709 
November 2, 1907. THE GARDENING WORLD. 
Address : The Editor, The Gardening 
World, 37 and 38, Shoe Lane, London, E.C. 
The Editor invites enquiries, which may 
cover any branch of gardening. Questions 
should be as brief as -possible and written on 
one side of the paper only; a separate sheet 
of paper should be used for each question. 
Replies cannot be sent by post. 
Garden Plans .—Gardeners who would make 
the best use of this column are invited to 
prepare and forward to us a rough outline 
drawing or plan of their gardens, indicating 
the position of beds and lawns, the charac- 
STOVE AND GREENHOUSE. 
23 20. Potting Arum Lilies. 
I have bought some Arum Lily bulbs 
(Calla aethiopica) for the greenhouse. Will 
you kindly let me know when and how I am 
to not them. Also the size of pots, mould, 
etc. (J. Thomas, Surrey.) 
They should be potted now, as the plant 
makes its growth chiefly in winter. Use 
good fibrous loam three parts to one of well 
rotted cow manure crumbled up fine and 
one-fourth of clean, sharp sand. Mix this 
up thoroughly and pot fairly firmly. Six 
inch pots will be large enough for one full- 
sized tuber .at the first time of potting. The 
soil when used should just be nicely moist, 
and little or no water will be required till 
the tubers commence growing. As they 
advance in growth and the days lengthen in 
spring a greater quantity of water will, of 
course, be required. By giving them close 
attention) and using your discretion you 
will soon come to understand when they re¬ 
quire an abundant supply. The plants will 
be later in flowering than if you had got 
the tubers in August and potted them up 
then, but you can repot next year soon after 
the foliage dies down. 
2321. Seeds from New Zealand. 
A friend of mine who has been away on a 
trip to New. Zealand brought some plants 
and seeds home with him. I received a 
small quantity from him, but d'o not know 
when to sow the same. There is some 
called Toi Toi. My . friend says it is too 
cold here, but I have a greenhouse and heat 
it only to keep away frost or if the weather 
is very wet. Could I raise the seed and 
what time could I sow it? He also had 
Flax seed. I think it should be sown in the 
spring of the year, as it is a half-hardy 
plant. (J. T., Ayrshire.) 
We could not say what Toi Toi might be. 
No doubt it is a local name adopted from 
the natives. In all probability it could be 
grown in a greenhouse, however, and your 
best plan would be to keep it till spring 
and sow the seeds when you think the tem¬ 
perature is sufficiently high to give them a 
start. If once you could get it to germinate 
there is little doubt you could grow it in a 
greenhouse from which frost is just kept out. 
If it did not require to be kept in a green¬ 
house continually, it would be necessary to 
keep it there until it blooms, or until you 
can determine what it is. The Flax seed, 
if native to New Zealand, would be Linum 
monogynum, which is fairly hardy in this 
ter and height of the fence or wall; posi¬ 
tion of vegetable garden, orchard, etc. The 
north side of the garden and any over¬ 
shadowing buildings should be denoted. It 
should also be stated whether the garden is 
flat or on a decliviiy, and all large trees 
should be marked. Particulars of the na¬ 
ture of the soil will also help us to give 
satisfactory replies. When such plans art 
received they will be carefully filed, with 
the. name and address of the sender, and 
will be consulted by the Editor whenever an 
enquiry is sent. 
country and lives from year to year without 
protection as far north as London at least. 
\1 e believe this is the only one that is native 
to that part of the world. If it is the 
common Flax then it is L. usitatissimum, 
which is perfectly hardy, as it is a native 
of Europe and the countries lying to the 
south-east of that. It would only be an 
annual, however, and you could sow it in 
the open ground at the beginning of April. 
If you dlo not think it is the common Flax, 
the better plan would be to sow it in light 
sandy soil in the greenhouse and pot off 
some of the seedlings, while the others could 
be planted out in a-border or on the rockery. 
The white one (L. monogynum) is by no 
means common, and makes an interesting 
herbaceous plant. Some of the seedlings 
might be kept in pots in a cold frame until 
you find out whether those which are 
planted out are hardy in your district. 
2322. Chrysanthemum Leaves Dis¬ 
coloured. 
I send you some leaves very much dis¬ 
coloured of Chrysanthemums. I have not 
noticed it till lately, and it seems to be in¬ 
creasing. Can you tell me what it is and 
the cure? Mill it be difficult to eradicate? 
(H. Bradley, Cambs.) 
The leaves were affected with Chrysanthe¬ 
mum rust produced by a fungus known as 
Puccinia Hieracii. Your best plan is to re¬ 
move and burn the affected lea'ves to pre¬ 
vent the spores from being scattered on to 
healthy plants and leaves. You should then 
spray the foliage with a solution of sulphide 
of potassium at the rate of oz. to the 
gallon of water. This will kill the spores 
outside the leaves and thereby prevent it 
from spreading. This could be done in the 
morning or early part of the day,, so that the 
foliage will be dry before night. After the 
plants have finished flowering cut down the 
stems and burn them. By . this means you 
will destroy a large number of spores, help¬ 
ing to prevent future trouble. The fungus 
really lives throughout the year inside the 
tissues of Chrysanthemums, and may appear 
again under favourable conditions. You 
can always keep it in check, however, by 
removing those leaves that you see are actu¬ 
ally affected with the fungus. Spraying the 
plants now and again would also act as a 
check upon the fungus. This should, of 
course, be attended to in the summer time 
by always keeping an eye upon the plants 
to detect the presence of anything injurious 
amongst them. 
FLOWER GARDEN . 
2323. Pentstemons in Winter. 
I take in your paper regularly and shall 
be grateful for the following information, 
as I have no knowledge on the subject. If 
I’entstemon plants are left out, will they 
survive and flower next year? (A Sub¬ 
scriber, Middlesex.) 
Only some of the Pentstemons are really 
hardy, particularly those forms that are little 
altered from the wild form of the plant. 
Most of the fine modern varieties are liable 
to die off during winter, especially if we 
get hard frost or an occasional freezing and 
thawing. We do not think that the best 
1 results, however, are got from old plants, 
even if they were to live out the winter. 
Tney do not, as a rule, possess the vigour 
that young plants do. The best plan with 
Pentstemons of the florists’ class is to take 
cuttings of young side shoots which have 
not flowered and about three or four inches 
long. These should be dibbled into a light 
compost of loam, leaf mould, and sand, well 
mixed together. Boxes or pots may be used 
for this purpose and stood in a cold frame 
during winter. September is the best time 
to take the cuttings, and the earlier the 
better, as the plants have time to take root 
before the advent of winter and keep better. 
2324. Pansies and Violas. 
Pansy and Viola plants cut down in Sep¬ 
tember are now covered with fresh leaves. 
Should these plants be left out to flower 
next spring and will the size and quality of 
the flowers deteriorate? (A Subscriber, 
Middlesex.) 
Whether the Pansies and Violas would be 
a success next year depends very largely 
upon the soil, the exposure, and more parti¬ 
cularly upon the plants themselves. Some 
of them, but particularly varieties of Viola, 
readily send up a large number of suckers 
from the roots and these are easy to pre¬ 
serve in the form of old plants. They will, 
of course, flower in the case of those that 
you can manage to bring through the winter, 
but the size of the flowers is likely to be 
smaller than they would be from cuttings. 
They would also be more likely to get ex¬ 
hausted earlier in the flowering season than 
voung plants raised from cuttings. You did 
right to cut down the old stems after they 
ceased flowering in September, and if you 
had taken cuttings of these, you could have 
depended upon getting a better display with 
larger flowers next year. You are not too 
late yet if you have a cold frame where you 
could keep the cuttings during winter. 
Make up some boxes of sandy loam and plenty 
of leaf mould in it. In pulling off shoots 
from the old plants if you work carefully 
you can get most or all of them already 
rooted, so that they would proceed to estab¬ 
lish themselves in the boxes at once and still 
make good stuff for planting out in March. 
If you have no cold frame, perhaps you have 
a wall that would furnish some shelter. 
Pansies and Yiolas are quite hardy, but if 
they are in boxes it would be well if you 
had something to throw off the rain in win¬ 
ter. This could easily be managed by 
standing the boxes against the shelter of a 
wall, then putting some pegs into the boxes 
and laying some panes of glass on these 
pegs to throw off the rain instead of letting 
it go into the boxes, making the soil muddy. 
2325. Antirrhinums. 
If Antirrhinum plants are left out, will 
they flower as well next year? I have a 
small garden in the West-end of London 
and shall be grateful for the information. 
(A Subscriber, Middlesex.) 
What applies to Pentstemons applies very 
much to Antirrhinums, the latter being 
rather hardier, but owing to the practice 
of growing them in rich garden soils they 
are liable to perish in winter if the soil is 
in any way heavy and the winter is severe. 
