Gardening World, September 28, 1907 
MOTTO FOR THE WEEK: 
Out of the same garden mould grows the weed as the flower, and the weed flaunts 
itself abroad.”— Bodenstedt. 
An Amateur’s Letter to Amateurs. 
CONTENTS. 
Lateur's Letter to Amateurs, An... 625 
(npetition Awards . 626 
Iffodils on the Grass (illus.) . 628 
[ffodil White Trumpet (illus.). 633 
I hlia Union, The London . 631 
:quire Within . 638 
:>wer Garden, The . 634 
:>wer Show at Edinburgh (illus.)... 637 
r lit Garden, The . 635 
henhouse, The Amateur’s . 635 
racinth, A Good Exhibition (illus.) 629 
racinths, Three Model (illus.) . 632 
4 chen Garden, The . 635 
\nulus and its Peculiarities, The... 626 
Vscari Heavenly Blue (illus.) . 631 
'rcissus Poeticus King Edward 
TI. (illus.) . 627 
'rcissus Sir Watkin (illus.) . 629 
chids for Amateurs . 635 
blliuses (Globe Flowers) . 620 
bet Peas in September . 630 
■rk of the Week . 634 
-- 
“ Saie&w ” 
■.r is my garden to behold, 
th borders trimmed, and portals neat, 
■ iereon the name is writ in gold ; 
! d all the flowers within are sweet — 
: sweet to me because I know 
was my love that bade them blow ; 
! d some of them came out with pain, 
i often in the midnight hours, 
! at my warm tears did sadly rain 
on them; but the sweetest flowers 
all that I have raised for love 
; those that I have wept above. 
John Gregory. 
—“My Garden and other Poems.” 
-♦+>- 
Odob«. 
red in sad splendour of decay she walks 
.rough strange hushed days, and 
flushed and brooding eves, 
spirit in whose quiet eyes lies nought 
any living hope or living grief, 
-ly the misty shadows of regret, 
:arce shadows they, so dim and passion¬ 
less) 
ild the wreck of dead and dying things 
e brings no moon of promise or reward, 
t her slow r hands distil an anodyne 
waking trance, of desperate grey 
peace. 
F. O’Neill Gallagher. 
CX. 
Bulbs for Pot Culture. 
The season for the recommencement 
of bulb growth of such varieties that 
flower in the spring has come round 
again, and if bulbs are potted up until 
the middle of November at short intervals 
a long succession of blossom will be se¬ 
cured. Almost any variety of bulbous 
plant takes kindly to pot treatment, but 
if they are really hardy in a natural state, 
they will not stand high temperatures, 
especially such subjects as Snowdrops, 
Muscari, Crocuses, etc. This exactly suits 
the conditions of those who desire to grow 
them in cold frames, cold greenhouses, 
or in unheated rooms, or rooms, let us 
say, not kept at too high temperatures, 
and such things as Hyacinths, Tulips, 
etc., may be given greater heat than 
Snowdrops and Crocuses ; and, of course, 
even of these as soon as they show their 
flower buds may be brought into rooms 
with fire heat. All the bulbous plants 
I have mentioned and many more that 
I have not must be placed in the dark 
immediately after planting, Freesias be¬ 
ing, however, a notable exception to this 
very general rule. The pots may be 
placed in a dark cellar, and covered with 
several inches of ashes. Many do not 
realise the significance of this operation; 
indeed, only this morning I v r as shown by 
an enthusiastic amateur pots and pots, 
over fifty probably, all standing in a 
greenhouse and the foliage already 
through the _ soil, though they had been 
planted but a short while. Now, the ex¬ 
press purpose of keeping the plants in 
darkness is to retard top growth until 
the bulbs have produced a quantity of 
roots. Exposure to the light encourages 
top growth at the expense of root growth, 
or at least before sufficient roots have 
been formed to sustain it. The pots can 
be kept in their darkened quarters for 
about five weeks. 
Nowadays vdien bulbs are really aston¬ 
ishingly cheap, the beautiful Spanish 
Irises at sixpence a hundred, and the 
brilliant dowered Ranunculi and Ane¬ 
mones at a few pence a dozen, we have 
grand subjects for the house as easily 
managed and as happy under pot culture 
as the more familiar Tulips and Narcissi. 
Neither Anemones nor Ranunculi need, 
however, to be planted before February, 
as, planted then, they greatly prolong the 
season of bulb flowering for the house 
during the spring season. 
Growing 1 Bulbs in Fibre. 
Many bulbs will even grow without soil, 
that is to say, a substitute may be found 
for it in cocoanut fibre often known as 
Jadoo, mixed with shells, pebbles, and 
pieces of charcoal. It may be good news 
to some to learn that for one shilling per 
seven lbs. this Jadoo can be bought ready 
mixed with shells and charcoal—the use 
of the charcoal, is, of course, to keep the 
whole sweet and wholesome. In growing 
bulbs in fibre one of the main secrets of 
success lies in never allowing the fibre to 
become dry, as the direct cause of this 
is to make the roots shrivel and prevents 
the development of the flowers. I am 
going to quote from a capital bulb cata¬ 
logue the simple method advised therein 
to ensure the right degree of moisture— 
“If,” it says, “the bowls are filled with 
water once a week and then tilted, pour¬ 
ing off the surplus water, that will en¬ 
sure the fibre keeping evenly moist 
throughout the bowl.” After all it is 
in mere detail such as this that success 
or failure lies, for the whole cultivation 
is so wonderfully simple that it is only 
in details that one can err. 
I need not add that it is quite as neces¬ 
sary to place bulbs that are to be grown 
in fibre in the dark as for those in soil, 
and I like to examine them at the end of 
five weeks, and then, if possible, to leave 
these in fibre an e*xtra week in the dark¬ 
ness. 
The Vallota Lily. 
This familiar plant is often known as 
the Scarborough Lily. It is one of the 
most useful of all pot plants for bloom¬ 
ing during late summer. It can be grown 
as a window plant by the veriest novice, 
as the chief things to ensure success are 
plenty of light, and during its growing 
period plenty of water. Even in winter, 
after flowering is over, the soil should not 
be allowed to become over dry. A main 
point is to have plenty of drainage in the 
pots, and this should be carried out with 
all pot subjects that require an abun¬ 
dance of moisture at any period of. their 
growth—with meagre drainage the soil 
becomes saturated with water that it can¬ 
not part with, a condition which quickly 
turns it sour and uncongenial. If the 
plants cease flowering early, that is to 
sav. while the weather is still warm and 
sunny, I like to see the pots placed out¬ 
side in the sunniest position possible, pre¬ 
ferably on a brick bottom, for the sake of 
extra warmth, or, if the weather does not 
allow of this ripening out or doors, then 
it is advisable to set them on the top 
shelf of a greenhouse with the lights down 
on all dry, warm days for a fortnight or 
longer, according to the weather. The 
novice may reason that as the plant goes 
out of flower, it ought to be repotted, if 
repotting is necessary. This, however, 
is a serious mistake; on no account 
