October 5, 1907. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
651 
common-sense tells one is rubbish. If the 
homensown batch is suffering from something 
akin to measles, pull them up and buy a 
few good plants, and tjhe sooner it is done 
the better. It is advisable, however, to have 
a few more than are required in case any 
fail later on. 
Cauliflower. 
Autumn Cauliflower now turning in, 
should be carefully watched and protected 
from frost by bending a leaf or two over 
the heads. 
Salsify and Scorzonera. 
Salsify and Scorzonera are not everyone’s 
vegetables, but where grown movement 
should be made as regards lifting and stor¬ 
ing. 
Turnips. 
Turnips fully grown also should be pulled 
and stored, or they will become rank. 
Beet and Parsnips. 
Late Beets and Parsnips need not be lifted 
just yet unless the ground is wanted. 
Carrots. 
All Carrots should be up by this time and 
stored in sand or dry earth, after removing 
the tops. Opinions differ respecting cut¬ 
ting off the tops. Some say cut within two 
inches; others plump for taking a thin slice 
off the top so as to prevent growth. .Some, 
again, declare that Beet tops must be 
twisted off, while others say cut them off. 
Personally I .think there’s a good deal of 
faddiness about the whole business. 
Celery. 
Continue to earth 'Celery, but it is safe 
to leave the latest batches for a little while. 
Autumn-sown Cauliflower requires a 
warm, well-sheltered spot, unless frame pro¬ 
tection can be given. 
The breaking up of vacant ground may be 
proceeded with. 
Horti. 
The Amateur’s Greenhouse. 
Giving Air. 
Probably at no period of the year is it 
so essential to allow plenty of fresh air to 
enter the greenhouse as at this season. The 
summer was a dull and disappointing one, 
and though September has worked wonders 
in hardening and ripening growth made 
early in the year, there is still much to be 
done in assisting this to pass safely through 
the winter. With this end in view the_ ven¬ 
tilators and door should be thrown widely 
open on every favourable occasion. As I 
write the sun’ is simply pouring down, and 
my greenhouse has more air on than it had 
in July and August. This exposure w ; ’l 
harden the plants for a winter campai'w as 
nothing else could do. Of course, c c can¬ 
not always have doors and ventilators wide 
open, but every chance of admitting air 
should be taken, and on no account should 
the temperature be run up unduly high by 
fire-heat. 
Petting Old Bedding Plants. 
There is often a diflficulty in filling a 
newly erected greenhouse in its first season, 
owing chiefly to the expense. Rather than 
face empty shelves and stages the owner 
should make a raid upon the outdoor flower 
beds before frost anticipates him, and make 
a selection of their occupants. Such things 
as Heliotropes, Geraniums, } r ellow and white 
Marguerites, Tagetes signata pumila, sil¬ 
very-leaved Centaureas and Cinerarias, and 
French Marigolds all make nice pot plants 
for the greenhouse, if handled with care. 
Plants which have plenty of unexpanded 
flower buds should be chosen, of compact 
habit; and not too large. These should be 
dug up, covered immediately with a mat or 
sack, and taken to the potting shed. Here 
i 
{ 
they may go into 5 in., 6 in., and 8 in. 
pots, according to their size, with a little 
old potting soil placed firmly around and 
over their roots. Give them a good soaking 
with water, and if a quite shady wall or 
shed side outdoors is at command, 9tand 
the plants there for a week or so. If no 
shady wall is available, place them in the 
greenhouse, and keep them heavily shaded 
against sun and syringed twice dailj\ 
Resting Tuberous Begonias. 
When these cease flowering, do not place 
them straightway beneath the greenhouse 
stage, or they will be poor things another 
year. If they are in the way in the green¬ 
house stand them in a cold frame with the 
light off, or even out of doors. But stand 
them where they will get plenty of sun, 
and give water in ever-decreasing quanti¬ 
ties until the leaves yellow and fall. Then 
remove the stems, bake for another day or 
two in the sun, and lay the pots- on their 
sides under the greenhouse stage. Or the 
tubers may 'be shaken free of soil and stored 
for the winter in deep boxes of sand or 
cocoanu-t-fibre refuse in the potting shed. 
See that the boxes are not placed near the 
furnace, or the tubers will shrivel. 
Malmaison Carnations. 
Old plants carrying flower buds should be 
given a nice gentle warmth, say, a night 
temperature of from 50 to 55 degs. to cause 
the blooms to expand y younger plants may 
well have 10 degs. less heait. Some growers 
are inclined to treat these 'Carnations as hot¬ 
house plants, giving them far too much heat 
and keeping the atmosphere more or less 
saturated. This is quite a mistake. The 
plants are practically hardy, and should be 
grown as cool as possible, in a dry, moving 
atmosphere. A close atmosphere allows 
moisture to settle on the leaves, and this is 
the precursor of spot and other fungoid 
troubles. 
Bulbs Under Ashes. 
Amid the pressure of other autumn work 
the bulbs under ashes should not be for¬ 
gotten, as if the young shoots are allowed 
to become long or remain long in contact 
with the ashes much damage may be done. 
When examining bulbs- it is often found that 
some specimens have made good top growth 
but few roots, whereas we want abundant 
roots and comparatively little top growth. 
Unless well rooted undeT ashes bulbs rarely 
force satisfactorily. Therefore, return any 
badly rooted ones, but if top growth is 
prominent invert an empty flower pot over 
the one containing the bulbs and cover all 
with ashes. Bulbs removed from the ashes 
should go into a cold frame and be protec¬ 
ted from bright light for a few days with 
a mat or a sack. They may remain in the 
cold frame indefinitely, but it is- quite safe 
to take them into warm quarters in -ten days 
or a fortnight after removing them from the 
ashes. 
Late ,Chinese Primulas. 
Many growers make a final sowing of 
Primulas as late as June, and find the 
plants very useful in late spring. Plants 
from such al sowing should now go into 
their flowering pots, 4^ in. or 5 in. ones. As 
compost for these I always use a mixture of 
equal parts of good fibrous loam, leaf 
mould, peat, and coarse sand, as I find that 
a light, open and porous- compost is essen¬ 
tial to successful wintering of the plants. 
Keep the collars of the plants just above the 
soil, and on no account so finish the pot¬ 
ting that the plant stands in the centre of 
a -depression. These newly potted plants 
should go into the greenhouse and be very 
carefully watered. 
Stove Plants in the Greenhouse. 
Stove plants are those which require more 
heat and . moisture than the ordinary green¬ 
house affords, such as Dracaenas, Crotons, 
Pandanuses, Dieffenbachias, Acalyphas, etc., 
etc. In the summer established specimens 
of these are often kept in the greenhouse 
proper to enable them to get more air and 
sun to colour their gorgeous foliage. Green¬ 
house room .is, however, now very valuable, 
and nights are getting cold, therefore all 
stove plants should go back to their warmer 
quarters without delay. Endeavour to rid 
the plants of insect pests 'before moving 
them, as these will increase rapidly in the 
stove. 
SUNNYSIDE. 
Orchids for Amateurs. 
Dendrobium Phalaenopsis. 
Where cut flowers are in demand during 
the months of October and November this 
species is one of the most useful for such 
purposes. It is not so many years ago since 
I had the only plant that was then in culti¬ 
vation in my charge,. Naturally it was con¬ 
sidered of great value, and formed a sub¬ 
ject of great attraction to Orchid specialists. 
Of late years it has been almost annually 
imported in such large quantities that they 
are procurable in either imported or .estab¬ 
lished plants in flowers for a modest outlay, 
well within the reach of amateurs. 
Specialities sometimes appear among im¬ 
ported plants; the pure white and deepest 
coloured varieties are those that are most 
sought after by Orchid enthusiasts, and 
they sometimes possess qualities that com¬ 
mand high prices, but imported plants are 
reasonably procurable and are deserving of 
every attention. 1 may De thought unrea¬ 
sonable in advocating the procuring of im¬ 
ported plants by amateurs. My reason for 
this is that there is always a greater 
amo-unt of interest to be derived from im¬ 
ported plants than when one procures the 
plants in flower. We may watch the growth 
develop until it reaches maturity, and when 
the flower spikes are developing and th4 
flowers expand there is not only the satis¬ 
faction of having cultivated the plants but 
much, uncertainty as to the possibilities of 
varieties appearing, which adds_ consider¬ 
ably to the interest in the plants. 
I would take the advantage of warning 
all amateurs against growing D. Phalaenop¬ 
sis in the immediate neighbourhood of Lon¬ 
don and other large towns that are sub¬ 
jected to the detrimental effects of fogs in 
autumn and winter. I remember on one 
occasion visiting a large market nursery 
some 20 miles out of London in the first 
week of November, immediate^ after a very 
slight fog, where I saw a house full of this 
species with every bud destroyed, and there 
were some thousands of spikes of flowers in 
the house. With a pure atmosphere we 
escape all such disadvantages, and the 
plants are anything but difficult of culti¬ 
vation. In fact, I consider it one of the 
easiest of Orchids to grow. 
The treatment the plants require is that 
of an ordinary plant stove. They may 
either be planted in pots or shallow pans, 
with as little patting compost as possible 
about them. I find they do best when sus¬ 
pended near the roof glass. The plants 
commence to make their growth about the 
months of April and May; any potting re¬ 
quirements are best attended to as soon as 
the new growths appear. 
The compost of equal proportions of peat 
and sphagnum moss meets their require¬ 
ments. From the time growth commences 
until the flower scapes are removed the 
plants require every encouragement from 
root moisture, and when in full growth and 
with favourable outside conditions the 
plants should be freely syringed overhead, 
and liberal moisture should also be retained 
