458 THE GARDENING WORLD 
Address: The Editor, The Gardening 
World, 37 and 38, Shoe Lane, London, E.C. 
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cover any branch of gardening. Questions 
should be as brief as -possible and written on 
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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¬ 
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 declivity, and all large trees 
should be ma/ked. Particulars of the na¬ 
ture of the soil will also help us to give 
satisfactory replies. When such plans are 
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. 
STOVE AND GREENHOUSE. 
1974. Growing Cinerarias. 
I have sown a small quantity of good 
Cineraria seed and it is just coming up. I 
should like a few hints as to its future cul¬ 
tivation. The fire will be going in the 
greenhouse when the cold weather sets in. 
(Novice, Middlesex.) 
When your Cinerarias have developed the 
seed leaves to the full size or produced one 
small rough leaf, you should pot them off 
singly in thumb pots and return them to 
the greenhouse, or if you have a cold frame 
to put them in that would even be better. 
During bright sunshine the Cinerarias 
should be shaded as they are very delicate 
in their younger stages. When they have 
made a few leaves and the roots are well 
round inside the pot you should repot them 
into a size larger, either long toms, that is, 
pots 2^ in. in diameter at the top, or small 
sixties, according to the vigour of the 
plants. Return them to the frame again 
and keep them shaded if the weather is 
bright, but not otherwise. We are presum¬ 
ing that you have them in a frame, the sash 
of which should be tilted up at the back to 
keep them dwarf and sturdy. Here they 
should grow all the summer, and you can 
repot as" they fill the pots with roots, but 
do not wait until the plants get potbound. 
You thus see that the method of growing 
Cinerarias is to grow them cool, shaded 
when necessary, water carefully, never let¬ 
ting them get dry nor sodden and to repot 
into a size larger as they require it. This 
is the secret of growing good healthy plants. 
About the end of September or when frost 
threatens they can be taken to the green¬ 
house where frost will certainly be excluded. 
The temperature must not be high, however, 
for Cinerarias, and inside the greenhouse the 
pots should be stood on a bench covered 
with sifted coal ashes or gravel, if possible, 
to keep the pots cool. When the light is 
failing late in autumn you must, of course, 
keep your plants as near the glass as pos¬ 
sible. You should try and get your plants 
large enough to give -them the last shift be¬ 
fore the end of September and you will be 
able to carry them to the flowering season in 
dull weather more easily than if you re¬ 
potted them in winter. So long as the tem¬ 
perature at night does not fall much below 
40 degs. they will be quite safe. We should 
advise you to keep them in the cold frame, 
if you have one, as long as possible, but 
not to risk getting them frosted. 
197 5. Geranium and Petunia for Exhi¬ 
bition. 
I have a small specimen of silver leaf 
Geranium plant 9 in. in height and 9 in. 
in diameter in an 8 in. pot. I have also a 
specimen single Petunia in the same size pot 
and the same in height. The above two are 
required for exhibition on August 1st, 1907. 
They are both in a cold greenhouse. Could 
I increase size of plants and foliage by 
burying the plants out in the garden ' up 
to the rims of the pots and feeding them 
with weak horse manure water and syring¬ 
ing the plants every evening' in order to 
keep the foliage clean, or keep them in the 
greenhouse and feed likewise or use Clay’s 
manure ? Which is the best method to 
adopt ? The days here are sunshineless and 
accompanied with cold north winds and 
heavy rain. (John Coldstone, Pembroke.) 
You would derive no advantage by placing 
your Geranium and Petunia out of doors, 
because you would be subjecting them not 
only to the full force of the wind, but the 
temperature would even be lower than in 
the greenhouse. In the growth of plants it 
is necessary to have light, heat, air and 
moisture. You can get all these except light 
and temperature in a cold greenhouse. If 
it were heated you could readily surmount 
the difficulty by lighting the fire during the 
prevalence of cold, wet weather. We are 
still hopeful that the temperature will rise 
presently and your plants will make more 
progress than they have done during the 
past four months. Keep them as near the 
glass as possible in the best lighted posi¬ 
tion and give them plenty of room to en¬ 
courage an equal growth all round. Stake 
out the shoots as they grow to allow light 
to penetrate to all parts and make the leaves 
robust instead of being weak by shading. 
You can use weak horse manure water and 
also Clay’s manure alternately, but it would 
be quite useless to give the plants liquid of 
any kind when they are already quite wet. 
They must only be watered when the soil 
is getting dry enough to require it, other¬ 
wise the roots will soon get in a bad con¬ 
dition, and the leaves will turn yellow and 
fall off. We have known amateurs to de¬ 
stroy, such hardy things as Hydrangeas and 
Fuchsias by over-watering them with liquid 
manure, thinking to stimulate them in a cold, 
wet season. 
FLOWER GARDEN. 
1976. Seed of Alpines. 
Would you kindly inform me where I 
July 6, 1907. 
would be likely to procure the best selection 
of alpine seed? Are there any firms who 
make a speciality of growing them for seed? 
(J. W. S., Forfarshire.) 
' We do not know that anybody makes a spe¬ 
ciality of growing alpines simply for the 
sake of seed. The demand, we believe, is 
not sufficiently great as yet to warrant the 
farming of alpines for seeds. They do col¬ 
lect alpine seeds largely at some of the bo¬ 
tanic gardens, both here and on the Con¬ 
tinent, . but they are usually for exchange 
with other gardens. Several of the nur¬ 
serymen who grow herbaceous and alpine 
plants and are seedsmen collect seeds from 
their own alpines when they can get them. 
Seeds of various things are offered by 
Messrs. Barr and Sons, King Street, Covent 
Garden, London; Messrs. T. S. Ware, Ltd., 
Ware’s Nurseries, Feltham, Middlesex; and 
by Bees, Ltd., Wapping Buildings, Liver¬ 
pool. The best plan would be to ask for 
their catalogues and select what you want. 
1977. Freak of Digitalis. 
We have in our garden several plants of 
the Digitalis, which are now in full bloom, 
but one of them has, as the uppermost 
flower, a Canterbury Bell bloom. I should 
be very glad if you, or any of your kind 
readers, could account for this freak. 
(Charles J. Pitman, Middlesex.) 
The plant you speak of is a very old one, 
though only moderately common in gardens. 
It is known as Digitalis purpurea monstrosa 
and is obtainable from seed. About 80 to 
-90 per cent, of the seedlings give rise to a 
flower on the top such as you mention. It 
is simply the case of one of the flowers be¬ 
coming regular. For instance, all the or¬ 
dinary flowers of Foxgloves are irregular 
by being one-sided with unequal lobes. The 
top flower in this case has reverted to some 
former stage of the plant when the lobes of 
the flowers were all of the same size. This 
freak, if it may be so termed, appears in 
other plants, such as Linaria vulgaris and 
garden varieties of Pentstemon. The plant 
by some chance has acquired this peculiar 
habit, but no one can explain why it should 
have done so. 
ROSES. 
1978. Rose and Brier. 
I have often heard people , speak of the 
way of telling a Rose from the Brier as 
being ascertained through the number of 
the leaflets. They tell me it should only 
have five on the Rose and seven on the Brier. 
On going over my Roses the other evening 
I came across one of mine with two buds on 
a branch and this branched as in the accom¬ 
panying sketch. One has only five leaves, 
but the other two branches shooting out of 
the same stem have seven leaves. On the 
strength of this, can the leaf theory stand 
good? (W. A. Reeves, Essex.) 
The leaf theory, according to this view, 
will not stand good in all cases. The 
shoots of the Rose * 1 are usually flower¬ 
ing ones and have only five leaflets 
to a leaf as a rule, but if a strong 
sucker were to rise up from the base 
of the Rose, it is just as likely to have 
seven leaflets as the Brier, that is, provided 
it belongs to a species which does bear 
seven leaflets on the barren stems. Now, as 
a rule, when you get a shoot from the Brier 
it comes from the ground and is consequently 
a barren shoot or sucker which would flower 
in the following season on branches having 
only five leaflets to a leaf just as in the 
garden Rose. You thus will have to know 
where the shoot comes from and the strength 
of it. If it is the Brier the leaves will be 
quite different in size and shape and other 
particulars from those of the Rose, and 
you will have to distinguish them accord¬ 
ingly. The Manetti stock is a little more 
