much 
more room, as plants a yard high and 
through are readily obtained from a sow¬ 
ing made now. A dozen of these specimens 
give a fine effect in the greenhouse in 
late spring, and any plants which are not 
up to the mark will give very useful sprays 
of elegant cut flowers. The great thing in 
their culture is to avoid extremes of heat 
and drought, for these are the enemies of 
the Cineraria, and bring greenfly and other 
pests in their train. 
Tuberous Begonias. 
Plants for indoor decoration may now go 
into their flowering pots. It is a mistake to 
have these too small, as tuberous Begonias, 
unlike Geraniums, Fuchsias and many other 
greenhouse plants, require an extended root 
run to do themselves justice. Pots 6 in. in 
diameter will suit small tubers, but larger 
ones should have 8 in. and 9 in. pots. The 
compost should consist of two parts of fib¬ 
rous loam, one part of dried cow or stable 
manure, and a sixth part of coarse sand. If 
natural manures are not obtainable, use leaf 
mould instead, and add a nice pinch of 
artificial fertiliser, using this according to 
the manufacturer’s instructions. Do not pot 
very firmly, allow plenty of space for water, 
and stand the plants in a semi-shady place 
until they grow freely again, assisting them 
to this end by frequent syringings. If in¬ 
clined to run up weak and leggy, the points 
of the stems should be pinched out. 
Late Tuberoses. 
At this season Tuberoses are apt to come 
into flower rather more quickly than one 
wants them. When this is the case the plants 
not required should be placed in a cold 
frame or pit facing the north. Here they 
should be stood on a bed of moist coal ashes, 
and only receive just sufficient water to keep 
them from flagging. Thus treated, young 
blooms will last a long while. Plants in 
the greenhouse must be frequently syringed, 
or red spider will ruin the foliage. 
Fuchsias. 
These plants like moist and semi-shady 
conditions, and to grow them in a hot, dry 
greenhouse is to invite thrips and red spider 
to the leaves, and the bloom buds to fall off 
prematurely. If a suitable place cannot be 
found for them in the greenhouse, seek it 
outdoors. It may generally be found in the 
yard or garden in a position facing east or 
west. If a 6 in. layer of coal ashes is 
placed here and kept constantly wet, an ideal 
growing spot for Fuchsias will be made. 
The plants should be taken under cover as 
their blooms commence to open. 
Sunnvside. 
Orchids for Amateurs. 
Early-Sown Seedlings. 
Seedlings of the Cattleyas, Laelias and 
allied genera, sown early in the year, will 
now have advanced to the stage of comple¬ 
tion of the first leaf and roots will be ob¬ 
served protruding from the base of the 
plants. At this period they may be safely 
pricked off into seed beds or individually 
into pots as desired. I have long advocated 
that the plants are always more readily 
treated where a separate existence is pro¬ 
vided, than is the case where the seedlings 
are pricked out collectively, several in a pot. 
Miniature pots are procurable, which will 
meet the requirements of the smallest seed¬ 
ling, so that there need be no overpotting, 
so I would therefore advocate their use. 
They can be easily plunged several together 
in pots or pans, and suspended if accom¬ 
modation is in any way limited, and if 
given suitable conditions, in a few months 
they will require repotting into larger sizes, 
where they can be treated more liberally. 
The small pots or pans used for pricking out 
the small seedlings should be filled to about 
one-half their depth with clean finely- 
broken potsherds. The compost should con¬ 
sist of about equal portions of finely-chopped 
fibrous peat, sphagnum moss and leaf soil, 
with sufficient sand added to render the 
whole porous. This should be pressed 
moderately firm in the pots and clipped 
level with the rim of the pots with a sharp 
shears. W hen the pots are made ready for 
use, water with rain water, wetting the com¬ 
post through, and they should be allowed 
to remain a few hours to drain before prick¬ 
ing the seedlings into them. 
The difference, as I have previously 
pointed out, between the period of sowing 
the seed and the plants reaching the flower 
ing stage, depends entirely upon the methods 
of treatment adopted in the early stages, 
perhaps more than at later periods! There¬ 
fore every facility must be applied that will 
tend to encourage rapid growth. The night 
temperature at this reason of the year should 
be about 75 degrees, and I consider that not 
less than 70 degrees, with normal outside 
conditions, should be given at all seasons. 
It must be understood that there is a vast 
difference between artificial conditions and 
the natural conditions in which the original 
parents of this section of plants are found. 
The same remarks apply even to originally- 
imported bulbous plants. Take Amaryllis 
as an example. The cultural methods now 
adopted in the raising of these is to keep 
the plants moving on in a growing state 
(without rest) from the time of pricking out 
the seedling until the flowering stage is 
reached. The period between seed sowing 
and the plants flowering is thus very con¬ 
siderably decreased. The seedling Orchids 
which used to take from six to ten years or 
longer may now be induced to flower in 
from three to six 3-ears, generally about four 
years from the time of sowing the seed. It 
is not only the high temperature, but suit¬ 
able growing, moist conditions of the at¬ 
mosphere, which must accompany the high 
temperatures, "and at the same time the at¬ 
mosphere must be kept pure by discretion 
in ventilating, governed principally by the 
prevailing outside conditions. If amateurs 
will take a little trouble to studv these neces- 
sarv requirements, which are by no means 
difficult, they will find considerable pleasure 
in this most interesting process of the crea¬ 
tion of new plant life. H. J. Chapman. 
